The Next Morning.

    Do-hee woke up and checked TingTalk messages that had arrived overnight. Among them, she spotted a message from someone unexpected.

    [Mugeon]

    “...Huh? What’s this about?”

    Mugeon—real name, Lee Dong-geon.

    Until two years ago, when Battle Colosseum League was at its peak, he was a former pro who had competed in multiple international tournaments, sweeping awards and enjoying massive popularity among Battle Colosseum players during his prime.

    After retiring, he leveraged his infamous "Magnet Aim"—a nickname from his pro days—to carve out a successful career as a high-level Battle Colosseum streamer.

    Do-hee had gotten close to him after they ended up on the same team during a streamer tournament. Now, they were at the point where their first words to each other were "You bastard" or "You bitch," exchanged with equal affection.

    At this point, any VTuber fan would naturally wonder—

    Wouldn''t there have been chaos in the chat from unicorns and blackened broth fans, raging about her interacting with a male streamer?

    Did she already purge her audience once?

    In the beginning, there was definitely backlash whenever the two played together.

    The rumors ranged from "They''re secretly dating," to "They meet every weekend," to "They''re planning to get married."

    But as time passed, one undeniable fact came to light that completely shattered all speculation—

    Mugeon was a hardcore Battle Colosseum addict who had never even met Momo in person.

    Someone had looked up his ranked match history after he first appeared on Momo’s stream, and aside from the time spent playing with Momo or others, he had been grinding ranked matches for 16 hours a day.

    Even his appearances on Momo''s stream followed a fixed pattern:

    "I feel like playing Battle Colosseum.

    "I need a teammate."

    "Oh, Momo''s streaming."

    "Wanna play?"

    Plays for two hours.

    "Alright, thanks. Later."

    And then he’d just leave.

    Even the most rabid unicorns couldn’t spin that into a romantic narrative.

    Moreover, he was so obsessed with the game that his nagging at Do-hee in matches made him sound like an overbearing mother-in-law.

    "This is why you’ll forever be stuck in Gold."

    "You say you wanna rank up, but your mindset is all wrong."

    Since Do-hee was the kind of person who only took advice seriously from top-tier players like Magia or Mugeon, her inevitable frustration and snappy comebacks became a hit among viewers.

    Before long, even the audience started looking forward to their collab streams.

    That said, Mugeon usually only contacted her during streams—and only when she was playing Battle Colosseum.

    So it was strange.

    Not only had he messaged her in the middle of the night, when he should’ve been streaming, but he was also using a weirdly formal, almost sales-pitch-like tone.

    [Mugeon: How have you been, boss?]

    [Mugeon: I have an inquiry for you.]

    [Mugeon: Do you happen to have someone named ‘Signal Flare’ at your company?]

    The fact that he was reaching out out of nowhere was already suspicious, but on top of that—Signal Flare?

    Why was he looking for Magia?

    Do-hee immediately called him.

    ...Only to realize it was 6 AM.

    Considering he was a full-time streamer, he should’ve been asleep by now.

    Just as she was about to hang up, the call connected.

    "Oh, long time no see!"

    Apparently, he wasn’t asleep yet. His voice was still sharp.

    “What the hell? You’re still up?”

    "Ah, I just finished streaming. Was about to sleep."

    “So? What’s all this about Signal Flare?”

    "Wait—you don’t know yet?"

    At that moment, her phone buzzed.

    A TingTalk notification from Mugeon.

    Switching to speaker mode, Do-hee opened the message. It was a clip from Akari Dora’s stream last night.

    "That player—your employee. Their aim was insane."

    “...?”

    Do-hee was baffled.

    Just what the hell had happened overnight that one of their employees ended up in the real-time best category?

    Then again, that was just her initial concern as an ex-troll.

    The reality was something else entirely.

    "Magia played a match in Dora’s stream?"

    The clip showed a Pandemic Village final boss getting shredded in under two minutes.

    And the player? Undoubtedly, Magia.

    Judging from the heated arguments in the comments, the sequence had unfolded after Dora had provoked Magia, and Magia had taken the bait.

    Magia took the bait?

    "She even visited her place the other day... Has she really changed her mindset?"

    More importantly, the aim was downright terrifying.

    The boss was darting between the floor, walls, and ceiling, moving erratically, yet Magia landed every single bullet—twelve consecutive shots, all clean headshots to its grotesque, dangling eyeball.

    Even when the boss lunged at her, poised to tear into her, she stayed eerily calm and emptied the last few rounds straight into its skull.

    It was almost... beautiful.@@@@

    Do-hee was watching the clip again in awe when Mugeon spoke.

    "So, here’s the thing—we’ve got a crew match next week."

    "One of our members had to drop out, and I was wondering how to fill the slot—then I saw this clip."

    "Didn’t realize she was that well-known until I checked TriWiki."

    “Oh.”

    "So yeah. Just two matches—one warm-up, one main event. Could you introduce us?"

    Even though it was a crew match, it would still be streamed.

    But if she did nothing, the fallout would be unavoidable.

    Managing the stream itself wouldn’t be an issue—the managers could handle that.

    The real problem was that the junior managers of various streams might come at Magia, begging her to just debut already because they were tired of moderating chat.

    And that, too, would become pressure on Magia to debut.

    "That’s not happening."

    If Do-hee wanted to respect Magia’s choice, she needed a way to redirect the attention of those 20,000 viewers.

    A distraction.

    A countermeasure.

    ...But what?

    “Boss.”

    Magia spoke up.

    Like she already knew exactly what Do-hee was struggling with.

    “But, uh... if all the first-gen talents are off that day, a lot of people are gonna show up, right? Mugeon already has a big viewer base, too.”

    Do-hee blinked in surprise.

    Magia continued.

    “So what if we get permission to use a short sample of the first-anniversary song? We could make a teaser and drop it that day. The 3D models just need finishing touches, so a silhouette preview should be fine...”

    Magia wasn’t usually the type to take the initiative.

    But sometimes, something would spark her interest enough that she moved before anyone could even ask her to.

    And because she watched streams even more than Do-hee, she could think faster than her in certain situations.

    Like now.

    This could only mean one thing—

    Magia had completely stopped resisting the idea of being part of the broadcast world.

    She had already shown up on D-Rain, Battle Colosseum collabs, and Dora’s stream.

    Now, even the one employee who just wanted to do her job well had stopped actively avoiding the spotlight.

    She always delivered beyond expectations, but—

    At some point, without Do-hee even noticing, she had grown again.

    “...Alright. I’ll look into it. I’ll handle that side of things, so you just focus on how you’re gonna play in the match.”

    And so, Do-hee left everything about the presentation that day in Magia’s hands.

    Normally, she would have the PR team handle it.

    But she was just a little curious—what would Magia come up with?

    “Anything else you want me to do?”

    “Nope, that’s it. Once the promo’s done, just have fun.”

    “Okay~.”

    And since she was asking Magia for something outside her usual duties, she needed to offer a reward.

    “...By the way, are you free that weekend? Wanna game together?”

    Magia blinked, as if she’d just been hit by a stun grenade.

    “...Uh. Wait. You? Asking me?”

    “Why? You don’t wanna?”

    “No, I just— I didn’t expect you to bring it up first.”

    “....”

    “I mean, come on. You always make excuses about being busy. If I don’t ask, you never—”

    “Alright, alright! Forget it. I take it back. That was a mistake.”

    “Whoa, whoa, wait! If you cancel, I’m canceling the promo, too.”

    “You little—”

    Cackling, Magia bolted from the office.

    "Just kidding~."

    ***

    Mugeon immediately agreed to Do-hee’s request.

    [Do whatever you want. I can even pin a link in chat.]

    He never stopped guests from promoting their stuff on his stream.

    It was just that, because of his status, smaller streamers usually hesitated to take advantage of it.

    As long as someone didn’t drag things out with a ten-minute boring monologue, he was more than willing to help.

    [By the way, if you’re gonna do that, you should probably change your nickname, too.]

    “...Oh. Yeah, that makes sense.”

    [Right? I mean, I’ll be saying your username constantly during the match. There was this one guy who went from 10k to 50k subs just because of that.]

    “...Alright. I’ll talk it over with her.”

    Frankly, Magia was the expert here.

    The ridiculous usernames she had come up with in the past had made plenty of people laugh.

    [Me: Hey, Magia.]

    [Me: You can use your username for promo. Wanna come up with something? I’ll cover the rename fee.]

    Her response was instant.

    [Magia Manager: (Brackets) Work-in-Progress-Sashimi-Master-Let’s-Go]

    [Me: Don’t mess with me.]

    [Me: I will end you.]

    She only needed two minutes to get serious.

    Her final suggestion?

    [Magia Manager: MugeonIsAWell-KnownMomoAnti]

    [Me: ...HEY.]