Former Hero Streamer – Chapter 203

Chapter 16: The Gamer’s Dilemma

“Opportunities usually come during crises, but once you’re on a stable path, you tend to get conservative.”

Instead of getting lost in the monotony of work life like everyone else, Dayoung thought this kind of mundane routine was truly a rich life.

That’s why her daily life as the streamer Park Dayoung was very predictable.

She woke up at 10 AM, washed up, caught up on the news, had breakfast-lunch made by her mom, and checked her broadcasting content and forum management, keeping an eye on public opinion.

Whenever she had some free time, she’d watch other streams to gather ideas for benchmarking.

Then at 5 PM, she’d have an early dinner and finish up her streaming preparations.

She usually wrapped up her broadcasts by midnight at the latest. Once the stream ended, she’d gear up for editing.

No matter how great Ahjin was as an editor, she needed at least some raw materials to work with. Providing the extracted footage was her job.

On days without streams, she’d set meetings with Ahjin to go over feedback about editing and engage in various discussions to lay the groundwork for development.

“Ugh!”

Stretching, a strange groan slipped out, but now it felt familiar and didn’t bother her much.

Actually, it was more like she had developed a liking for it. Maybe she was addicted.

‘When did I start this?’

There was a vague memory of heroes gathering together, but was it Sehee unnie who started it?

Furrowing her brow in frustration for not being able to recall, Dayoung decided to watch her sister’s stream instead.

There hadn’t been any new uploads since the last Zombie Raid route.

Since it was a collaboration that started together, some content could only be seen on her channel, but what about her sister’s?

Thinking back, she had been so busy with various things lately that she hadn’t been watching her sister’s streams much.

Her own streams were doing decently, and most importantly, they lived together.

Since they were so close in daily life, she wondered if there was really any need to spy on her streams.

No, rather, it was that in this blissful daily routine, there was no need to pay attention to the broadcasts.

Back when she lived at their old place and couldn’t see her sister that easily, hadn’t she watched her streams to console herself?

“It’s been a while…”

Maybe it was time to check in after so long.

She entered her sister’s YouTube channel and clicked on an unplayed video in the playlist.

The video was about her sister and Eunha’s pre-season exploration. Ah, back then, her sister had made a fuss about being a Sorceress but ended up changing it.

Watching her flail around with such a cool skin and weapons was quite the spectacle. She felt a gap between the usual bold and impressive images of Friede and this awkwardness.

As Dayoung watched quietly, sometimes smiling and sometimes tilting her head, her feelings were refreshingly candid.

“It’s not good for input.”

If someone asked what the most attractive element of Friede’s streams was, Dayoung would answer without hesitation.

It’s all about looks.

A superficial answer, but where else could you find a trait that perfectly encapsulated her sister’s broadcasts?

No matter how many times you see it, it never gets old; it was beauty that anyone could be drawn to, regardless of east or west.

And that’s why viewers never left, only continuing to grow day by day.

Even now, her subscriber count and views were on a steady rise, never stagnating or falling.

To put it bluntly, if her sister were to shoot a scandalous video, it probably wouldn’t make much of an impact.

Sehee unnie, the streamer Friede’s content was so spontaneous and heavily relied on her physical appearance that it became quite the bad example for other streamers to learn from.

Of course, calling her the top streamer in the country wasn’t an exaggeration, and surely many clumsy streamers were analyzing and dissecting her videos.

Suddenly, as memories of her past flashed by, Dayoung couldn’t help but smile.

‘I once tried to mimic my sister, didn’t I?’

But it was like a poisoned chalice.

Clearly, it was a glamorous and shining broadcast, and despite how much she wanted to get closer, it was like throwing herself into the flames, a moth to a flame.

So she gave up. She just decided to go back to doing what she could, to what she originally wanted to do.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t embody the aura that radiated from her sister’s appearance.

As memories of the first time she met her sister bubbled up, the series of events that followed rushed through her mind like a recorded broadcast.

“Ah, it’s all memories. Good job, past me.”

By the way, what happened to that streamer SUHO?

In the past, they had let him go easy after some messy incidents, but then he caused another scandal with hacking issues.

She’d heard that he’d faced a lawsuit, and apparently even had a police meeting with other distributors.

“No news since then.”

She’d prided herself in having extensive connections in this industry, yet there was no news at all.

The last she heard was that they still hadn’t figured out who the original leaker was.

As this thought crossed her mind, Dayoung’s expression fell cold.

‘Unnie said it was the traces of a Demon King.’

So it seems the technology that’s hard to realize in virtual reality and the game company that operates it were difficult to pin down… she was pretty sure she said something like that.

When thinking about who was most closely associated with the Demon King, the image of a familiar woman, a professional gamer with high standards, suddenly came to mind.

Could it be that the one who initially leaked the hack was….

‘No, don’t think about it.’

Let’s not dwell any further. I already know the situation.

Just as she shook her head to brush it off, her phone buzzed with an alert.

It felt like a good timing to shift her thoughts, and as she checked what the alert was, her eyes widened in surprise just moments later.

* * *

“Rejected!”

“I reject it too!”

“I reject it!”

“This can’t be happening.”

“Hmm, I think it sounds fun. I abstain!”

“The photo was rejected and denied.”

“Three strikes? What’s wrong with a photo?”

Everyone gathered at home started off in a state of astonishment.

The meeting, which started as a sort of hearing involving Dayoung and the others, had spiraled into chaos.

To the point that Eunha, who was connected via video call, also flatly refused.

Jihae found it amusing to watch, but she cowardly cast an abstention in the majority vote that was losing.

The chaos erupted over a collaboration proposal conveyed through Dayoung.

Collaboration.

It wasn’t a content that particularly brought up any objections anymore.

After all, Dayoung had been collaborating with Eunha and others up to now.

Collaborating with someone eases the pressure of broadcasting, so honestly, she thought it wouldn’t be bad.

So she just casually said, “Shall we give it a try?” But she didn’t expect a backlash this severe.

“If you were going to react this way, you should have just kept it to yourself.”

“How could I not tell my unnie? Of course, I had to say something!”

Dayoung, without a hint of backing down, confessed as if she were making a penance.

“Broadcasting alone with some dark-skinned dude? If I had it my way, I would delete it right then and there. But that would be deceiving my unnie. If later on, she connects with him, and that comes to light, I’d be the bad one. So even if I’m shedding tears, please understand my feelings as I say this.”

“….”

The only reason everyone was opposing this was that the streamer who suggested collaborating was a guy.

Had some Confucian dragon hidden deep in their hearts finally awoken?

It wasn’t even a recorded session; it was a live broadcast. What was there to be scared of?

The streamer who proposed the collaboration was someone etched in her memory.

He had taken a hit to the face at an event and had acted according to her orders before the event had started.

Sure, he had a somewhat sleazy and awkward vibe, but he wasn’t a bad person.

So why?

“They say the content will be tailored entirely to me. And besides, this isn’t a real-life collaboration; it’s a virtual reality stream in the MS Room, so there shouldn’t be anything problematic.”

There was nothing spicy here! Don’t even think about that kind of stuff!

At that moment, Yuri, who had quietly been voicing her opposition, slammed her hands on the table and shouted.

“Absolutely not! How can a guy be next to my unnie? That’s just preposterous. Unnie is the foremost hero of the first class of heroes. Even if there’s another male hero, how can that be acceptable!”

“Okay, Yuri’s wording is a bit harsh, but I agree. I also oppose having a guy do streams with unnie.”

Following Yuri, Ahjin chimed in too.

So do they want to see me laughing and having a ball with a guy?

Seriously, isn’t that a little overboard?

These insane suspicions were so over the top they could easily be classified as mental illness, but what could she do?

With everyone reacting this way, there was no way Dayoung couldn’t adapt her thoughts to align with theirs.

To shift the atmosphere, she swept her hair behind her ear and said, “Let’s just book separate rooms in the MS Room and do game streams.”

“What?”

Everyone gasped, but she stood confidently.

Why? Didn’t they say everything should be tailored to her?