Chapter 1: Someone Came to My Stream?
Streamers.
In today’s world, streaming had become an incredibly common profession and hobby.
Countless people streamed or watched streams in search of dreams, hopes, and excitement.
However, even in the world of streaming, talent and perseverance mattered.
Only a limited number of people managed to become popular or keep going.
Haikawa Mobius—that was his streamer name—was one of those countless hopefuls.
Late that night, he was streaming on a major video platform, playing a game he didn’t even particularly want to play while chatting noisily to himself in front of the screen.
“Ah, damn it! How’d they find me!? I was hiding!”
He talked to himself while playing a famous FPS often called a masterpiece online.
He wasn’t particularly good at games.
If anything, he was average at best, maybe a little below average.
“I can’t stand this stupid game! …Though nobody’s even watching anyway.”
A textbook example of a bottom-tier streamer.
That was Haikawa Mobius.
After two months of streaming, he had eleven subscribers.
His usual concurrent viewer count was one.
And that one viewer was himself.
Streams had a comment feature.
Viewers could support the streamer or mock them by posting messages during a broadcast.
Comments almost never appeared in Haikawa’s streams.
The reason he started streaming was simple.
There was a streamer he admired, and he wanted to entertain lots of people just like that person.
There was also the image that if he became famous, he’d get rich.
That he could make a living doing what he loved.
Things like that.
In other words, he was a perfectly ordinary twenty-five-year-old man suffering from streamer fever.
To make matters worse, the company he worked for had gone bankrupt a few days ago after the president fled in the middle of the night.
He was currently gloriously unemployed.
“I wonder why viewers never show up.”
“I’m pretty funny, aren’t I?”
He had started streaming because of an unfounded confidence that he was entertaining.
But reality wasn’t so kind.
Zero viewers was completely normal.
Most people eventually got sick of streaming to nobody and quit.
To become famous, you usually needed effort outside of streaming too.
Social media.
Video uploads.
Interesting stories.
Good conversation skills.
Gaming talent.
Things like that.
Haikawa was doing those things too.
But in the end, luck was what mattered most.
If a video or stream went viral, viewers flooded in overnight.
That opportunity simply hadn’t come his way yet.
“Well, whatever!”
“Streaming’s fun, and sooner or later people will show up.”
Apparently, streaming was something people were either suited for or not.
People who were suited for it could keep talking forever even with no viewers.
The act itself was enjoyable.
People who weren’t suited for it couldn’t even talk naturally with viewers present.
Their conversations felt forced.
If anything, Haikawa Mobius belonged to the former category.
At least for now, he seemed to be one of those people who could keep going.
“Damn it! Why isn’t there a machine gun anywhere!?”
“Nothing but trash weapons!”
Two hours had passed since the stream started.
He still had zero viewers.
To be precise, three people had dropped by earlier, but none stayed long and none left comments.
That was fairly normal.
Even so, he continued enjoying the game and streaming without caring.
Then an alert sounded, notifying him that someone had posted a comment.
“Huh?”
Looking at the chat, he saw a single message from a username belonging to a famous streamer he recognized.
It contained only one word.
[Help.]
“Mitsuhashi Eris-san?”
“Come on, you can’t just use a celebrity’s name like that.”
“I don’t really care, though.”
A viewer was a viewer.
Getting comments made him happy no matter who they came from.
He gave a harmless response and waited for another message.
Responding to chat was standard practice for small streamers.
[Help me, I’m scared.]
“What’s wrong, Fake Mitsuhashi-san?”
“Got a problem?”
“I’ll listen.”
His focus left the game as he waited for a reply.
The next comment arrived after a brief pause.
[An actual ghost showed up while I was telling scary stories on stream.]
[Please help me.]
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Some new kind of scam?”
“And why come to my stream of all places?”
There was no way it was real.
Mitsuhashi Eris was a famous streamer with nearly a million subscribers.
Someone like that would never watch Haikawa’s stream.
He assumed it was just a fan roleplaying with a secondary account.
“Whatever.”
“Hold on a second.”
He didn’t actually believe the person.
He was just bored.
To kill time, he opened a video site and checked whether Mitsuhashi Eris was streaming.
‘What the hell?’
‘Her stream page is in complete chaos.’
Mitsuhashi Eris was indeed live.
However, the video had frozen and the broadcast had stopped.
The comment section was exploding with viewers claiming the connection had died.
The stream title read:
[It’s Spring, So Let’s Tell Scary Stories! @ Mitsuhashi Eris]
There was no way this could be real.
Even so, this visitor was precious to a bottom-tier streamer.
Even trolls were valuable.
Thinking he’d at least keep them company, Haikawa spoke toward the screen.
“I don’t know why you’re asking me for help, but if you put your phone number in chat, I’ll help.”
“Though obviously you’re not actually gonna do that.”
[022-XXXX-XXXX]
“Whoa!”
“You actually posted it!?”
He had been certain they wouldn’t.
But they did.
The number appeared to belong to a social media calling service, the kind that could be changed whenever the user wanted.
“Do I seriously have to call now…?”
“Well, nobody’s watching my stream anyway.”
Haikawa used the same calling service and dialed the number.
Honestly, talking to someone whose number he’d learned only moments ago made him nervous.
But backing out now would mean breaking his promise.
That would be lame.
So he gathered his courage and made the call.
“Hello?”
“Fake Mitsuhashi Eris-san?”
“I called.”
The other side answered.
He spoke casually while testing the waters.
Then—
“P-Please help me…!”
“There’s something inside my room…!”
A trembling girl’s voice came through the phone.
She sounded like she was desperately holding back tears.
He had assumed it was a scam or a troll, but…
“First, calm down.”
“I don’t know why you called me specifically, but let’s get out of the room while talking about something fun.”
“B-But…”
“I’m hiding in my closet right now…”
“Someone’s in the room…”
“It’s fine, it’s fine.”
“I get it, there’s a ghost.”
“But even if it’s a lie, feeling happier will make things safer.”
The girl on the other end clearly didn’t understand how he could say something like that.
Yet Haikawa continued.
“You know, I stream.”
“But nobody ever shows up.”
“It’s rough.”
“Seriously, why won’t my viewer count go up?”
“W-Wait…”
“I’m really in trouble here…!”
“Instead of talking about that, call someone for help…!”
“It’s fine.”
“Mitsuhashi Eris-san wouldn’t understand the struggles of a bottom-tier streamer.”
“I mean it.”
“Nobody comes.”
“…!”
“…!”
Apparently the supposed ghost in the room had started moving.
Maybe it heard her voice.
The presence seemed to be approaching the closet.
“Mitsuhashi-san, you probably can’t even see ghosts, right?”
“Then just ignore it.”
“Be brave and walk from the closet to your front door.”
“I’ll keep telling you fun stories while you do.”
“…O-Okay.”
Mitsuhashi Eris—supposedly—decided to follow his advice and leave the closet.
“You don’t live with anyone, right?”
“Apartment?”
“I don’t know the layout, so just focus on what I’m saying while you walk.”
“Y-Yes…”
“I understand…”
“Eek…!”
“By the way, are you actually the real Mitsuhashi Eris?”
“Nah, no way.”
“The real one would never come to a dead stream like mine.”
“Y-You’ve been insulting yourself this whole time…”
“Uu…”
Self-deprecating jokes were generally popular.
But if you overused them, people genuinely started feeling sorry for you.
That was dangerous.
“My normal viewer count is literally one.”
“One!”
“Nobody comes.”
“I swear there are probably more people standing in random rice fields out in the countryside.”
“Hahaha!”
“I-Is that so…?”
“Pfft…”
“You should come out of the closet already.”
“If you keep your head down and tell yourself it’s all in your imagination, it won’t be scary.”
“O-Okay…”
She was terrified, but she opened the closet and started walking.
For the next minute, Haikawa kept the conversation going with random chatter.
Eventually, Mitsuhashi succeeded in leaving the room.
“You got out?”
“Oh, you’re outside the apartment building now.”
“Good, good.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you so much…!”
“I-I was so scared…”
Her voice was still trembling.
Just hearing it made it obvious how frightened she’d been.
“Um…”
“Why did you believe me?”
“I panicked and called you without thinking, but normally nobody would believe something like that, right?”
“Even setting the ghost thing aside, you sounded genuinely terrified.”
“So of course I’d help a little.”
“Um…”
“There wasn’t actually a ghost, right?”
“I know it’s strange for me to ask…”
Normally, if a stranger called claiming there was a ghost in their room, nobody would believe them.
But Haikawa had a reason to.
“There was a ghost.”
“It wasn’t anything particularly dangerous, though.”
“…Huh?”
“Huh?”
His voice became slightly more serious.
He began explaining what happened right after the call connected.
“I could hear another voice through the phone besides yours.”
“It kept saying things like ‘Disappear’ and ‘Die.'”
“…What?”
“W-What?”
“Ah.”
“I can see curses and stuff.”
“I’ve got spiritual powers.”
“I don’t know whether you attracted it yourself or if someone actually cursed you, but I definitely heard it.”
Haikawa hadn’t mentioned it before.
But another voice had clearly been mixed in with hers through the phone.
A voice filled with hatred and disgust.
Neither distinctly male nor female.
It had been there the entire time.
“Mitsuhashi-san.”
“Even as a joke, you shouldn’t use someone else’s name.”
“You can attract the bad things surrounding that person.”
“T-That’s impossible…!”
“I really am—”
“Mitsuhashi Eris is a famous VTuber, right?”
“Famous people get envied and resented.”
Haikawa pressed on.
Celebrities were loved, admired, and envied by many.
But they also became targets of jealousy and resentment from people dissatisfied with their own lives or finances.
He explained that using the exact same name as someone like that could occasionally attract strange things.
“You should sprinkle salt around your apartment and clean it tomorrow.”
“That’ll work as a purification.”
“Um…”
“I don’t know your name, so I’ll just call you Streamer-san.”
“Who exactly are you?”
“That’s my line.”
“Anyway, Fake Mitsuhashi-san, spend tonight at an internet café or something.”
“Good luck.”
“Ah, wait—!”
He hung up and returned to his stream.
His viewer count remained exactly where it had been before.
At zero.
“Yeah, I’m not in the mood to stream anymore.”
“That’s it for today!”
He closed the broadcast and flopped onto his bed.
Then he fell asleep.
Haikawa’s mornings started late.
He slept as much as he wanted, woke up sometime after noon, and spent his time playing games or gambling.
His company had gone bankrupt, leaving him unemployed and job hunting.
Before he knew it, it was already eight o’clock that evening.
For now, he was enjoying life however he pleased.
“Alright.”
“Time to start streaming.”
Maybe streaming simply suited him.
Even without viewers, he had continued broadcasting regularly for the last two months.
Today was no different.
He started up his stream and began another self-satisfying broadcast that nobody would watch.
Today’s stream was a racing game.
Nobody was watching, but he chatted happily while playing.
Then he noticed something on his smartphone.
On the major video platform Your-Tube, he saw:
[Mitsuhashi Eris – Live Now]
“Oh?”
“The real Eris-chan is streaming.”
“Maybe I’ll watch a little.”
He lowered the volume enough that his microphone wouldn’t pick it up.
Then he watched the stream while playing.
Racing games weren’t his specialty.
Trying to watch another stream at the same time only made his driving even worse.
“Hey everyone!”
“It’s Mitsuhashi Eris!”
“Good evening!”
A bright and adorable voice flowed from his phone.
On the screen was a cheerful CG girl with hair somewhere between chestnut brown and blonde.
Even from her voice alone, it was obvious she possessed exceptional talent as a streamer.
Her short hairstyle and warm smile projected a bright and energetic personality.
Yet she also seemed calm and composed rather than simply noisy.
“Tch.”
“Twenty thousand concurrent viewers?”
“That’s twenty thousand times more than my stream.”
Haikawa’s current viewer count was one.
And that one viewer was himself.
Mitsuhashi Eris was an extremely famous virtual streamer.
Virtual streamers—also known as VTubers—broadcast using CG avatars instead of showing their real faces.
The style had been popular for quite some time.
“Sorry for ending the stream midway yesterday!”
“But things got really crazy!”
“Well, losing your connection is a huge deal when you’re a famous streamer.”
“While I was telling scary stories yesterday, paranormal stuff actually started happening in my room!”
“I got scared and tried to call for help.”
“But my phone started acting weird too.”
“Then another streamer helped me!”
“Quit lying…”
“…Wait?”
“…Huh?”
Haikawa still believed the person from yesterday had been an impostor.
Yet suddenly, all the pieces were starting to fit together.