153. A Single Video Launched
153. A Single Video Launched
***
Right after scrimming against pro players, Serin played Solo Rank and felt a kind of disconnect at how enormous the gap was.
Scrimming against pro players who could truly test her had drawn her in so completely that she'd lost track of time.
Diamond-tier Solo Rank, by contrast, had taught Serin exactly what emptiness felt like.
......
Whoooosh!!
Serin watched the greatsword wreathed in a massive black light slam down with crushing force.
She swung her Crescent-Moon Weight in a wide upward arc from below while simultaneously stepping forward.
Step.
The moment she took that feather-light step, Serin felt almost as if she could already see exactly what was about to happen.
The trajectory of the greatsword as it would be knocked away by her upward swing. The opponent's posture as they would be thrown off guard or left exposed.
And Serin's thoughts began to play out in reality exactly as she had foreseen them, like a kind of future sight.
Clang!
The successful parry sent the greatsword flying back in a burst of brilliant light. Serin stepped forward, spun once, and cleanly extended a leg that traced a blood-red arc.
The black knight, left exposed by the parry's aftermath, could only stare blankly at Serin's pale white leg.
Crunch!
Serin's blood-red leg smashed into the black-helmed head and crushed it. With that final blow, the black knight dissolved into a burst of light and vanished.
Tap.
Serin lightly set her extended leg down and let out a small breath.
"Hoo."
She had just ended her stream. She'd queued up one more Ranked Matchmaking game because she wasn't satisfied, but even after winning, the dissatisfaction remained.
And what was more irritating was the feeling that no matter how many more Ranked games she played, she wouldn't be satisfied.
'I guess my standards have gotten higher.'
Maybe because she'd scrimmed against G1 pros just the day before, she felt no satisfaction from Solo Queue.
And no wonder—the tiers of her matched opponents kept climbing, but their skill was utterly unsatisfying.
'Why can you only play at that level?'
Having to force down the rude words that kept trying to burst out toward her opponents throughout the stream was honestly a quiet ordeal.
"Seriously. I need to climb tiers as fast as possible."
After ending the stream and playing Ranked Matchmaking alone, she'd even reached one firm conclusion.
Playing while interacting with viewers scattered her focus and made it fun in its own way, but Solo Queue with the stream off was truly no fun at all.
Then, on a sudden impulse, she turned her gaze to check a hologram.
*
————
[Diamond Tier 3]
—1 LP → 21 LP
—Additional bonus LP has been awarded for your win streak.
————
*
Before she knew it, her tier had climbed to Diamond Tier 3.
She'd escaped Diamond Tier 4 and 5, the so-called Yeti Zone, but she wasn't particularly happy. What meaning was there in a tier climb that didn't satisfy her?
She shook her head at the thoughts tilting ever more negative and forcibly corrected her thinking.
"No, it's just that I... ate too much delicious meat over the past few days."
Facing pro players was like a delicacy she normally couldn't get. Right, she shouldn't crave that level every single day.
If she couldn't find fun in Diamond-tier Solo Rank, the answer was simple. I just needed to climb to a higher tier.
"...I should grind a lot of Solo Queue starting tomorrow."
With that thought, she logged out of Another World.
......
After logging out of Another World, she immediately went to her tweetie streamer channel and deleted today's stream VOD.
She felt like she'd mentioned today's G1 scrim too much, so leaving it up made her uneasy. Better to delete the VOD and eliminate any future trouble.
"I heard Hayoon and Soyul were both recording the stream. Well. It'll be fine."
And surely, Serin thought, no one would be obsessed enough to fixate on her stream VOD.
***
August 19. Past midnight.
1 a.m.
NewTube, where thousands, tens of thousands of videos were uploaded every single day. On NewTube, countless people uploaded videos daily, no matter who they were.
And that included Jang Junhyeok, the current editor of BigCatTube.
While editing the next BigCatTube video for upload, he was sighing so heavily it seemed like the ground might cave in.
"Ha, fuck. I really can't do this anymore."
He kept cursing under his breath, and midway through editing, he simply took his hand off the mouse.
He kept doubting whether working like this was really the right thing.
'...I'm supposed to put up with this kind of treatment?'
2031. There was even a saying that editors for million-subscriber NewTubers earned more than most ordinary jobs, making it one of the professions treated as reasonably successful.
But although the NewTube editor position had existed for quite a long time, there was no set pay scale.
That meant even editors for NewTubers with the same million subscribers could earn so much that a decent corporate job looked laughable, or so little it was bizarre. The wage gap was enormous.
And Jang Junhyeok, who had taken the editor position at BigCatTube, belonged to the latter group—earning far less than expected.
'No, seriously, fuck, I didn't know it'd be like this.'
Junhyeok, now living with a cigarette in his mouth like a total chain-smoker, stared blankly while smoking and recalled the past few months.
There had been a time when he'd been thrilled at being selected as BigCatTube's editor, as if he'd won the whole world, messaging people and working hard.
Now, a mere two months later, he was utterly worn down.
He'd started smoking again after having quit, and he couldn't sleep properly trying to meet his assigned workload, suffering from insomnia.
Junhyeok couldn't shake the thought that it was just too unfair.
He'd heard that editors for million-subscriber NewTubers usually worked in teams of three or more, but BigCatTube had only two editors handling everything. Looking back now, he should have run away back then.
They worked editors to the bone with an excessive workload.
Originally, BigCatTube had one other editor besides Jang Junhyeok, but now Junhyeok was working entirely alone.
Click!
Junhyeok lit a cigarette with an analog lighter, sighed, and picked up his smartphone to look at one message.
Editor Park.
[I'm just quitting.]
About a week ago, the other editor had vanished after sending that message.
They'd even signed a contract, so he'd thought it was absurd for someone to disappear after such an irresponsible BaTalk message—but when it actually happened, he felt more helpless than he'd imagined.
Big Cat claimed he was looking for people but couldn't find anyone. Naturally, Junhyeok's burden grew, but he had no choice but to grit his teeth and bear it.
"I should've done my research properly before taking this."
Junhyeok spoke while exhaling cigarette smoke, then suddenly let out a hollow laugh.
By now, he was just resigned to it all.
Recently, BigCatTube's view counts had plummeted so severely that hitting 50,000 views was considered a good result.
Subscriber count was also trending downward, let alone growing day by day.
They say there's a floor beneath the floor. And beneath that, an even deeper basement. Junhyeok had no idea how much further BigCatTube would fall.
The most recent upload still hadn't even reached 40,000 views. At that point, there was basically no hope.
Pathetic view counts for a NewTuber with 1.15 million subscribers.
With results this disastrous, even if he quit BigCatTube, he'd be too embarrassed to mention he had experience working for a million-subscriber NewTube channel.
As all these thoughts filled Junhyeok's head, the urge to just give up grew stronger.
"This is so fucked. Seriously."
He put out his cigarette, pointlessly ruffled his own hair, and let out a deep sigh.
"Hoo."
Staring at the video he still hadn't finished, Junhyeok let out a rough sound without realizing it.
"No, seriously! Why is this bastard Big Cat so damn boring? How the hell did he ever get a million subscribers?"
No matter how much an editor's skill mattered for NewTube videos, the raw footage Big Cat sent was so boring that just watching it made Junhyeok's irritation surge.
Watching hours of boring footage was an ordeal, and forcibly packaging it was an even bigger ordeal.
No matter how hard he squeezed and tried to force entertainment out of it, he hit a wall with no answer. The poor environment was bad enough, but the fact that he couldn't muster any motivation to work hit Junhyeok even harder.
Only about five hours remained until the next video had to go up.
Junhyeok couldn't imagine finishing the editing in that time.
Big Cat.
[What's with these view counts?]
Big Cat.
[...Sigh. Junhyeok, let's just not talk.]
Big Cat.
[Hey, man. You think I'm just sitting around? I told you I'm looking for editors. Seriously. You can tough it out a little too, can't you? You can't handle that?]
Big Cat.
[Just wait a bit longer. And with NewTube views looking like this, do you really want to be whining?]
Big Cat's past messages entered Junhyeok's field of vision.
The moment he saw those messages, Junhyeok made up his mind.
"Ah, whatever."
And so Junhyeok took the unfinished video—the raw footage Big Cat had sent—and hit the upload button on BigCatTube as is.
BigCatTube was already like a massive ship with a huge hole in it.
It was obviously going to sink, and no matter how much he busted his ass struggling inside it, he'd never hear a word of thanks. Maybe it was better to just give up like this.
Junhyeok watched the video uploading, then moved his hands.
Jang Junhyeok.
[This is too fucked up, I can't do it anymore. Do whatever you want.]
He wrote a scheduled BaTalk message, set for the next afternoon.
The contract paid barely anything. He was prepared to give up that money without a second thought.
A few minutes later, the upload completed. Once it was up, Junhyeok actually felt relieved.
......
The next day.
The Big Cat video Junhyeok had launched began to spread far and wide, ripple after ripple.
By the time Big Cat realized what was happening, he had already taken an unstoppable blow to his image.