Landmark Meeting (2)
Before my regression, I had spent three full years with Lucy.
From those early days on Rabbit TV, when she ran dullahan streams for fewer than twenty viewers, all the way through her transfer to Pangea TV and her time as a member of the V-mellodi crew.
I had been the hardcore fan and president of her fan club, determined to support her to the very end.
What I got in return was Lucy’s ban.
Why? Even now, the reason remained a complete mystery.
One thing was certain: before the regression, I had made a bet with Ju-ttak, the administrator of Pan-beo-gal.
A bet that Lucy and I would absolutely succeed as virtual streamers.
Honestly, I was pretty blind back then.
In common terms, people say the rose-tinted glasses were on thick. My fan feelings for Lucy had completely overrun my rational side.
Only after the regression, once I had grown considerably colder and clearer-headed, could I look at things objectively and admit the truth.
Lucy really had been a small-time streamer.
She had far too many glaring weaknesses to ever stay above three-digit average viewers.
First off, her Discord presence in group collabs was painfully weak, and even her solo streams lacked any real entertainment factor. She was also short on that sparkling broadcast sense and creative ideas.
If she had simply aimed for comfortable, chill “broth” streams, her revenue side at least wouldn’t have been terrible.
The problem was that her pure, almost saintly personality completely blocked that path as well.
And that broadcast atmosphere of Lucy’s never really changed—from the day I first met her all the way to the ban season three years later.
Lucy’s voice had been a perfect sniper shot to my tastes. And the way she carefully cherished and looked after her fans on top of that…
The real issue was the growth as a streamer that should have come afterward. It had been severely lacking.
She should have experienced plenty of collabs, prepared all sorts of content herself, and steadily matured as a streamer one step at a time.
Before the regression I had blamed V-mellodi a lot. Especially the leader, Blueby.
To be honest, even now Blueby was still pretty high on my dislike list.
People say that when someone is driven into a corner, they need a target for their anger and resentment just to keep living.
Maybe Blueby was that target for me.
Honestly, I still don’t know. Whether the hatred is baseless or not. Because one of the reasons I keep pointing to for Lucy’s ban is Blueby’s existence.
Someday I would dig up the truth no matter what.
That was how Lucy had always been—an existence that made me hold all kinds of complicated feelings.
But look at her now.
“The landmark I prepared is the ‘Sky Island.’ Everyone knows the famous manga One Piece, right? I took inspiration from Skypiea that appears in it.”
“Ooooh!”
From the carefully prepared PowerPoint slides to the talking skills she had sharpened while hosting the recent “news broadcasts,” she was explaining every piece of material she had prepared, clearly and steadily, without looking particularly nervous even in front of so many viewers.
Without realizing it, my eyes started to sting with pride.
Kkhhh! Our Lucy has grown this much!
The idea itself was solid, but the materials she had prepared weren’t a scattered mess either—they had real structure. She opened with flashy photos to grab the viewers’ attention right away, then introduced the main building materials, the expected construction period, and the various kinds of content they could run once the Sky Island was finished.
I could feel the staff focusing harder on this than on any of the landmark candidates that had come before.
The viewers’ reactions exploded.
Leave V-City as it is and build the Sky Island, then put the company headquarters up there.
Imagining gliding on wings against a Minecraft sunset. Doing bungee jumps under moonlight. All sorts of ideas were pouring out.
“That concludes Lucy’s presentation on the landmark ‘Sky Island.’”
“Waaaaaah!”
Clap clap clap—!
With the heated response, Lucy’s presentation came to an end.
I almost teared up from pure emotion… except, unfortunately, I’m a T, so that didn’t quite happen.
Still, it was genuinely joyful to feel Lucy’s growth after so long.
Environment really does change people. To think the difference between V-mellodi and V-Live could produce a result like this.
Next up was Miho, who proposed building a giant amusement park as the landmark.
This was a pretty fresh idea in its own right.
Roller coasters, Ferris wheels, bumper cars, carousels—countless rides—plus a zoo and aquarium so people could visit and look around anytime, turning the whole place into a full theme park. An ambitious plan.
The problem was that all those rides would be pure eye candy you couldn’t actually ride.
Probably because the Sky Island right before it had received such overwhelming praise, this one felt relatively weaker.
In the end Miho finished her presentation looking a little dejected.
Even so, it had only fallen short compared to the Sky Island; she had clearly prepared hard, so warm applause soon poured out for her as well.
“Am I last? I prepared something on a bigger scale.”
The one who would close out the day was the new hire, Na-ro-si.
Her plan was to recreate the structures known as the Seven Wonders of the World.
“The Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria!”
Every time Na-ro-si flipped a PowerPoint page, majestic photographs of the buildings appeared.
The Seven Wonders of the World.
Just looking at them had a certain magic that made a guy’s heart pound.
But…
No, this is too much no matter how you look at it. The scale is ridiculous.
Each individual wonder was on the same difficulty level as Do-zney Castle, which Lethal Company was only just now finishing.
And she wanted to build seven of them?
They would have to do nothing but build for at least two or three months straight with zero rest.
No matter how much of a reputation Rena World has as a building server, you still need other stories mixed in. If it’s nothing but construction forever, who’s going to watch the streams?
Whether they were imagining that endless hellish building schedule, every staff member’s face except Na-ro-si’s went dark.
Especially Mayo, the solo-queue addict and LoL gamer girl.
Meanwhile Na-ro-si herself was radiating the enormous passion she carried, full of confidence.
Then viewers who had latched onto the words “Seven Wonders” started chiming in with interest.
“…….”
You couldn’t really criticize a streamer for overflowing with passion.
I understood how Na-ro-si felt.
She had cleared her name and gotten into the massively popular Rena World; of course she wanted to throw herself into everything and work hard.
But in group life, standing out alone too much isn’t good either. You have to walk in step with the people around you.
If they took it slow and did things together, someday Na-ro-si would come to understand that too.
She was still a young friend, after all.
“That concludes everyone’s presentations. All right, let’s go through them in order.”
— Underwater City ‘Bikini City’
— Summoner’s Rift
— Roman Colosseum
— Sky Island ‘Skypiea’
— Theme Park of Dreams and Hope Amusement Park
— The Seven Wonders of the World
Just looking at the list, it was an incredibly stacked lineup.
“The voting method will be one vote per staff member. Then we’ll take a viewer vote and award two votes to the landmark candidate that takes first place.”
I had deliberately included a viewer vote in the final landmark selection.
That way the viewers would feel more immersed as well.
“Starting now, please come into the Discord channel one by one in order and cast your votes.”
We moved to a separate channel for the voting.
Soon the first to appear was Subnitti, who hesitated for a moment before casting her vote for her own idea—the Roman Colosseum.
“Ahem, self-voting is a little cringe.”
“Nooo! This is actually a really good idea, though. We mix a betting system right into the Colosseum. We hold 1v1 strongest-fighter tournaments and rake in nice commission fees from the bets on the side…”
No, like I said, that whole concept is exactly what Rena-ttang is about to use for the Arena.
There was no way I was going to poke the server admin’s nerves for no reason.
Next up, Miho cast her vote for the Sky Island.
Mayo, as expected, put one vote on Summoner’s Rift.
Han A-yeon hesitated a little before choosing the Sky Island, while Lucy picked the underwater city Bikini City, so the two of them effectively swapped.
And finally, Na-ro-si.
“I thought this one was good, but I guess I was looking a little too far ahead.”
In the meantime a swarm of attention-seeking floating viewers had rushed over and each left a chat message asking if they really wanted to do nothing but build for two or three straight months.
Looking a bit deflated, she voted for the Roman Colosseum.
I naturally voted for the Sky Island, leaving the Colosseum and Sky Island at two and three votes respectively, waiting for the fans’ choice.
“Voting is complete. Then we’ll reveal the results right away!”
A total of 3,278 people had participated in the vote.
And the current viewer count had broken past 7,200!
Today’s meeting content had been a complete success.