Job Satisfaction

I browsed the communities first thing in the morning, and the buzz was no joke.

Popular posts plastered nearly an entire page. The impact was on a completely different level from when the virtual streamers ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had been cozily playing house with each other.

So this was the sheer weight of a human streamer who actually sat inside the mainstream?

Thanks to Mist casually showing real heat, his fandom that lived on the community boards seemed razor-edged as well.

Not bad. Holding a grudge long-term would be a problem, but it's a fandom that'll scatter on its own soon enough anyway.

Looked at that way, Mist was the perfect opponent. Squeeze every drop of juice out of him, and when it was time to discard him he would conveniently vanish on his own—nothing left to worry about.

Just from yesterday's Purge Day alone I made over two million Rena.

First- and second-place prize money of 1.5 million Rena, plus the resale price of the gear Mayo and I stripped off people—calling that a single hour's income felt almost criminal. And I still planned to quietly list the gear from Mist and the rest of Bad Potato Company, so the haul would only grow.

What, you're worried that while I'm humming along like this Mist will show up to next week's Purge Day in a full endgame set?

Heh. The cruelest thing in the world is giving someone hope and then snatching it away.

Mist wants to complete his endgame gear? Be my guest. When the specs are equal, there are always other paths.

Speaking of which, Poko Server is...

While Rena World was laughing and chattering away, Poko Server had turned into pure chaos. True to a war server where anything goes, traitors kept popping up in every squad, and streamers who had stood night watch until dawn finally snapped for real.

Ori-koong had finally come to her senses and was scrambling with belated management—apologizing for the sniping announcement posts and the rest—but it was already far too late. A considerable number of streamers had simply declared they were done and quit playing altogether.

The one silver lining for the Pocotin crew was that Decrescendo ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had announced they would see it through to the end. That was no small thing, either. If Decrescendo had bailed as well, the server might have collapsed before even reaching the announced end date.

Once you've started something you can't just pull out halfway. Park Na-na must be having a real headache—she can't quit because of image management either.

What must it have felt like to turn on stream as crew leader and declare they would finish the whole thing? I heard critical posts about joining Poko Server had even gone up on their fan café. And while Poko Server was a dumpster fire, Rena World kept climbing, so she must have been burning up inside wanting to come back even a day earlier.

Blueby has to be the same, right? Hmm, though she seems to be holding up surprisingly well.

Even in that miserable situation, Blueby was genuinely putting up a strong fight. She made secret contact with a traitor from another squad, extracted intel, built a strategy around it, and then hit their secret base in one lightning strike—not a single person allowed to escape, flag successfully stolen.

That wasn't all. She also predicted a dawn raid by another squad that had even drunk invisibility potions, and crushed it so cleanly the attackers lost a pile of key weapons and had to retreat in silence. Those were Blueby's results from a single day yesterday.

How did I know all that when I was busy with Rena World? Easy. FM Community was flooded with every popular post about Rena World and human streamers, but if you went to Pan-beo-gal you could scoop up virtual-streamer intel clean and easy. With so many Pocotin and Decrescendo fans in the gallery, there were actually more live-report posts about Poko Server than about Rena World.

My own exploits were becoming quite the hot topic even over there. A virtual streamer had properly dropped a highlight reel against a heavyweight human streamer—of course it would.

Conversely, the Pocotin crew and their leader Ori-koong were getting roasted from every direction. Just skimming the posts was enough to make your head spin. That was exactly why people didn't casually take on server-admin roles. It was a poisoned chalice, pure and simple.

Anyway, only one day left of Poko Server now. I've sucked plenty of honey out of it.

Because Decrescendo had gone off to Poko Server, our crew—alongside Apple-mong—had been able to soak up the most attention on Rena World. And even if they came back now, it already felt a little late. A full week was never a short stretch of time. In that interval a solid number of viewers had already immersed themselves in the "story" our crew was writing on Rena World.

Once a story starts, people want to know how it ends. Plenty of virtual fans would choose our crew's streams over Decrescendo's just to see that ending.

"Hm?"

My phone rang. Checking the caller, it was the crew's adorable youngest, Mayo.

"No, no. Even so, you can't use that speech pattern in real life."

Today was a rare full day off for the entire V-Live crew. The fans had rioted on the fan café calling it the greatest empty house of all time, but once I calmly explained that we still had to finish VRChat filming today because of the remaining Christmas carol schedule, they finally got it.

Except... I had already finished my filming and didn't actually need to show up today?

"As the crew leader, I believe that would be a highly irresponsible course of action."

"...Why does your IQ only spike at times like this?! Do you ever talk this coherently normally?"

Crafty little brat, as always. Miho and Lucy were already waiting in the VRChat map we had planned to film and were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠urging me to hurry. Come on—this was practically my first day off in two weeks. Lately I'd been completely drained from playing Minecraft even off-stream.

"If you come in right now, Miho unnie and Lucy unnie will be wearing Santa outfits and showing off all kinds of poses. You're gonna pass that up?"

"..."

For a second I remembered Lucy's streams from before the regression. She had been such a perfect ten-out-of-ten modest lady that it took over half a year just to sell her first bang-sel—a tragic legend. And even those had been so thoroughly wrapped up that a neighborhood kindergarten kid showed more skin.

But I treasured even that. That was what being a fan meant.

Those bittersweet memories. And now, if I logged into VRChat, I could see Santa-outfit Lucy.

I yelled at Mayo to hurry up and lead the way. Special scenes that wouldn't even be shown to other fans, and I alone got to see them?

Day off, my ass.

In an instant I achieved 100% job satisfaction.