Being Called a Monster Rookie Feels Pretty Good
It had been roughly two months since I'd dropped into the twenty-second century. Exactly one month since I'd started streaming as Nia.
Man, time really does slip by the second you stop watching it.
I'd even gotten to the point where looking in the mirror no longer made me jump out of my skin. How moving.
Anyway, if I had to sum up the past month in a single line… my personal stream was sailing along just fine.
I'd opened with a fairly ordinary debut broadcast, then used a Q&A stream to weed out the low-quality and malicious viewers. From the third stream onward, I'd finally locked in a proper main content pillar.
That pillar was review streams — trying out culture and objects that had existed before the Great War, then leaving my impressions.
The demand was way bigger than I expected. Most people who specialized in data salvage sold their finds at premium prices to the rich, so an internet streamer showing up with brand-new information nobody had ever seen or heard of was practically unheard of until now.
Twenty-first-century culture and objects made money. That much seemed to be an undeniable fact among professional salvagers.
The wealthy of the twenty-second century were often obsessed with information only they could possess.
In practice, whenever I finished a stream and opened my inbox, I'd find the occasional mail from some rich person wanting to buy the information privately — or from someone in the salvage industry telling me not to release data to the public. Something about the market value dropping.
But none of that had anything to do with me. Outside money meant absolutely nothing to me.
Credits, the currency commonly used out there, didn't convert into CP, and I wasn't planning on hiring anyone anytime soon.
If anything, dumping everything on stream as fast as possible was the perfect way to yank attention my way — so taking this stance was practically inevitable.
But… why won't anyone believe I actually went into the Virtual World myself and brought this stuff back…
If there was one tiny side effect, it was this: the fact that salvage work was extremely dangerous was basically common knowledge. So nobody believed I'd personally hauled in every piece of data I showed on stream.
Some corners of the community had even spun up a conspiracy theory that I was streaming to promote some unnamed illegal salvage outfit. Which I absolutely was not.
Naturally, I never responded to that nonsense.
Better to play dumb and ignore it than slip up with some weird remark and hand them ammunition. That was the call I'd made.
I was never the sharpest tool in the shed, after all. I preferred to leave that kind of thinking to the viewers.
I'd picked up a decent number of fans lately, too — so they'd handle it somehow, right? Protect Nia!
"Tada~ Everyone, do you know what this is?"
Anyway, today marked exactly one month since I'd started streaming.
On a day like this, I'd prepared so the broadcast wouldn't feel ordinary — so it could be something a little special.
Sure, it was only a month, but letting it pass without doing anything would have felt a little sad, wouldn't it?
And part of that preparation was the box I'd set in front of the camera.
"As you all know from the pattern so far, this is obviously no ordinary box. Inside is the most astonishing object I've shown you yet!"
Calling it big and incredible got a great reaction from the viewers. The chat heated up almost immediately.
Yeah. Fair enough. Last stream, I'd salvaged Mad Max — a globally massive film — and held a watch party with everyone.
The fallout had gone beyond just viewers having a good time; it had even kicked up a small stir that landed in internet news.
So when I casually claimed something even more incredible than that, of course the regulars would get their hopes up.
"Heh heh heh…. Excited? Super excited?"
I was holding the box and shaking it this way and that like I was testing the waters, and a chat message slid up calling me annoying for it.
Yeah, fair enough. Dangle water in front of someone dying of thirst and of course that feeling bubbles up.
If anything, realizing I'd steered someone else's emotions with my own behavior left me feeling oddly proud. Was this that sadomasochism thing people talked about…?
But a little mischievous spark flickered to life in my chest. I kind of wanted to mess with whoever had said that.
So I drooped my eyes, put on a dejected act, made a show of lowering the box under the desk, and said in a pitiful voice:
"Annoying…? Then maybe I just won't open it?"
"Khuhuhu, joke, joke. I was about to open it anyway. Don't get too mad, everyone. Alright, alright — what I brought today is…"
The joke hit way harder than expected.
The viewers immediately united and started blazing with the energy of people ready to hang the person I'd singled out!
So I hurriedly soothed the enraged chat and had no choice but to pull out the box's contents and change the subject right away.
Swoosh.
I opened the box, took out what was inside, and held it up so the camera could catch it properly.
"This!"
The chat split cleanly into three types.
People who recognized the object and typed something close to a cheer.
People who had no idea what it was but still threw out exclamations and rode the vibe.
And people who genuinely didn't know, couldn't catch the mood, and just posted questions.
My, my. Not recognizing it from this alone? Looks like a proper explanation was in order.
"For those who don't know — briefly — this is what's called a physical edition, or a physical package. And what's inside is…"
I paused once, gathering the viewers' anticipation and curiosity just a little higher, and when I judged the timing was right—
"A game!"
I could feel the anticipation and thrills of the people who'd figured out today's content was a game stream.
Well, the chat was running about twice as fast as usual, so even if I didn't want to know, I couldn't help it. The CP was sweet, so sweet.
But that wasn't everything I wanted to say.
Call it shock therapy. Hitting people with an unexpected blow right when their guard was down and leaving their heads ringing was a solid strategy all on its own.
"Oh, and for reference — once today's stream ends, I'll be distributing the game we play through my Olive channel. So please look forward to it."
The moment those words left my mouth, the chat absolutely exploded.
To people for whom even the concept of a game stream was unfamiliar, free game distribution was always going to get that kind of reaction.
If the viewers were happy, I was happy. But in exchange, they had to promote the hell out of it, okay? Get a whole lot of people to show up.
That was all I asked of them — nothing more.
The stream had to grow if I was going to reach my goal of bringing Nia's broadcasts back to life any faster.
Fifty thousand subscribers in one month. Average viewership around six thousand. On days when no major corporations were on Olive, she casually poked her head into the top ranks — a genuine monster rookie.
Nia's Olive channel was still growing strong today.
How long that growth would last, though… remained an open question.
District 21.
In the most literal sense, it was simply the twenty-first zone humanity had built — and it was also home to a great many salvagers.
The reason was simple. It was the district physically closest to the Virtual World, where the knowledge and information of twenty-first-century humanity was stored.
The farther you got physically, the more lag you inevitably picked up.
To shave off that split-second of delay that could mean life or death, most professional salvagers preferred to connect to the Virtual World from District 21.
"Whoa…. This is a game from a hundred years ago? It looks way more fun than the stuff nowadays."
And in the penthouse of a certain skyscraper in that District 21, a girl lay on a bed staring at something.
What she was looking at was a PDA — a personal digital assistant about the size of two palms pressed side by side.
On its screen, a woman who looked like a pure-white fairy was playing a game.
"Tina. What are you doing? Are you ready yet?"
"Ah, just a second! Let me finish this!"
"What are you watching…. Oh, that Nia person again?"
"This time it's a live stream! The timing was perfect!"
Tina, claiming she'd gotten lucky, told the woman who'd called her to wait just a moment and locked her eyes back on the screen.
Perhaps the sight of the girl drew a sigh out of her. The woman pressed her forehead for a moment, told her to come out as soon as possible, and walked back toward the living room.
But whether the woman did or didn't, Tina was completely absorbed in watching Nia sparkle beautifully on the screen.
This person…. What on earth is she?
Tina's eyes glittered like starlight. And she couldn't help but feel a powerful curiosity toward the one called Nia.
Along with the thought that maybe… they might get close before long.