There's No Better Way to Get Attention
When it came to capturing people's attention, nothing else even came close.
Attention on the internet was power.
It was the kind of line a bored community lurker might toss out without thinking — and yet, for me at least, it seemed to be true.
"Hmm… this is definitely…"
I hummed under my breath, eyes flicking back and forth between the two dolls sitting on the desk.
The one on the left was the product of a community post that had drawn a flood of comments after I'd baited the thread for all it was worth. The one on the right was the final result of grinding my Creation ability nonstop until I had nothing left to give.
"They're really, visibly different. Especially in the details."
Both of them gave the unmistakable impression of having been made while looking at the same cat. But the finer points were as far apart as heaven and earth.
"This one looks like something stamped out of a shoddy knockoff factory… and this one — what even is this? A lump of clay with buttons jammed in for eyes?"
The left doll was a little rough around the edges, sure, but you could still tell it was a cat. The right one was a genuine horror show — a mud clump with buttons shoved into it where eyes ought to be, so crude it almost hurt to look at.
With experimental results this clear, this undeniable… there was no way I could keep pretending that receiving comments online had nothing to do with my Creation ability.
"But even the doll I made after getting comments isn't exactly perfect. So maybe… it's a matter of quantity?"
Even the one produced after the comment haul still fell short of what I wanted. It looked like a defective product, honestly. Which led me to a second hypothesis: maybe the sheer volume of comments was what determined the quality.
The comments I'd just scraped together baiting that thread on Pioneer numbered a grand total of seven. Objectively speaking, that wasn't a lot. Online, a genuinely funny or interesting post could easily pull dozens — even hundreds — of replies.
"…Alright. Let's test it."
I didn't get hungry. I didn't get tired. No matter how long the experiment might take, there was no reason to hesitate when a possibility had already taken shape in my head. And baiting comments wasn't exactly hard work.
The results came in. My second hypothesis — that the number of comments affected Creation — turned out to be true. The objects I could produce after receiving ten comments were clearly higher quality than the ones I made after only three.
So, summarizing everything I'd learned so far…
"The more comments I get online, the stronger my ability becomes…?"
It was an absurd idea. What possible connection could there be between creating physical objects and collecting internet comments?
But in that moment, a sudden sense of wrongness flickered through my mind.
Wait. This is the Cyber World, isn't it? And the only way to access the Cyber World from the outside is supposed to be through virtual reality — an indirect method.
The more I thought about it, the stranger it got. Whether you looked at it from the outside in or from the Cyber World out, this connection was clearly running through a computer. And considering I could leave comments on other users' posts… it was fair to say the system was treating me as a user too.
Which meant this whole connection was full of things that didn't make sense. The common knowledge of this era — that the Cyber World couldn't be accessed via PC — was being completely ignored.
…I'll have to figure this out carefully. What kind of secret is buried in here?
I cast a long look around the one-room apartment that was clearly hiding something, then turned my eyes back to the monitor. Right now, I had no leads that could unravel the mystery of my existence or the secrets of the Cyber World. So that particular problem went on hold. As I'd said before — strawberries and hard questions, I always saved for last.
"What matters right now is something else entirely. How do I collect comments from people as efficiently as possible?"
…And then a good idea hit me.
No — calling it a "good idea" didn't do it justice. This was a brilliant idea. The kind that might let me reach my goal of reclaiming Nia's stream in a single leap.
"…What if I started streaming?"
Personal internet broadcasting. Live streaming, in English. I'd never actually tried it, but if viewers watching my stream typed in chat… there was a high chance it would have the same effect as receiving comments. Chat messages and comments were essentially the same thing, after all — short sentences expressing an opinion.
"A hundred viewers each typing a hundred chat messages… that's ten thousand. Wow. Multiplication is terrifying…"
Famous streamers regularly pulled hundreds or thousands of concurrent viewers. Even if only ten percent of them typed a hundred messages a day, that would still be the equivalent of thousands of comments. I could already feel my ability improve from a mere seven. What would happen with dozens — hundreds — of times that many?
"…I have no choice, do I!"
I shouted it out loud and shot up from my chair. Theoretically, it wasn't impossible. It was absolutely worth trying. And besides — I had a personality that set me apart from everyone else, didn't I? Hesitating without even attempting it would be the real foolishness.
"Future viewers, just you wait! A radical monster of a rookie is about to conquer this twenty-second century!"
I stared at the monitor with a face full of confidence, eyes blazing with the fire of pure passion. No matter what it took, I would succeed. That resolve burned hot and bright.
"Of course the twenty-second century has dedicated streaming sites. Yeah, yeah — no way there wouldn't be demand. …But why is the site called Olive, of all things?"
After a thorough search through the painfully slow search engine, I confirmed that this future world did, in fact, have professional platforms for internet broadcasting. And the one that caught my eye was a site called Olive — apparently the largest streaming platform on the entire internet.
But why Olive? It kept nagging at me for no good reason.
"…Ah. They just stuck an O in front of 'live.' That's all it is. Nothing special. Hmm… should I go with this one? More people means a better chance that someone will actually watch."
It was a simple enough reason, but honestly, it was more important than anything else. A large user base meant that even someone with zero name recognition — like me — still had something to work with. A chance to find a crack and squeeze through, if nothing else. If you were going to slam your head into bare ground, better to do it where there was at least some grass, right?
What? I was in the body of Nia, a VTuber with six million subscribers — so why did I have no name recognition?
Shouldn't I be leveraging that to generate buzz?
Well… that wasn't wrong, exactly. The resurrection of a famous pre-war O-Tuber who knew the 2020s inside and out — that would absolutely appeal to people in a world whose culture had been shattered by the Great War, a world starving for entertainment.
But… I didn't want to.
Someone like me, daring to leave footprints on the beautiful trail Nia had walked? Not even if you put a knife to my throat.
I will never use Nia's name. That name exists for her alone.
That was how I felt about it. Without her talent, me pretending to be her would only smear dirt on her face. I had to stand on my own two feet. That was the best I could do for my oshi.
With that resolve settled in my mind, I checked whether live streaming was even possible in my current situation.
Yeah, I can do it. The computer specs are surprisingly decent… even if the search speed is abysmal.
Maybe the connection between the Cyber World and the outside internet was just inherently slow. I had no idea how any of that worked. The good news was that streaming itself wouldn't be a problem. Browsing multiple sites was sluggish, but once you settled into a single site and started working, the speed was actually pretty solid. Small mercies.
"Alright, settings are done… ah. No camera. Making one… is probably too hard right now."
A camera was an infinitely more precise and complex object than a doll. If I couldn't even make a proper doll yet, there was zero chance of producing a functional camera. Which meant I'd have to stream without one for now.
"Haa… at least I managed to cobble together a microphone. Though looking at it, the quality doesn't seem great."
One mountain after another. Did streaming really need this many devices? For a complete amateur, there was just too much I didn't understand.
But those worries ended here. After all the fretting and confusion, my mind had finally settled on a conclusion.
I was going to stream. Just like this.
"Fuu… okay. From now on, my name is… Pio. Pio works. Feels a little half-hearted, but the sound of it isn't bad. Feels like I've heard it somewhere before, too."
I swallowed hard. Tension had crept up my throat without me noticing. One click of the mouse button and everything would begin — the reality of it was hitting me all at once.
Good. This kind of nerves was exactly what made overcoming them so satisfying. Time to do this properly.
"Stream… starting!"
Time to write a legend! I was never giving up!
I wanted to cry. I never thought I'd end up doing something like this.
"…Hello, everyone. Quite a few of you showed up."
But there was truly no other choice. Reality was colder than an iced americano packed full of ice cubes.
"Let me continue with my introduction. Before the Great War, I was active as a virtual O-Tuber…"
In the end, when it came to capturing people's attention, nothing else even came close.
"My name is Nia!"
Kiraring☆
I struck a cute pose toward the camera. Filling the screen was a wretched, filthy beast that had been thoroughly defeated by numbers.
I really, truly didn't want to do this.
Why had I broken the resolve I'd made never to call myself Nia? Why was I doing something this shameful?
To understand the reason, we'd have to rewind a little.
…About two weeks.