Seo-a's Counseling Office

January 29th, a Sunday.

I'd pulled off a solid performance on yesterday's Purge Day, but at the same time I'd felt the ceiling pressing down hard.

Ah. So this was the stage where you could no longer beat a company packed with big-agency streamers by playing it straight.

I didn't call it unfair, though. Trying to go toe-to-toe with streamers who had at least five years of broadcast experience when I'd been at this less than half a year was the absurd part to begin with. No need to get impatient. Climb steadily, one step at a time.

Still, I was only human. Sometimes I just wanted to stop reading the room and act as freely as I pleased. Calling it "throwing my weight around" felt a little strong, but every now and then I wanted to raise my voice and make some noise.

So today's content was prepared with exactly that in mind.

Three days earlier I'd posted a notice recruiting streamers for the segment, and the applications were already in.

Clearly I'd grown a lot as a broadcaster. More than thirty comments from people wanting in on the content had piled up.

Of course, not every one of them genuinely wanted my "advice." If a few words of counsel were enough to grow a stream, small streamers wouldn't exist in the first place. From the applicants' perspective, simply appearing in content with me was already an "opportunity," which was why they were showing this much enthusiasm.

With Rena World's floating viewers attached, my average concurrent count was sitting in four digits. Getting a chance to promote yourself in front of that many people was a massive stroke of luck for a small streamer.

Too bad I can't give everyone a shot.

If I did, even spending the entire day on this content wouldn't be enough time. As the head of V-Live Company, I couldn't afford that. The Sky Island build still wasn't finished, and if I wandered off on too long a side trip the Minecraft fandom wouldn't sit still.

So I decided to keep it short and sharp and pick only two people.

No point inviting drama afterward. Easiest to just go by upvote order.

I messaged first- and second-place Rina and Lingling with the good news, then carved out time from my packed schedule to watch their VODs and analyze their streams. This was counseling content meant to help their broadcasts grow, so that much effort was the bare minimum.

And then content day arrived.

Huh? Why was I messing around with other stuff when I barely had enough time to focus on Minecraft?

As I'd mentioned more than once already, more than half of the people I could call my core fans—the Seo-a Dan—had come from the virtual streamer scene. So no matter ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠how much of a gold mine Minecraft was, I still needed to run virtual content on a regular basis to take care of those core fans.

I wasn't the only one. I'd already given the same advice to the rest of the crew: set aside even a few short hours a week for content that looked after the core fans.

Mayo had been waiting for exactly that excuse and promptly declared a weekly "Solo Queue Day." It was pretty ridiculous, but if the fans liked it I had nothing to say.

And when I thought about it, Myeolmangjeon wasn't that far off either. To keep my feel for the game I'd need to play League periodically anyway.

Myeolmangjeon Season 1 was in April, right? Then I should start preparing soon myself.

Minecraft, running a virtual crew, and League ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on top of that—just thinking about the schedule made my head spin. Was this even a workable calendar?

But I steeled myself again. At least it beat crawling ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠around on the floor at some shitty little company. At least here I was making real money.

"I'm heading out early today."

"Huh? Is something wrong, Master?"

"Yeah. I've got content this afternoon."

In the morning I played Minecraft to hit my quota. Whether it was the afterglow of yesterday's Purge Day or not, more floating viewers than usual had piled in. Most of the chat was praising yesterday's performance, but a few questions cut straight to the heart of things.

Perfect reactions, every one of them.

Good. The worse the community's opinion of Witherite, the better for us.

Looking at the overall community response, people were still on the fence. It wasn't so much that they thought Mythic-grade gear performed poorly as that they blamed Tu-nyang-i's lack of control, or figured the Witherite line itself was just bad.

Before the regression, Mu-yang Group pulled a Golderite sword and O-Wang Company pulled a Spider sword, and that was when the balance complaints really started. After that came the upward patch for Mythic-grade gear. Thinking about those events, we still had a long way to go.

Our company's choice was best kept completely under wraps. Tu-nyang-i might have picked hers by chance, but if I went for a Witherite sword too, everyone would naturally start getting suspicious. Information on good gear needed to stay as monopolized as possible.

I brushed the viewers off with vague answers and finished the day's work diligently.

Before long the scheduled content time arrived. For the first time in a while I closed Minecraft and prepared to dive into something properly virtual-streamer flavored.

I asked the viewers for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their understanding and took about a fifteen-minute break. Jumping straight from Minecraft into the new content would make the mood shift too awkward. At times like this, listening to some chill music and cooling down was important too.

While the viewers rested, I pulled today's two guests into the Discord channel.

Rina and Lingling, the first- and second-place upvote winners.

Rina had a full year of streaming experience—longer than me, actually—yet she was still stuck under twenty viewers. Lingling was a pure-blood Pangea TV virtual streamer two months into her debut, and from what I could tell she openly went around calling me her role model. Mentions of it even showed up in her VODs.

Lingling's size is barely scraping double digits, huh?

Both of them were genuine, long-unseen "true" small streamers. The streamers over in Rena World all had at least a baseline size, after all—even if a lot of that was floating-viewer inflation while the server was hot.

Anyway, today I was running content with two small streamers, which meant I had to drive the whole thing myself. If either of them had enough broadcast presence to carry a segment, they wouldn't still be small streamers.

So before we went live I chatted with them a bit to loosen the tension and roughly walked them through the flow of today's stream. That way they could at least prepare themselves mentally.

"Alright, let's both do our best today."

"Yes! I'll give it everything so I don't become a burden."

"I'll work hard too."

With that, preparations were complete.

I muted the Discord channel for a moment and returned to the stream. I changed the title and switched the waiting screen.

"Seo-ha, seo-ha! Have you all been waiting long? I'm Teacher Seo-a, here to handle today's counseling. Hello hello to all my virtual streamer friends too~"

The content began.