The 6th Generation's Mountain-Carving Hell
The 6th generation's first collab was decided from the very beginning: Minecraft. "U-um, this is the place assigned to us 6th gen members..." Inagika said. Along with me, the rest of the 6th gen were currently standing in the middle of a mountain. The trees grew so thick they blocked out the sky, and there wasn't a single trace of civilization—no villages, no signs of modern convenience, nothing. The only saving grace was a single wooden chest sitting there.
"And this was prepared by Senior Rion... I think we should each take one." When we opened the wooden chest, there were four bundles of cooked beef and four iron pickaxes inside. We each took one, and the host for today, Inagika, let out a deep sigh.
"...Starting today, we 6th gen members will begin developing this land."
So it was decided. This place was the Minecraft EYEAI Server. Any well-known VTuber agency worth its salt had at least one Minecraft server. The game was incredibly popular and easy to get into, after all. EYEAI had its own dedicated server, and our seniors from the previous generations were already hard at work on it.
However, sandbox games lose their fun if you're given too much help at the start. Besides, we 6th gen members were still in our collab restriction period. So instead of relying on our seniors, the decision was made for us to band together with our peers and overcome the challenge ourselves. And that was how we ended up on this remote island.
"Wait, hold on a second. Are you saying we have to live here from now on?" Seo Sola's avatar looked around as she spoke. Her voice was thick with panic. "This is way too high up. The terrain is so rough I don't think we can even build a house here..."
"Yeah... you're right."
"Couldn't we at least have gone somewhere flatter?"
"There aren't any flat areas nearby... If we want flat land, we'd have to travel really far..."
"Don't tell me we actually have to carve out this entire mountain...?"
"......"
Inagika stayed silent. That was her answer.
I woke up. The current time was 11:12 AM. It might be hard to call it morning, but as a noble young lady, lazing around until late was simply part of the job. Even taking a single step required an enormous amount of manpower. The servants had to come out to greet me, wash my body, change my clothes, style my hair, and attend to me at every destination. For a noble young lady to wake up early in the morning would be nothing short of a nuisance to the servants. Therefore, while living at the ducal mansion, I had to stay in bed until late whether I liked it or not.
So I spent about an hour fiddling with my phone and reading web novels. Once my body started craving movement, I got out of bed and headed straight into the VR capsule.
Should I stream or not?
I pondered. It was because I had gotten a light scolding from Rion a few days ago.
"Sister, please cut back on the streaming a bit..."
"Why does your archive time hit twenty hours? The viewers can't keep up with you, you know?"
"Stream only one to two hours a day! Three hours at most! If you're going to stream more than five hours, give the viewers advance notice!"
So she said. Apparently turning on streams while playing Labyrinthos for twenty hours a day was a bad thing. I thought becoming a VTuber would let me play games as much as I wanted and make money, but it seemed like my gaming time had actually decreased.
Then maybe I should skip the stream and just run some Single Combats.
Since Gate Attack Mode was something the viewers should watch, after all. That had caused quite the uproar too. When I once asked the viewers, "What do you think about me running Gate Attack Mode when I'm not streaming?" the chat exploded, calling me negligent in my duties and questioning if I was even a real streamer.
Anyway, it seemed I had firmly established myself as a Labyrinthos specialist VTuber, so I decided that at the very least, I would only do Gate Attack Mode during streams. Should I turn on the stream and do a short Gate Attack Mode session? Or should I run Single Combat mode without turning the game on?
I was pondering this while launching Labyrinthos when—
♪♬♬♩♪♪
The Discord call sound rang. The caller was Ayanokouji Sora. I pressed the accept button.
"What is it?"
[I'm streaming right now, is it okay to talk for a bit?]
"This early?"
When I checked, Sora had been streaming since 9 AM. VTubers' streaming times varied wildly, but there were still general trends. Morning streams, lunchtime streams, evening streams, late-night streams, dawn streams. Evening streams were the most common, while the others were relatively rare. Still, there were people who watched VTuber streams while commuting in the morning, so the demand wasn't zero. In those cases, though, it tended to be more chill, low-chat streams.
[I'm playing Minecraft and I have a question.]
"If it's about Minecraft, wouldn't Inagika know better?"
[...Inagika is asleep, so I don't have a choice.]
Sora grumbled a little. It had been about a week since we 6th gen members started doing joint Minecraft streams. Sora had become completely hooked on the game.
Inagika really picked a good game.
Minecraft wasn't a game that relied heavily on physical ability. Instead, it was a game where people with good aesthetic sense, or those skilled at building automated factory systems using something called "redstone circuits," received high praise. Sora, who had been called "absolute trash" during Leather Doll, had become a total social butterfly in Minecraft. Whether it was her excellent aesthetic sense or not, she was cranking out houses one after another. Thanks to that, her subscriber count had risen noticeably lately.
[I want to make something called a beacon, but I don't really know how to do it.]
But in the end, she only had good aesthetic sense. Her knowledge about Minecraft itself was quite lacking. That's why Sora often asked me and Inagika questions about the game. Inagika knew an insane amount, practically a veteran of the game, and I had played Minecraft in the past as well.
Though it was on Hardcore mode.
It was about two years ago. After defeating the boss Black Dragon and the hidden boss Three-Headed Specter once each, I stopped playing. So I still had a decent understanding of the game. Though I wasn't familiar with what updates had happened in the last two years.
"Do you know that to make a beacon, you have to defeat the Three-Headed Specter?"
[Three-Headed Specter? What's that?]
"It's the hidden boss of Minecraft. A boss that only appears through a summoning ritual. You need materials from the Nether."
[The Nether? What kind of place is that?]
"You can go there by opening a Hell Gate, but first you'll need to get some obsidian."
[I have one piece of obsidian. What should I do with it?]
"Hmm."
She really didn't know much. But that was unavoidable. Sora was a complete newbie who had just started playing Minecraft, so it was only natural she didn't know a lot. I was pondering how to explain it when Sora spoke up again.
[Now that I think about it, it's been a while since you last joined our Minecraft server, hasn't it? Our base has changed a lot. Can't you come by for a bit?]