"Event 1v1 Match. Kisaki Rinko VS Aurora."
Kisaki Rinko read the final line aloud.
After tilting her head in thought, she spoke again.
"Event 1v1 Match. Kisaki Rinko VS Aurora."
"...Rinko, do you not like it?" her manager asked nervously, noticing Rinko's muttering.
"If I had to choose between liking it or not, I'd say I donât like it."
"But thereâs nothing we can do... Deadraus Korea specifically requested you and Laura."
"I know."
Rinko nodded.
Labyrinthos is riding the âVTuber Coinâ wave, so to speak.
That wasnât particularly surprising. Itâs a common strategy to use VTubers when breaking into the Japanese market.
For example, there was an online mahjong game.
When the Japanese server first launched, it didnât have many users. But after they hired VTubers for advertising, the user count exploded, and the Japanese server was revivedâit's quite a famous story now.
Labyrinthos also experienced success by using VTubers when targeting the Japanese market, and since then, it has remained a VTuber-friendly game.
I didnât expect them to extend that strategy to Korean VTubers, though.
"There arenât many female users who have reached the Master rank to begin with, and on top of that, youâre a VTuber, Rinko. Deadraus holds you in very high regard."
"That was last year. Now Iâve been demoted to Diamond after going inactive."
"Rank isnât everything. Youâve appeared at Labyrinthos events before, havenât you?"
"I know, I know."
Even if she wasnât happy about it, she couldnât just quit.
VTubers are professionals who get paid to do a job. No matter how much you dislike something, there are times when you have to do it.
To let go, you need a reason to justify it. And Rinko hadnât found that reason yet.
"Next year, Laura will probably take over," she said.
"Huh?"
"Iâm talking about Labyrinthos advertising."
Rinko shrugged.
"Oh, I can't wait for someone to overthrow me already."
===
ãVirtual Aituber Galleryã
[General] What's this Labyrinth Tournament?
Does EYEAI even have enough people for the tournament?
[Comments]
Arcade Mode is 3v3, so they should have enough.
ã´ (OP) Whatâs Arcade Mode?
ã´ Itâs a new mode coming in the next patch.
ã´ (OP) Oh, I see.
===
[General] Another public member announcement today
EYEAI Official @EYEAI_official
[#EYEAILabyrinthTournament
We are revealing todayâs EYEAI Labyrinthos Tournament participants!
The dazzling leader of the 6th generation, âAyano Kouji Sora,â is joining the Winter Team!!]
[Comments]
Dazzling?
Shouldnât she be singing instead? Whatâs this about...
Wasnât Aurora the leader? ã´ (OP) Apparently not. ã´ Leaders have less time to play the game. ã´ lol
Sheâs gonna suck so bad...
===
[General] Summary of the revealed members so far
Spring Team: Tanaka Michael
Summer Team: (Not revealed yet)
Autumn Team: Shijo Erika, Shiroki Anna
Winter Team: Ayano Kouji Sora, Inagika, Chel Sumeragi
[Comments]
Whereâs A-chan?
ã´ (OP) Sheâs the director.
ã´ Does that mean directors donât participate in the tournament?
ã´ (OP) No clue.
ã´ Thatâs lame...
Winter Team is all 6th-gen members?
ã´ Looks like Autumn Team will be all 5th-gen members.
Spring Team is a 1st and 2nd-gen combo, and Summer Team is probably a 3rd and 4th-gen combo.
===
[General] They probably pulled Rinko and Laura out because their tiers are too high
Rinko was a Master last year.
Lauraâs Diamond.
Ainatsu and Veronica are Platinum.
Everyone else is below Gold.
[Comments]
Why is A-chan still only Diamond?
ã´ (OP) Sheâs been grinding Duels to tone down her Berserker stats.
ã´ Sora keeps distracting her with Minecraft.
ã´ ???: "I have a cat at home, wanna come see it?"
ã´ Why does Sora have this meme attached to her now, lol?
ã´ Honestly, it kind of fits the vibe...
So itâs basically a noob battle.
ã´ Thatâs why itâll be fun, lol.
===
[General] Hit like if youâre hyped for the event match
EYEAIâs top VTuber, Rinko.
The Virgin Queen, Laura.
This is gonna be epic...
[Comments]
This is the real main event, isnât it? lol
[â¦Arenât you going live? Why did you launch Labyrinthos first?]
Sora spoke in disbelief.@@novelbin@@
"Oh my, you asked me to share my screen, didnât you? So I did."
[I meant to share the stream screen, not the game screen.]
"Is that so? Will this do?"
[â¦Why is the stream screen just showing patch notes and the game? At least show our Discord icons.]
Sora explained that itâs better to have Discord overlays during collaboration streams.
When multiple people are talking in a single stream, it can be hard for viewers to tell whoâs speaking. It gets even more confusing if the people have similar voices.
"The overlay is where the Discord icons blink when someone speaks, right? How do I set that up?"
[â¦You donât know how to do that?]
"Iâve never tried."
Now that I thought about it, this was the first time I was hosting a collaboration on my channel. The first 6th-gen collab had been on Inagikaâs channel, and since then, Iâd only appeared on other peopleâs channelsâIâd never hosted anyone on mine.
[First, click on âscenes,â then âadd source.â Youâll need to copy a URLâ¦.]
Thankfully, with Soraâs help, I managed to set up the stream layout without too much trouble.
Before I knew it, it was 6:00 PM.
I clicked the âStart Streamâ button.
ã#EYEAILabyrinthTournamentã Winter Team Assemble ãAurora/EYEAIã
Good evening!
How are you all doing?
The stream is live, de-su-wa~!
Greetings, my lady (meaning noble greetings, haha)
As the stream began, the chat became lively almost immediately.
At the moment, there were around 2,000 live viewers. Not bad, considering the stream had just started.
It was probably due to the tournament announcement and the fact that it was a collaboration, so there were more viewers than usual.
"Now that the stream has started, letâs get back to what we were talking about. I want to try Arcade Mode, so should I go ahead and create a custom room?"
[â¦What are you even saying all of a sudden?]
"Oh my, didnât we finish discussing Arcade Mode? The only way to really understand it is to play it, right?"
[I didnât mean that... Arenât you going to explain things to the viewers? Your stream doesnât even have an opening? If you start talking about things only we understand, the viewers will get confused.]
"Thatâs a valid point."
I nodded.
"Alright, Sora, you explain it to them."
[Wha... Me?]
"Youâll be handling the explanation up until the Labyrinthos part. Then Iâll take over."
Sheâs dodging the responsibility again, lol.
From Rion to Sora, huh? lol.
Wait, isnât this Auroraâs stream?
Haha, so all the 6th-gens are like one mind, huh?
If you're colleagues, you should act like the channel belongs to you too!
Relieve the Lady of her burdens! Sora!!!!
[â¦Every time I think about it, youâre such a handful.]
Sora sighed and began explaining.
[If youâve seen the announcement on social media, youâll already know, but EYEAI is hosting a Labyrinthos VR tournament.]
[Yes, itâs an advertisement. Lauraâs viewers are sharp, arenât they? This time, Deadraus Korea gave our office a proposal. So, weâre promoting the new Arcade Mode.]
[As for the rest of the tournament participants, weâre not going to reveal that, are we? If you're curious, check social media~.]
Sora calmly read the chat and explained everything.
Listening to her brought back memories from a few days ago.
-"Thereâs going to be a Labyrinthos tournament at the office."
-"Itâs time for us to share subscribers."
Thatâs what Rion said to me after coming home from work.
Sharing subscribers.
Itâs something weâve talked about before. VTubers naturally share subscribers with each other through collaborations.
In fact, the 6th-gen members had already shared a decent number of subscribers.
ãAuroraã 183,219 subscribers
ãAyano Kouji Soraã 31,866 subscribers
ãInagikaã 22,431 subscribers
ãChel Sumeragiã 14,018 subscribers
Sora, who had the fewest subscribers early on, saw a significant increase in her numbers after the Minecraft collaboration.
Of course, part of that was because Minecraft suited Sora well, but it was mostly because she frequently invited me to her channel.
At this point, a good portion of my viewers seemed to like Sora. Whenever I wasnât streaming, many of them would watch her instead.
I interacted more with Inagika outside of streams than during them, though weâd collaborated a few times.
Chel, on the other hand, didnât interact much with the rest of the group.
Though she had a strong personality, she was usually quiet, and most of the time, there was dead air.
Even though her participation rate in collabs was surprisingly high, since she didnât talk much, it didnât make much of an impact. As a result, her subscriber growth was the slowest among us.
-"I wish Chel would interact more, but overall, I think the 6th-gen members are doing well."
-"Since weâre assigning them to the same team for the tournament, I hope they continue to interact actively."
-"At the same time, Iâd like them to start mingling with the seniors."
-"As they interact with the seniors, theyâll share subscribers, and this will prepare them for external collaborations in the future."
In short, it was time for us to not only share subscribers within our generation but also with the seniors.
[Huh? Is Laura going to participate in the tournament? â¦This is where the director herself should answer, donât you think?]
Sora handed the explanation back to me, though I wouldnât have minded if she had finished it herself.
"Directors arenât allowed to participate in the tournament because their tiers are too high. It would create an imbalance."
[â¦You didnât have to go into all that detail. You couldâve just said you werenât participating.]
"Oh, was that it? Well, if you were looking forward to my performance, Iâm sorry, but look forward to the event match instead."
With that, I displayed the patch notes I had prepared on the screen.
With that, I displayed the patch notes I had prepared on the screen.
[The victory conditions for Arcade Mode are as follows:
Eliminate all enemy players (same as other modes)
Complete the mission
There are various missions, and here are a few examples:
Extermination: Hunt all monsters on the map. If you successfully hunt more monsters than the opposing team, you win.
Escape: Find escape doors scattered across the map. Each door is for one person only. The team with more players escaping wins.
Domination: Capture specific areas on the map. The team that captures more areas wins.
Additionally, a random mission will be selected for each match.]
"There was a recent patch in Labyrinthos that added Arcade Mode. As you can see, Arcade Mode is a 3v3 format, and the victory conditions are quite different from the standard modes."
To be honest, itâs difficult for me to predict how the gameplay will feel.
The only thing Iâm sure of is that the flow will be different from Gate Conquest Mode or Duel Mode. I suspect it will require a wider variety of characters and better individual skills.
But thatâs just speculation. Thereâs still not enough information to say for certain.
"No point in dragging out the explanation. Youâll understand the game better once we play it, so letâs dive into Arcade Mode together."
[Youâre not just saying that because you want to play the game, right...?]
After being quiet for a while, Inagika suddenly made a rather accusatory remark.
Of course, I didnât deny it.