Skeleton Knight Mazia (1)

Choi Young-ro had never once used ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a fixed nickname in any gallery. He was the type who couldn’t settle down in one place for long. He’d bounce between streams that looked fun, never becoming a dedicated fan of anyone or offering consistent support. VTubers? He knew they existed—oh, the character’s moving, it looks like a game avatar, how neat. He figured people just used them instead of showing their faces on cam. That was about ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the extent of it.

Even that comment had come from nothing more than simple curiosity. Mazia? Who the hell is that? Why is the gallery suddenly flooded with mentions of them? That was all he’d wanted to know.

Apparently the person didn’t have a personal channel. They used the official one, and the stream title was, of all things, Situation Room. Having once worked in a real situation room, Young-ro felt a strange wave of military PTSD and decided to at least figure out what kind of person this was.

That it was a VTuber was obvious the moment the character moved. But why did every VTuber seem to come with some elaborate backstory? Take Momo, for example. Her setting was that she was a celestial being from a distant star who had come to Earth out of curiosity.

First, the appearance. It was strikingly modern. Yet the character wore a formal office two-piece suit—the very symbol of the professional woman—on an incredibly youthful face. The imbalance was intense.

Still, the dry, businesslike tone completely neutralized any visual dissonance. There were faint dark circles under the character’s lower eyelids, and the slightly drooping outer corners of the eyes added to the exhausted vibe. After watching for about five minutes, the overwhelming scent of an overworked corporate slave practically wafted through the screen.

But that didn’t mean the whole thing felt dreary and gloomy in contrast to the cute avatar. Not at all.

“Die. Just die.”

“Headshot. Crack that skull.”

“Oh. It’s a diamond.”

“Inventory’s full. Time to head up.”

“Huuuuaaaam….”

The casual mutterings that slipped out between actions were surprisingly pleasant to listen to. Unlike the deliberately stiff, professional tone, the relaxed voice had a calming effect on the listener. No matter how charming a character might be, a flat personality rarely holds people’s attention. But this natural duality was enough to make Young-ro want to keep watching.

That said, calling it simply an entertaining stream would be…

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Wondering if it might pick up, he watched for another ten minutes. Even considering it was already 2 a.m., the stream was far too calm. There were calm streams, and then there were this calm. When the streamer wasn’t talking, all you heard was the repetitive thud thud thud, clang clang clang of mining—like white noise. It felt less like watching a streamer and more like observing an AI while writing a research log.

The viewer count, which had stabilized around four thousand thanks to temporary gallery hype, began dropping steadily until it hovered just above three thousand. When Momo logged off to sleep, a temporary surge of about three thousand viewers flooded in, but most of them either fled to Maru’s stream after getting tired of the relentless mining or simply left.

“Guess I’ll watch for another thirty minutes.”

Still, Young-ro had plenty of free time and was relatively generous for a lurker. He hoped the kind of chaotic streamer brawl he’d seen earlier would show up again, and headed to the fridge to reheat the leftover chicken from dinner.

While he was gone, the chat exploded. It was all because of a single message Wicker had sent as a server announcement.

To anyone watching other streams, the message would have been completely incomprehensible. But to anyone watching Mazia’s stream, it was an unmistakable hint.

A short while later, Young-ro returned with his reheated chicken and blinked at the suddenly exploding chat.

“What the—? Did something happen?”

Since the streamer Mazia herself wasn’t reacting at all, the only way to figure it out was to scroll through the mountain of messages.

At the same time, the server-wide chat lit up.

Young-ro quickly pieced together the situation. Someone was on the verge of unlocking a hidden achievement. The announcement had been made in advance so the person could notice, and so other users could congratulate them and form connections based on the hidden class. Yet while no one else had caught on, Mazia’s chat was the only one going completely wild.

It hadn’t been that long, but having watched the stream, Young-ro understood just how bizarre Mazia’s grinding style was. Mining ore while staying at critically low health, eating nothing but zombie meat and drinking nothing but skeleton water? That was the kind of insane behavior even veteran players avoided. So it was hard to imagine anyone other than Mazia being close to this hidden achievement.

“The people who got bored and left are the real losers here.”

The server had only opened yesterday, and someone was already on the verge of unlocking a hidden class. That was no small feat. It was the kind of thing you only got by wandering the entire map like Kim Jeong-ho drawing the Daedongyeojido and stumbling upon a space so artificial it made you say “Wait, this is man-made?” out loud—or by completing a hidden achievement with conditions so obscure no one even knew they existed.

These hidden classes existed separately from primary jobs that gathered materials in the field and secondary jobs that crafted new items from those materials. They exerted a clear influence on the server’s economy and power rankings.

Take the hidden class “Hero,” for example. If that Hero could use a special ability that dealt massive damage with a ultimate skill, then the player who obtained it would suddenly become insanely popular as a party member everyone wanted for dungeon runs. The server system was deliberately designed so that the domains of each job and the items obtainable in special areas like dungeons didn’t overlap. That meant alchemists and blacksmiths could offer potions and equipment in exchange for shared rewards.

As all these possibilities played out in his head, Young-ro’s anticipation naturally grew.

“This just got interesting.”

Even as the announcement appeared, Mazia continued digging without the slightest reaction, as if it had nothing to do with her.

The viewers were already treating it like the night before a festival. They were far more excited than Mazia herself, convinced that by tomorrow everyone would know about her incredible achievement.

“Hmm. I should probably keep this on the side.”

So Young-ro, along with others who had been debating whether to leave, began adding Mazia’s stream to their split-screen setups. Even if they weren’t watching it in real time, they could at least keep an eye on the small window. Despite the warnings not to spread the news, word got out anyway. As time passed, the steadily dropping viewer count began to creep back up in a subtle reverse trend.

Four hours later.

“The server closes at six, so the Situation Room will close with it. We reopen the Situation Room whenever the server opens each day, so please look forward to the boss, Maru, Dora who joined late today, Rain who will be joining soon, and Komari’s performance as well. Thank you for today.”

The viewer count right before the stream ended was 3,652. The trend wasn’t perfectly linear, but it was clear that more and more people were tuning in to watch Mazia.

The news reached Do-hee the next day when she arrived at the office. Hongbo Team Leader Oh Seok-jae was visibly excited, like he’d caught onto something big.

“I thought about it overnight. About Jia’s stream. Can’t we just make the official channel the Situation Room outright?”

“Make it the Situation Room… you mean just show the members’ screens?”

“No, no. People are coming to watch Jia’s stream too, so that wouldn’t work. We’d adjust the frames so that the boss and other members’ streams appear with the main virtual avatar at the top and bottom… like Shorts format. Then we pin the main screen in the center with the others attached to both sides.”

“Hmm.”

“We’d put four screens on the sides like that, and whichever one has the most interesting moment would be enlarged at the top. Jia’s screen would go at the bottom. It’ll be small, sure. But since Jia has literally just been mining since yesterday, size probably doesn’t matter much. We can let Jia pick which member’s stream to feature in the large top screen. She’s an expert at that sort of thing. Since she can monitor six screens at once, it should be great for funneling viewers toward the members. What do you think? It would also faithfully fulfill the ‘Situation Room’ role implied by the stream title.”

Cheon Do-hee nodded in agreement. After all, Mazia had been doing split-screen monitoring work for over three years. Just giving her the general direction would be enough for her to arrange the layout in whatever way she found most comfortable.

She had 3,500 viewers when the stream ended yesterday…

That meant roughly seven hundred additional people—on top of those who came specifically for Mazia—had stayed until six in the morning. Since it looked like Mazia would continue living underground to farm money for a while, it seemed best to follow Team Leader Oh’s suggestion and split the official channel’s screen for now. That way, some of the lurkers waiting in Mazia’s stream would naturally flow toward the other members.

Most people were still watching Mazia’s stream more out of curiosity than genuine enjoyment, after all.

At 5 p.m. that afternoon, Mazia—who had come in two hours later than usual to run the Situation Room—was about to be told the plan when…

“Boss. There’s something I’d like to do.”

Mazia said the exact same thing Team Leader Oh had said. After hearing the full explanation, Cheon Do-hee let out a dry laugh and asked,

“You actually thought of that yourself?”

“The viewer count kept dropping, but then it started climbing again. Since the numbers are holding steady, I figured it’d be good for promotion if we showed the members’ screens too.”

“…Weren’t you busy mining the whole time?”

“I was mining, but I was also watching the chat and Maru’s screen. I couldn’t focus on everything like usual, but I still checked most of it.”

Cheon Do-hee could only click her tongue in amazement.

“Alright. When you open the Situation Room today, go ahead and set it up that way. For today it’ll just be me, Maru, and Dora—three people.”

“No. Rain is being added too.”

“Rain?”

“Yes. I earned 150,000 WK yesterday. I can invite someone today. I already told Rain to get ready.”

“You really earn money fast. Just how much are you mining…?”

“I am a specialist in this kind of simple labor, after all.”

“Fine. Rain can adjust her own schedule. If you have any questions about promotion, ask Team Leader Oh Seok-jae while he’s free.”

“I already asked him on my way here.”

It was just so very Mazia. There wasn’t a single corner of the company she wouldn’t dig into.

“Good. Go get ready for the stream. Work hard today too.”

“Yes.”

At 8 p.m., Young-ro—who had arrived at the Situation Room two hours later than usual—let out a dry laugh the moment he saw the screen layout.

“It really is a situation room…”

He wasn’t the only one. Everyone who tuned in had the same reaction.

Yesterday, Mazia’s screen had been tucked away small in one corner. Today, her screen itself was split into multiple windows, so viewers either had to watch on a large monitor or dedicate their entire second monitor to it. Anyone who had a dedicated “only watch this” setup would have backed out immediately, wondering if they really needed to invest that much into Mazia’s stream.

But people like Young-ro, who had been hooked by the hidden achievement yesterday, now stood at a crossroads. Should they watch this Situation Room broadcast? Or go somewhere else?

…I am curious about the hidden class, though.

But watching live let you post in the gallery the fastest. That speed difference could determine whether you made it into the concept posts or not. In the end, concept-post collector Young-ro chose to stay with Mazia’s Situation Room. After all, if not today, who knew when he’d get another chance?

Besides, Mazia had conveniently left the sound on for the screen she’d placed in the top center at the exact same size as her own. It was as if she were saying, “I’m just going to keep mining, so if you get bored, watch this instead.”

“Stop. Please stop. You guuuuys! Uwaaaah…! I’m scared! I said zombies are scary! Waaaaah!”

Watching Dora run from a horde of zombies while crying, Mazia muttered,

“Are 64 Cubic zombies really that scary? Dora is playing a horror game all by herself.”

“Thank you for the ten thousand clouds. I suppose people who really hate jump scares would feel that way.”

Young-ro felt a clear difference from yesterday’s stream.

“…She’s talking a lot more today?”

Yesterday she had only muttered a little when diamonds or monsters appeared. Today, it was as if a dam had broken—her chatter had more than doubled. To a first-time viewer like Young-ro, it was an incomprehensible change. But the current broadcast environment was actually similar to when Mazia did review streams. The only difference was that back then she had a script in hand, whereas now she was mindlessly digging tunnels and killing monsters.

When watching the members’ streams together with someone, Mazia was originally quite talkative. Thanks to that, news of the hidden achievement spread quietly, more people came to watch, they were captivated by the bizarre screen layout, and they began staying to laugh along with Mazia’s endless member-related chatter and broadcast curation.

Eventually, at 9 p.m.—the golden hour of internet broadcasting—Mazia’s viewer count broke four thousand. At the same time, the long-awaited announcement rang out across the entire server.

It was only the second day of Wicker Town. Yesterday’s massive brawl and all sorts of other bait had already dominated related communities, raising interest significantly. The appearance of a hidden class was an enormous piece of bait that could shake the entire future flow of the server. People like Young-ro weren’t about to miss this concept-post opportunity.

The news spread through related communities at lightning speed.

The Situation Room began to burst at the seams.