Chapter 670: Not Lacking as an Obstacle
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This took place a little before Sunraku dragged Saina off to the Crystal Nest Cliff.
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『By the way. What's the clan name going to be?』
『If we don't have a good idea by tomorrow, we'll go with Kaisaki-san's proposed "Alex-kun Cheering Squad."』
『U-Ummm......』
Listening to the voices flowing alongside the upbeat music, the woman closed the video, having learned what she wanted to know, and pondered alone.
"......How troublesome."
It was just a few minutes ago, right as she crawled into bed thinking it was time to sleep, that an email arrived containing a URL and a short message. It was precisely because she saw the impatience laden in that message—clearly not the sort of thing meant to just introduce a favorite streamer—that the woman...... Amane Towa, had opened the video. And sure enough, the information was about five times more troublesome than she'd imagined.
"Streamer Alliance, huh......"
Troublesome, truly troublesome. Streamers are, in essence, celebrities with name recognition, and it is a fact all too familiar to Towa—who operates on the front lines as a top model—that celebrities naturally attract fans.
So what happens now that this Streamer Alliance has explicitly declared they are siding with the New King's faction......? The answer is simple: a massive drain of Human Resources.
The clan system in ShanFro has no maximum member cap. Strictly speaking, it's more accurate to say that the cap can be raised infinitely by going through procedures with NPCs, but that effectively means the capacity of the clan absorbing these streamers' fans is limitless.
A gamer's fans are, with extremely high probability, also gamers. And unlike models or actors, the difficulty for fans in this category to stand on the exact same stage as their idols is terrifyingly low. After all, simply buying the same game software and connecting online generates a "chance," and this time, the object of their admiration is directly gathering people.........
"Beginners, players who are just about to start... No, there's a high chance that high-level players from our faction will jump ship too."
While her thoughts raced, she operated her device, searching for the three streamer groups that had appeared in the video.
GUN! GUN! Mercenary Corps. Approximately 940,000 channel subscribers... A streamer collective of nine people, including behind-the-scenes staff, whose primary field of activity is online FPS games. They apparently do PvE in co-op play from time to time, but they seem to be highly praised for their ability to fight with calm, coordinated teamwork while maintaining an atmosphere of idiotic, party-like revelry regardless of the situation.
"Doesn't seem like the covert ops type. If I were to deploy them, I'd probably just stack them as gunners and play it exactly like an FPS? Just dropping them into an urban area would be a massive pain in the ass........."
As a standard tactic in the FPS game category, the battlefields chosen are usually warzones or urban areas. If they were to slip into Thirdrema, completely disregarding reputation or collateral damage, the city would undoubtedly suffer catastrophic losses.
".........Next."
Kai-Soku Express Channel. Approximately 1.87 million channel subscribers... Pro gamer Kaisaki Hayate; she remembered that name. He was a powerhouse who had even managed to score a win against OiKatzo... Uomi Kei. He was a highly aggressive attacker-type gamer devoted to the "Ultra-Fast 2-Round Sweep Theory," something completely unimaginable from the impression he gave during interviews.
His specs as an individual unit were one thing, but his title as a pro gamer was undeniably his most powerful weapon above all else. Towa—and probably Sunraku too—tended to forget it, but Uomi Kei, despite being like that, was the absolute strongest, top-tier pro gamer strictly within Japan. Sylvia, who had maintained an undefeated legend for years, was simply an anomaly; normally, maintaining an official win rate above eighty percent was no ordinary feat.
While he couldn't quite rival that, it was still impossible to overlook the fact that a man with nearly 2 million subscribers was turning into an enemy. As long as their own pro gamer was strictly playing privately... and because Towa herself would remain strictly private, there was no way to counter the enemy's name value.
"......Nngh, I'm starting to get a headache."
All-Night Knight Channel. Approximately 450,000 channel subscribers... Compared to the previous two groups, her name recognition seemed a bit lower......... but in-game threat level, fame, and subscriber counts were entirely unrelated. If anything, the fact that she had 450,000 viewers at all was the problem.
This woman named Karintou was the type of person who could throw her entire body weight onto the game side of the real-life vs. gaming scale. Towa could at least understand that digging into her real life would be tactless, so she simply muttered, "I can't believe she maintains that face with a lifestyle like this......"
The greatest threat posed by All-Night Knight Karintou was, undeniably, the fact that she herself could log into ShanFro for endless hours, and that there were likely thousands of viewers capable of matching that login rate. The advantage of having a "night shift" when viewing the faction as a whole went without saying. On the other hand, even though Towa... Pencilgon, and the RPA had successfully infiltrated Thirdrema's political core, they did not have complete control over every player in the Thirdrema faction. Or rather, there were probably people who didn't even know Pencilgon was in a prime minister-like position.
In short, they couldn't prepare thousands of players moving with the exact same objective. Her mere existence made it easy to enrich the guts of the beast they were driving into this "war" during the preparation phase.
However, the truly dangerous ones were not these three groups.
PayaGaru Channel. Approximately 4.5 million channel subscribers......... An indisputable heavyweight that became Japan's current largest game livestreaming channel after streamers "Payabusa" and "Garunose" merged their channels. When looking at a global scale, there was Sylvia Goldberg's channel, which completely dwarfed their subscriber count with a double score, but she'd leave that aside for now.
The combined influence of Payabusa—who boasted overwhelming support from teenagers—and Garunose—who garnered support from a niche demographic due to his incredibly old-school game choices—was incomparable to the three groups they were collaborating with. It was said that if those two called something a "God Game," even a mediocre title would become a hit, and the terrifying part was that it wasn't entirely a lie.
Because she was the top model "Amane Towa," she understood it perfectly. These two were pure-bred Infectors......... They didn't even need to collaborate. Just declaring that they were siding with the New King was enough to drastically tilt the balance of military power.
They were likely well aware that the New King intended to oppress the demi-humans of the New Continent. If Towa's prediction was correct, they were probably planning to launch a project to persuade the New King......... Because if Towa was on that side, she would absolutely do exactly that.
Shangri-La Frontier wasn't politics; you could easily draw people in even with an uncertain manifesto. Given that the New King Alex's nature was well known, if they waved the banner of "Persuasion," people would be lured in and gather around it.
"Did the devs hire them......? No, they aren't the type of devs to pull some petty direct interference like that. If they were going to do anything, they'd just silently buff the New King's resources......... If so, is this their own decision? Because they can't stand out on the Thirdrema side since I already control it?"
The vast majority of Towa's caution was directed toward this PayaGaru Channel.
No, strictly speaking, that wasn't true. Amane Towa's caution was directed at Payabusa, one half of the PayaGaru Channel. Because she knew this man.
Extinguishing three massive, disastrous controversies entirely on his own, successfully pulling off large-scale viewer projects time and time again, and making the decision to merge channels with Garunose to gain even more fame—this sheer level of worldly navigation......... It wasn't a stunt someone could pull off naturally. She understood it precisely because she was "that type" too.
"Payabusa... This guy is..."
Just like Amane Towa, he was a pure-bred tactician type who excelled at leading and manipulating people. As long as this man stood in their way as an enemy, the Streamer Alliance clan—which should have been a disorganized mob—would stand as the greatest threat to the RPA.
"Heh......... Sounds good to me. I was just starting to get a little bored with this one-sided game anyway."
Ideally, the less trouble, the better—that was what she had thought. But if a formidable enemy had appeared, she simply had to shift her mindset. She wasn't exactly lacking cards in her hand, either. If a rival who could view the grand tactical board had appeared, then clashing head-on would be an absolute blast. At the very least, it would be far, far more fun than bullying NPCs.
"Bring it on, Streamer Alliance. You better be ready, because I'm going to inflict enough damage to shave off thirty percent of your subscriber count."
Towa's laughing words would never reach them. Naturally, since they hadn't even mutually acknowledged each other yet. However......... their collision was not far off.
Author's Afterword
Q. Isn't that too many subscribers?
A. A certain glasses-wearing person's gaming channel has 4.5 million, so I'm actually giving a conservative estimate here.
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