First Stream
A day had passed.
The morning after I became a woman, I woke up and lay there rolling around in bed, fiddling with my phone. Beds really are something else. It was so absurdly soft and comfortable that I had absolutely no desire to go outside.
Doing this, though… wasn't it basically the same as before I changed? Even before I became Hana, I always burned through my mornings in exactly this kind of pointless haze.
"Watashi is a hopeless case."
What a miserable truth. In the end it wasn't enough to simply look different. I had to change my whole attitude and actually live like a proper person.
But that sounded like such a pain.
At least I was going shopping with Sea today, so it would be fine. Honestly, the thought of putting on women's underwear—bras and all the rest—was a little terrifying.
Right on cue, a message from Sea popped up.
So I had about three or four hours to myself? I sat there wondering how to kill the time. Maybe I'd watch some streams.
My main hobbies were still anime and manga, but lately I'd been watching a lot of internet broadcasts too. Maybe it was the two-way conversation that set them apart from everything else.
The streamer I usually watched happened to be live even though it was morning. His handle was Beas. What defined him was a solid game sense that didn't care about genre, and a thoroughly wholesome stream where he never swore. Some people called it boring because it wasn't spicy enough, but plenty of people loved him, and he regularly placed high on the platform rankings.
Today Beas was playing Minecraft—the kind of game so universally popular, from little kids to every other age group, that you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who didn't know it. I sank into his Minecraft stream in no time. He never used a single curse or cheap shock line, and yet his banter was so good the chat stayed overwhelmingly positive.
"Beas, sugoi…"
How could anyone talk that entertainingly? And in front of thousands of people, no less. If it were me… I couldn't even begin to imagine the catastrophe.
Talent and entertainment value aside, though, I had a feeling that if I streamed, my odds of success would be pretty high. Forget everything else—just turning on a camera would be enough to make me a topic of conversation. A male streamer like Beas needed broadcasting talent, plus effort, plus luck, or it simply wouldn't happen. Female streamers, though, could succeed pretty easily if they had a nice voice or a pretty face. The streaming market was still overwhelmingly male, after all.
Looked at that way, Yukino Hana would have a harder time failing than succeeding. The looks went without saying, the voice was good, and on top of that there was the distinctive concept of being Japanese.
"Watashi is way too embarrassed to do something like that, though~."
That little mutter turned out to be a spectacular mistake.
Becoming a Streamer (0/10)
"…Eh?"
Start Your First Stream
⏱ Time Limit: 1 hour
⚠ If you fail to clear this quest within the time limit, the linked Main Quest will be automatically abandoned.
"…Fuzakeruna!"
You've got to be kidding me! Why drop a quest on me the second I say I won't do it, like you were waiting for that exact line? Was the Information Window trying to torment me? That was too much. I'd believed we were on the same side this whole time.
And even while I was fuming, the Sub Quest timer kept ticking down. No, one hour was way too short. I even had plans with Sea a little later!
I started with the most fundamental question I could ask myself. Did I even need to clear this quest?
The Information Window didn't, as a rule, force quests on me. The only way to extend my remaining time was to clear them, so I usually tried to knock out whatever I could—but this one wasn't a mandatory order either. This time, though, there was a penalty for failure, and that was a first.
If you fail to clear this quest within the time limit, the linked Main Quest will be automatically abandoned.
The "linked Main Quest" had to be that bizarre thing that had appeared at the same time—Becoming a Streamer. From there, the clear condition was easy enough to guess.
Becoming a Streamer (0/10)
Put that (0/10) together with the phrase "linked quest," and it probably meant that clearing ten streaming-related quests would clear the Main Quest too.
By the time I'd reached that conclusion, ten minutes had already slipped by. Only fifty left.
"The Main Quest…"
The reason I was hesitating was, of course, the Main Quest itself. So far I had cleared exactly one. Accepting myself—through Sea's messages, I had decided to fully embrace the person I was now. The reward for that had been Yukino Hana's identity.
Every other Sub Quest had only extended my remaining time. The Main Quest's reward had been different. Which meant Main Quests might hand out special rewards I could never get from ordinary Sub Quests. I had no idea what those special rewards would be, but I could tell that if there was a chance to receive one, taking it was strictly better than not.
"Ha, should I give it a try…?"
Honestly, even this morning I hadn't dreamed I'd become a streamer. Thinking about it now, though, it might actually be a pretty good job. If I had to name the biggest weapons I had right now? A pretty face, a good voice, and Japanese nationality. And the field that would put those advantages to the best possible use was, without question, streaming.
"…No. Maybe it's better if I don't show my face."
Even if the Information Window had given me an identity, I was not a normal existence. Reckless oversharing could turn into any kind of variable. Unless the Information Window handed me a quest that told me to show my face, hiding it was probably the smarter move. Which left the other problem: could you even succeed as a streamer with no camera at all…?
"There's no quest telling me to succeed right this second, so daijoubu!"
It would be fine! If I just followed the quests as they came, things would work out somehow. With that thoroughly careless conclusion, I decided to take a shot at streaming.
"Hiek! There's already only thirty minutes left!"
Making up my mind wasn't the end of it. I actually had to start a broadcast for the quest to clear. I scrambled to get ready.
First, I needed a nickname!
"Nickname. Nickname. Nickname. Nickname. This is hard, desu!!"
I had no idea what to pick. Then, by chance, my ID card caught my eye.
"Yukino Hana…? Kore da!"
That was it! I immediately tried to create the name.
The nickname Snowflake is already in use.
"Sonna!"
In the end, it worked out.
The nickname Snowflakei is available.
All right. Stream name decided. Time to go live. I sat down at the computer, checked the Information Window, and found I had only five minutes left.
"Starting right now!"
Trembling and excitement tangled together as I launched my long-awaited first stream.
"Chotto… I didn't even decide what to do!"
The clock had been so tight I'd skipped the most important part. I hadn't chosen any content.
Start Your First Stream
Reward issued.
🎁 Transformation Duration:+12 hours
Reach 10 Viewers
"The quest is not the point right now, desu!"
Thankfully I still had zero viewers, but someone could wander in at any moment. I couldn't just sit here doing nothing. After a moment of panic I decided to boot up a game I played all the time. Games were the easiest, most obvious content a streamer could fall back on.
"H-hai! Watashi is Snowflakei, a brand-new streamer! Please take care of me!"
There was nobody watching. I just felt this crushing pressure to say something, even if it was only practice. It was a game I played every day, and yet the instant I became conscious that I was live, I started shaking uncontrollably. My voice wobbled. Cold sweat kept breaking out. I could tell, even from inside my own body, that I was whimpering and fidgeting like a puppy that desperately needed to poop.
"T-today I'll try playing LoL, the game that's huge in kankoku— I'll, I'll play it…!"
I bit my tongue halfway through and barely forced the last word out. Anyway, I launched LoL and kept sneaking glances at chat. Five minutes into the stream, and still not a single person had come in.
"M-maybe watashi just has no talent for streaming…"
I hereby repent for how arrogant I was an hour ago. Become a streamer and success is guaranteed, was it? The actual reality was that not even one person had shown up, and I was sitting here alone staring at a wall, swallowing back tears. Sad.
Lucia has entered the stream.
A notification popped into chat that someone had arrived. I jumped and snapped my back ramrod straight. This was no time to freeze—I had to greet them! I immediately repeated the line I'd practiced.
"Hai! I just started streaming today. I'm Snowflakei! Yoroshiku!"
A kind person! A gentle viewer! I read out the glorious first viewer's name.
"Lu-Lukia-nim! Thank you so much for coming to watch! Watashi will do her best!"
"That's right! But I mastered Korean, so daijoubu!"
I really had been Korean and then became Japanese, so it was fine! It wasn't even a lie.
Mukjeon has entered the stream.
Ah! A second viewer! Drawing on the experience from a moment ago, I greeted them with a little more confidence.
"Hai! Watashi is Snowflakei, a new streamer, desu! Thank you for finding me!"
"…Eh?"
"……Eh?"
Ah.