Resolve
Viewer count: 4,108.
In just a few dozen minutes, the numbers had exploded.
Whether someone had promoted the stream somewhere or not, nearly half of the new arrivals had come in through foreign channels.
“Dad~!”
Sunhee, whose character had revived after the chapter clear, ran up and threw her arms around Youngho, who had been blankly staring at the chat window.
He was already drained after squeezing out every last bit of strength he had, and the roughness of his daughter’s hug sent him toppling backward without any resistance at all.
“Dad? Your face looks a little off! Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. There’s my girl.”
“Just a second ago you were flying all over the place! Why do you suddenly look ten years older?”
Dad’s just a little tired, that’s all.
Still, saying I looked ten years older was a bit much, wasn’t it?
Youngho rested for a moment while sitting on the ground, then rose with a smile when he saw the concern on his daughter’s face.
“I think this was supposed to be the final boss?”
“Probably? If we walk a little farther, won’t the ending show up?”
Just as Sunhee had said, once they left the boss room, the viewpoint shifted and the ending video began to play.
The protagonists used the security key to access secret data on the lab director’s PC.
After discovering that it differed from the contents of the research log they had collected while exploring the facility, they backed the data up to a USB drive and escaped.
With the hope that, someday, all of this might help them develop a proper vaccine.
As viewers pointed out the video’s errors, the chat, which had seemed to be calming down, flared back to life.
After clearing the stage through a route different from the standard one, there was no sign of that difference in the ending.
That basically meant the developers had never even imagined anyone would clear the game through this route in the first place.
If you followed the normal progression, you’d get the bulletproof shield and unlock the reinforced exoskeleton that helped with combat.
The developers probably never expected someone to force their way through the boss’s gunfire with nothing but their bare bodies and break through a difficulty that shouldn’t have been possible to clear at all.
After clearing the game and stepping out, Sunhee, the owner of the broadcast, made a diligent effort to keep talking with the viewers.
Meanwhile, Youngho quietly checked how many coins had piled up through missions and donations.
It wasn’t as if he was playing games with his daughter for the money, but curiosity was curiosity.
If Sunhee truly planned to become a full-time streamer, then even if it felt a little mercenary, it was only right to pay attention to the income.
Once he did the math, the missions alone had brought in over 10,000 coins, and with the donations added in, the total climbed past 20,000 coins.
Two million won... huh!
Once the platform cut its fee, the net profit would be smaller, of course, but for a broadcast that had lasted only a few hours in a single day to bring in over two million won...
It had started as a game to help his daughter, but the money was coming in so easily and in such a large amount that he was starting to worry instead.
She was still in middle school—if money started coming to her like this, would she really learn healthy financial habits?
I trust Sunhee’ll do well, but maybe we should talk a little about money management.
Even now, while his daughter was chatting with viewers, donation alerts kept popping up from time to time.
Watching her laugh brightly and chatter away from behind only made him realize something when she turned her head this way and their eyes met.
“Dad! What do we do now? We still have time left.”
As she said, it was a little earlier than the usual time to end the stream.
Because they’d cleared the fishing shortcut route that was supposed to be impossible, the content had ended earlier than expected.
Still, since he had poured far too much mental energy into the boss fight even over that short span, it felt like he might be burning out a little, and continuing to game might be a stretch.
Even if he did keep going, he wouldn’t be able to show the same level of performance as before, and he wouldn’t be able to satisfy the viewers whose expectations had now risen so much.
“I’m sorry to the viewers, but I think we should end a little early today. Dad has something he wants to talk to our girl about, too.”
“Hm? Then let’s do that~ You all heard him, right? We’re wrapping it up here for today!”
The viewers tried to hold him back by throwing more donations at him.
With a single whining donation begging him not to go, another 2,000 coins piled up in an instant.
At the viewers’ heated reaction, Youngho, who had brought it up in the first place, was left wondering what he was supposed to do next when—
“I’m sorry. Talking with my dad comes first. You all should spend time with your families, too! Bye~”
Even though she probably would have hesitated from the pressure of the donations stacking up, Sunhee smiled and firmly ended the stream.
“So what do you want to talk about? Is it important?”
“Well, um. It’s not that important, but you know the money Sunhee earned from streaming this time.”
“Right! I was actually planning to bring that up too. Once the coins I got from the stream are settled, Dad, keep them for me!”
“Huh?”
Youngho, who had carefully started the conversation, froze in surprise at his daughter’s sudden words and shut his mouth.
This was the fourth time she’d appeared on the stream to help him out.
It hadn’t blown up quite as massively as today, but if he added together the coins from the three days before, when they’d been gaming together, the total was already over 20,000 coins.
Once today’s amount was included, the total came to more than 4 million won in cash.
“Honestly, you did all of this, Dad. If I’d done it alone, do you think I could’ve earned even a tenth of that? It’s such a huge amount that it kind of scares me.”
“That’s... well.”
“Mom’s always worrying about how short we are on money, so use it to help with living expenses. I think I should still get pocket money when I need it and spend it that way.”
“...Are you sure you’re okay with that?”
“It’s not like I need anything huge right away. Honestly, if Mom held onto it, she’d probably just nag me even more, and if you keep it, you’ll buy me something tasty now and then~”
“Haha.”
At her words, he felt stupid for having worried so much.
He’d always thought of her as nothing more than a little kid.
When had our daughter grown up so much?
His heart felt strangely tight, and when he rubbed at the sting in his nose,
“You don’t have anything else to say? Then I’m going to the library for a bit.”
As Sunhee started to rise from her seat, Youngho’s mind went a little tangled when the topic he’d been about to bring up vanished. Without meaning to, he let out the words he’d kept buried inside.
“Sunhee, if...”
“Hm?”
“Just in case, if Dad were to, uh... try streaming himself, how do you think that would go?”
His daughter’s eyes widened into perfect circles.
Thinking maybe he’d said something weird, his face flushed, but Sunhee suddenly shouted, “That would be absolutely awesome!!”
“Huh?”
When he looked at her in shock, Sunhee was already rattling on with an excited expression.
“You’re so good at games that it’d be a waste not to! From how viewers are reacting, it feels like you’d reach a big company in no time. People just don’t know you yet, but if you start streaming, word will spread fast and they’ll all come running!”
“R-really? You think Dad would do well?”
“Why are you even asking? To stream well, being physically skilled isn’t everything, but at your level, Dad, you could probably crush all those top-tier skill streamers.”
Crush them, huh?
Still, he understood what she was trying to say.
“And if Dad streamed from home...”
Sunhee, who had been spitting out her words like a machine gun, paused for a second, then continued with a slightly embarrassed smile.
“...then we could spend more time together, couldn’t we? When you were working at the company, I almost forgot what your face looked like, so I’m completely in favor!”
“Uh... yeah, right. I see. Haha.”
An empty laugh escaped him before fading away.
Today really had left him feeling complicated, over and over again, thanks to his daughter.
A streamer. Until last week, that was a job I’d never even considered.
For more than ten years, he had lived with the belief that if he failed even once, it would all be over, so he had focused only on his work at the company.
He had almost never looked at anything else, and even if he had developed some interest in another path, there was no way he could’ve quit his job and leapt into an uncertain future.
Then, though he’d been dismissed in such absurd fashion, once his legs recovered he would go find another job like the one he had before.
He had thought he’d keep going on that same circular track of life, as naturally as breathing.
Maybe once. Maybe just one time, I could try something different.
He had only ever entertained the thought in secret, too embarrassed to truly act on it, dismissing it as the foolish dream of a middle-aged man who was about to cross into his forties.
But his daughter’s words had given him a little courage.
He had no guarantee he would keep doing well just because people had liked him a few times.
Still, even if he couldn’t hold on forever, maybe he could at least give it a try for a month.
With that small, cautious resolve, Youngho picked up his phone and found a recently added number.
He had decided to seriously give this a shot, so he intended to ask for proper advice from someone who could truly be called an expert.
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