5. No... Ha, That's Not How You Do It
5. No... Ha, That's Not How You Do It
***
Even as my hands trembled, I searched for information about streaming. Before long, I came to understand what a "streamer" was.
Streamer
Generally refers to people who stream on platforms such as NewTube, Twitch, TafricaTV, and PakaoTV. In Korean, they are commonly called internet broadcasters.
Simply put, it was the term for people who did internet broadcasts—“inbang” for short.
As I searched about streamers and broadcasting like that, I was able to find the address of an internet broadcasting platform site in a nearby category.
tweetie
It was currently the most famous internet broadcasting site in Korea, and also the largest in scale.
When I accessed the site and looked around for a moment, most of the broadcasts were various game streams. Besides that, there were also occasionally people doing Just Chatting broadcasts centered on chatting with viewers, communicating about real-world topics or daily life.
As an experiment, I started with streams that had few viewers. Their chats kept scrolling by in real time, full of slang that was either childish or completely incomprehensible to me.
They seemed to be trendy words or words related to that streamer, but since I still didn't know much about this world, they seemed like words I couldn't understand.
Actually, it wasn't that I was completely ignorant about internet broadcasting. Even in my now-faint memories of the past, inbang had existed.
Rather than watching someone else play a game, playing the game myself was more fun, so I hadn't felt any interest in things like inbang.
It was just that even when I looked into inbang a few times afterward, it never suited my taste, so I didn't watch it.
"..."
As I stared at the broadcasters and chat windows for a while, I found myself hesitating a little without realizing it.
And it seemed that a bit of fear had arisen about attempting something I didn't properly understand.
Because it felt like something truly separate from enjoying danger and adventure while filled with omnipotence in the world of Black Ark.
Then, when I checked the separate window I had left open.
[Did that attention-whoring bastard run away?]
[He ran lololol]
[That's how all attention-whoring dipshits are. All mouth.]
[Do you even have the setup to stream Another World? I heard you can't stream if your PC specs are dogshit. Aren't you just a broke-ass running your mouth? lol]
BANG!
The moment I saw it, anger surged up and I slammed the desk again.
"Agh..."
Only my own fist hurt, so I clutched my hand and let out a pathetic groan. Still, right now I absolutely wanted to prove myself to those pieces of trash.
When I opened another window and searched for things like "how to stream on tweetie," there were quite a lot of posts. Maybe I wasn't the only one searching, or maybe a lot of people were trying it.
I opened those posts one by one and checked. The method for turning on a stream wasn't as difficult as I'd expected.
You just set up the stream settings as written, press the Stream ON button, and it broadcasts just like that.
It was so simple it was almost like it was egging me on to become a streamer. I even ended up rummaging through other sites wondering, is this really all there is?
On top of that, maybe because the original me had been very interested in games, even the PC specs I'd checked on the first day were all matched to the latest specs, so turning on a stream wouldn't be any burden at all.
So the only remaining issue was connecting to Another World and streaming. That was the only thing.
As I scrolled through tweetie and browsed the broadcasts, I looked at the very top where the viewer counts were highest. Most of the streamers there were playing Another World.
From the articles and sites I'd looked at, it seemed that streamers were indeed streaming Another World a lot, as befitting a game enjoying worldwide popularity.
Well, it made sense that broadcasting a game with a lot of users would naturally be advantageous. Even in my memories, a single game called "Pol" had dominated inbang.
However, I was curious about how virtual reality was broadcast, so I looked into it.
"...Twenty thousand people are watching?"
Among those top-tier broadcasts, the streamer with the most viewers, called "Hana," had a whopping twenty thousand people watching.
Twenty thousand people simultaneously watching the same thing just to see one person. It was something I would have taken for granted in the past, but now it felt a little amazing.
Since I had stood before thousands of people in the world of Black Ark, the number twenty thousand didn't quite feel real to me.
Driven by curiosity, I clicked on the stream by the streamer named Hana.
The screen was more fascinating than I expected. I had wondered how virtual-reality gameplay was streamed, and apparently Another World could display the player character from a third-person camera. A character who seemed to be Hana moved across the screen.
The funny part was that the character's face was also displayed separately in one corner like a facecam, showing expressions such as surprise and laughter.
Probably because you can't turn on a separate cam in virtual reality, they had put the character's face up small like a cam.
"Ah, everyone, how's my voice? Can you hear me well?"
[yeah i can hear you]
[I can hear you fine]
[Seems like everyone can hear?]
The atmosphere was completely different from the nearly empty streams. At least a dozen chat messages seemed to appear every second.
And it happened that the streamer Hana seemed to be testing, as if she had just started the broadcast. I began to watch carefully.
The stigma of being called a cheater was one thing, but I was absolutely determined to make those bastards who posted all sorts of crude insults and abuse eat shit.
That parrying is easily possible.
That it's you guys who can't do it, and I'm just a normal user.
I wanted to refute every single one of those shitty comments one by one.
Before I started my own stream, I needed to watch someone famous and learn how to behave on air without looking awkward.
Because I wanted to refute them perfectly, without showing any opening to those bastards who would come into my stream and watch.
"Then I'll go straight into the arena. Ah! First, I'll invite Tulia."
Judging by the word arena, it seemed to mean PVP, so I grew even more interested. If it was a streamer with this many viewers, their skill would be higher than the users I had faced.
After that, several UI windows appeared and an invite was sent. Soon the screen began to darken.
On the gradually brightening screen, the background changed to something like a massive Colosseum. There, the character of the streamer Hana and another male character began to take their positions.
The female character of the streamer Hana had a sharp impression, like a blue elf. Unusually, she seemed to wield dual swords. The user called Tulia on the other side was a muscular, manly-style character holding a greatsword.
Even just from what was visible on screen, none of their equipment looked ordinary.
"I won't go easy on you this time, so be ready!"
With that, the streamer's character moved first, and the duel seemed to begin.
......
Not long after Han Serin started watching the stream, she lost interest. The streamer and the chat reactions were still novel enough that she kept Hana's stream open, but...
The fight between the streamer and the invited player was... how to put it?
"...Is this all they've got?"
In her eyes, both of them were far below standard.
To put it a bit harshly, it looked like nothing more than children playing house, just messing around.
Colorful, brilliant bursts of light exploded where their weapons met, outwardly dressing up their offense and defense in flashiness, but.
'I don't know.'
To her, it looked like nothing more than colorful effects painted over swords being swung around.
They didn't aim for openings even when they were exposed. Were they just using preset skills?
Even when their swords clashed, there was a strong sense of unnaturalness.
She almost felt stupid for having expected flashy technique from the unusual matchup of a dual-sword user against a greatsword user, even if it was a streamer fighting a viewer.
Their weapons wrapped in brightly shining light were certainly threatening to look at, and all of them looked cool.
But the people wielding those weapons paid no attention to reach, weight, technique, openings, or distance. They simply smashed into each other, and the spectacle was crushing her expectations.
"...No, why would you do that like that?"
Words kept slipping out as she stared at the screen.
"Ha. Seriously, that's not how you swing a greatsword."
Again: that wasn't how you swung a greatsword. The male character was being dragged around by the weapon's weight, swinging it recklessly and using nothing but preset skills. The longer she watched, the harder it was to stomach.
No, is all that muscle just for show?
He's not even a real person, he's a game character, so why is he being dragged around by his own weapon?
And what's with that unnatural movement, like he's just pressing skills registered in his skill window?
"No... if he'd just thrust into the side like that just now, it would've been over."
The longer she watched, the more frustrated she became, until she found herself biting her lip and clenching a fist.
No, why are they swinging swords like that, like kids playing around?
In the world of Black Ark, she had used a weapon few others favored—the Crescent-Moon Weight. But that didn't mean it was the only weapon she had ever used.
As her realm rose and her energy accumulated, the Crescent-Moon Weight became the weapon she was most proficient with, so later she used only that.
But during her first few years in that world, she had tried every other weapon she could get her hands on.
She had wanted to see whether there was another weapon that suited her hands.
Of course, having tried many weapons didn't mean she could claim to be highly proficient with them.
But at least.
Even so, she could confidently say she was far beyond the level of the childish swordplay on the screen.
[Whoa, what was that parry Hana just did?]
[fr Hana's skill is visibly improving]
[How is that Tulia person so good with a greatsword? It's too heavy for me to even swing properly]
[They say if you use it a lot and get used to the weapon, you get good]
[The skills are seriously flashy. I thought Tulia was just a rich silver-spoon brat since he donates like crazy, but why is he so good?]
[Wasn't that just the Reverse Mountain-Splitting Ki skill? How did Hana perfectly dodge that...]
[Guess it's because they're high-tier players, the level really is different]
And honestly, more than the battle between the streamer Hana and the viewer, the chat window rising rapidly beside the screen as if on fire was even more of a spectacle.
She simply could not understand people marveling at that childish swordplay and praising it as amazing.
Then her gaze drifted to the viewer count at the bottom.
21,563 people.
"...Twenty thousand people are watching this crap?"