Chapter 46: Hako Cartel (1)

In the past, there existed a vicious practice called witch trials.

These were special, unscheduled trials held to find and eliminate witches, who were seen as minions of the devil hiding among humans.

Whether the devil actually existed is unknown, but these trials likely arose because there were at least people who believed in and followed the devil.

But how was it determined whether someone was a witch or not?

People in the Middle Ages used a very simple principle to determine whether a person on trial was a witch or not.

A person sinks in water.

Therefore, if they float when immersed in water, they are not a person.

Therefore, that person who floats is a witch.

Let’s put aside the factual verification of whether a person floats or sinks in water for the moment.

Assuming that all the logic at that time was correct, what were the problems with these witch trials?

If you float, you are burned to death at the stake for being a witch.

If you sink, you die by drowning, an unchangeable ending.

If you are put on trial for witchcraft, you will surely die.

In that respect, the events described using the term “witch trial” in this era share one characteristic.

The person who is subjected to a witch trial suffers damage, regardless of whether they are guilty or not.

I rubbed my eyes and read the first sentence of the post again.

[I am publicizing Switch Streamer Hiro_0]

Publicizing.

Who?

A streamer with the nickname Hiro_0.

….

That’s me.

Why the hell?

All sorts of thoughts flashed through my head, but I had no idea what it could be.

I had no choice but to slowly read through the publicizing post, without skipping any parts.

[Hello, I am 슝님, who is active on Switch.

First, please listen to the reasons why I am making this public.]

“…I suspected it, but really.”

Syoong-nim.

Once a fairly close acquaintance, now someone I cut ties with a long time ago.

We first met quite by chance.

No, it must have been fate, not chance.

That’s the kind of person she is.

It was probably a week after I started broadcasting.

Although I had experience broadcasting as a man, I was no different from other rookie streamers in terms of broadcasting skills.

While broadcasting with only about ten viewers, that person came.

[Syoong-nim: Hello~]

“Hello~ I’m Hiro, a new streamer! Welcome~”

[Syoong-nim: You have a nice voice! I’m a streamer too, would you like to be friends?]

From her first chat message after the greeting, she was appealing that she was a streamer and asking to be friends.

Looking back on it now, it was a very rude thing to do.

Coming to a streamer who is broadcasting and starting by appealing to herself.

If it were me now, I would have blocked her immediately and ignored her, but…

“Yes~ Syoong-nim, thank you for being my friend!”

At that time, I was too naive.

More precisely, I was so rushed to become independent that my vision was very narrow.

Because of that, I couldn’t distinguish who to cut off and was grabbed by the arm and dragged into their group.

In the Discord group room that I was dragged into by that person, there were already dozens of streamers.

Seeing people who seemed to be close to each other talking in some chat rooms, and people looking for someone to broadcast with in other rooms, it felt like I had entered a game lobby.

And that person introduced me to the people in the lobby.

[Everyone, this is the new Hiro-nim~]

[Syoong-nim : hihi]

[Syoong-nim : hihi~ Hello to the new person too~]

[Syoong-nim : who did you kidnap this time?]

[Oh, the server is getting crowded lolololol]

A few people reacted to that person’s chat, and some of them greeted me.

[Hello! I’m Hiro, I started broadcasting for the first time last week! Nice to meet you!]

[lololol Nice to meet you.]

[Don’t give up, fighting~]

[Syoong-nim , I heard you were going to have a large collaboration broadcast this time, what will you do?]

[Of course I have to, I’m the server manager lol]

Short responses with no other words.

Responses that could be considered quite rude in some ways.

And indifference.

Even if I didn’t know the ways of the broadcasting world, I could definitely feel it.

That I wasn’t exactly being welcomed.

It was the kind of look you get when you enter a department as an intern that didn’t really need any more people.

[Um… Syoong-nim?]

Feeling a sense of unease in that atmosphere, I sent that person a separate private message.

[Ah, Hiro-nim! I’m sorry~ A lot of people are sending me private messages, so I just checked now!]

I sent her another message after a long time.

[I… It doesn’t seem like anyone is welcoming me, should I just leave?]

The truth that I found out later was that there were so many people coming and going from that server that people didn’t really care about new people.

But at the time, I didn’t know that at all, so, filled with anxiety, I tried to grab a lifeline with a slight sense of victimhood.

[Is there something I did that was rude or anything?]

[What should I do for people to accept me…?]

And again, only after a long time had passed could I receive a reply.

[It’s okay~ Everyone is a good person, so you’ll gradually adapt~]

[Yes… I guess so…?]

I felt that something was wrong….

Nevertheless, with a vague expectation that my viewership would increase if I interacted with people, I tried to shake off the anxiety in my head.

And I realized that all of that was entirely my misjudgment after about a month.

“Lee-sae-nim first…”
“Hey! Give me back my coin!”
“Hehehe you’re so bad~”
“Proceed with…”
“Huh? Syoong-nim  what’s this?”
“Ah, someone ate my item and ran away!”
“….”

Do you remember what I said a little while ago?

That there are dozens of streamers in that channel.

Then, how many of them were large… no, mid-sized streamers?

The answer is 0.

Not a single one.

The only streamers who were even close to being mid-sized were that person, who was the server manager, and two or so others at most.

Even then, there wasn’t a single broadcast with more than 100 viewers.

And

“Thank you for the sponsorship~ For the reaction… Lee-sae-nim! Could you come here for a moment?”

“Yes~? Ah! Why are you hitting me!”

“For the 10,000 won reaction, I hit Lee-sae-nim once, thank you!”

It was only now that I had finished figuring out the essence of this group of streamers.

This Discord streamer server was ultimately nothing more than an unpleasant children’s play area that was created by ‘슝님’, who wanted to play boss, and didn’t even become a minor copy of a large company cartel.

Large companies collaborate because it makes the broadcast successful.

Large companies do married couple or pseudo-romance content between streamers because it’s successful

Large companies gather around a specific person to form a group because it’s successful

Without analyzing ‘why’ it’s successful at all

They only emulate successful people and complain about why they aren’t like them, and use those small-time streamers as nourishment to grow their own broadcast.

It was a cartel of small-time streamers only for ‘Syoong-nim’ herself.

Kidnapping new people like me to her server was also,

In the end, because the viewership of the streamers within her server had already reached its limit,

To grow herself,

It was part of such a scheme to bring in naive newbies from the outside to increase her own viewership pool.

And by the time I realized that fact, it was already too late.

Half of the ten viewers I had in the beginning had left my broadcast, and the other half had been incorporated into that person’s viewership pool.

And fifteen of the twenty viewers who currently make up my broadcast are viewers watching streamers belonging to this small-time cartel.

The number of viewers has increased, but I had no choice but to cling to this cartel because they were viewers who would disappear the moment I left this small-time cartel.

And the result was

“Hiro-nim~?”

“Yes, yes? Syoong-nim?”

“Come here for a moment.”

“Yes?”

“Okay~ For the 50,000 won reaction, we’ll show you Hiro-nim acting cute!”

Having been reduced to that person’s broadcasting tool

“I… Syoong-nim?”

“Yes?”

“Still, let’s proceed with the content…”

“Hey, catch that b*stard!”

“Loser♥ Noob♥ Elellelle~”

In order to secure even a little more viewers in this cramped small-time cartel, the goal became to be more noticeable rather than to make the broadcast fun in collaborations…

In those kinds of people,

“Ah, hurry up, Hiro-nim. All the viewers are waiting, aren’t they?”

“…Moe moe kkyung☆”

“Puh-huh, no, that’s from ages ago, no, that’s really, puh-huh.”

It was a f*cking pathetic mess of continuing to broadcast while withering away day by day.

And in order to escape from that situation, I made a decision.