Guest Stream (1)

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One step closer to clearing the quest.

I let out a breath of relief, replaying yesterday's conversation with Dad. I had been so worried, and the timing had caught me completely off guard, so I had been shaking like a leaf—but I had made it through in one piece.

How to put it. It felt like I had just survived a boss fight. Of course, the final boss was still waiting. Even so, if Dad was firmly on my side, talking to Mom would be that much easier, and that was a genuine comfort.

The crisis had passed. Time to return to ordinary life.

In the morning I sat at my desk for a short stretch and focused on studying.

"Hmm…"

Just as I had told Sea last time, nothing was all that difficult except math. Sea had already promised to help with that, so there was no real need to wrestle with it now. With that lazy reasoning, I worked through English and Korean workbooks, then stretched my arms over my head.

"It's already this late."

A faint hunger was creeping in; lunchtime was approaching. Ever since I had started learning to cook from Master, I had been trying to make even simple meals myself. Cook well and the quests handed out rewards, too—two birds with one stone. Just making something to eat alone, though, did not move the Main Quest at all.

Anyway, today's dish was… Spam kimchi rice bowl.

The recipe was so simple that just hearing the name painted the whole thing in my head. The ingredients were just as spare. Rice, kimchi, Spam, an egg, and a sprinkle of roasted seaweed was plenty. Salt or sesame oil, maybe, if you wanted to be fancy. The steps were too obvious to bother writing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠down. Even at its slowest, the whole thing took ten minutes.

The difference between a rice bowl and fried rice was right there in the names, depending on what you did with the rice. Pour sauce over plain rice and it was a rice bowl; fry the rice together with the sauce and it was fried rice. I carefully spooned the Spam-and-kimchi sauce over a bowl of rice, then set a separately fried egg on top.

All that remained was to eat it with gusto.

"Itadakimasu!"

I shoveled the rice bowl down in a hurry.

"Khh…!"

Yes. This was the taste. Spam and kimchi fused together simply could not be bad. A guaranteed combination, and it made my tongue downright happy. A smile rose on its own, and my stomach grew steadily heavier.

The strange part was that ever since the TS, how much I could actually eat had gone down, but my appetite itself seemed even fiercer. In other words, my stomach had gotten smaller while the craving to eat just kept swelling. On top of that, I could feel myself slipping deeper into sweet, spicy, punchy flavors—even though I could handle less heat than before. Kimchi alone left my tongue tingling. Maybe that was a Japanese thing.

Either way, I could not leave food behind, so I forced down the rest of the bowl even though I was already full. That ambiguous feeling caught between satisfied and stuffed. I patted my stomach and murmured quietly.

"Gochisousama deshita."

After the meal, it was finally time to go live. Waiting for my stomach to settle first was, of course, non-negotiable.

I planned to keep the stream short today. Yesterday I had not been able to go long because of that unexpected accident, but today there was a reason I simply could not help.

The moment I went live, the chat started rolling in.

"Minna, irasshaimase! Thank you so much for coming!"

Five minutes after going live, the viewer count broke ninety. Come to think of it, how many had there been yesterday? I had been so sure I would pass a hundred and gotten all excited, but in the middle of the horror game I had been too terrified to even look, and afterward I had been talking with Dad and forgotten about it completely.

"Watashi needs to apologize to minna-san. The stream cut off so suddenly yesterday—you were startled, right? Honestly, watashi was incredibly startled too…"

"The reason is just like chat said—watashi got so startled that the computer got startled right along with me. You have no idea how panicked watashi was when the PC just died."

"Anyway, sumimasen… I'll work even harder today instead!"

"…Eh? Um, watashi was going to play LoL…"

"Watashi was going to play Teemo…"

"Hai. Then I'll… continue the horror game… sob."

I had no choice but to surrender before the overwhelming power of capital. Long live capitalism.

Truthfully, there was not much to say about the horror game that followed.

"Hic! …It's nothing. Not scary at all?"

"If I go this way… Hyaaaang!!!"

"Nooo… sniff. I don't know which way the path is… Hyaaang!!!"

On one side, a tragic streamer trembling pitifully, paralyzed with fear. On the other, a pack of rotten viewers drinking in that helpless feminine panic for their own amusement. That was the whole picture.

Come to think of it, the way chat talked seemed to be changing by the day. Or was that just my imagination?

The stream wrapped up in roaring success. Calling it "in one piece" was a stretch, honestly—even I had to admit the ending had been a little pathetic.

"…Watashi wants to stop here for today."

"I'm not kidding—if I keep going from here, watashi is going to die of a heart attack! If I die and can't stream, you're the ones who lose!"

"Hmph…! Anyway, I'll finish this game next time. Watashi has plans today, so I have to end the stream."

"W-what are you talking about! It's an online appointment! And watashi doesn't have a koibito."

Besides, I had been a guy to begin with. My body was a woman's now, so I supposed I could like men—but at least for the moment, I did not feel anything like that.

Fortunately, chat quieted down after that. A few people still looked suspicious, but the fire seemed to have been put out well enough.

"Then minna, bye-bye! Mata ashita!"

Only after I hit the end-stream button did my chest feel light. Two days of horror games in a row left me strangely exhausted. Even so, a smile hooked itself onto my mouth all on its own.

The reason was simple. I had finally broken a hundred viewers.

More than the quest reward itself, the sheer satisfaction of clearing it came rushing in. It was also the clearest possible proof that the stream was steadily growing.

As usual, I exchanged a short conversation with my manager, trading impressions and feedback on today's broadcast.

Lucia was not the type to only pat me on the head. She gave me a sharp, pointed reminder that promising a horror-game first-clear and then failing to keep that promise two days in a row was clearly a problem. Yesterday could be excused given the real-world emergency, she said, but failing again today could look disappointing in the viewers' eyes. A streamer, she advised, ought to treat promises to the audience as the most important thing of all.

Every word of it was an answer I could not argue with, so I took the criticism in full and vowed to apply it.

After that, we talked briefly about the schedule ahead. That was also why I had ended today's stream early.

A guest appearance on Jjangjjangwang's broadcast.

How I handled myself there could decide the entire future path of streamer Hana-chan. I had to succeed. And if I was not confident I could succeed, I at least could not afford to tank the stream. The power of a top-tier streamer was a gap a tiny creator could not even dream of resisting.

"Alright! Hello, everyone—great to see you. The game I'll be showing you today is…!"

And at last, Jjangjjangwang's stream began.