The First Qualification

"The third audition is a broadcast ability evaluation. Wooga-dol may be idols, but they're streamers at the same time. That means broadcast ability is just as important. Stream freely for one full week. My fellow judges and I will sneak around watching your streams and evaluate you. Oh — and don't worry about us missing anything. We'll make absolutely sure to catch every VOD of the streams we couldn't watch live."

At last, the third mission of the Wooga-dol audition had been revealed.

A week to verify the broadcast ability of the fifteen remaining contestants.

Truth be told, before my regression the third audition round had been little more than a throwaway episode. After ruthlessly cutting more than half the roster in round two, Ssa-yo had, out of nowhere, passed every single remaining contestant in round three.

I couldn't know what the real reason had been, but my best guess went something like this:

After round two produced so many eliminations that the buzz started to die down, Ssa-yo must have thought, Oh crap. Cutting even more people in round three — especially if popular picks were among them — risked deflating the entire project before it ever reached the final stage. That anxiety was probably what drove his decision: keep the hype alive all the way to the end.

Will he follow the same path this time?

There was no way to know. Too many variables had already shifted.

Still, there was a way to shrink the uncertainty.

Overwhelming broadcast ability. Content so airtight that neither the viewers nor Ssa-yo himself can find a single thing to nitpick during the third mission window!

Even if he wanted to eliminate me, he wouldn't be able to invent an excuse. He'd have no choice but to hit the pass button.

That was the future I was drawing.

If I leave, it'll be because I decided to. Getting cut would just look pathetic.

I sat down at my computer, opened Notepad, and started revising the original plans. When the situation changes, you adapt. And for someone who already knew the future, I had no shortage of weapons to work with.

If I suddenly drop out of the audition, I could become a target for the Wooga-dol fandom. The atmosphere's already vicious enough as it is.

Just as the eliminated contestants' fans were tearing into Ssa-yo, the Wooga-dol fandom was pushing back just as hard to control the narrative. In a climate like that, anyone who stuck their neck out was guaranteed to get stoned. The only way to avoid it was to secure the cooperation of someone who could move the Wooga-dol fandom itself.

That someone was Ssa-yo.

But would Ssa-yo willingly cooperate with me? Not a chance. I was already on his bad side after the debate stream.

Even so, I decided to push the plan through as planned.

How to get Ssa-yo's cooperation? For most people it would be hard. For me, it was almost trivially simple.

So I set that matter aside for later and started with the recruiting. The content that would crown my third-mission run needed to be spectacular — grand, dazzling, unforgettable.

And this will also win over the virtual streamers who already left Wooga-dol. I have to make it succeed, no matter what.

There wasn't just one or two people I needed to contact, so I was drowning in work. On top of that, I'd just gotten word that the VRChat map was finished. From here on out I had to go through every feature myself, confirm everything worked properly, and then dive into the video production.

Ugh. Looking at the labor costs for everyone I'm bringing in this time, I'm going to have to squeeze every last Candy out of this week's streams.

Still, once this stretch was over, I wouldn't have to worry about investment for a while. That was something. For the next five days, starting today, I'd treat myself as already dead and just grind.

Time slipped by in the blink of an eye.

"I'm confused. So confused."

Today, as always, the community was full of people chatting away like they had all the free time in the world. I pressed my fingertips into the deep dark circles under my eyes, trying to massage the exhaustion away.

Hoo. How many days had it been now?

I was hoarding every minute and every second to prepare tomorrow's secret weapon. I was so buried that I couldn't even think about going live.

Controlling people is genuinely not easy.

Lucy and Miho had been relatively easy to persuade and followed directions well. The rest of them? Absolute chaos. Originally we'd scheduled for the morning, then someone would suddenly have something come up and ask to push it back a few hours. Or we'd need to work together with full-body trackers, and they'd sheepishly apologize for forgetting to charge their gear.

I wrote every single one of those screw-ups into my mental Death Note. Later, when it came time to hand out content collabs or anything else, those people were getting nothing.

Still, through sheer force of will, I'd somehow managed to keep the schedule on track.

Good thing I didn't run late. My quality and scale will be way better, but the title of "first" only goes to one person.

I'd been worried Yoon Seo-a might move her date up, but with no word so far, it seemed she was planning to drop her content on Saturday — same as before my regression.

I felt a little bad, but she could yield this one to me. Yoon Seo-a was going back to Rabbit TV after the audition anyway, so the "first" title wouldn't mean much for her.

"Hmm?"

A Discord message lit up. It was from Miho.

Lately she'd been messaging me a lot more often. Working on something together was the biggest reason, of course — but there was more to it than that.

Well… probably because I still haven't given her a clear answer.

Despite Miho's aggressive proposal, I still hadn't accepted. In my heart, though, the decision was already made. She had real ability, a sharp mind, and through 2025 — the year I'd regressed from — she'd been a streamer with no major incidents. Granted, that might have been because of Blueby's iron-fisted management at the time.

Still, as far as assets go, she's a solid pick.

More than anything, she'd passed my last test. There was a real chance of drawing Ssa-yo's wrath, but the moment I gave her a look, she'd handled things on her own and planted herself firmly in the opposition camp. That was the moment a thin thread of trust had formed between us.

But everything has its timing. Don't get impatient — wait. It's not the moment to announce anything yet.

Instead of the announcement that would soothe Miho's heart, I prepared a bomb that would shock everyone.

I carefully began drafting the notice. And then its true form was revealed.

The community detonated on the spot.