65. Two Editors and a Wealthy Saintess
65. Two Editors and a Wealthy Saintess
***
And so the second round of voting began.
This time, rather than showing the full videos, Rin kept it brief, showing only about a minute of each.
Whether she felt the full videos would take too long or simply had no desire to drag things out, Rin seemed to be moving the stream along quickly.
And so the voting continued once more.
[!vote 10]
[!vote 9]
[!vote 10]
[!vote 7]
[!vote 4]
[!vote 9]
The videos had run for about ten minutes, and after a five-minute voting window, they were once again on the verge of announcing the results.
Hayoon simply stared blankly at all of it.
—To the editors who don't get selected this time, I'll send each of you at least a pizza gift card by email. So please don't be too disappointed.
Hayoon listened closely to Rin's voice, which sounded as if she were carefully consoling them.
With her heart pounding, she stared at the voting screen still shrouded in question marks.
She wanted to look at the screen calmly, rationally, but it wasn't as easy as she wished.
Just moments ago, she had placed second in the voting results.
And now this second round had begun with the first-place winner excluded.
"Don't get your hopes up."
So she muttered to herself, trying to suppress her rising excitement.
Because she didn't want to get her hopes up alone and end up disappointed again.
But as the feeling of anticipation kept seizing her, Hayoon kept shaking her head.
Slowly.
Shaking her head over and over, Hayoon soon realized how impossible it was not to hope.
Ah. This is no good.
How could she possibly not get her hopes up?
Checking the chat where people were voting again, she even felt like the number 10 was appearing especially often.
With number 1 removed from the ballot, her own number had naturally become 10, so it seemed to catch her eye more.
Tap tap tap.
[!vote 10]
And carefully typing in chat, Hayoon voted for none other than herself.
Voting for herself was embarrassing and made her hesitate, but even so, she couldn't help but do it.
Because she wanted to cheer herself on.
Because she wanted herself, and no one else, to be chosen.
The moment she'd confirmed that the first round had been decided by 20 votes, even a single vote had come to feel precious.
So Hayoon voted for herself.
"..."
And so, after a few minutes, the voting closed.
—Then, voting closed! Thank you to everyone who voted. Honestly, this was pretty sudden content, and I feel like I picked a NewTube channel editor without giving people much time, so I was left feeling too regretful to choose just one person.
[lololololol]
[how much is Rin planning to pay her editors lololol]
[she's not gonna go into detail about money on stream lol]
[yeah you're not supposed to talk openly about money stuff]
[lol Rin tells people not to donate but isn't she actually rich?]
[fr]
At Rin's gentle voice, Hayoon carefully clasped her hands together and closed her eyes.
Hayoon, who normally didn't believe in God, prayed for the first time.
That she would be chosen.
That she would be the one to receive the most votes from the viewers.
She wanted it so desperately.
—Then I'll reveal the voting results right away.
Rin's voice came through.
And so the voting results screen was revealed.
"..."
Hayoon slowly opened her eyes and tried to check the results.
Her hands kept trembling faintly.
Her unfocused eyes.
Endlessly.
Simply, endlessly, stared at the screen where the results had appeared.
Afraid that if she closed her eyes, the results would vanish like a dream.
She just stared blankly.
*
————
No. 1 — 521 votes.
No. 2 — 571 votes.
No. 3 — 543 votes
......
No. 9 — 777 votes.
No. 10 — 779 votes.
————
*
An unbelievable reality.
Because this was the first time the result she had hoped and wished for had actually come true.
Through her continued failures as a NewTuber and streamer, she had at some point begun lowering her expectations for herself.
But now, among all those other applicants, she had been chosen.
Staring at the screen, Hayoon blinked.
"Ah..."
But even so, the voting results in her vision remained unchanged.
It wasn't a dream.
The most votes.
'Reality.'
Yes, it was reality.
The fact that someone had finally given her an answer, that she had been chosen—and that it had come down to a mere 2-vote difference—made her laugh blankly.
Even excluding the one vote I'd cast for myself.
In the end, she had been destined to be chosen.
It made her so happy.
Really... so happy, so happy.
Even as the laughter kept coming, Hayoon found herself covering her face with her hands.
"Thank you. Really... really... thank you so much."
Her deeply suppressed voice echoed through the room for several minutes afterward.
***
"Then I'll reveal the voting results right away."
The second-round results were even closer.
*
————
No. 1 — 521 votes.
No. 2 — 571 votes.
No. 3 — 543 votes
......
No. 9 — 777 votes.
No. 10 — 779 votes.
————
*
"The person who received the most viewer votes in the second round is... number 10."
Even as she said it, Serin felt strange.
'Does this even make sense?'
She'd already found it surprising enough that in the first vote, with six thousand people voting, first place had been decided by just 20 votes.
But the second round had turned out even more extreme.
The vote difference between video 9 and video 10, which decided first place, was a mere 2 votes.
Really, just 2 votes.
First place had been decided by that, so it felt like a trick of fate.
[wow lolololololololol]
[insane lolololol]
[is a 2-vote difference real?]
[when I watched just 1 minute of no. 9 I really thought it was good lololololol]
[fr if I were no. 9 I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight]
[no. 10 deserved to be picked though]
[no but what is this vote difference lololololol]
Since she'd shown the viewers only about a minute of each video rather than the full thing, the videos' selling points had naturally shifted.
Video 9 had seemed charming in its first two to three minutes, and perhaps because of that, the votes hadn't been evenly distributed like before—this time they'd concentrated on specific videos.
Representatively, numbers 9 and 10.
Both had shown highlight-like scenes early on, along with their intros in the first few minutes.
As video 9's votes surged, it was perhaps only natural that video 10, which paired its early intro with a personally recorded voiceover, also remained strong.
And actually, just before closing the vote, even Serin had typed in chat with a small bit of personal bias.
[!vote 10]
Personally, she'd felt the video itself had charm. Since the already-selected editor number 1 had a clean, polished editing style, she'd wanted the second editor to be someone with a bit more distinct character.
So she'd typed her chat just before the vote closed, to avoid influencing the viewers' votes.
But Serin couldn't help being shocked that her own vote was one of the 2 votes that decided first place.
'...Still.'
Still, I felt relieved that the result itself hadn't changed because of me.
If I'd been going to pick an editor based solely on my own judgment, I wouldn't have taken viewer votes in the first place. I'd intended to go with the results, and when my vote matched the viewers' votes, it felt like we were on the same wavelength.
[didn't Rin type in chat at the end? I saw her vote for 10]
[I saw it too lololololol]
[so one of those 2 votes was Rin?]
[lololol so it was actually a 1-vote difference, insane]
[why is this so funny lololololol]
[fr it's a 1-vote difference??]
Looking at chat, people were saying it was a 1-vote difference.
'Thank god...'
Thinking that it could have easily ended with numbers 9 and 10 tied, she felt truly relieved.
If 9 and 10 had tied, my own vote might have been what eliminated video 9. I'd have felt truly sorry to that person.
Organizing her thoughts for a moment, she opened the file she'd set aside next to the two video files for numbers 1 and 10. It was a file containing personal information, separate from the video portfolios.
—Video 1, Park Soyul.
—Video 10, Kim Hayoon.
At the very least, since they'd been selected, she wanted to say their names.
"To sum up the results: Soyul from video 1, who received the most votes in the first round, and Hayoon, who recorded the most votes in the second round. These two have been selected as the editors who will be working with RinTube."
With that, Serin signaled the end of the editor selection segment for part two.
"I'll send both of you an email with the details after today's stream ends. And thank you to everyone else who unfortunately wasn't selected. Ah, as I mentioned earlier, to the other nine people who weren't chosen out of the eleven, I'll send pizza gift cards—fairly expensive pizzas, at that—by email after the stream ends as well."
Considering how long video production takes, she'd felt it was only right to give the other nine people at least something.
[Pizza!?]
[Give me some too!!!]
[Expensive pizza gift cards?]
[holy shit give me some too]
[what's with Rin taking care of the people who didn't make it lololol]
[fr what's this]
[why does her being considerate look so good lololololol]
[I've never seen a streamer say they're giving pizza gift cards instead of chicken]
[people usually give chicken, why is it funny that she's saying expensive pizza lololol]
[all the videos really showed so much effort, it was a shame]
Looking at chat, I realized that having financial leeway mattered more than I'd thought.
She wasn't a big spender, so she'd never been very conscious of money, but when it came to giving to others, she had room to spare.
When picking editors, she'd felt regretful enough to end up selecting one extra person. And she could give at least a token of consideration to those who'd unfortunately been eliminated without hesitation.
As Serin was thinking that—
—Ding-ding-ding-ding!!!!
『Yoo Eunha donated 1,000,000 won!』
《It's not much, but I hope you'll use it to take care of the others.》
Along with a massive alert sound, an enormous donation went off.
"Yoo Eunha has donated 1,000,000 won... thank you so much. Then, so the others won't feel too left out, I'll send gift cards as a set along with the pizza."
Unlike yesterday, when she'd flustered over her first-ever 1,000,000 won donation, she was still a bit surprised now, but she could answer relatively calmly.
Because when I'd met Yoo Eunha in Another World, I hadn't sensed any particular ulterior motive toward me.
At least, it hadn't felt like she wanted to do anything to me. And for some reason, I'd even sensed something close to goodwill toward me.
So it didn't feel burdensome like yesterday. On top of that, her eyes were drawn to the donation message saying "not much."
There were people in the world who spent hundreds of millions, even billions of won on a single watch, so she thought that someone truly wealthy might just casually give away 1,000,000 won.
Another World nickname: Jeanne d'Arc.
'A rich saintess.'
So she figured she'd leave a brief whisper of thanks when she logged into Another World a little later.
She donated 1,000,000 won every single time, so she figured she could give her that much special treatment.
[donating 1,000,000 won and calling it not much lolololol]
[what is this insane whale]
[isn't that the person who dropped 2,000,000 won yesterday??]
[fr that's crazy]
[saying "not much" is really lololol]
[lolololol wow Rin already has a whale?]
[what kind of set is a pizza set anyway?]
[looking at the nickname, seems like a female viewer]
[probably a chaebol lolololol]
[give me pizza too!!]