When Issues Swallow Issues
The day I changed from Seo Minjun into Seo Min-ah.
The very first thing I checked that day was my talent for streaming.
Singing [★★★☆☆]
Art [★☆☆☆☆]
Dance [★★★★☆]
Gaming [★★★★☆]
The representative talents that stood out most on stream. Unfortunately, the one thing virtual streamers got rated highest on — the voice — was only average.
Ah, but that wasn't the important part right now.
Seo Min-ah had inherited nearly all of Seo Minjun's abilities as they were. There might have been some balance adjustments from the gender swap, but that was basically it. Which meant that even as a guy, I'd been a good dancer.
And it wasn't limited to dancing, either. Anything that involved using my body, I handled with ease — soccer, baseball, badminton, swimming, you name it. I'd even been on the athletic team up through my first year of high school, until the family finances suddenly tanked and I had to quit. Sports cost more money than people think.
Hm? What exactly am I trying to say here?
Ahh, you dense little things. Still don't get it? What I'm doing right now is called bragging.
Huh? I'm not just good at dancing — I'm solid at a whole range of sports, and pretty much anything physical in general. So go on, sponsor some Candy already, you rookies.
Blazing-hot reactions poured up through the chat. I took a short breath to steady myself, and at the same time carefully lifted the full-tracking gear covering my face to check my position.
Whew. Thankfully, I hadn't drifted too far this time.
My room was so cramped that I'd shoved even the bed out of the way just to use the full-tracking equipment properly. Even so, I'd still managed to slam into a chair or a wall more than once, and every time it had scared the hell out of me.
I put the gear back on and started answering the heated chat one by one.
"Woooow! That was really, really something, Seo-a. Wait — were you in a dance club or something? This is genuinely not civilian-level skill. Of all the Zero Twos I've seen so far, this is easily top thr—"
"Excuse me, Yo-jjang. That's a little rude. Can't you see I'm talking with the viewers right now? Ah! Seo-aMalaTang, thank you so much for the three hundred Candies. Heart, heart, mwah!"
"……"
The chat sentiment in Ssa-yo's room, which had already broken ten thousand viewers, was actively rooting for me too.
Yeah. This was streaming. This was the good stuff.
"Ahem. Seo-a, do you think we could talk for a moment?"
"Ah! It's Yo-jjang, my absolute favorite person in the whole world. What is it? Say whatever you want, no pressure at all."
"……Uh, so, that is—"
"Originally we were supposed to go around the streams in order and do self-introductions and that kind of thing, but in your case we jumped straight into VRChat without any of that. So I was hoping you could give the viewers a quick self-intro, or maybe a special skill you could show off? Would that be all right?"
"Of course. Absolutely possible."
Whether he liked my streaming instincts or not, Ssa-yo was giving me a chance to pitch myself in front of more than ten thousand viewers. If I couldn't cash in an opportunity like this, I had no business calling myself a streamer.
Without a shred of hesitation, I stepped forward.
Jet-black hair that swayed just past the shoulders. A beautiful girl character with ruby-bright red eyes. The outfit was a clean school look built on a white shirt and black skirt base.
If I'd only had a little more time, I could have debuted in a different costume.
I'd designed a few outfit lines specifically for appearances like this, but with no money and no time, they'd all gotten pushed down the priority list. A shame, but there was nothing I could do about it.
Even so, the viewers' reactions weren't bad. A lot of them were comparing the quality of my avatar against the other virtual streamers they'd seen today. Most of them had never even watched a virtual streamer before, so looking at each one in isolation they probably hadn't noticed much. But as Ssa-yo toured the streams one by one, the audience had started developing an eye for virtual avatars.
I didn't pay a premium to commission a future star artist for nothing. There's no industry more obsessed with how things look than streaming.
In the virtual idol auditions still to come, there were cases of people who couldn't sing at all becoming popular picks purely because their avatar was pretty. I was going to lock down that position too, every last scrap of it.
"Hello. I'm Seo-a, the only pure-blood virtual streamer on Pangea TV, debuted September tenth. Dropping a hardcore greeting for all you viewer hyungs."
I cut myself off mid-sentence and casually drifted toward the wall. Ssa-yo's avatar followed with a puzzled look as I moved without finishing the greeting.
"Uh — uh-uh?"
Then he recoiled in pure shock and stumbled backward.
Why? Because I'd suddenly gone into a handstand.
Ugh. I'd practiced ahead of time and it was still ridiculously hard. With my real-world field of vision restricted by the gear, my body instinctively flinched from the fear of slamming into a wall. But this time, I went for it without holding back.
Remember this: more than ten thousand people are watching right now. I would not miss this chance. I would burn the existence of me into their minds for good.
A greeting so outrageous it defied imagination. How would people take the sudden appearance of a virtual streamer who just casually dropped a handstand out of nowhere?
I didn't know about anything else, but one thing was certain.
For the time being, every virtual-related issue on the platform is mine.
Everything I'd shown today? Streaming instincts, dance, avatar, and impact on top of it. I'd checked every single box without missing one.
Those toxic posters who'd spent the last two days quietly running girl-comparison cups on FM Community, pitting me against the transfer virtual streamers behind a mask — after today's broadcast, you wouldn't be finding them for a while. Unless they were the rare breed of troll who actively enjoyed getting mass-downvoted and roasted in the replies, maybe.
"Th-that… a-are you okay?"
"Yeees. Aigo! Back in the day I used to hold these for five minutes at a stretch, but getting older really doesn't make it easy. Wish I could be about two years younger."
"……"
Age-flexing a '91-liner into silence! I shut Ssa-yo up one more time and cranked the energy back up to continue the self-introduction.
"Age twenty-three! Born in 2000, and I've been authenticity-verified through the Yoon-seo Law. I love games a lot, and I love Candy sponsorships even more. What I hate is refund request notes for Candy sponsorships. People like that get blacklisted on the spot, so don't even send the message."
Riding the goodwill of the audience, I bowed my head properly this time and finished the greeting.
"Then once again, please take good care of me. Come watch the streams a lot too, oppas♥"
Wink—!
A black-haired, red-eyed beauty closing it out with a wink. Cheers erupted so hard they practically tore through the chat window.
Ahh, yeah. This was streaming.
I was clearly the star of the day, and I believed it.
"A transfer, you mean? That's a bit of a sensitive issue, so I'll need to think it over a little more before deciding. I'm not on my own, after all, so it's hard to say anything definitive right away."
"Still, I'll look at it positively for now. Honestly, I was pretty surprised. I'd heard Pangea TV had all kinds of weird rumors and was supposedly super negative about virtuals, so I never expected more than ten thousand people to welcome us like this. Thank you so much."
On the very day I'd been certain I would be the protagonist.
A big issue got swallowed by an even bigger one.
It was the arrival of Pangea TV's first virtual corporate group.