I always conducted my broadcasts based on my interests, whether it was the cold noodle advertisement or the World Challenge.
I thought I wanted to live as I pleased, and in this life, I had the ability to do so. I could do what I wanted without starving, and in fact, people liked it.
It wasn’t just broadcasting. I had been handling modeling for shopping malls and commentary work according to what I wanted to do at each moment.
An interesting opportunity came to me again this time.
“Recording?”
– Yes, I received a message asking if recording was possible. What should we do?
It was conveyed to me through Si-young. It was an external contact that had been passed to her as my manager.
I didn’t check my email often, and with the amount of malicious emails I received, I had turned all external contacts to her.
For messages that needed to be conveyed, Si-young usually delivered them directly to me.
– It’s a mobile game that will be released next year, and the production is already complete. It seems there won’t be any issues during the process.
I heard the sound of something rustling over the phone. Had she prepared a report? It seemed she had already organized the information to tell me.
Curiosity struck, and I asked.
“Do such offers usually come to internet broadcasters?”
I felt like a complete newbie with no experience in such matters. Professional voice actors would surely be better, so why would they want me to do the recording?
I knew that my voice was decent, but it was still surprising to receive such an offer even though I hadn’t done any ASMR content.
– Offers do come to broadcasters and YouTubers. There are even places that provide advertising later on. But usually, those people do radio broadcasts and cover songs, focusing on voice-based content. The president is not like that; she is a diverse broadcaster, so I don’t know how they got in touch.
That was Si-young’s explanation. I had the same thought. How did they know about me to reach out?
Even if viewers talked about how I was a world-class character or how Mollu was a god from another world, I understood my position quite accurately.
My recognition and fame were limited to Eo War. While I might have made a name for myself in the general game industry by winning the World Challenge, I didn’t think many people knew my name just because of that.
No, I would correct that. It would be easy for people to know of me as a broadcaster. After all, I had a lot of viewers and was always positioned at the top of the broadcast.
Did they come to my stream, heard my voice, thought it was quite impressive… and sent me this offer? Was it just a initial probing?
– They said they would like a response within a week, so we have quite a bit of time. They also sent over the game introduction and character setting document via email; would you like to read it?
“Yes, please send them.”
The character setting document would presumably outline the role they wanted me to voice. I might as well read through it; I needed to know what role it was if I were to record.
After ending the call with Si-young, I began reading through the game introduction and the setting document that was sent over.
Firstly, it said the game was an open-world action-adventure fantasy game. There would be various characters and intriguing stories… Characters could be obtained through ‘gacha’ in addition to basic characters… This didn’t sound good already.
I roughly understood that there would be a hierarchy among the characters in this game.
There would be characters that are essential to progress in the game that you must summon, while others might be ignored by players despite being obtained through gacha.
I hadn’t decided whether to record yet, but I hoped the character they proposed to me would have good performance. And I also hoped they would look pretty. Generally, characters that satisfy those two conditions tend to be popular.
Nodding to myself, I continued reading through the setting document.
There were many details written. I didn’t know the length of other character setting documents, but it was clear that this character had a lot of information.
Resurrected specter, Sena. Originally sealed in the mountain behind the village, she was released by the villagers… With a cynical personality that seemingly lacks motivation for life, and so on… It said her combat style involves shooting soul energy from a distance.
Hmm… It would have been better if she was a melee character. Well, that’s not the main issue.
I scrolled down, skimming through the lengthy description. Why is it so long?
At the end of that was an illustration. A slender woman was looking this way, arms crossed. True to her specter setting, her body appeared hazy overall, and her lower legs weren’t even drawn.
“Wow…”
I murmured softly. The character Sena, staring blankly this way, was quite to my liking. The illustration was really well done.
I liked it, I really did. The offer I received felt intriguing enough. It wasn’t just because of the illustration; the game itself didn’t seem like it would flop, either.
Experiencing my voice during game play would be quite a unique experience.
Hmm, what should I do? Should I try recording…?
If so, should I go to meet them directly? Where would that be? Would I have to go to a recording studio and capture my voice among numerous sound equipment?
My deliberations didn’t take long. I organized my thoughts and expressed my willingness to accept the offer to Si-young.
*
“Have you found the person you wanted?”
A man asked while handing coffee to the director, who was known for being eccentric within the team, and he had a fair degree of familiarity with him.
Although it was hard to find a trace of social skills in him, his talent was exceptional, causing curiosity about what he would do this time.
“Yes… he said he would come to record. Thankfully.”
The director showed an expression of disbelief even after saying it himself.
What could I say? He was one of Mollu’s fans among the Mollu’s fans. Mollu’s fans were everywhere, and he was quite successful among them.
No wonder, he had fulfilled one of his dreams. He was satisfied with creating a character based on what he saw in Mollu, and not only that, Mollu would personally dub it for him. He felt an immense pride for his past self, who had been daring enough to probe.
Besides, he had even said he could just record the character’s lines and send them. Yet still, he was coming to the studio.
He suddenly found himself with the opportunity to meet her in person.
The current time was 3:42. There were only a few minutes left until 4 o’clock when Mollu was supposed to arrive.
It was then that the director realized the situation and began to shake his legs anxiously. A teammate looked at him with a puzzled expression.
‘What’s wrong with him?’
He had always been a bit odd, but today seemed even stranger. His face was tightly set, and his legs were shaking in obvious nervousness.
But that was funny, indeed.
‘Nervous? This guy?’
The director was expressionless, known by many nicknames like ‘Stone Buddha’ and ‘Wooden Man.’ Many big names had come and gone for character recordings so far.
Famous actors with beautiful voices… Cute second-tier idols that could rival top-tier idols… Real celebrities that ordinary people would seldom encounter.
Even when other team members gaped at those big names, the director had managed the work with his usual stoic demeanor.
Who could make him this nervous?
‘Is the president coming or something?’
The teammate thought so, then chuckled at the ridiculousness of it. If that were the case, it would indeed be worth getting tensed up.
What he hadn’t considered was that, in the director’s eyes, Mollu held a higher status than a president. He would simply think, “Oh, it’s the president,” upon meeting one.
The only person who could turn that rock-like human, made of hardened cells from his body to his brain, into soft marshmallow was Mollu.
4 o’clock arrived. The director’s smartwatch, set to the appointment time, vibrated softly, which contrasted sharply with his startled jump.
‘Oh, she’s coming. She really is coming.’
The director, oblivious to the strange looks from others, just focused anxiously on the entrance door.
Ten seconds passed, thirty seconds passed, and a minute passed. Still, she hadn’t arrived.
‘Should I have gone down to greet her?’
No, wasn’t there something in the email saying that it wasn’t necessary? It wouldn’t do to go against her wishes even slightly.
Beating his foot nervously against the ground, he suddenly realized that he wasn’t behaving normally.
‘It’s not even 4:03 yet.’
Five minutes, ten minutes could be a reasonable delay. And considering Mollu’s past office party stories, it was also possible for her to be quite late.
Instead of fidgeting like a puppy needing to relieve itself, he should think about how to talk to her when he finally met her and how to proceed with the work.
If he didn’t run through a simulation beforehand, he would likely come off as a bumbling fool. That was something not to be shown before his idol—a very humiliating situation.
So, let’s think about how to handle meeting Mollu for the first time.
That door in front of him would open, and a woman he had only seen on screen would walk through. Her long black hair would sway as she moved…
“Hello.”
Yes, a simple greeting of “Hello” would be appropriate. It’s the phrase she often says when she switches on the stream and people tune in.
Mollu’s gaze turned toward him. With no suitable response to the greeting, she looked puzzled.
Sometimes, simulations created in imagination can feel so real. Like now.
The imagined appearance of Mollu felt too realistic. Just like real life…
Reality…?
“Ah!”
The director finally realized that the Mollu standing right in front of him was not a projection of his imagination but someone real. Her captivating eyes that seemed to pull him in, the manager standing beside her—none of these could be realized with such vividness in his mind.
In that moment, he unconsciously inhaled too deeply, resulting in a loud hiccup.
The director hiccupping awkwardly glanced at Mollu’s slightly perplexed face and thought to himself:
I completely messed up my first impression.
