In the Dead of Night
"I thought I was a shining~ star. Never once did I doubt it. I didn't know~ that I was just a bug. But it's okay — because I'm dazzling."
I clasped my hands together and begged for mercy, but the wicked vice-chairman's 24-hour stream ticket was not getting canceled.
Nothing I could do about it.
The Candy from that sweet roulette spin had already been invested into Pangea TV stock, and as a "professional" broadcaster, I had a duty to own up to the consequences of my own karma.
In the end, I sent everyone home first and was left alone in the desolate landscape of Skypia, the floating island in the sky. Since today was only the first day of construction — materials still being sorted, foundation work barely underway — the half-finished silhouette under the moonlight only made the place feel lonelier.
"Whew! Still, gotta do what I gotta do. Right, guys?"
Seoah Not Streaming has been muted for 10 minutes.
I handed down a brief sentence to the wicked vice-chairman who'd been waiting for just the right moment to make my life miserable, then floated a timer on the right side of the screen where everyone could see it clearly.
A 24-hour stream starting at 11:20 p.m.
Holy shit. As the person actually stuck doing this, I was already getting dizzy just thinking about it.
"Hold on — if you think about it, this isn't a 24-hour stream. It's today's twelve hours of broadcasting plus this, so that's a 36-hour no-sleep marathon, isn't it? Right?"
"Sigh…… Fine. I'll do it. Happy now?"
Thinking about it, this was the first 24-hour no-sleep stream of my broadcasting career — and my first late-night stream, period.
I'd heard that some people flipped their day and night schedules and lived just fine as nocturnal creatures. Streamers especially tended to fall into that type. Broadcasting had a flow to it, after all — you couldn't just end a stream mid-hype just because it got late. Before you knew it, you'd be streaming deep into the night, and your sleep pattern would be completely wrecked.
That was why some big-name streamers locked their start times at around 7 or 8 p.m. — fire up the stream during prime time and ride it all the way to 3 or 4 in the morning.
That kind of schedule would wreck me. I'd rather just start earlier.
I was firmly of the opinion that you needed to sleep at night if you wanted to stay healthy. So lately, with my stream hours expanded, I'd been starting around 3 p.m. and wrapping up before midnight. This week, with landmark construction funding on the line, I'd decided to push a little harder and start in the morning. Of course, I planned to ease that back as construction progressed. Working hard was great, but health came first.
Anyway… what do I do now?
That high sky. Standing alone on a floating platform built up there, facing the soft moonlight — it was definitely a beautiful sight. But even beauty got boring if you stared at it long enough. The moment was approaching when viewers would start spamming "So what are we doing?" to harass their streamer. I decided to head toward wherever the other streamers were hanging out. I couldn't exactly do calisthenics alone under the moonlight, and for good stream content, I needed other people around.
So where to?
No need to overthink it. My stream had plenty of floating viewers — people who used multi-view to hop between broadcasts in real time — and they were already recommending the most entertaining spots.
"O-Wang Company's boss is apparently furious, so going over just to rubberneck feels a little wrong. Lethal Company doesn't really work either. I'm a pure solo-queue player, so ARAM is kind of……"
Which left Akatsuki by process of elimination. I'd been meaning to drop by anyway to check whether the coin I'd invested in Oh Yeong-jun was growing nicely. Perfect timing.
"Alright then — shall we start with Akatsuki? On my way!"
I spread my wings and began the thousand-meter freefall, the full moon hanging high and proud behind me. Toward Akatsuki, I descended.
It was pretty random, but Oh Yeong-jun actually held a counseling psychology license.
The reason went back to his mother's depression. Having been extremely close with her, Oh Yeong-jun had studied hard, earned the certification, and now it was finally paying off.
Crack, crackle—!
With the sound of a crackling campfire laid down as BGM, he conducted his sessions in a calm, steady voice. Three people had already come and gone. The content was thriving. Streamers from various companies had been dropping by for counseling, and today more than seven thousand viewers had piled in — a proper floating-viewer magnet.
This was precisely Oh Yeong-jun's strength as the head of Akatsuki.
Watch the other company leaders and you'd notice they rarely expanded their sphere of activity, sticking mostly to internal interactions. That way, the trickle-down benefits concentrated on their own members. Start looking elsewhere and leave some people out? Instantly the "Why aren't you taking care of so-and-so?" crowd would mobilize. Company leaders who'd already tasted the wrath of those entitlement fans back during the StarCraft boom era — when they ran StarCraft universities — kept their heads down and stayed home.
But Oh Yeong-jun's situation was completely different. Where other leaders ran their businesses off their own fanbases, over ninety percent of Oh Yeong-jun's current audience was floating viewers. These people didn't want stability — they wanted something new every time, streams dripping with dopamine. Sure, there were still a few entitlement fans demanding he take better care of Muyo or Jisuni, but they were a far smaller fraction than what other leaders dealt with. That freedom let him roam wherever he wanted, writing stories unbound by company constraints.
Hang out with O-Wang Company's virtual streamer Seo Chae-i today, mess around with Lethal Company's Ju-i tomorrow — that kind of thing. Other leaders saw the same faces inside their companies every single day. Oh Yeong-jun got new girls, new combinations, new scenes every time. Floating-viewer approval was through the roof.
This had been one of the secrets to Akatsuki's success before my regression. And even in this life, though our V-Live Company had siphoned off a decent chunk of those floating viewers, they were still doing well. Roughly eighty percent of their pre-regression peak, if I had to put a number on it.
"Ah! Unnie Seo-a."
"Hey, Muyo. Long time no see~"
"Did you come for counseling too, unnie?"
"Something like that. Do I have to wait long?"
"Nope. The person in there right now was the last one. Should wrap up any minute. It's been about fifteen minutes since they started?"
The Oh Yeong-jun and Muyo combo was still as strong as ever. At first Muyo had been the main act, but as Oh Yeong-jun got more comfortable with Minecraft and the initiative shifted to him, she'd flipped her position — these days she played the role of the indispensable supporting player, co-writing hit after hit.
Their chemistry in Rena World really was something else. I've never seen a duo that successful on any streamer server since.
And as the saying went, sequels never lived up to the original — when the two teamed up again later on the server Wang-ko ran, the synergy just wasn't the same. That only made me appreciate this version more.
This kid really is a pure talent monster.
Twenty years old this year. Debuted as a streamer in October 2022. Within three months of debut, without any trickle-down from a big-name streamer, she'd hit ten thousand concurrent viewers on her own power and risen to become a central figure in Rena World. On top of that, she'd gone on to run the first domestic GTA streamer server — "Retirement Town" — almost flawlessly, without a single major scandal. Considering she was only twenty-two at the time, "talent is a cheat code" was the only way to put it. Compared to the pre-regression timeline, she was a clear upgrade over Mayo, who was around the same age.
Now that I think about it, even their nicknames are similar. Muyo and Mayo.
The problem was that even Muyo — who had seemed destined for nothing but success — hit a massive wall. The Rena World X-ray scandal, triggered by Tu-nyang-i. Compared to Tu-nyang-i it was small-scale, but Muyo had definitely used X-ray too, and when she was named as a suspect she'd lied and denied everything, turning a huge number of fans into antis.
Twenty years old — legally an adult — and still that shortsighted. She would've shone just fine without ever touching that stuff.
The scandal got her expelled from Rena World, and for nearly half a year afterward she disappeared from the virtual streaming scene on a self-imposed hiatus, compounded by injury. Of course, she made a miraculous comeback later — but still.
"Oh, it's done. Just wait a sec — I'll go in and let him know you're here."
"Sure. Thanks."
My turn came around almost immediately. I watched Muyo's character disappear into the cabin, then looked up at the night sky — and right away Oh Yeong-jun's voice called me in.
Haha. Impatient, aren't we?
Still, getting counseling from Oh Yeong-jun… on a night this full of atmosphere, it felt like a slightly wasted setup. And since a good idea had just popped into my head, I changed my plans.
Oh Yeong-jun's counseling hour? Nope. From this moment on, it's my content.
The content hijacking starts now.