Chapter 20: First Broadcast, And

It was the 7th day of streaming.

!!!

Haru.

Min Hayoon’s channel had surpassed 100 followers, and the average number of viewers had stabilized between 30 and 40.

It had become a so-called small but dedicated channel.

She was maintaining metrics that promised growth once the COVID pandemic began and the overall online streaming viewership increased.

“Hey guys, do you know? If you short the US stock market now, you’ll definitely make money by March.”

Having become somewhat accustomed to streaming, Min Hayoon casually dropped stock information that only she, from the future, could know and played around, observing the viewers’ reactions.

-Isn’t shorting only available in 3x leverage? It’s mid-January now, are you saying to hold 3x leverage until March?

-Why are you talking about stocks instead of drawing the requested lewd pictures?

-Are you crazy?

However, the responses were not very good.

This is a stream where people come to see the suggestive illustrations that Min Hayoon draws.

It’s natural that they wouldn’t care about stock market talk that doesn’t resonate with them.

-But you said you’re a soon to be high school freshman. Then you probably haven’t even bought stocks before.

-Oh? That’s true.

-Were you really just trying to scam us?

“Ah, I’m just saying it so you can all make money. You need to make money, whether it’s through stocks or whatever, so you can come to my stream and request drawings.”

-What the…

-Don’t talk about shorting and the US stock market when you don’t even know much about it. You shouldn’t be doing things like stocks so early.

-She doesn’t even have her middle school diploma yet, and she’s talking about stocks.

“Okay, okay. I won’t bring it up again.”

In the end, Min Hayoon backed down from the viewers’ criticism and continued drawing the mermaid illustration she had been working on.

The red hair and turquoise scales reminiscent of the Little Mermaid, the bluish underwater world, and the colorful corals.

Even though only the base colors were filled in, the level of completion was remarkable, to the point where one might mistake it for a color rough of a famous animation.

-I’ve been watching for days, but I still can’t get used to it.

-She just sketches the rough, erases some lines, and fills in the base colors, but how does it end up with that quality?

-The color combination is so good that even just the base colors are pleasing to the eye.

Seriously…

The viewers in Min Hayoon’s stream had long been captivated by her art.

The fact that they were still watching the stream meant that they had purely fallen for Min Hayoon’s art.

Her art had that kind of charm.

[1,000 won donation]

-Honestly, ever since I found Haru’s Pixiv account, I haven’t watched p*rn.

There were even guys like this.

“Don’t overdo it. It’ll wear you out.”

-Where does a soon to be high school freshman, a girl at that, learn to say such things?

-Damn it, it’s getting dark…

-Who taught you that?

Perhaps it was because their sense of familiarity with Min Hayoon had grown these past few days, but there were even people who reacted sensitively to her every word.

‘Ah, did I misspeak…? I should be more careful.’

Min Hayoon is a professional.

Therefore, she must act like a single flower on a cliff, seemingly unbreakable to anyone, to her viewers, who are her clients.

At the same time, the fragrance that the flower provides.

“Why do you think someone taught me?”

-??

-What’s this now…

“I studied all this because I heard you need to know jokes and stuff to stream.”

-Ah.

-I knew it~

-Yeah, no matter how fast kids grow up these days…

“What do you mean by ‘grow up fast’?”

[10,000 won donation]

-Let’s just draw. Us.

“Ah, sure. Whatever.”

Min Hayoon put out the fire by pretending to be innocent and naive.

It would have been better if the stream was bigger and had more viewers, but with so few people chatting, she almost got into trouble by going off on a strange tangent.

She needs to be more careful with her words from now on.

If she says things that guys would joke around with to her viewers, they might get turned off.

For the complete ‘keeping’ of her viewers.

For the establishment of a symbiotic relationship.

Min Hayoon was developing her streaming skills day by day.

#

“It’s still holding up well.”

Perhaps because only a few days had passed since the first confirmed case.

The number of confirmed cases was only around five, and the general atmosphere wasn’t as dark as she had expected.

But Min Hayoon knows the future.

The pandemic will inevitably come, and she needs to generate 20 million won in revenue by strategizing accordingly.

“In the end, my strength is high-quality illustrations.”

Patreon and Fanbox, excellent cash cows that bring in around 2 million won in revenue each month.

It’s not difficult to maintain revenue if she treats the existing sponsors well, but these platforms have very limited scalability.

In an era where people proudly say, ‘Why pay for webtoons?’, those who sponsor illustrations are a very small minority of oddballs.

The current integration with her online streaming is sufficient for marketing Patreon and Fanbox.

“Goods…”

The situation is even more dire for merchandise.

It might be different when people are more willing to open their wallets due to the influence of events like Surfe, but if Min Hayoon were to hold a solo merchandise event, she would likely flop with her current level of recognition.

“Animation?”

No.

Min Hayoon doesn’t have the skills for that.

Her strength lies in her excellent original artwork, not in creating the movement of drawings.

She could make GIFs and offer them to sponsors to increase revenue a bit, but considering the time it would take to create them, it’s not cost-effective.

Min Hayoon has almost no knowledge in that area.

“Full-time streaming…”

Rejected.

Min Hayoon didn’t start streaming with the intention of just shaking her chest and dancing in front of a camera to make money, and it’s too early to debut as a VTuber, where there’s less concern about personal information leaks.

She has no intention of doing that in the first place.

The remaining option for making money is…

In the end,

it’s visual novels.

The way to dramatically increase Min Hayoon’s revenue is to engage in marketing linked with funding sites to rake in sponsorship money.

But…

“I don’t want to do it half-heartedly.”

For the sake of Min Hayoon’s.

For the sake of the ‘Haru’ brand, she has no intention of creating a game on a whim.

If she’s going to make a visual novel, she’ll go all out, with full voice acting and even Live2D technology, to create a masterpiece that will make people’s eyes pop.

If she also sells high-quality merchandise through her connections established at Surfe…

“It’s enough.”

Generating 20 million won in revenue wouldn’t be that difficult.

However, there are two problems.

“A Live2D artist and a programmer…”

People who can handle areas that Min Hayoon, an expert in original artwork, cannot.

And Min Hayoon…

She doesn’t know if she’s a Live2D artist, but she knows the contact information of someone who seems to be involved in the art field.

@Arin_Choi_03

Choi Arin.

The Instagram handle of the cosplayer she met at AGC and Surfe.

“Should I just try contacting her…”

Min Hayoon, who ended up like this after spending all her time in her room drawing illustrations and goofing off.

Naturally, she has no connections in the industry, and feeling like she should grasp at any straw, she entered the Instagram handle…

“Uh, uh…?”

It seems a bit rough…

But it involves placing dozens or hundreds of points on each joint of an illustration and using those points to animate the illustration…

“I-isn’t this Live2D technology…?”

Rigging, was it called?

Or was that a term for 3D art?

Anyway…

Choi Arin.

This person was a resource who could do what Min Hayoon couldn’t.

“I need to meet her.”

The other party must have wanted to contact Min Hayoon too, since she wrote down her Instagram handle, so she will contact her and meet.

She will meet and directly ask her to create a visual novel together.

But…

“What should I send…”

Hesitation.

After following Choi Arin’s account and even opening the DM window, Min Hayoon’s fingers stiffened.

How do you contact a girl?

For Min Hayoon, who has never had a girlfriend, let alone a female friend…

She had encountered a very difficult problem.

“How should I start the conversation…”

Looking back, since returning to 2019, Min Hayoon hasn’t made any friends and has only exchanged messages with her parents.

Naturally, she doesn’t know how girls her age communicate.

In the end, she has to use her intuition to come up with a suitable message.

-Do you remember me…?

Tap, tap, tap…

She pressed backspace and deleted the message…

-Hello. We met at AGC and Surfe…

“Isn’t this too business-like? What if she thinks it’s spam and doesn’t even reply?”

Tap, tap, tap…

She pressed backspace again and deleted the second message.

“Ugh…”

Min Hayoon let out a faint groan as if her head was starting to ache.

Contacting a girl…

It was too difficult.

But still…

“I have to send something…”

As if giving up, Hayoon typed the least bad message she could think of into the message window and pressed the send button.