Forever?

I stared blankly at the message.

Was I still half-asleep?

It would have been fair enough if I were. I had gotten up at five again this morning, and I had been turning in early for days now.

I rubbed my eyes.

The message was still hanging there, completely unchanged.

Goal: one million followers?

One million followers?

I pulled up the streaming site and clicked into whichever channel currently had the most viewers.

About two hundred thousand followers. Current viewership hovering somewhere between nine and ten thousand.

And my peak? A measly one or two thousand.

Not that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that was nothing, but still.

And they wanted me to build a following several times larger than these corporate-backed streamers I was looking at?

Even if I came out as a guy, trained to be an on-camera host, and turned the cam on, a million followers would be a maybe-if-I-was-lucky kind of number.

Though if I actually did that, dying would be more or less guaranteed. Everyday life had plenty of ordinary people in it. The internet had far more who would want me dead.

"Hah........"

How the hell was I supposed to get a million followers?

Come to think of it, a million-follower streamer was not that rare — among streamers worldwide, that is. The platform I streamed on was a domestic Korean company. Foreign viewers were vanishingly rare.

The pie was completely different from those streamers sitting on millions of followers. And even those millions were based on the world I had come from — a world with a normal gender ratio.

Which meant I also had to factor in the reduced population.

Well, it had not really shown so far, so maybe it did not matter. That said, I suddenly found myself curious about this world's population.

I pulled out my phone and searched.

"Close to five billion, huh... Korea's about the same at around forty million? So it's just places like China, India, and Africa — where sperm donation has its limits — that saw birth rates completely crater..."

Wait. That was not the point right now.

The number had been so absurd I had briefly lost my mind.

I checked the message again.

The million figure was ridiculously huge, sure, but the goal itself was reasonably framed. The reason being: no time limit.

With no time limit, I could just figure it would happen someday and stream at a comfortable pace for ten-odd years, no problem.

But give up and you immediately return to your original world — what did that actually mean?

If I declared I was giving up, I would be sent back on the spot?

Which would mean I could do whatever I wanted until I said those words. A rule I could exploit all I liked.

But would this thing really leave me that much slack? It had goals of its own. It would not leave a hole that easy to crawl through.

I sank into thought. A million followers was not a mission I could wrap up quickly, so I needed to get this straight from the start.

...If I asked, would it answer?

I had never tried asking before, but given how fast it reacted to my opinions, there was a decent chance ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it would. Nothing to lose. Might as well try.

"What's the condition for giving up?"

............

No answer.

".........Yeah, okay. Look at me, expecting a help desk."

This thing was a god or something equally ridiculous. It probably was not sitting around with that much free time.

A burst of light—

.....Or maybe it was.

A warning?

I read the message over, line by line. From the look of it, this was a red-card system — repeat a flagged action three times and it automatically counted as giving up.

Which meant getting sent back on some bad-faith technicality was almost impossible. It also meant that if I never hit a million followers, I would be streaming forever.

......I guess I just have to hope it happens someday.

And the actions that earned a warning were decided arbitrarily, then? Not being told what they were was a little annoying, but three warnings was not a bad deal.

But why not tell me?

.........Was this thrown together on the fly?

Now that I thought about it, "asking for information about giving up" being a warned action was a little strange too. I had been ignoring the feeling until now, but this incident was starting to make me suspicious.

What if this is not a system at all? What if it is just some person sending me messages?

I turned that over for a while before realizing it did not matter, and let out a sigh. Person or system — what difference did it make?

Once I had sighed, the tension finally started to bleed out of me. I stared blankly at the sky for a moment, trying to ride out the fatigue of an unusually long, hard day.

"God, I'm sleepy......"

As I had already said, I was well past the hour I should have been asleep.

"Can't fall asleep here."

I dove straight for the bed.

......Maybe I'll skip jogging tomorrow. Just for one day.

I pulled my phone back out and sent a text.

Morning arrived, and I took a moment to enjoy the fact that, for the first time in days, I had managed to sleep past ten.

The second I got up, I sat down in front of the computer. Back when I had not been jogging, this kind of thing had not even registered — it had been boring, even. But the most comfortable, nicest rest really was the kind you felt when you broke your own rules once in a while.

Out of habit, I opened the stream page. Settings already primed so I could hit go-live at any second.

A month, and I was already this habitual. Consistency was a scary thing.

I had not thought about it seriously last night, but I really did need to start figuring out how I was going to stream. Keeping the stream going steadily was a given, of course. Not streaming at all would obviously count as giving up on the million followers.

But how I did it was another question entirely. Stick with what I had been doing? Add something? Cut something?

The ideal was to stream as much as I reasonably could. I had a million-follower target hanging over me, and the less I gave this thing to hold against me, the better. That said, if it had any kind of conscience, simply maintaining my current pace would not be a problem — not with the minimum one-hour stream and maximum eight-day break rule it had laid out.

Honestly, leaning on that was still a little risky. It felt like a hard line, the kind of absolute floor you did not want to stand on. Matching it exactly carried too much risk. The smart move was to leave myself some breathing room off that baseline.

"I need time off too, you know."

Streaming was fun, but not so fun that I was going to pour my entire life into it. Which meant the important thing was a new standard. More than the one-hour, eight-day-break minimum. Less than throwing every waking hour at the stream. Something that actually fit me.

......Just sitting here thinking about it is not going to get me anywhere.

I might as well start streaming. I would get a feel for it once I was actually doing it.

I paused.

A little spark of mischief hit me right before I went live. My fingers flew across the keys, and I put the thought into action immediately.

"And...... start. There."

They took the bait immediately. I had set the entire screen to black, so there was no way they were not going to fall for it.

"Yes, everyone. This is an important announcement."

The chat detonated the instant I spoke. Everything from people who had already decided I was graduating and were begging me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠not to go, to people apologizing because they were convinced this was about the sexual harassment in chat.

So they knew they were out of line, huh?

Well. They had already had their fun. Time to wrap this up.

"It has to do with the stream itself. And with some personal circumstances, as well."

"My personal circumstances have cleared up, so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I think I need to increase my streaming hours. Hit me with some time recommendations."

"And the person who just begged me to say this was just me messing with you? There you go~"

"So. Due to some personal circumstances I can't really explain, I have to increase my streaming hours. Taking time recommendations."

"Ugh. My mistake for even asking you people."

"Never mind. I'll just try a few things and decide as I go."

"Twenty-four hours just for today? I told you no."

"......That is actually true."

If I streamed for twenty-four hours, I would hear real reactions — the ones that came out when people were exhausted, not the ones padded with bravado. I did not even need to check what time the most people gathered. And if I pushed myself to the limit and locked down exactly where my floor was, it would make things a lot easier later.

On top of that, I had just slept in. My condition was at its peak.

For some reason, every piece of the situation had lined up perfectly. I had the faint sense I had just been talked into something, but I could not see a downside.

"Alright.... I'll give it a shot. But that does not mean I'm forcing myself, okay? I might turn it off halfway through."

.......It'll be fine, right?