Master Swordsman’s Stream - Chapter 65

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 65

[Seo Jun: So we’re done now?]
[Han Ji Min: Yes.]
[Lee Geon Young: Everyone, sleep well.]

The Seo Dong Bu meeting ended that way.
Seo Jun closed the chat window and entered the community.
He’d learned through email about a post from the streamer Bang Ju, and he needed to verify it.
“What is TOP10?”
The word alone suggested something good, but he needed details.
Seo Jun navigated to the integrated page of the game magazine community Adventure, rather than a single game-specific page.
That’s when something pinned to the right side caught his eye.

[Today’s TOP10]

“Looks like it’s a bulletin board collecting popular posts based on the community as a whole.”
Seo Jun tapped the “View More” button below to check more posts.
It didn’t live up to its name.
There were more than ten posts, despite being called TOP10.
“All kinds of games being discussed.”
Most were titles he’d heard of before.
And among them, the most dominant was For the Alliance.
Out of the top 50 posts, 30 were occupied by the For the Alliance community—the Nohyeop Community.
“The Battlefield is quite massive.”
Of course, the timing likely helped; there was no major event overlapping with other games right now.
Actually, this seemed to be the biggest window.
They said during the Lios era, all 50 posts are completely dominated by Lios discussion.
“Is the meeting all done?”
“Yeah.”
Tae Woo burst through the door.
“Chicken’s here. Come on out, man.”
He’d ordered without even mentioning what kind.
Seo Jun smiled contentedly.
“What are you looking at? Top Ten?”
“Oh, right.”
Only then did Seo Jun remember why he’d come here, and he began scrolling back up, checking the post author as he went.
“What are you looking for? Most of it’s just Battlefield talk right now, pretty boring. Don’t tell me you’re searching for something about yourself?”
That’s more or less right.
“If it made it here, maybe I hit tenth place.”
“Tenth? In this climate, that’s hard even for the major names. What did you pull off this time?”
“Nothing special. Just played normally.”
As Seo Jun scrolled, he felt something wasn’t right.
No matter how far he scrolled, Bang Ju wasn’t appearing.
At this rate.
“First place? That must be it.”
Oh.

[Rank 1] [For the Alliance] [Today’s Battlefield. A moment that feels scripted!]

It was a post written by the user Bang Ju.
The view count and recommendation count were insane for first place.
“Is that you? The view count has already topped 150,000. When Bang Ju enters the Battlefield, no one can stop them.”
Tae Woo seemed to know about Bang Ju too.
Curious what he’d written, Seo Jun clicked the post.
After reading the whole thing, Seo Jun laughed.
Perfectly placed clips, perfectly timed dialogue.
It was an exceptionally well-written post with excellent context.
‘Didn’t he say he’d take it down if I wanted?’
From what Seo Jun could see, there was absolutely no reason to take this post down.
The reaction was good, and he hadn’t written anything negative about anyone.
“Haha. You had something like that happen? Why does that user Baek Ho look so pitiable? Hehehehe.”
Tae Woo, who’d read it alongside him, laughed freely.
“I’m telling you, you play games in a weird way. Anyway. Check out the comment reactions.”
“I don’t see anything particularly weird?”
“What?”
“Look at this.”
As he scrolled, he found a comment that fit perfectly.

-Hahahaha Cheon Ma villain had me dying lol
└Why is he like this?
└That’s just the average in For the Alliance

“It’s the average, it says.”
“…….”
“…….”
After a moment of silence, Tae Woo shook his head.
“This is why I don’t play this game.”
Honestly.
It makes you feel a little self-deprecating.
Just a little.

-This is the Demon Sect!
-He really plays ridiculously well. How did he even figure that out?
└Because he’s Cheon Ma!
└Seo Jun is Cheon Ma! Seo Jun is Cheon Ma! Seo Jun is Cheon Ma! Seo Jun is Cheon Ma!
└What kind of fandom is turning into full Demon Sect cultists? Tsk tsk
└Wait, are you maybe a 3-Minute Curry member too?
-Demon Sect vs 3-Minute Curry Group—my heart swells with emotion!
-If this keeps up, honestly think he could just skip to rank 16? Lol
└Totally possible
└Seeing him fight Baek Ho, when he goes up against top rankers he’s probably gonna steamroll them
-The broadcast is fun though lol

Seeing this, Tae Woo spoke up.
“How much bigger is this guy gonna get?! Stop growing already!”

* * *

MONSTER.
The garage—headquarters of the indie game development company in the middle of producing a game—was lit with the glow of overtime work.
“CEO, mail came in.”
“What mail?”
“The one where you asked that streamer directly—whether he’s good at horror games.”
“Oh, that? That was fast.”
They had gone through considerable deliberation over recruiting a streamer for their advertisement.
The reason was simple: if this project failed, the company would be finished.
Which made advertising that important.
For well-known franchise games, most streamers would play them without ads anyway, and just one event placement would suffice.
But they had no recognition whatsoever.
Apart from themselves, probably no user knew this company existed or that such a game was being developed.
It was the fate of indie games.
“So indie games have no future? That can’t be right. Can it?”
The CEO suddenly stood up, clasped his hands behind his back, and paced around.
“Right, right. What was it again?”
He didn’t pay much attention to the familiar routine, just did his work and answered half-heartedly.
“Dracula Survival?”
“Yeah, that.”
Dracula Survival.
The plot was incredibly simple, but the gameplay was phenomenal.
But the reason this game became popular wasn’t just the fun of playing—it was also the fun of watching.
“Plenty of others too. Games get promoted through broadcasts, gain word-of-mouth traction. More streamers play them. More people watch them.”
A virtuous cycle.
“Yeah, yeah. That’s why I’m searching now. We can’t revise the game any further from here.”
“Right, I’ve already asked other staff members too.”
“And?”
“A few said that streamer Seo Jun would be good. Best if he’s easily scared.”
“So what should we do?”
“What did his mail say first?”
“That as a streamer, he’s skilled at horror games.”
Saying a streamer is skilled at horror games means he gets scared easily.
“That’s really unexpected though? Maybe he just has a surprisingly weak heart?”
He seemed like a psychopath otherwise.
“It fits perfectly. He’s trending now. He’s bad at horror games. He has colleagues with good chemistry. And then—”
“Plus, normally he seems pretty cold, but if he gets scared, it becomes twice as entertaining. Haha. Really seems like the ideal person.”
It’s almost a done deal.
“So when should we contact him? You’ve narrowed down the list?”
“Let’s do it later. Right now, view counts seem inflated because of For the Alliance. If we wait a bit longer and the numbers cool, we could make the offer more budget-friendly, don’t you think?”
“True.”
“Once the Battlefield period ends, the viewer count should drop anyway. You can’t have subscribers jumping up in a single day and viewers skyrocketing in a week forever, right?”

* * *

The next day.
Han Ji Min had sent the email and slept like a baby.
She woke up from bed this morning with a peaceful heart.
Back then, after investing everything and getting betrayed, she’d felt such deep betrayal—not financial loss, but pure resentment—that whenever she tried to sleep, her insides would burn and she’d toss and turn for hours without rest.
Now, she felt refreshed.
“Hehehehe. Hehe. Hehehehe.”
Han Ji Min turned on her phone while still in bed and opened YouTube.
It was her morning routine.
Specifically—

[He can’t just pass by a pebble lol] – 12,000 views
[Go back down, I said!] – 7,000 views
[Why Mafia Game is Scary] – 5,000 views
[Save me] – 11,000 views

“Ah. So satisfying. Really. Sigh.”
She couldn’t contain her laughter.
She wasn’t normally the type to take pleasure in others’ misfortunes, but when it came to an enemy, that was a different story.
The owner of the YouTube channel with pathetically plummeting view counts was Han Ji Min’s former employer.
The average view count that used to hit 100,000 had dropped to one-tenth.
She’d built that channel, so she could’ve felt bitter about it, but surprisingly, no such emotion appeared—only pure vindication.
“Of course. The viewers feel it too.”
Though there were few comments, they seemed to come from genuine fans offering feedback.

-The editing style feels disjointed. It was clean and nice before.

Han Ji Min checked the other comments this person had left on the channel.

-Why don’t you upload on a regular schedule?
-Please fix the spelling. 1:37 and 2:14 seconds.
-Today’s video wasn’t fun.

They were pointing out the exact reasons for the drop in average views.
“I wonder what that bastard thinks when he sees this?”
Low-quality editing with a completely different style than before.
Daily uploads becoming chaotic and inconsistent.
The channel wasn’t being managed at all.
“Guess he was just being cheap.”
Predictable.
After all, he’d fired her for money reasons.
Criticizing when he’d never even managed a channel before. Tsk.
Once it crashes like that, even if he recovers, it’ll take ages to get back into the algorithm’s recommendations.
He might regain his footing eventually.
“Sigh. I need to stop doing this already.”
She’d laughed enough. Satisfyingly enough.
“Just one more day. Until tomorrow.”
Yeah. Just until tomorrow.
“But honestly, didn’t think he’d grow this fast. No matter how much the CEO keeps drumming up
controversy, this is—”

50,000 subscribers!
The growth was insane.
And most importantly—

[Lee Geon Young: I’ve organized all the broadcast highlights from yesterday]
[Lee Geon Young: (file)]
[Han Ji Min: Thanks]

The work was so convenient.
Before, she’d made one video a day.
She had to do one video per day to get more algorithm favor.
Another editor? Unthinkable until she established her position and generated revenue.
But now.
She’s making one video every other day, and her colleague edits everything—from thumbnails to highlight points—and takes notes for her.
Not that she’s just sitting around doing nothing.
Having a stake in the channel meant she was literally the owner.
There could be no lack of ownership mentality.
Especially now—just looking at the current view count, she could estimate what kind of revenue they’d make, and she couldn’t help but work even harder!
“A 10-minute video gets 4 won per view, so—”
Even rough calculation showed at least 12 million won a month.
Of which Han Ji Min’s share was 25%.
Three million won. Plus 150 in base salary, that’s 4.5 million won.
“25% is a bit less than during our peak back then, but—”
That peak had barely lasted three months anyway.
In contrast, they were in month one now.
“Insane.”
She needed to grow this channel further. Using everything she had.
“Wait. Something’s weird with the subscriber count?”
She was sure the subscriber count was 50,000 when she checked yesterday.
So why had it jumped to 100,000 overnight?!

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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