The One-on-One Event Match

Kisaki Rinko read the final line aloud. She tilted her head once, then opened her mouth again.

"Event one-on-one match. Kisaki Rinko versus Aurora."

"...Rinko, do you not like it?"

Her manager asked anxiously at Rinko's murmur.

"Like it or not, if I have to choose one... I don't like it."

"Still, there's nothing we can do about it. Deadlouse Korea specifically requested you and Laura."

"I know."

Rinko nodded. Labyrinthos was riding the so-called 'VTuber coin.' That wasn't particularly strange. When targeting the Japanese market, bringing in VTubers was one effective method. For example, there had been an online mahjong game. When its Japanese server first opened, it had almost no players. But after they hired VTubers for advertising, the user count exploded and the Japanese server was revived—a rather famous story.

Labyrinthos had also seen success using VTubers when breaking into the Japanese market, and ever since, it had been a game friendly to VTubers. Still, she hadn't expected them to extend advertising all the way to Korean VTubers.

"There aren't many female Master-rank players to begin with, and you're a VTuber on top of that. Deadlouse is really cherishing you."

"That Master rank was last year's story. Right now I'm demoted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from inactivity, so I'm Diamond."

"Rank isn't everything. You've also appeared at Labyrinthos events before."

"I know all that already."

Even if she didn't like it, she couldn't just quit the job. VTubers were professionals who got paid to work. No matter how unpleasant the task, sometimes you simply had to do it. Originally, she would have needed some kind of trigger to let it go. And for Rinko, that trigger still hadn't appeared.

"Starting next year, Laura will probably take over."

"Huh?"

"The Labyrinthos advertising, I mean."

Rinko shrugged.

"Sigh... I should just get overthrown already."

[...Aren't you turning on the stream? Why the hell are you launching Labyrinthos first?]

Sora spoke with clear exasperation.

"Oh my, you were the one who asked me to share my screen. I simply did as you requested."

[I meant share the broadcast screen, not the game screen.]

"I see. Would this work then?"

[...Why is the broadcast screen only showing the patch notes and game screen? At least put our Discord icons up there.]

According to Sora, it was better to have a Discord overlay during collab streams. When multiple people were talking in one broadcast, viewers had a hard time telling who was speaking. It got even more confusing when people with similar voice tones gathered.

"By overlay, you mean the thing where the Discord icon flashes whenever someone speaks, right? How do I do that?"

[...You don't know how?]

"I've never done it before."

Now that she thought about it, this was the first time she was hosting a collab on her own channel. The first 6th generation collab had been on Inagika's channel, and after that she'd only ever appeared on other people's channels. She'd never invited anyone onto her own.

[First click on the scene, then hit Add Source. Then you need to copy the URL...]

Thankfully, with Sora's guidance, she was able to set up the screen composition without much difficulty.

Time passed, and it became 6:00 PM. She pressed the start broadcast button.

The chat window was already buzzing the moment the broadcast began. The current live viewer count was around two thousand. That was quite a lot for a stream that had just started. There had been tournament announcements, and because it was a collab, it naturally drew more viewers than usual.

"Now that the broadcast is on, let's continue our previous conversation. I want to try out Arcade Mode. Can we just create a custom room right away?"

[...What are ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you suddenly talking about?]

"Oh my, didn't we just finish discussing that we should learn about Arcade Mode? Then wouldn't actually playing it be the best way to understand?"

[That's not what I'm asking... Aren't you going to explain anything to the viewers? Doesn't your channel have an opening monologue? If you suddenly start talking about stuff only we know, the viewers are going to be completely lost.]

"A reasonable point."

I nodded.

"Then Sora, would you explain it to the viewers for me?"

[What...? Me?]

"Since I'll have to explain the Labyrinthos parts myself anyway, could you handle things until then?"

[...I think this every time, but you really are a handful.]

With a sigh mixed into her voice, Sora began the explanation.

[If you've seen the SNS announcement, you probably already know, but EYEAI is hosting a Labyrinthos VR tournament this time.]

[Yes, it's an advertisement. Laura's viewers catch on quick. Deadlouse Korea gave our agency a proposal. That's why we're promoting Arcade Mode.]

[As for the rest of the tournament participants, there's no way we'd reveal them here, right? If you're curious, please check our SNS~.]

Sora carefully read through the viewer chat as she explained. Listening to Sora's explanation brought back memories from a few days ago.

"We're going to hold a Labyrinthos tournament internally."

"It's about time we started sharing subscribers."

That was what Rion had said to me after coming home from the company.

Subscriber sharing. It had come up several times before. VTubers share each other's subscribers to some degree through collabs. In fact, we 6th generation members had already shared subscribers to an extent.

Sora had the lowest subscriber count at debut, but after the Minecraft collab her numbers had risen dramatically. It was partly because Sora and Mark got along so well, but the biggest factor was probably how she kept dragging me onto her channel. A significant portion of my viewers already seemed to like Sora. When I wasn't streaming, they watched a lot of Sora's streams.

With Inagika, we interacted more outside of streams than inside them, but we'd still done a few collabs together. On the other hand, Chell rarely interacted with her genmates. Because she spoke so little, her character was strangely intense, but fundamentally she had almost no presence and her audio was empty most of the time. Her collab participation rate was surprisingly high, but since she didn't talk it didn't mean much. Perhaps because of that, her subscriber growth was the lowest among us.

"It would be nice if Chell interacted a bit more, but I think the 6th generation is showing good signs right now."

"Since we've assigned them to the same team for this tournament, I'd like the 6th generation to continue interacting as actively as they have been."

"At the same time, it would be good if they started getting along with the seniors as well."

"Share subscribers while interacting with the seniors, and prepare for external collabs that will inevitably happen someday."

In other words, it was time to start sharing subscribers not just with genmates, but with the senior generations as well.

[Huh? You're asking if Laura is participating in the tournament? ...Why don't you answer that yourself, Coach?]

Sora, who had been explaining diligently, suddenly passed the baton to me. I could have explained it myself, but...

"Coaches cannot participate in the tournament because our tiers are too high. It would create fairness issues, you see."

[Just say you're not participating. There's no need to bring up tiers or fairness.]

"Oh my, is that so? Anyway, if you were looking forward to seeing me in action, I'm afraid you'll have to look forward to the event match instead."

Having said that, I brought up the patch notes I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had prepared in advance onto the screen.

"There was a new patch for Labyrinthos earlier, and Arcade Mode has been added. As you can see, Arcade Mode is a 3v3 match with victory conditions quite different from the existing ones."

To be honest, even I couldn't say for certain what kind of feel the game would have. What was certain was that it would play out differently from both Gate Attack Mode and Single Combat. My intuition told me it would require a wide character pool and excellent individual skill. But even that was mere speculation. There wasn't enough information yet to be sure.

"Explaining it with words will only make it longer. You'll only truly understand what kind of game it is after experiencing it, so let's all play Arcade Mode together for now."

[Y-you're not just saying that because you want to play the game, right...?]

After staying quiet the whole time, Inagika suddenly said something incredibly rude. Of course, I didn't deny it.