A Declaration Toward the Future
The moment I posted that short notice, every ounce of strength drained from my body and I sank into the chair.
Ha! Somehow, I'd made it through in one piece.
I pressed the back of a faintly trembling hand to my forehead and felt my bangs plastered wet against my skin.
The full tracker's stamina drain really is no joke.
And it wasn't just the physical toll. I'd spent the entire time with my heart in my throat, bracing for whatever might go wrong — the mental pressure had been brutal. Stress layered on top of a completely depleted will. Now that I could finally believe it was all over, the tension snapped, the strength fled my muscles, and I ended up like this.
Still… the reaction is insane.
It wasn't just the comments under the notice. FM Community and Pan-beo-gal were flooding with posts about me at a terrifying pace. I'd roughly expected it, but that didn't dull the pleasure one bit. The corners of my mouth climbed on their own.
Truth be told, a solid chunk of this feverish response came from the fact that I hadn't turned on an afterglow stream after the concert.
Of course, that was calculated too.
On the streaming scene, the usual play after a major event like a concert was to hop on for a short afterglow broadcast — banter with the fans, share behind-the-scenes stories, rewatch the highlight moments together. I deliberately, strategically skipped it. An ordinary streamer would've coasted into that afterglow on pure inertia. But I had the "experience" from before my regression. I knew exactly how much this kind of move drove the audience crazy.
It was the same when Lucy won her first singing competition. The second she took first place, the casual viewers poured in like a waterfall — and she panicked and just ended the stream.
That had been agony. As a fan of Lucy, who'd always been the wallflower, watching her win a major singing contest for the first time had my dopamine spiked to near-lethal levels. And then — wait, what? Spooked by the zombie horde of casuals flooding in, Lucy just ran. I was left with zero release, stuck in a state of pure craving, fretting and fidgeting until she went live the next day. All I could do in the meantime was roam the communities like a hyena scavenging a carcass, hunting down reaction clips of other streamers watching Lucy sing.
Right. I can't let them work this off in a single day. I need to keep the buzz alive until at least tomorrow.
The second the concert ended, I checked. Sure enough, Yoon Seo-a had already uploaded a notice of her own — announcing a mini concert at 7 PM on Saturday. Sorry, but there's no such thing as going easy in a competition. I'd be going live around 6 PM tomorrow myself. Once I started rolling through the concert afterglow content, we'd push a little past seven. And that would inevitably put a dent in Yoon Seo-a's concert.
What? Yoon Seo-a hasn't done anything wrong, so isn't this too cruel?
Unfortunately, that's just how the world works. To climb higher, you eventually have to step on someone. Even so, I couldn't help the tight, heavy feeling that settled in one corner of my chest.
Hoo. First things first — a shower.
I rinsed the dried, sticky sweat from my skin with cold water, and by the time I stepped out, my condition had recovered somewhat. Then the vicious hunger hit. I'd been so locked into the concert that I hadn't noticed, but between the rehearsals I hadn't eaten a proper meal since morning. I ransacked the fridge, shoveling down whatever I could grab, and sat back down at the computer.
The Discord message list was blinking. I checked who it was — the guests from today's concert, led by Miho and Lucy. Most of the messages were expressions of gratitude, though a few were blatantly angling to get closer to me. I replied to them appropriately, then invited only Miho and Lucy into a private chat room.
It was even more shameless than the messages the other guests had sent earlier, but somehow it wasn't annoying. Part of it was that Miho felt familiar as a former member of V-mellodi alongside Lucy from before the regression — and I genuinely liked this proactive side of her, free from Blueby's control.
A declaration of a virtual crew that would paint a brilliant future. And it began in one small corner of a Discord chat room.
That day's concert had been a massive shock — not just to the viewers, but to the streamers watching as well. Ssa-yo, in particular, took the heaviest damage. Deep down, clinging to the pride of a ten-year veteran, he'd been unconsciously talking Seo-a down — a streamer barely two months in. Watching a concert like that, cognitive dissonance was inevitable.
No way. Was I really wrong? No — the concert was great, but that has nothing to do with reading the direction of the future.
Even thinking about it rationally, that was clearly correct. And yet an unease settled in his gut. Why? His pride still insisted he forge ahead on the path he'd carved himself — but the instinct that had kept him alive on the streaming scene for so long was whispering that he needed to keep his eyes on Seo-a.
"Ugh… dizzy."
Under that much stress, a sudden throb of headache hit and his vision swam. It was all from the forced march that had stretched on for nearly a month now.
I know. I know exactly what kind of trash the communities are saying about me.
Ssa-yo let out a deep sigh, his face bitter. This hadn't been the original plan. He'd just wanted to put together a small virtual crew, trade content favors, and stake an early claim on the virtual scene that was about to bloom on Pangea TV. But the fire from the 720p incident had spread farther than expected, and with Pangea TV's aggressive push behind it, the whole thing had ballooned out of control. He'd had to redraw the entire picture in a single week, and the lack of time had left the Wooga-dol audition's management a complete mess.
If I'd just had one more month of breathing room…
Then he could have run the Wooga-dol audition more stably. He could have built proper storylines for the contestants he already had marked as passers, and the fandoms of the eliminated wouldn't be this coldly cynical.
And I'm already pouring my own money into this.
Pangea TV was backing him, sure — but as the planned crew's scale had grown far beyond the original vision, the capital required had ballooned right along with it. He'd been so buried in the Wooga-dol audition that he hadn't even run ad streams lately, and now he was catching flak on top of it.
Anyway, now that it's come to this, round three is a guaranteed pass. Looks like we're going all the way to the final stage.
Thinking back on today's concert, another sigh slipped out. At the very least, the Wooga-dol audition's final stage needed to hit the quality level of the concert he'd just watched. The steadily growing list of things that would cost money was not a welcome thought.
Now that I've come this far… I have to succeed. No matter what.
Don't go soft. Ssa-yo clenched his teeth. For all his flaws, he was the pillar of a household — a father with a son. And when he thought back on ten years of experience on the streaming scene, he'd overcome difficulties of this caliber more than once. He closed his eyes and slowly repeated to himself that he could do this.
"Hoo! Alright."
With the mental reset complete, he looked back at the monitor. It was a little strange that Seo-a had ended things without an afterglow stream after the concert, but that was a card already out of his hands. Don't pay it too much attention. Yeah — that was what he'd been telling himself.
"…?"
Discord blinked with a new message. Nothing unusual about that. Ever since the Wooga-dol audition started and he'd friended the contestants, dozens of messages came in every day. The problem this time was who the message was from.
"At this timing… all of a sudden?"
The very person who'd been occupying his thoughts just moments ago. Confirming Seo-a's username, Ssa-yo's eyes began to shake uncontrollably.