If It's on the Shelf, It's For Sale, Isn't It?
It's not like they're selling it, right?
After finally escaping the Primordial Island, I ran into Redberry, exchanged a brief greeting, and logged out on the spot.
It didn't feel like all that long, but I'd spent over eight hours on the island. I'd started the broadcast at eight in the evening, and once you factored in the boat ride and the assorted delays, I'd effectively streamed away half a day.
Ziiiing─
"Hngh."
Stepping out of the access pod, I stretched with a light groan. The thing was designed with human comfort in mind, so nothing in particular ached, but a good stretch was the only thing that made me feel properly alive.
"...Yeah. This is the stuff."
Reality really was better.
The current time was 9:10 a.m. I'd burned through half the day and hadn't slept a wink, but there was no pressing need to sleep. Deoen was a game you played while asleep, and unlike before, the session hadn't strained my soul nearly enough to leave me drained. As far as I was concerned, I was in perfectly fine shape.
I wandered into the kitchen, threw together a light breakfast, plated it, and settled in front of my computer. Then I started browsing the updates my people had posted in the Discord channel. I'd never actually told them to post anything—they just did it on their own initiative.
And sure enough, just as I'd expected, the empty-fist speculation had mostly sunk beneath the waves. People were talking about the upcoming Academy and the Primordial Island instead, and of the two, the Academy chatter was positively ablaze. Who exactly would get selected, and by what method? Was it really as simple as clearing the requirements? Would I be the only professor, or would they bring in additional faculty? That sort of thing. A few of my friends on my friends list had even sent curious messages my way.
Yena especially.
"You'll be graded the same as everyone else."
─Aww.
She'd voiced her disappointment at not getting automatic admission, but someone of Yena's caliber could easily pass on merit. I'd calibrated the entrance standard so that the ten or so people who'd originally attended my lectures would be able to make the cut.
Teering.
"You've all been working hard."
Talking shop first thing in the morning—now that was a model work ethic. The managers in particular had been moderating chat for over twelve hours, and yet there they still were in the Discord, unwilling to clock out.
When I asked about it, they answered with smiles across the wire.
Deoen's native tools let you watch a broadcast just fine, but handling anything complicated—like chat moderation—with the default settings was a serious pain. That was why I'd provided my three managers with Setting Room rental funds in advance, along with recovery items, stamina-consumption supplies, and various convenience equipment.
For reference, one hour in the Setting Room cost five gold. That was about a hundred thousand won in real money.
Jjoa, one of the managers and my thumbnail artist, sounded genuinely worried.
The convenience support I'd mentioned had been a steady staple all along, and when a broadcast ran into the early morning hours, I'd occasionally covered the Setting Room fees. But this was the first time I'd provided the Setting Room at full capacity for twelve straight hours. Since the managers had rotated out for breaks one or two at a time, the total came to around 300 gold. Tack on the miscellaneous extras, and a single broadcast had effectively cost me over 400.
"Does it matter?"
─Pardon?
"You've all more than earned it. If it's not enough, speak up. I'll give you more."
These were my people. This much was only fair.
"Don't cry. Just work harder."
─Gasp.
"Kidding. Is the World Tree video ready?"
Because I distinctly remembered White Autumn, my World Tree editor, posting some suspicious anime clips in the Discord.
"Not ready?"
"Ohh."
Then I'd look forward to it. Her subscriber count was sitting right on the verge of six million, after all—once the World Tree video went up, wouldn't she blow right past it?
"I'll be waiting. You can expect a bonus this time too."
With those words, White Autumn's messages abruptly vanished from the channel. If I had to guess, she'd just gotten very, very busy.
"Editors, if any of you need anything for your work, speak up anytime. I'll support you."
"No. Don't hold back on my account."
Running yourself into the ground and suffering for it was worse than simply spending the money to work at a comfortable pace. The money was more than I knew what to do with anyway.
"Consider all of it an investment. You don't need to refuse."
"Hmm... still, you're right that using it like this every single time would be a strain. I'll look into some kind of longer-term rental option."
From what I'd heard, while the Setting Room couldn't be purchased outright, there was a way to rent it for an extended period. It couldn't be bought with money alone and required some manner of formal procedure... which meant I'd have to ask Yena about it. If anyone knew the ins and outs of these broadcast systems, it would be her.
"A long-term Setting Room rental?"
"Yes. I want to look after my editors and managers, so I was wondering if a long rental was possible."
After lunch, I met up with Yena inside Deoen. I'd originally planned to just ask over a message, but she'd insisted she wanted to see the Academy for herself and come all the way to the Duchy in person.
We were sitting in the Academy dean's office, still under construction. Yena lolled back on the plush sofa that had already been installed, nodding along.
"...Hmmm. You're right, it's a steep price to pay every single time rather than once or twice. How many managers and editors do you have in total right now?"
"Five."
"Five. Then the couple rooms are out of the question too. The base price is half again as expensive, after all..."
Yena nodded as if convincing herself, checked through several windows, then shared one of them with me. It was information about the Setting Rooms—information ordinary users would have a hard time digging up.
"Miss Lily. You do know the Setting Rooms run a little counter to Deoen's whole philosophy, right?"
"Of course I do."
Adventure and dungeons—Deoen was, above all else, a pursuit of what you'd call fantasy. The Setting Room, by contrast, was a space that was thoroughly, unmistakably real-world. Unleash something pursuing such an off-brand direction into Deoen and problems would arise, so naturally, a heavy penalty was built in.
And that penalty took the form of a steep price.
"Nutree, the company that made Deoen, actually hated the idea of releasing the Setting Rooms at all. But individual broadcasters were the ones who first introduced Deoen to the world—and did it efficiently—so the Setting Rooms came out as their reward."
Back when Deoen first debuted, every broadcast network and terrestrial station under the sun had promoted it. But the medium that resonated most with gamers was individual streaming. Established, already-famous streamers seized on the then-crusty broadcast system, played Deoen en masse, and exploded in popularity overnight.
For the record, Yena was one of the people who'd ignited that explosion.
"I actually received a long-term Setting Room pass once upon a time. I don't have it anymore, but Nutree gave it to me as a token of thanks."
"So nowadays you'd have to receive one directly from the game company?"
"For now, yes. But as far as I know, there's no one left who holds a long-term pass these days."
According to Yena, famous broadcasters and broadcast stations had earned the right to use that system in the early days, but every one of them had since returned the passes and now paid full price. Large-scale competitions like the Mock Siege Battle or big-name streamers sometimes got accommodation support, but covering an editor's working environment? That simply didn't happen...
"...Honestly, speaking purely for myself, a Setting Room for your editors is a bit excessive. Not because I'm some miser, but I think it might actually make them uncomfortable."
"Hmm... that's fair."
She had a point. It wasn't as if they were broadcasters themselves—for editors alone, the amount was frankly over the top. My editors were paid handsomely, but at a hundred thousand won an hour, the tail was wagging the dog. Battery, as an editor, might have managed it, but even the incorrigible White Autumn had balked and tried to decline.
"Honestly, it'd be better to just cover the managers' overnight slots now and then. I do that myself sometimes."
"Hmm..."
"Or, if anything, maybe expanding your roster of editors instead—"
"Ah. Wait. There was something."
"?"
While reading through the Setting Room information Yena had shown me, I'd come across the phrase special items, and something suddenly surfaced in my memory.
The Honor Shop, accessible only to Diamond-rank PVP players. Enter through the golden-furred raccoon wearing a blue ring, and you'd be greeted by the guide, Ria. Follow her inside and you'd find item after item on display—and tucked away in a dim corner of the shop, a single item sat waiting.
"There was a Network Access Pass bundle in the Honor Shop. A thousand-Honor one."
"Yes."
I hadn't checked how many were in the bundle, but it had definitely been there. It was positioned where nobody with vision inferior to mine would ever have spotted it—but it was there all the same.
Couldn't I use that to put together something like a Setting Room?
"Let's go take a look."
"...Something about this feels like we shouldn't be buying it."
"Oh, come on. If they didn't want people buying it, would they have put it on the shelf?"
If it was sitting in the shop, then obviously it was for sale. Wasn't it?