Chapter 59: No Personal Feelings

“Towards the Summit”

Kayak had now become a semi-celebrity.

Whenever this was mentioned to her, she would shake her head in embarrassment, but it was an undeniable fact.

Her streams were consistently featured among the top results on the Switch app.

The interest in her had been growing gradually for some time.

She had appeared on Nicang’s stream, on Taker’s stream, and eventually started her own broadcasts.

Finally, she clinched victory in a major tournament that garnered widespread attention.

By the time she won, Kayak had peaked as a rising streamer.

She was what people called a “rising star,” a newly emerging talent gaining significant attention.

In recent times, her name had become a recurring topic across the Twishy streaming community.

Some people found her sudden emergence as a major new talent to be unfamiliar and unsettling.

The streaming world was used to a flood of new creators, but it was rare for someone to gather such a massive audience and widespread attention in such a short time.

The fact that this rising star was a woman, possessed extraordinarily good gaming skills, and had a flawless figure occasionally revealed on camera only added to the intrigue.

Curiosity about her ran so high that many people visited the Abyss Gallery—her supposed home base—to ask about her origins.

This was part of the natural process of fans taking an interest in a streamer and trying to learn more, but, unfortunately, even the Abyss Gallery—proudly calling itself Kayak’s origin, foundation, and sacred ground—couldn’t provide any solid answers.

Even they couldn’t fully understand her situation.

Why had this young woman chosen to play such a niche game?

How did she possess such extraordinary skills?

And why, on top of all that, did she have such a charming voice and a stunning figure?

The Gallery couldn’t explain the “three-year hiatus,” during which she mysteriously disappeared from the streaming world.

Regardless of this lack of answers, Kayak’s popularity and name recognition only continued to grow.

It was unsurprising that someone monitoring the Twishy streaming community would eventually become interested in her.

“Kayak… they say she saved the dying Abyss.”

A man muttered to himself as he searched for a suitable candidate for an important mission.

For days, he deliberated.

Scouring online communities, he gathered information on various streamers.

Finally, he seemed to have found the perfect person.

“I wish she could save our game too.”

The man was an advertiser for the game Envision, specifically the team leader tasked by higher-ups to hire an appropriate streamer for promotions.

Envision, once hailed as a masterpiece, had long lost its glory.

As players continued to abandon it, the game had reached a point where being labeled “dead” was no exaggeration.

Desperate to grasp at straws, the company was trying various methods to regain its audience.

Their latest attempt was a major overhaul patch that they called a “great transformation.”

Following this update, they began offering paid sponsorships to streamers in hopes of revitalizing interest.

Praying for favorable results, the team leader decided to approach Kayak, who was currently enjoying immense popularity.

But there was a problem.

“This person doesn’t have an email address?”

Most streamers list their email addresses for communication with viewers or for business inquiries like sponsorship offers.

However, Kayak’s channel had no such information.

It was unusual.

Most creators include some form of official contact method for advertisements or other announcements.

But Kayak didn’t.

How could they contact her about a sponsorship offer?

Caught off guard, the team leader spent a long time agonizing over this unexpected obstacle.

In the end, he left messages in two places: the Abyss Gallery and the latest video on Kayak’s VTube channel.

“Kayak”

@Kayak
3.6k subscribers: 4 videos

The broadcast has ended.

I announced to my viewers that I had hired editors and promoted my channel, then proceeded with a rank-climbing stream, quickly reaching the upper ranks of Grandmaster.

At that point, I felt it was enough and ended the broadcast.

Now, I was browsing my VTube channel.

In the meantime, my subscriber count had increased significantly.

While it’s possible that I uploaded additional videos, it was clear that the promotional effect from the live broadcast played a major role.

For the next few days, or rather, throughout my broadcasts, I knew I would have to keep mentioning VTube regularly.

I also had to consistently think about what kind of videos to upload, what styles people would like, and so on.

It felt like a whole new challenge compared to live broadcasts.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to do, and it felt overwhelming, but I was also happy, as it felt like I had taken a fresh step forward.

Now that I had staff, I wasn’t the only one pondering over VTube.

Even today, the two staff members had pulled out some old videos they’d been sitting on and uploaded them while I was streaming.

It was actually fun to see the responses and read the comments.

The video I uploaded a few hours ago had been getting steady comments.

Just a few minutes ago, a new comment had been posted.

@maskn1229: 3 hours ago
“The form is insane ᄃᄃᄃ”

@qqkk1111: 2 hours ago
“Your voice is so nice ᅲᅲ Where do you stream?”

@chuncheonjoa: 2 hours ago
“Hmm… Is that all? Aren’t you doing everything?”

@Nvision_KR: 12 minutes ago
“I’d like to contact you about an advertisement, but there’s no direct communication channel, so I’m leaving this comment. If you see this, please contact us via the official Nvision VTube…”

“Nvision?”
What is this comment?

I thought it might be some new type of trolling, but it turned out to be from their official channel.

Nvision.

The name was quite familiar to me, though not in a good way.

Anyway, what was Nvision reaching out to me for on my VTube?

Judging by the comment, I could roughly guess what they wanted…

Wiiing~

It was then.

My phone started vibrating intensely.

It was a call from one of the editors, Yushia.

“Boss, are you available for a call right now?”

“Yes, Yushia. What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing urgent, but could you log into VTube?”

What Yushia wanted to tell me wasn’t much different from what I expected.

To summarize, Nvision wanted to give me a game advertisement deal.

“They couldn’t find a proper contact, so they left a comment on VTube and the Abyss Gallery.

The one in the Gallery got buried quickly since people thought it was trolling, but I only just found the one on VTube and contacted you.”

“I see.”

“I also just found out that you don’t have an email address for your channel.

Do you use a personal one, or should we set up a business one?”

“I think it would be a good idea to put up a contact email.”

Hmm, I definitely realized the need for this after this incident.

An advertisement, huh?

I hadn’t even thought about this side of things.

Thanks to this, Yushia, who isn’t even my dedicated manager but an editor, had gone through the trouble of reaching out to them.

Lately, I’ve been getting so many random emails and unpleasant spam messages that I had intentionally removed my email address.

I had overlooked the fact that I needed an official communication channel.

Well, putting the email back up is something I can do.

That’s not the important thing right now.

“Nvision wants me to play for at least 4 hours and give clear feedback on what’s good and what’s not about the game.”

“Even the bad parts?”

“Yes, this was surprising to me too…”

Usually, game companies that assign advertisements want only positive things to be said about their games.

I’m not sure if it’s because they don’t want to openly highlight any issues or discomforts, but typically, that’s the case.

In that sense, Nvision’s advertising approach seemed a bit unusual.

They seemed to want honest feedback, as if they wanted an evaluation from me as a user, not just an advertisement.

“What do you think, Yushia? About the advertisement?”

“I think it’s good.

The pay is quite decent, and it’s not a bad first advertisement.

After this, they might offer you more ads… and more importantly, I liked that they wanted both the good and bad points.

It feels like they really care about the game.”

“You’re right.

I liked that part too.”

I’m not good at lying, so I appreciated their honesty.

They were asking me to evaluate it honestly, without pretending, which was nice.

It meant I could enjoy the game without worrying about sugarcoating my thoughts.

Also, before the world changed, Nvision was the game that held the position of a “good game” in a timeline where Abyss was a “bad game.”

So, seeing them now, unable to keep up with Abyss’ popularity and slowly going downhill, and then reaching out to me for advertising felt right.

I still vividly remember the days when Nvision’s users mocked and criticized me.

Back then, when I was told things like “Why play a game like Abyss?” and would get into arguments, only to hear “Well, your game is dying anyway,” there was nothing I could do but tremble in frustration.

If I were to do an ad stream, many users would watch.

While the game’s management didn’t do anything wrong, I was planning to use some of that time to release some personal feelings.

Yeah, this is good.

I already feel excited about it.

I had thought about playing the game on my own time, but now they’re offering me an ad.

“What’s the contact information for the person in charge?

I need to ask about the advertisement date and other details.”

I couldn’t help but hum with joy.