Blueby Right Now
The words I'd just spoken carried a double meaning.
Literally: I don't have any spare to give.
And the hidden meaning: Why should I? (I genuinely don't know.)
A cold silence settled over the group as everyone watched Mist for his reaction. He was a partner streamer who'd just entered Rena World for the first time, and his average viewer count was substantial. The moment he arrived, he'd been given a warm welcome—virtual streamers flocking over to outfit him with gear. How high must his nose have gotten by now?
Of course, I had zero intention of catering to Mist's ego.
"Ah, come to think of it, we haven't even introduced ourselves. Hello. I'm Mist."
"Yes, yes. You came in today, right? Nice to meet you. I'm Seo-a, leader of the V-Live crew."
A slight war of nerves. Next would come the contest of who could seize the initiative by speaking first. But I couldn't care less. He was someone I'd never have any reason to get involved with anyway.
"We're busy, so we'll be going. Kids, let's go."
I spread my wings at once and used a firework rocket to soar into the sky. Was this what they meant by the dog that chased the chicken ending up staring at the roof?
Leaving the now-dot-sized Mist and his hangers-on behind, I flew off with Mayo and Han A-yeon trailing after me toward a new diamond mining site.
Handsome or not, I was a guy myself—so what did that have to do with me?
I had no plans to build any rapport with Mist in the first place. Talking to him would just be a waste of time. Better to move quickly and mine even one more diamond in that time—that was the smart choice.
The arrival of Mist and the other new residents was a beacon signaling the start of real competition.
Soon the first company in Rena World will form, and everyone will start watching their backs. That's just how it is when you're a small-time streamer.
The trickle-down benefits falling to those connected to Mist. Once the other small-time streamers saw that, they'd start getting restless. People like Dorai and Coco-nyang had been in basically the same boat as them just yesterday—then overnight their viewer counts doubled and Candy donations went up.
Put yourself in their shoes. You suck up a little to the higher-ups, act all eager, and suddenly you leapfrog your peers for a promotion and a sweet position. As an ordinary person, how are you supposed to just sit there and take that? Pride and all that? That's for people who can afford it.
In that sense, I didn't criticize or look down on the small-time streamers for acting this way at all. If I were in that desperate position, I'd have chosen the same path.
Which is exactly why I have to work even harder. If I don't want to miss the opportunity I have right now.
There wasn't much time left for real. Today, too, I quietly kept mining.
Mist's first entry into Rena World. His stream was bound to be popular.
Why? Because it was pure, consequence-free pleasure—just pure enjoyment. That analogy fit perfectly.
The early-game hassle of gathering equipment? Solved by receiving gear gifts from other streamers. The repetitive grinding that could feel boring? Skipped entirely. Money? Items? He didn't even have to ask—people brought tribute on their own.
All Mist had to do was run around having fun, create some stream moments, and banter with other streamers. That was it. In other words, the kind of "visible radio" style broadcast that Pangea TV viewers loved most.
On top of that, he was completely satisfying the viewers' need for recognition. Look around the streaming scene. How many people in big-name fandoms engage in self-projection? When their streamer gets insulted, they react like they themselves were insulted. Conversely, when their streamer gets treated well, they puff out their chests like it's happening to them.
In Rena World, Mist was clearly in the top-dog position. He was a partner streamer, his average viewers were more than twenty times those of the small-time streamers around him, and he had money saved up from his pro gamer days. And above all else—he was handsome.
Look at all the small-time streamers surrounding Mist right now, heaping praise on him. What a sight for fans who project themselves onto their streamer to feel proud about. Knowing the future, I found it a bit amusing to think this scene would repeat every time a major streamer entered the server.
He might feel like a big shot now, but the moment the real big-name streamers come in, he'll become small fry in an instant.
The virtual streamers who joined Bad Potato Company probably regretted it a lot. If they'd just held out a little longer, they might have had a chance to join a company founded by a major streamer. Instead, blinded by the immediate trickle-down benefits, they ran over faster than anyone—and ended up in the worst company of all.
More importantly, how is Blueby doing?
Today I ended my stream about three hours early for once and worked on the video for the V-Live carol song in VRC. I'd been streaming without a single day off for two weeks—taking it easy for one day was fine, right?
Once I finished everything, I had about an hour more free time than usual, and idle curiosity made me check on Blueby's situation. When it came to checking this kind of data, the Candy Calculator site was pretty much all-powerful.
"Whoa, impressive."
Today marked day three of the Poko Server. They were gradually approaching the halfway point. Yet over the past three days, Blueby's average viewer count was twenty-seven. Looking at the previous week's data of fifty-two, you could see that the gradual upward trend since her debut stream had completely collapsed.
This is more effective than I expected.
Basically, virtual streamer fans were viewers who expected a healing vibe. Most of them had gotten into this scene because they were disappointed by the vicious sides human streamers sometimes showed, and because they already liked subculture stuff.
But what kind of place was a war server? War was fundamentally an act where humanity's most primal emotions collided. Streamers who normally spoke gently and softly would raise their voices, and worn down by long stream hours and stress, they'd snap in irritation from time to time.
On top of that, the communication with streamers that viewers valued most became difficult. It was a war server—how much was there to do? Even if you tried to rest for a moment, you'd get scoped, and you had to focus on the endless chatter from your teammates. In that situation, constantly paying attention to chat? With stream hours massively extended and everyone exhausted, you'd need the experience of a major streamer to pull that off.
Naturally, that meant neglecting the viewers. In fact, the data showed that every streamer who'd joined the Poko Server had seen their average viewer counts drop—even the Decrescendo crew members.
Deep servers like this are meant to target enthusiasts rather than the mass audience. The problem was that the half-baked management had managed to disappoint even those enthusiasts.
I'd already known from community info before my regression, but the Poko Server situation was worse than I'd imagined. Participants were constantly posting unhappiness, and the admins, far from resolving the controversies, only fanned the flames with power struggles. They even put up announcement posts sniping at participants—from an admin's perspective, that was the absolute worst thing you could do.
Of course, the other side wasn't entirely blameless either...
The main character who'd traded snipes and fought with Ori-koong was none other than Tu-nyang-i. I'd thought she only caused trouble in Rena World—what was she doing here? Come to think of it, I seemed to recall seeing popular community posts about Tu-nyang-i causing incidents after that too. Hmm, better be careful not to get mixed up with her for no reason.
After viewer counts, the next thing to check was Candy donations. Honestly, from a streamer's perspective, even if the viewer data came in a bit low, as long as there was matching Candy donation compensation, it was understandable enough. Viewers lost to content they disliked would recover to some degree later.
But what if Candy donations were also poor?
"Hmm, that's a shame."
I said it was a shame, but an unconcealable smile lingered at the corners of my mouth. Through the data, I could confirm that Blueby's Candy donations had been slowly declining from the very first day she entered the Poko Server. It wasn't completely dried up, but this alone was encouraging enough.
But she received quite a bit more than I expected? She's only three weeks in.
Feeling good, I was about to close the Candy Calculator site when something in the overall data made me frown slightly. She hadn't even completed three weeks since debut, yet she'd already received a fair amount of Candy donations. Seventy thousand. Considering I'd received about a hundred and seventy thousand so far this month, that was a significant achievement.
If I hadn't checked her with the Poko Server, I would've been in big trouble.
I'd been slightly dismissing her as a fresh debut, but her growth rate was terrifying. Should I say she lived up to being one of the top five virtual streamers excluding the major corporate ones before my regression?
I casually logged into Blueby's stream as a guest. She was talking with her teammates on Discord, and the others' voices already carried clear exhaustion. Their energy had dropped a lot too. No wonder casual viewers—and even hardcore fans—were quietly pulling away...
But even in this situation, Blueby's avatar maintained a straight, upright posture. And her energy was still somewhat alive. She was supposedly only sleeping four or five hours, and on day three she was still like this? Wasn't she a monster?
Watching the stream, even though there was a separate team leader, she was somehow already performing a representative-like role for the team.
A real talent is a real talent, no doubt.
In four more days the Poko Server would end, and Blueby would return to Rena World. Would she be able to smoothly rebound from this broken data?
I sat there blankly for a while, watching Blueby's stream.