What I Can Do

Seven o'clock rolled around, marking the start of Part Two ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of my stream.

My objective for the evening was simple: break down the overarching lore of Neo Chronicle.

"The way I see it, developers might write the story, but the audience is the one that truly brings it to life. You all know what I mean, right?"

This was going to be my time to dissect the narrative, offering my personal interpretations and analyzing how the game's various foreshadowing threads had been resolved. Since I already knew the overarching plot inside and out, I didn't plan on dragging things out with an exhaustive play-by-play.

The problem was the audience's immediate, violent objection.

Was the lore of Neo Chronicle really that boring?

During my day off, I had painstakingly drawn up mind maps, plotted out chronological relationship charts showing character dynamics over time, and even gathered relevant meme templates to keep the explanations engaging. Yet the pushback was far fiercer than I had anticipated.

The fifty or so viewers who had piled in the moment I went live were practically rioting.

For a brief second, I hesitated, wondering if I should scrap the idea entirely.

"Come on, you guys claimed you loved this game! You chewed me out for writing it off before I'd even played it, remember?"

Just hear me out. I promise I'll make it fun.

The mood in chat gradually shifted toward reluctant acceptance. Taking that as my cue, I decided to dive right in.

I deliberately glossed over high-minded themes and authorial intent. Trying to guess what the author meant was a chore best abandoned the day you graduated from high school. No matter how entertaining I tried to make it, lingering on thematic analysis would only turn the stream into a boring college lecture. I was already planning to use presentation slides, and if it started feeling like a classroom, I'd probably end up nodding off myself.

Besides, these were viewers who had watched countless streamers react to the exact same plotlines. To keep things fresh, I came armed with unique analogies and modern pop-culture parallels, mapping individual story beats and key characters onto well-known franchises.

"You remember the episode where the mercenary troupe is founded back in Chapter 1, right? The quest where they're forced to do odd jobs because they don't have enough startup capital? And when even that falls short, this merchant shows up."

I pulled up a character illustration on screen—the quintessential picture of a greedy, arrogant merchant archetype, an obnoxious minor NPC meant to be forgotten early on. Right beside it, I brought up his later portrait.

"Notice how Sharok suddenly develops these warm, gentle eyes? This happens right after the bandit subjugation quest. But doesn't that strike you as fundamentally bizarre?"

"Do you honestly believe a person can change overnight just like that? Out of sheer inspiration and the goodness of their heart?"

That finally elicited a reaction from the viewers who had spent the last ten minutes typing 'wake me up when it's over.'

"The developers are truly ruthless bastards. If you look closely, there are clues hidden in plain sight. Take a good look at the accessories on his initial portrait—specifically the ones embedded with red gemstones. And then... look right here."

I played a brief cutscene of the scene where the mercenary troupe secured its founding funds. A dialogue window popped up alongside a sequence of small, rapidly flashing illustrations.

"Right here! You see those red-gemmed trinkets buried directly beneath that pile of gold coins? The moment I saw that, I knew."

"The man was given a little 'attitude adjustment'."

"Whether out of stubborn pride or a desperate attempt to save face, he insisted until the bitter end that he was only lending them the money, right? That means the mercenary troupe was indebted to him. A formal debtor-creditor relationship was established."

"Now tell me: have any of you ever seen Sharok appear in the story after that point?"

The punchline landed, and the chat finally exploded into genuine laughter.

Seeing my preparation pay off brought an involuntary smirk to my face, though I quickly forced a deadpan expression to keep the bit going.

"Even if it wasn't explicitly shown in the main narrative, you could argue they settled the debt off-screen."

"However."

With deliberate theatrical flair, I switched my display over to the game client, opening the world map to show my character's current location: the Royal Capital of the Kingdom of Rodelin, the primary setting of Chapter 1. More specifically, I was standing in the municipal cemetery—a desolate area nobody ever visited again after wrapping up a minor ghost-hunting side quest early on.

"Just in case, I went around checking every single tombstone in this graveyard. And right here, I found this."

Finding this grave had been a stroke of pure, dumb luck. While scouring gaming forums for mentions of Sharok, I had stumbled upon a forgotten post titled something like, Wait, when did this guy die? Because he was just a throwaway early-game NPC, nobody had ever bothered turning it into a conspiracy theory. Until now.

"The man is dead! Come on, this isn't just a simple mugging anymore! Somebody definitely whacked him, one hundred percent! Look at that epitaph: 'A merchant who provided initial funding.' That phrasing is a complete dead giveaway. He's sleeping with the fishes!"

I threw my hands up in mock outrage, tossing out wild theories about who the culprit might be and speculating on whether similar grim fates had befallen other NPCs.

The energy in the chat had completely turned around. While my viewership was considerably lower than during my initial viral debut, the counter in the corner offered a steady reality check.

I wasn't disappointed in the slightest. Lee Hana had already warned me about this reality beforehand.

"On your first day, having a massive crowd was what drew ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠people in," she had told me. "Maintaining triple digits might be tough from here on out. But don't forget—even that is a huge audience, okay?"

She was entirely right. Back in the military, my entire company had been around a hundred soldiers. Two hundred viewers meant two full companies of men sitting there listening to me talk. Keeping that perspective in mind allowed me to carry on with absolute composure.

I kept the main plot points broad and brisk, seasoning the narrative with unhinged personal theories spun out of minor visual details. I had worried that sharing the bizarre headcanons I usually kept to myself might fall flat, but the relief was immense when they actually landed. I made a mental note to turn these unhinged deep dives into a recurring segment.

With the reception proving so positive, I realized there was no need to blow through all my material in a single night. I decided to save the rest for later.

"This is an episodic series, folks. How does Jung River's Lore Speculation sound to you?"

"Wow, everyone's a critic today. Fine, whatever. I'll organize my notes and continue this next time."

I cleared my throat with an exaggerated cough.

"On that note, so you don't miss the next installment: please drop a follow on OnAiri, bookmark me on Live Cast, and hit that subscribe button on Meetube!"

Banquet-style banter followed, with viewers claiming they had accidentally hit the follow button twice to unfollow me, as I finally loaded up my gear to tackle a dungeon.

Alright then, I thought, cracking my knuckles. Let's see what all the fuss is about.

About a week slipped by.

Late one evening, after spending hours grinding crafting materials for high-tier equipment, I prepared to sign off. Tomorrow was exam day, so I made a quick announcement to the chat.

"Hey guys, I have a test tomorrow, so I probably won't be able to stream. Actually, make that definitely not."

"I've been studying for the TOEIC during the daytime, remember? I registered for the exam weeks ago."

I weighed my words carefully before responding. When someone was taking the time to tune into your stream, bringing up cold financial realities was always an awkward dance.

If my channel were massive, would I even need to explain myself like this?

I settled on a softened, slightly diplomatic answer.

"It's hard to completely ignore the real world, you know? Consider it a form of insurance."

I occasionally received small donations—a thousand won here, ten thousand won there. It was deeply flattering and something I was genuinely grateful for. But streaming revenue alone wasn't anywhere near stable enough to justify throwing caution to the wind and staking my entire future on it. I hated getting serious on camera, but there wasn't much of a choice.

Before the self-pity spiraled any further, I cut in with a laugh.

"Corporate tier? What are you talking about? I'm a complete bottom-tier hakko!"

My concurrent viewership hovered reliably between one and three hundred. The moment I loaded into a dungeon raid, the count reliably plummeted down toward a hundred; when I sat down to shoot the breeze about the lore, it climbed back up to three hundred. Operating at that scale, my donation income naturally had its limits.

At times like this, the best move was simply ignoring comments that were tricky to address. Right as the topic of going full-time began to simmer, an alert chimed across the screen.

"Aigoo! Thank you so much! Thank you, kind sir! May peace and prosperity be upon your entire household!"

"Who said anything about quitting? I'm pouring ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my heart and soul into these broadcasts!"

"Aish, knock it off! Someone just dropped a massive donation, so stop raining on the parade!"

Immediately, a flood of complaints arose about how 'freeloaders with free eyes were being silenced.' By now, I was used to it. At first, I had worried that viewers genuinely felt excluded by that sort of banter, but it turned out to be nothing more than playful community ribbing.

Soon after, some genuinely constructive backseat coaching began filtering in.

I took the advice to heart while deflecting the conversation with self-deprecating jokes.

And then came the following afternoon.

On my way home after finishing the exam, my phone buzzed with an incoming email notification.

It turned out chat's backseat advice had been genuinely useful after all. A legitimate collaboration offer had just arrived in the business inbox I had set up on a whim.

Even if it didn't translate into immediate cash, this was a massive opportunity.

I already had a decent idea of who Neruna was. When the clip of me bawling my eyes out over the game had gone viral, it had ended up on her broadcast, and her reaction to it had eventually circulated back to my channel.

"The foreshadowing clues he just pointed out could also be interpreted as the key to saving Victoria, but..."

From what I knew, she was a veteran creator with deep knowledge of Neo Chronicle's universe who had since branched out into a variety of different games. A true senior streamer.

And true to form, the project she was proposing centered around the game's lore.

Having a two-way discussion sounded infinitely more dynamic than me rambling into the void all by myself. Of course, if I ever admitted that on my own channel, my chat would immediately riot.

I caught myself snickering out loud on the bus and quickly clamped my mouth shut to compose my face.

Lately, even when the camera was off, thoughts about the stream dominated my mind. What kind of content would be entertaining? What would get the best reaction from the audience? When an idea I'd spent hours agonizing over landed well, the rush of pride was unmatched; when it flopped, the embarrassment lingered for hours.

Though speaking of embarrassing...

I was pretty certain I had completely butchered today's exam. There had barely been a handful of questions I could answer with any real confidence, despite taking a whole day off from streaming just to sit for the test.

"Haaah..."

Right when I should have been buckling down and increasing my study hours, I had jumped headfirst into game streaming instead. There was no way I was just inherently bad at studying—it was simply a matter of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠allocated time.

Well, for now, let's just focus on what I can actually do.

I hit send on my reply to Neruna.

Moping around over a botched exam felt like a waste of time when an incredible opportunity was staring me in the face. When one of the legendary 'Four Goddesses of Neo Chronicle' invited you for a co-op broadcast, you didn't drag your feet.