Better to Show Once Than Explain a Hundred Times
“…Just a little side note. This round lightbulb was first invented in the nineteenth century, and through all sorts of educational videos and textbooks, people commonly came to believe that a man named Edison invented it. But contrary to that story, the truth is….”
The outdoor stream I’d started with Noise was going far more smoothly than I’d expected when the equipment first started acting up.
Maybe leading with light, silly chatter instead of diving straight into heavy material had been the right call — it might have kept the audience from burning out.
Either way, the result was the same: the vast majority of viewers were focused on talking with me, without much complaint.
Anyway, the important part was this: the viewers were carefully listening to everything I said and reacting in kind.
They might not have realized it, but from a streamer’s perspective, people’s reactions were surprisingly transparent. If something was genuinely wrong, you could usually tell pretty fast.
And since I wasn’t the type to just do my own thing on stream — I considered myself someone who read the room — that made it even clearer.
…The fact that I’m thinking about this mid-stream probably means I’ve adapted more than I thought over this past month.
People really were creatures of adaptation, weren’t they? It felt strange to realize I could now calmly observe the situation even while broadcasting.
Then again, it was that very adaptability that had let humanity burst out of Africa and spread across the entire world. Calling it “just adaptability” was selling it short.
I neatly sorted the thoughts and feelings that had drifted up, then glanced at the chat — and noticed that the requests from earlier, asking me to show the surroundings, were steadily dwindling.
Well, that was fair enough. Everywhere you looked, it was just more piles of scrap metal. Not exactly a varied view.
Truth be told, the backdrop of the Abyss behind me wasn’t much of a scenic vista.
I didn’t call it a junkyard from the start for nothing.
Twisted scrap metal piled into mountains, so warped you could barely make out the original shapes — the chaotic sight alone was enough to tire the eyes. Put bluntly… there just wasn’t much to look at.
It wasn’t beautiful, and it didn’t showcase any impressive technology either. If you had to pick out something distinctive, it was that beyond the circle of light the bulb cast, the darkness was so deep it almost felt like outer space.
So it wasn’t strange at all that comments of that flavor were popping up in chat.
They’d expected something fun, and all they got was a dark junkyard! From the viewers’ perspective — people who’d spent some of their limited time and emotional energy — it was enough to make anyone frustrated.
But I wasn’t worried. Contrary to what they thought, what littered this place wasn’t just simple trash.
“Trash, huh…. Yeah. If you want to call it trash, you can. About ninety percent of what’s lying around here is junk that doesn’t work properly anymore.”
“But flip that around, and it means about ten percent of it is surprisingly useful. For example… like this!”
I lightly ignored the people still yammering away in chat without getting bored and plucked something eye-catching from a gap in the mountain of scrap.
The motion was smooth and natural, like pulling a piece from a carefully stacked Jenga tower — but the result was anything but natural.
Apparently I’d yanked out a load-bearing piece. The scrap pile, stacked higher than I was tall, swayed left and right, then started to collapse completely!
Of course, it wasn’t nearly as dangerous as the viewers feared. I hadn’t toppled some multi-meter colossus of scrap — it was just a roughly two-meter junk pile. Nothing that was going to sweep me away.
Still, this is a stream, and…
Right beside me was Noise — soft, clever, capable, and otherwise completely harmless. That meant I needed a method other than my usual casual hop backward.
This wasn’t a documentary. It was a stream meant to entertain the people watching. Entertainment was mandatory.
Ah, I should’ve brought the Scissors Blade. Nothing’s flashier than that!
If I’d brought the Scissors Blade — the one that burned EP for absolute destructive power — I could have whipped the viewers into a frenzy. From a streaming-angle perspective, it was a real shame.
But you couldn’t exactly show up to a chat with viewers carrying something that looked like a murder weapon at a glance. On top of that, it was a mysterious object whose principles even I still didn’t fully understand, so explaining it would have been a pain.
So I guess I’ve got no choice. It’s still incomplete, but…!
I folded Nia’s slender, pretty fingers — so delicate they looked painted — into a clean fist. Then I tracked every scrap of falling data debris headed for me and Noise, and drew my arm all the way back.
The Scissors Blade was a complete mystery — I still had no idea what it really was. But I couldn’t stay ignorant of its nature forever.
So whenever I had free time, I’d researched it by every method I could think of… and eventually arrived at one realization.
Some of the functions used by the Scissors Blade… I think I can reproduce them with my own body.
So far, I’d identified three special properties of the Scissors Blade.
First: no matter what force you applied, it wouldn’t break. Second: no matter how long you left it outside, it wouldn’t corrode. Third: by consuming EP, it could draw out an equivalent amount of destructive power.
What I needed here were the first and third — unbreakable under any impact, and capable of destroying everything in its path.
With the Scissors Blade, you had to synchronize with the interior, resonate with the function, then deploy that power into the blade…. But if it’s my own body, that whole process isn’t necessary!
I clenched hard.
A pure-white, dainty fist — not yet the size of a grown woman’s — found its path. And with the sensation of force biting deep into energy, an absurd pressure slammed down on my arm.
I wanted to release that crushing weight right now, as if my arm might tear off. I didn’t hold that desire back even a little.
I took the fist I’d drawn all the way back… put my whole body’s rotation into it… and drove it straight at the target without hesitation!
Nia Punch!
“Ni… uh!”
A technique named after myself? Absolutely not.
Thinking it was fine. Nearly saying it out loud was not. Close call. I’d almost created a permanent black mark on my personal history.
Nia Punch. What on earth was my subconscious even thinking.
Well…. Anyway, the power of the Nia Punch (working title) was the real deal.
Compared to using the Scissors Blade directly, the efficiency was far worse and the result was nowhere near as clean. But that raw force was more than enough to clear away the hazardous material about to crash down on me and Noise.
KWAANG!
With a sound like a bomb going off, the chunks of scrap metal went flying far into the distance.
But something about this whole process must have gone seriously wrong.
Chat flooded with messages from people trying to process what they’d just seen.
Had I messed something up? Wearing a somewhat awkward expression, I looked into the camera and tried to figure out why everyone was reacting like that.
And after turning it over for a moment… I naturally realized that, from a third-party perspective, that reaction wasn’t strange at all.
Right. Come to think of it, ever since I started earning CP through streaming, I’ve never actually told anyone that my strength became vastly superior to a normal person’s.
Given my daily routine, this wasn’t anything special. Casually clearing dozens of kilos of scrap blocking the road. Cutting down the occasional Virtual Beast with the Scissors Blade. Somewhere along the way, using force had stopped feeling strange to me at all.
But the image I’d shown on stream so far was just that of an ordinary personal streamer — watching anime together, enjoying movies and games, occasionally singing or playing guitar.
Huh.
…Wait a second. Thinking about it, was this the first time I’d ever shown my physical abilities on stream?
How would people who’d only imagined my usual on-stream image react to watching me launch a huge chunk of scrap with a Nia Punch?
Once I put myself in the viewers’ shoes… the thought that I’d made a slight mistake bloomed in my head all on its own.
…What am I supposed to say in a situation like this?
How was I supposed to explain this? That the Abyss was a harsh place where only the strong survived? Or that, actually, I get stronger when people pay attention to me…?
No — there had to be a better way. Something good enough to work for the stream somehow….
Flicker. Flicker.
Just then, a lightbulb in a zone not far away blinked unsteadily, sending a signal.
That meant an unfamiliar intruder had arrived from outside.
…There it is. A good method.
A perfect way to show the viewers daily life in the Abyss — thoroughly enough that no detailed explanation would be needed.
My gaze, which had been wandering and failing to meet the camera properly, locked firmly onto the lens with my emotions realigned.
“…Looks like we’ve got a guest dropping by in a hurry.”
I continued.
“Shall we go greet them together?”