Rena-ttang
Rena-ttang's reply came late in the afternoon.
I happened to be mid-stream, so I told my viewers I was grabbing some water and checked the message.
Nothing special.
Along with a positive response, she'd left her Discord ID. I sent a friend request and headed back to the broadcast.
These little gremlins.
The second I stepped away, they'd been gossiping and scheming behind my back. Denying it only made them double down harder — classic viewer behavior. I answered in a deadpan voice.
"Guys, something big? No weird misunderstandings, please. I was just late 'cause I was on the phone with my boyfriend."
"Of course, my boyfriend is all of you viewers. Heart heart~"
"Yes yes, then let's keep it a secret relationship. We've got five hundred viewers right now — perfect. A secret only five hundred people know."
The viewers cackled at my greasy delivery, eating it up. Ever since I'd casually shown off my figure on a mobile stream, the thirsty chat messages had quietly been on the rise.
Hmm! Was I imagining it?
Still, the ones who got way too invested were a bit much even for me. I needed to dial the intensity back for a while. The last thing I wanted was some awkward viewer getting so deep into gachi-koi — pseudo-romance — streams that they'd max out their credit card donating Candy.
"Alright, that's it for today. Seeya, seeya~"
I wrapped up the stream with practiced ease and stood up from my chair. The backlash from sitting in the same position for so long hit me immediately. I kneaded my stiff lower back and the nape of my neck, then flopped straight onto the bed.
I'm exhausted. Totally wiped. And I still need to start extending my stream times soon.
Five-to-six-hour streams already felt like something I'd adapted to. In that case, I should try pushing for seven hours next. On Pangea TV, where ten-hour-plus streams were the norm, viewers were already complaining that mine were too short. At least I was growing steadily without any long hiatuses — that was the only thing saving me.
"Hmm. What kind of person is she, though?"
It was too late today, so we'd agreed to talk on Discord tomorrow. Honestly, I was curious. Voice actress, celebrity, community superstar, admin of one of Rena World's top servers. Everything I knew about Rena-ttang was fragmentary — most of it filtered through the communities. I'd never even watched her streams myself.
If you only go by community posts, she's the type who looks down on small streamers, has a rotten personality and mental fortitude, is greedy for money, shameless, a community addict, and an absolute menace at power struggles.
I'd been a community addict myself, so I didn't take all of it at face value. Honestly, community posts — especially the ones that hit the galleries — you had to assume about fifty percent was fabricated. But Rena-ttang was so legendary that even believing just half of it was enough to make your hands and feet shake.
Would I really be able to sweet-talk Rena-ttang tomorrow without incident? I was timing it for when she was at her most mentally fragile, the optimal window —
But it still won't be easy. Is this what it feels like hunting a wounded dragon?
It would definitely be hard, but for the sake of the future, I had to pull it off. With that firm resolve, I fell asleep.
"You really think so?"
"Yes. Honestly, everyone has different strengths, right? I saw you running that Minecraft server on Rabbit TV — I genuinely had a great time watching."
I had absolutely not watched it. Back then I'd been a complete streaming newbie, and just keeping up with Lucy's broadcasts had been more than enough. But hey… it didn't cost anything. What was the harm in greasing the wheels a little?
Using the Discord call we'd connected first thing in the morning, I actively worked to rebuild Rena-ttang's self-esteem. The job turned out easier than expected. How many years had I spent grinding as a field sales rep at that shitty little company before the regression? Soothing a pampered celebrity's complaints was child's play.
First: trash-talk the people she hated right alongside her.
"Those company people are straight-up scammers, aren't they? Sure, maybe it's not illegal on paper, but they deliberately deceived someone. That's fraud."
"…I've been back on depression meds because of that whole thing."
"Hang in there. Ignore trash like that and succeed so hard they have to watch."
Second: fill up her self-esteem.
"Anyway, I've already failed twice. Nothing I do is going to work anymore."
"Failed? That's a lot to still have left for something you'd call a failure. You know who's currently number one in Virtual favorites, right?"
"…Well, I am number one."
"Plus you're an active celebrity. Looking at all of Pangea TV, nobody else has a résumé like that. And it wasn't a skill issue — you got played by scammers."
I was about to snatch that Virtual favorites number-one spot myself, and the scam had partly been her own lack of judgment — but for now, I just mindlessly hyped her up. The voice on the other end gradually climbed into a higher register.
"Really? Our Seo-a thinks so?"
Heh. We'd only been talking for five minutes and I'd already become our Seo-a.
Conversing like this made one thing crystal clear: Rena-ttang was a genuine sucker. Celebrities and military types who only ever focused on their main craft and never learned how the world worked — those were exactly the people who got scammed the easiest. No wonder the company had stabbed her in the back.
A little flattery, and she spilled everything — not just the company mess, but every incident with the Rena Universe crew members too. Now this was a community superstar. A few of the secret stories I'd heard today, dropped on FM Community, would keep the place burning for three or four days straight. She really lived up to the Rena-ttang who'd set the communities ablaze with every kind of scandal before the regression.
"Will it really work out?"
"I think it absolutely will. This server is going to be huge! If the results are bad, I'll personally mine every single diamond on the server myself. For real."
"Pfft! Hey, hey. You'd be mining those alone for the rest of your life."
The longer we talked, the more naturally we slipped into casual speech. And I realized something.
Rena-ttang was in serious trouble. In all my life, I never expected to meet a sucker quite like this. To get blindsided that hard and still have zero caution left… I was genuinely worried someone else would scam her again.
I'm so worried I should fleece her first. How am I supposed to resist a walking golden goblin? If I don't, someone else will snatch her up.
Pouring on every sweet word I had, I managed to talk Rena-ttang into it. Honestly, it barely took any effort. Her passive skill was flutter-ears — she was ridiculously easy to sway. That was why, before the regression, the moment viewers swarmed in opposition she'd flipped the whole thing into a streamer server on the spot.
I didn't stop there. I casually tested the waters.
"I'd like the whole V-Live crew to join, myself included — would that be possible?"
"Of course it is. But Seo-a, the way you're talking is making me sad. That kind of language puts distance between us. Be comfortable. Relax."
"Ahaha."
In that warm, friendly atmosphere, I gave her side a little nudge.
"Then would it be okay if I recommended a few people? They're really good at streaming."
"Huh? Who?"
"There's Oh-ha — a male streamer who mainly plays PUBG. Super competent, handles things on his own, and very Virtual-friendly."
"Ah! The one who did content with Dal-da?"
"Yes. And along with him, Oh Yeong-jun, who mostly plays a lot of LoL — I was hoping to recommend those two. Would that be alright?"
"…"
I asked Rena-ttang's intentions with extreme politeness. She'd told me to speak casually earlier, but accepting participants was still the server admin's authority. From what I remembered before the regression, her hunger for power was the real deal — I had to be careful.
"Hmm. Alright, noted. But at the start, I want it to be Virtual streamers only. Taking face-cam streamers from the very beginning feels a bit off."
Her wounded pride clearly hadn't fully recovered. She'd already been wrecked on the Virtual side of things — dealing with face-cam streamers, who were still considered the main act in internet broadcasting, might simply feel like too much pressure.
Still, it wasn't a rejection, so I smiled and let it pass.
Before the regression, the face-cam streamers came in a bit later too. Same flow in the end.
I'd brought up Oh-ha and Oh Yeong-jun to put them in my debt. Both of them would grow massively after passing through Rena World. Call it value investing.
The atmosphere was good enough that a little greed crept in. The name that floated into my head at that moment was Blueby.
If I could use this opportunity to keep Blueby out of Rena World entirely…?
Carefully — the opposite of before — I asked whether a negative recommendation might be possible.
"Seo-a. Look. Everything's fine, but… let's not cross that line, okay?"
"…"
A voice gone ice-cold. In that instant, my pre-regression memories surfaced.
Rena-ttang was the incarnation of power hunger.