Negotiation
The so-called Deer Incident.
It earned the name because Kyurings — a complete amateur — had used one of the publicly available deer avatars when filming her Wooga-dol audition application video.
She was the decisive figure who detonated a massive bomb right from the launch of Freeca, the crew that would form after the Wooga-dol audition ended.
Even without her, a substantial share of the Wooga-dol pie had already drifted toward the popular picks eliminated by Ssa-yo's clumsy management. Just when everyone was finally trying to band together and push forward as one—
The first disaster struck.
Kyurings's age was revealed to be twenty-nine, not twenty-three.
Strictly speaking, Kyurings had never claimed to be twenty-three herself. But there had been a few moments where her behavior invited the misunderstanding — calling participants whose ages had already been disclosed "unnie," and the like. Viewers had basically slotted her into the youngest line. In reality, she was Freeca's eldest sister, a full year older even than Na Hae-ri, the one selected as the leader type.
At the time, people were already a little raw over the "age" issue among the Wooga-dol finalists. Opinions had been circulating.
That Ssa-yo had deliberately avoided picking the older popular candidates. Younger kids were more obedient, easier to control with the authority of an elder — wasn't that the feeling?
In fact, the four most popular picks during the Wooga-dol audition — Park Na-na, Baiyo, Elsa, and Yun Seo-a — had all been older.
Those defending Ssa-yo insisted it was only natural. Look at real idols. Once you pass your mid-twenties, people start calling you washed up. So putting someone nearly thirty into an idol crew was unreasonable.
It was a claim that had been gaining decent traction — until the moment Kyurings's age dropped, and the entire logic shattered on impact.
Criticism of Ssa-yo climbed another notch.
But the real problem was that all of this was merely the prologue.
The TimeBillGates of the toxic gallery. They hit a proper home run.
Digging into Kyurings in earnest, they finally uncovered her alt account — and then spotted someone who had been consistently duo-queueing with it. And hilariously, that duo account shared the exact same ID and nickname as someone who had been continuously promoting Kyurings's streams on the FM Community's Pangea TV board.
That wasn't all. Evidence kept pouring out. Googling the ID turned up a phone number used for in-game cash purchases and item trading, which led to a KakaoTalk connection, and finally even photos of the man suspected to be Kyurings's boyfriend were made public.
From Freeca and the fans' perspective, a nuclear bomb had just landed.
If I'd been a Freeca fan, how would I have felt? Just imagining it makes me dizzy.
I only learned about the incident later, after Lucy transferred, when I was browsing old popular posts on FM Community to study the Pangea TV virtual scene. At the time, it wasn't just the scandal itself — the response was a problem too, and that made the fire spread even further.
Ssa-yo went live for an explanation broadcast, and upon verification, it was confirmed: Kyurings did have a boyfriend.
An idol in a relationship? This wasn't simply a matter of fans' feelings. From the start, the Wooga-dol audition had carried a no-dating clause. There were a lot of things that didn't add up.
But the position Ssa-yo revealed during that explanation broadcast was even more shocking. He said he'd held a meeting with the Freeca members, himself included, and they'd decided to stick with Kyurings.
To be fair, I could understand Ssa-yo's position to some degree. Things had already progressed significantly on a five-member basis, so kicking Kyurings out now would mean scrapping everything and starting over. YouTube videos already produced and uploaded — especially anything related to the Wooga-dol audition — would all have to go. The new avatars already in production? Massive sunk costs.
But the public sentiment that had already caught fire was leaning toward emotion over reason. Notes, emails, and comment harassment poured down on Ssa-yo and Kyurings. The communities flooded with raw, vicious posts. Should fans have to cheer for an idol who's making out with her boyfriend?
In the end, unable to withstand the public opinion, Kyurings posted a voluntary withdrawal notice, and the incident was settled for the time being.
But the aftershocks lasted a long while. Additional dropouts peeled away from an already uneasy fandom, and suspicious glances were constantly cast toward the other members. Mockery from the fandoms of the Wooga-dol rejects came free of charge.
I'd thought Freeca would overwhelmingly dominate the Pangea TV virtual scene. Instead, they'd hit a massive reef right from the start.
"So? What do you think of the story I've painted? I think it's something that could easily happen."
"……."
I'd crafted a script of appropriate intensity, drawing as much as possible on my pre-regression experience so that Ssa-yo could fully grasp how serious the situation was. I'd secured the evidence in advance, too. Before the regression, the TimeBillGates of the toxic gallery had been heading into it from scratch, so it took them a long time — but I already knew the map to the answer, so it was easy.
"If you tell me who that person is first……."
"Come on! You're looking at me way too naively. What if you change your mind after I tell you? We write up a proper contract, yeah? Pinky swear and lock it in tight — then I'll open up clean."
Ssa-yo was by no means a simple man. A streamer who'd spent ten years grinding in the broadcasting industry couldn't possibly fail to calculate how dangerous a bomb an idol crew's dating scandal was.
Allowing Lucy and me to leave, taking some heat through active defense, and being done with it — versus watching a crew built with enormous effort collapse from the very start. They weren't even comparable. And especially not in a situation with highly credible evidence like this.
"……Let's make a deal. Hah! This is insane, seriously."
"A wise choice, Summoner. Yu Seona has been recruiting for a virtual crew recently too — it'd be troublesome if problems cropped up for no reason."
"Don't tell me you're planning to leave and apply over there?"
Ssa-yo asked back, startled.
Was it two days ago? Yu Seona, a mid-tier female streamer with a standing on Pangea TV similar to Ssa-yo's, had announced plans for a virtual crew. With the virtual boom underway, she seemed to have made a similar judgment to his. Just dip a toe into the virtual scene once……
For Ssa-yo, already struggling under no small amount of stress, a new competitor's appearance was something he had no choice but to watch carefully. And if he thought an ace like me might leave and switch sides — of course he'd be startled.
"I won't apply there. I've got something in mind myself. If you're really worried, should we put that in the contract too?"
"Yeah. Don't leave it out. Write it down."
He seemed thoroughly terrified of me joining that side. Still, thanks to bringing up the suddenly appeared competitor Yu Seona, things went a bit more smoothly. I was able to put more psychological pressure on Ssa-yo.
After that, we seriously discussed and worked out a scenario for a clean exit. Ssa-yo would do most of the tanking, but ideally we'd minimize the damage itself if possible.
"We'll settle our positions as quickly as possible and make the announcement. Once the decision to leave is finalized, I'll tell you right away who the bomb is."
"I feel like I'm being dragged around from start to finish, but it can't be helped. There's something I'm really curious about, though."
"What is it?"
"This isn't your first time streaming, is it? You've clearly got experience. You must've been reincarnated."
"Come on! I said if I was lying I'd become a guy. You're so suspicious."
Even after finishing the negotiation with Ssa-yo, there was no time to rest. Thinking about the aftermath of leaving the Wooga-dol audition, there was a lot to prepare for.
A crew…… Right, I need to make a crew. But just making a crew alone would have way too little buzz.
Right now the Wooga-dol audition was a massive hit, and Yu Seona — a mid-tier streamer comparable to Ssa-yo — had also declared she was making a virtual crew. In this situation, putting together an ordinary crew would be like a shrimp getting its back broken in a fight between whales. In a crisis, extraordinary measures were needed.
I've got a plan for now, so I'll watch the situation a bit more…… Honestly, the urgent problem right now is something else.
I might have looked like I was leisurely negotiating with Ssa-yo, but the crisis was right in front of me too. Namely, the threat of a completely empty bank account.
The concert's success was definitely good. But as expected, the cost-benefit is the problem.
There's a reason people call concerts the ultimate content a virtual streamer can put on. Effort, time, cost…… The investment is incomparable to other content. Just for me alone, the costs that went into this concert were at least seven million won. And that was a relatively cheap figure thanks to Bebe-ttang's help and connections. If the workers hadn't been hooked by the title of Pangea TV's first virtual concert, hiring them wouldn't have been possible even at that price.
So there's only one way, huh?
I couldn't touch the seed money for stocks. If I just waited a little, a big opportunity would come. So there was only one way to fill the now-impoverished account.
Once I leave the Wooga-dol audition, the restrictions on me will be lifted too.
Somehow, I needed to make money.
Now it was Dr. Collection's turn to shine again.