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Two days earlier. The moment right after Märchen posted the contest announcement.

Eunha braced her face in both hands and stared a hole through the monitor.

"I want to enter…."

The longer she looked at the notice, the harder the hardcore Märchen-fan DNA thrashed inside her—the very DNA she had spent her entire life as an editor grinding flat. Märchen's first broadcast. The legendary stream that started with one viewer and ended with one viewer. Eunha had been watching since that day: the summit of the fossil-tier faithful. The idea that she had no hardcore Märchen-fan DNA? That was the same as saying Märchen had no otaku DNA.

Which meant someone, somewhere, was bound to wonder.

She suppressed her hardcore Märchen-fan DNA?

If Eunha without that DNA was the same as Märchen without otaku DNA, then Eunha suppressing it was the same as suppressing otaku DNA itself. Was that even possible? Did the claim have any evidence at all?

It did.

Evidence.

The proof was this: from the day Eunha became the editor until now, she had barely chatted, and she had barely donated. There was, of course, a reason for that too. An editor is a named presence on a broadcast, and if a name like that starts chatting and donating with any real energy, attention slides off the streamer and onto the name. Eunha knew it perfectly well. So on the rare occasions she surfaced, she never let herself be more than a pinch of seasoning.

She had become a name in a different sense, granted. On a Märchen broadcast that never collabed with anyone, she was the only person who could fake the feeling of a collab. Nothing to be done about it.

…For something there was nothing to be done about, she had enjoyed herself rather a lot.

At any rate, she had kept that hardcore DNA under admirable lock and key. But every lock has a limit. Before she was an editor, Eunha was a fossil in Märchen's chat, so of course she had joined viewer-participation bits before.

…They were Knight Rise bits. But still.

What even she had never entered was the lesser cousin of viewer participation known as a contest. Only natural. The format was fairly new, and this was only the second time it was being held. Missing the first one hadn't stung much. It was a fan-art contest, after all. Photoshop, maybe—but she had no particular confidence in drawing.

The second contest was different. If you could take a photo, anyone could enter. It wasn't hard, and it wouldn't devour her time. A massive viewer-participation event she had never once joined, and a situation where joining was as easy as deciding to?

No matter how patient a person is, a wall arrives.

As one viewer, she wanted in. Even just once. But the Eunha of now was a viewer and, at the same time, the editor of Märchen's NewTube. She had to restrain herself, if only to keep things between them as they were.

She agonized. She went to war with herself. Enter? Don't? Ask Unnie first? But then wouldn't that bleach the whole point of viewer participation? What if this knocked their relationship out of line? Surely this much would be fine?

At the end of all that thinking, Eunha decided.

"…If I play it like a surprise event, it'll lift the mood of the stream. That should be okay, right?"

A magnificent piece of self-justification, living proof of the sacred creed eh, it could go either way.

If she was going to enter, she would enter so cleanly that no one could grab a loose thread. Holding that resolve, she tidied the room until it was immaculate and took the photo. Set beside the other entries, this would not lose. Not by a hair. The result filled her with that much certainty.

"…Not enough."

Even so, Eunha delivered a verdict of insufficiency. Not enough impact. Honesty and safeness incarnate—nothing like the ambush energy of a surprise event. To put it bluntly…

"It's boring."

Yeah. Even to her own eyes, the entry had no fun in it, and fun was the one thing Eunha needed most. Fun, and she would be credited with saving the broadcast's mood. No fun, and she would be the editor who shoved in without reading the room and ruined it.

Give up, even now? Or else…

After a brief fight with herself, Eunha resolved once more.

That night, Eunha did not sleep.

It was summer.

And two days later—judging day for the Märchen Cup Viewer Room Tour Contest.

Only after she had confirmed the viewers' delighted reaction to the secret weapon she had built with her own hands could Eunha let out a sigh of relief. She hadn't slept properly; the circles under her eyes were darker than usual. So this was how ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠brutal life got when a hardcore viewer class-changed into an editor.

…A path she had chosen herself, of course.

"I did not see this coming…."

I said it, laughed so hard a tear squeezed out, and wiped it away with my index finger. To think she would push Photoshop to the absolute limit and just produce a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠movie poster. And not some low-quality parody with my face roughly scissored out and pasted on. An ultra-high-quality, artisan poster: she had hunted down the pose that matched most closely and built it to feel as near to the original as possible. How many hours had been fed into the grinder for that thing? It was a masterpiece that deserved to close the show. Burning a finishing move this early left me with nothing but regret.

"All right, we'll stop here! I'm going to cool my head, grab some lunch, and then we'll pick the judging back up!"

…I should text Eunha while I eat and ask if she can make one of those posters of me, too.

"…It's over!!!"

I shouted it at the top of my lungs and let the tsunami of feeling take me. The time was 2:13 a.m. In the end, I had judged straight through until the date rolled over. I'd really thought it would be wrapped by around ten at night… If I hadn't cleared my Raider dailies in the middle. If I hadn't stood there agonizing over what to eat for dinner. If I'd just eaten a little faster. If I hadn't ducked out to the convenience store for a minute because I "needed to refuel." If I hadn't checked the halfway standings, just to catch my breath. If I hadn't tried to negotiate with chat—the stream was getting sluggish, so how about we cut it here and do the rest tomorrow? If I hadn't stopped to see whether that figure in a viewer's room, so exactly my taste, was still on sale, I could have finished so much sooner…

…Yeah. I goofed off a lot in there.

But even granting all the goofing off, judging a contest for over sixteen hours was still kind of… too much, right? Right. However kindly you scored it, today's broadcast was a stretch to call a success. About the only thing saving it was that I'd clung to high energy all the way to the bitter, bitter end, so it felt like I'd just barely held the line.

And fortunately, the viewers seemed to be giving me credit for the effort. …Now that I thought about it, after sixteen hours there was no way they wouldn't have noticed.

"Thank you so, so much for the donations!! If I ever hold another contest, I think the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠format's going to need a little change."

With that, I searched NewTube for "emotional BGM," picked a track at random, and hit play. Then I put on a soft little smile.

Echo on the mic. The voice rings. Grandeur pours into it. The echo-swollen voice and the emotional BGM fuse.

Yeah. What this content taught me was that I no longer have to worry about how many ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠people will show up. New knowledge, installed. As a streamer, I had leveled up a tier. Look at it that way, and it was a pretty decent ending, wasn't it? I packed that thought into a moving little production and sent it out to the viewers.

…These heartless, tearless monsters!!!