The Decisive Move
All kinds of speculative comments poured in, but nobody's thoughts had reached as far as a Landmark yet.
To be fair, the full-blown Landmark construction boom hadn't really kicked off yet. Even so, the various companies were already eyeing each other and tentatively attempting large-scale builds — Lethal Company's Do-zney Castle, Partner & Tofu Company's Hanok Village and Snow Globe, O-Wang Company's Whale Island, and so on.
Do-zney Castle and the Hanok Village were nearly finished, while the Snow Globe and Whale Island were just starting to pick up serious speed.
I heard Seoni Moon decided to build a Seoni Mahal too. Where did the real architectural funding boom start again? Mu-yang Group, right?
I couldn't remember for certain whether O-Wang Company or Mu-yang Group went first, but what I did know for sure was that before February arrived, Park Bong-sik would return from his long hiatus, acquire Partner & Tofu Company, and found the Mu-yang Group.
And then, at the start of February on the 1st, Mu-yang Group would set a record with 1.4 million in architectural funding.
Which Landmark was that again? It was the name of a fortress from Lord of the Rings. Ah! Minas Tirith.
They swapped the first letter for a "Mu" and Mu-yang Group built a Landmark called Munastiris.
As for O-Wang Company, calling it a proper Landmark construction fundraiser would be a stretch — they just kept splitting it into tiny pieces and collecting over and over. Fundraise for building the White House, fundraise for building the city around it, fundraise for farming materials… True to having PUBG streamers at the top, their money-raking was viciously thorough.
And then there was Akatsuki's "Underground City" construction funding, which would blow up around the second week of February.
All of this information was an opportunity for our V-Live Company.
I'd mentioned it before. If you don't clean out the floaters' wallets in your own room, those wallets will eventually open wide somewhere else.
January in Rena World was paradise for the floaters. It was a period when people still hadn't firmly settled on a company to root for. And with Park Bong-sik on a long hiatus, the Mu-ajusshis who'd lost their home were wandering all over the place.
That was how two members of Akatsuki — the floaters' chosen ones — hit the Million Club, and how Muyo harvested over 800,000 Candy.
Maybe this is our chance. Announce a Landmark plan before anyone else. Seize the hype first.
Before the regression, Akatsuki had practically monopolized the floaters' attention. This time, we were going to challenge them first.
The meeting was set for 7:30 PM. As announced, I went live at 7 and spent about twenty minutes chatting with viewers. Whether it was the power of that aggressively baited notice or not, we were already past three thousand viewers. Once the meeting properly started, I expected the numbers to climb even higher.
"……."
These little bastards. No matter how many times I told them not to call us BraCom, they absolutely refused to listen. They said it sounded good, and it was already widely used across the community. Hah. Fine. How was a single streamer supposed to reverse the tide of public opinion once it had already set? I'd just have to blacklist the ones who used it maliciously and let the rest slide…
Anyway, the important thing today was the meeting, so I soothed my mental state and summoned everyone to the conference room on the first floor of my house. We still hadn't built a proper company headquarters building, since we were saving that for a future funding drive.
A long wooden table stretched out before us. I wasn't the oldest, but as the undisputed head of the company I took the seat of honor, and the others sat down one by one to my left and right.
Huh. Wait a second.
On the left sat Lucy, Miho, and Mayo in that order. On the right sat Subnitti, Han A-yeon, and Na-ro-si.
Was this… factional politics etched into the DNA of the Korean people?!
The left side was the original V-Live crew, and the right side was the new connections we'd made in Rena World.
I pointed a trembling finger at myself, and Miho let out an exasperated sigh.
"What kind of weird scenario are you cooking up in that head of yours. We just sat down and it happened to end up like this. Ugh! Your imagination is something else."
She shrugged, then went over and swapped seats with Han A-yeon.
Ahem. So it was just my misunderstanding?
Companies always came with internal politics as an unavoidable side event, so I'd flinched for a second there. Fortunately, it didn't seem nearly that blatant in our company.
I'd heard the power struggles inside Mu-yang Group used to be insanely intense.
Maybe that was only natural. There can only be one sun in the sky. Mu-yang Group had been born from the union of Partner & Tofu Company, which meant there had naturally been two former leaders — Dananyang and Rim-ani. The virtual streamers from Partner Company were close with Dananyang, and those from Tofu Company gravitated toward Rim-ani.
Even after Park Bong-sik founded Mu-yang Group and merged them into one, the quiet factional fighting was inevitable. Most of the company members were women, so the passive-aggressive sparring conducted in "girl-speak" was so ferocious that Park Bong-sik once called everyone together and blew up at them — threatening to kick anyone who kept doing that girl-speak power-struggle nonsense straight out of the company.
Whether the threat worked or not, the internal sparring in Mu-yang Group died down considerably after that.
In that regard, our company members are excellent.
Lucy, Miho, Mayo, and the others could easily have pulled rank as original crew members under me as leader, but they got along relatively well with Subnitti and the others we'd connected with in Rena World.
Of course, it wasn't as if there were zero minor conflicts. Wherever people gather, friction is bound to happen. But our company was on a winning streak right now, so everyone was pushing through with good vibes and a spirit of solidarity. And — this is a little embarrassing to say about myself — my outstanding leadership probably helped too.
"Alright, is everyone here?"
"Yes!"
"All present."
"Mayo arrived in third place, geosida. Anyone later than Mayo has to pay a lateness fine, geosida."
"Total personnel: seven. Personnel absent: zero. Current personnel: seven. Nothing further to report, Master!"
"……."
Na-ro-si's concept was getting weirder by the day. Had she gone past devoted subordinate and all the way to full soldier at this point?
Anyway, everyone was assembled, so I announced the start of the meeting with a serious demeanor.
"Then, from this moment, I hereby open the first official meeting of V-Live Company."
Bang bang—!
The gavel struck and the meeting was in session. Without any further preamble, I presented the first agenda item.
"Let's get right into it. First item: the current operations of the company. Our company is on the small side with seven members. Should we maintain our current state, or look to the future and recruit new personnel? Please present your individual opinions."
In truth, the result had already been decided in the group chat yesterday, but since this was a broadcast, everyone raised their hands with serious faces and presented their opinions one by one in turn.
"Mayo is in favor, geosida. Looking at it now, Mayo's ranking inside the company is weird, geosida. Despite being a founding member, Mayo is getting bullied and harassed for being the youngest, geosida. Mayo strongly requests that you recruit a member younger than Mayo, geosida."
"Yeah~ you're the server baby."
Any change in a company's roster was always bound to become a hot topic. On top of that, no other company had any special issues today, so attention was concentrated even further on us. Before long, the viewer count had broken five thousand. Around that point, the first agenda item seemed ready to wrap up.
"Then, by vote, the recruitment of new personnel is rejected — two in favor, five against. However, we will leave the possibility open. We may need more people on the server for certain content down the line, and the future is unpredictable."
The chat was buzzing with noise. I carefully timed the moment, then dropped the bomb.
"Then, the second agenda item. V-Live Company's Landmark construction plan. We begin now."
This was the decisive move I had thrown down.