The Gallery's Flood and My Streaming Crisis

The named fans’ gallery was refreshing at an insane speed. Just reading the header made my head spin. The Lene Minor Gallery. Yet the real shock was that the slaves—no, the named fans—were actually managing it with surprising diligence.

Of course, only three of the five named fans who were supposed to be on duty had shown up. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to blame the two who were missing. After yesterday’s broadcast, every single Lene fan except one had joined the Albion raid. When I checked the gallery, the missing one turned out to be a floating user. That meant the named fans were almost certainly members of that raid party. In other words, they were probably still asleep. If anything, the three who had woken up early to moderate were the impressive ones.

The problem was that new posts were appearing far faster than three people could delete the troublemakers.

“What do I do…”

Turning the stream on right now seemed like a terrible idea. The moment I went live, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the viewer count would explode to a scale I’d never dealt with before. There was no way someone as bad at talking as me could handle that kind of pressure.

So first, I should stick to the original plan and post that I’d start streaming at six.

After I posted it and refreshed the page, the view count, upvotes, downvotes, and comments exploded exactly as I feared. Everything from “just turn the stream on already” to accusations of using hacks, questions about whether I was really a guy, and conspiracy theories claiming I had the game company in my pocket. It was chaos.

But this wasn’t something I could fix alone. I needed help. And in a situation like this, there was only one person I could ask.

I launched the private messenger, clicked on the single name in my friends list, and performed the sacred art known as Summoning Tyuni…!

…I was screwed.

Even Tyuni, my internet broadcasting mentor, had nothing to offer. For a second I genuinely considered running away.

No. I couldn’t think like that. This was what I had always wanted—more viewers, more attention. Now that the chance was here, running away would be beyond stupid.

That’s right. It had already been almost a month since I started streaming. I couldn’t keep relying on others forever. It was time to handle things myself.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and recalled the past.

The first time I swung my warhammer. The day I left the church to make heretics repent. The time I fought three dragon heretics at once. The moment the king of the northern kingdom suddenly became a heretic and I had to fight his own knights.

I had overcome countless trials. This situation couldn’t possibly be harder than any of those. I knew that better than anyone.

─Broadcast is on way too fucking late lol

─Where the hell do you get off ending the stream there yesterday you bitch

─Controversy explanation arc~ Controversy explanation arc~

─Is the production company connection real?

─So is this dude actually a guy?

─Watching a voice-changer dude’s stream lol you guys gay or what?

─Everyone just fuck off you crazy bastards

This was the greatest and worst crisis of my life. Only ten seconds after ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠going live, over five hundred people had flooded in, and all five hundred were spamming chat nonstop. Some were even copy-pasting. Just reading the incoming messages was exhausting.

Could I actually calm these people down and turn them into regular viewers? Especially when the number kept climbing in real time? Just imagining it made my head hurt.

But I couldn’t run away after turning the camera on. What should I do?

If only the chat would slow down a little…

“…Ah.”

─Stop bullshitting

─If you’re live then talk already

─Falling into the abyss~ Falling into the abyss~

That’s right. There was a function for this.

I opened the stream settings and activated it immediately.

─Okay this is a lot better fuck

─My favorite small streamer is suddenly a big shot now?

─Manage the gallery too while you’re at it

─The spammers can’t say anything anymore, this feels so good lol

As expected, the moment follower-only chat went live, the chat window became clean. Seeing only the familiar usernames felt incredibly comforting.

“Um… Hello, everyone. The chat was too chaotic so I restricted it for now. I’m sorry for the inconvenience…”

This was my channel. In other words, my house. If people barged in and started wrecking the place, I didn’t have to run away. I just had to kick them out.

But as if mocking my resolve, donations immediately started pouring in. The loophole that donations could still be sent without following… Wait, was that even a loophole? In the end I was making money, so wasn’t this a win?

More donations kept coming, each one ruder than the last. I quickly went into settings and raised the minimum donation amount to ten dollars. The flood stopped instantly. A dollar was easy to throw away. Ten dollars apparently wasn’t.

“Everyone, I know you have tons of questions. I understand that. But we can’t continue the stream like this, so… could you please calm down a little?”

Before I knew it, the viewer count had passed one thousand. Thanks to my preparations, no new problems had appeared, but just sitting here wouldn’t solve anything.

So I wrote a line in the corner of the screen.

“Everyone, you see the counter I wrote, right? From now on, if you donate and ask me a question, I’ll answer it. There are up to a hundred question opportunities…”

“Of course, if anyone crosses the line I’ll ban them immediately. The donation money will be used to cover my personal needs… Then let’s begin…!”

Even after my declaration, no donation alert sounded.

…Did I make a mistake?

The thought had barely formed when—

“Ah… After the raid ended I was so tired that I just went to sleep without checking. I don’t know yet.”

That single question opened the floodgates.

“I’ll explain that a bit later. It would take too long if I go through every detail right now…”

The donations kept pouring in. This was actually working.

“…What concept?”