[Stream] Monetization Celebration, Thanks, And Super Chats

“Well met, my subordinates. I am Verchera Merisis, the one and only Demon Lord of the Demon Realm.”

Before putting the game screen on stream, I started with a greeting.

Since today was also a celebration of my monetization application being successfully approved, I figured I should thank everyone first.

On top of that, Super Chats—a system that let viewers send money along with their comments—had also been unlocked, so the chat was already getting pretty excited with comments like, 『Super Chats when?』 and 『Let me throw money at you already, c’mon!』

The reason my greeting had been a little sloppy was because I was looking up how to configure everything at the same time.

Yes, sorry.

“Now then, as written on the thumbnail, monetization has finally been approved. I went ahead and enabled advertisements at once, but… hmm, I do not really understand them.”

Right.

I was actually subscribed to Ourtube Platinum myself, so I didn’t get ads.

I didn’t particularly care about advertisements, but Mom had complained that they interrupted videos whenever she watched them on her account, so I’d ended up subscribing too.

“And so, to be perfectly frank, even I never expected monetization to happen this quickly… No, truly. Even the person who recommended that I become a Vtuber stared in astonishment and said she had never imagined I would be monetized in such a short time.”

Seeing the words “past life” made me flinch for a moment, but the streaming industry used that term too.

In the streaming world, “past life” basically referred to whatever kind of streaming activities someone had done before changing their appearance or persona.

For example, if I’d originally been an Ourtuber who showed my face and then switched to becoming a Vtuber, people might refer to my face-cam days as my “past life.”

Every now and then, videos exposing a Vtuber’s “past life” got uploaded, but I really didn’t understand how revealing the face of someone doing Vtuber activities was any different from exposing some random person’s face online.

I couldn’t see what distinction people were making there.

“Anyway. The reason monetization went through safely is because all of you subjects have been watching me so diligently. So… thank you.”

“Khuhu, allow me at least this much gratitude. I would like to give something back in return, so I intend to repay you through various projects eventually. As for Super Chats, I shall enable them now. Wait a moment while I adjust the settings.”

The very idea of viewers impatiently demanding that Super Chats be unlocked was a pretty amusing part of the culture.

Still, if people willingly chose to spend money on me, then I’d gratefully accept it and try to return that support through better stream ideas and improvements to my setup.

As for my actual lifestyle, I had no desire to move, and Mom and Yuzu-neesan had already bought me all sorts of equipment.

They’d probably refuse if I tried paying them back, so I supposed I could repay them by taking them out for meals or something.

“—There. That should have unlocked them.”

“…What? Fifty thousand right away? Can you still afford to live? You are not going to die, are you?”

“No, no, no! What are you people thinking?! Who sends that much immediately?! I have not even done anything except thank you yet!”

Even so, the flood of Super Chats didn’t stop.

No, seriously, wasn’t this weird?

This kind of thing was what you saw during anniversary streams or special events for famous agency Vtubers.

It wasn’t supposed to happen to an independent Vtuber like me with only around thirty thousand subscribers.

“…What a strange lot you are. I shall devise various projects so that I can return the favor. Perhaps I should also arrange some way to take requests for that sort of thing. Thank you.”

“No, an insult stream is… surely you are joking, yes? Spending fifty thousand just because you wish to be insulted is enough to make even me recoil. Do not waste your money on foolish things.”

Whoa…

Well, um, I suppose if there was demand for it…

And if the person spending the money was satisfied…

Still, this was getting to the point where I was genuinely worried they were spending too much.

“Now then, we are not making any progress, so let us move on. As I said earlier, now that monetization has been approved, I imagine the range of things I can do will expand. So I intend to accept requests in that regard as well. I shall make a post on Monology, so it would help if you wrote them in the replies… Though quite a few of you are already using Super Chats to tell me… I do not mind, but truly, you should value your money more.”

I honestly felt a little guilty that far more Super Chats were coming in than I’d expected.

Or rather, I didn’t think I’d done anything worthy of this much support yet, so it was making me uncomfortable.

Seriously, though, people really could just casually throw fifty thousand yen at someone, huh.

Everyone kept talking about the recession, but I suppose money really did exist in abundance wherever it existed.

Well, I supposed my household and school would both fall into the category of “where it exists”…

“Now then, for today, there is a game I have been interested in for a little while, and I wish to try it. In truth, I have never played an FPS before. I would like to practice a little while taking advice from the comments.”

“Indeed, as some of you have written in the comments, it is 『OFA』. It will be my first time playing, and I know little about guns or anything of the sort, so I thought I would begin with the tutorial.”

Since I’d watched videos beforehand, I knew what the comments were referring to.

This was actually the kind of game where you couldn’t win unless you’d put a fair amount of time into it, and if you didn’t understand the rules, you could easily drag your teammates down.

There were also tiers representing your rank, and to climb through them, you had to win ranked matches.

But unless you queued with people you knew, you’d naturally end up paired with complete strangers, which inevitably made your win rate drop quite a bit.

Apparently even Effie-san had jumped into solo ranked matches and gotten caught up in some spectacular disasters.

“Well, I have no intention of becoming skilled in a hurry. I think it will be enough to get used to things gradually, so let us take it easy.”

Yes.

That was what I had intended.

And yet, for some reason, my stream was about to become strangely exciting.