16 The Third Stream
Kia taps on the screen of her new phone and after a while of tinkering with what apps and features it has, she finally does it. The logo of YouTube and Twitch flash and after a short loading screen, her empty chat is displayed.
"Haha! I did it!"
The words of Matsuura back at the very start of the day stuck in her mind.
He's just trying to make her into a full–time villain. The man has a massive hard-on for villains and this is possibly one of his motivations for dragging her wherever he could.
It's not possible, as long as she explicitly stays low and doesn't catch the attention of the major protagonists and antagonists… Kia's going to be fine.
In fact, she'll prove that she can hit big without being involved in the main story!
Yeah… she can imagine being able to feel superior against a man who embodies the word arrogant.
Kia opens up Minecraft and waits for it to load. Part of her screen now freed up from her new phone acting as her second monitor was an acceptable side reward from today's events.
However she also now needed to buy a holder for it.
[AdmiralRoux: Hello again.]
Kia was astonished. "You're here early. I haven't even entered my world yet."
[AdmiralRoux: I've checked out this game you're playing, it feels pretty fun. I'm not that good at building though.]
Kia could relate; she often found herself comparing her creations to YouTubers who were miles better. "...I know someone who used to build amazing stuff. I don't think their channel exists anymore. A silly British man named after cereal."
[AdmiralRoux: I don't know who you are referencing but this game is over 100 years old. How do you even know them?]
"Yeah… I've just heard of legends that used to define it. They're either retired or… gone. I wasn't alive during their peak times, but I can't imagine the reaction of their fans after their departure. I guess no one really lasts forever."
It was saddening to know that no one practically remembers influencers years after. This was an alternate world; perhaps everyone just moved on or forgot about people after the advent of Quirks. On Earth, people's attention spans weren't that high. Just imagine an Earth with superpowered humans.
Still, Kia was probably the only person in Japan who would know what was left of the past.
Now that she thought about it, what if this world didn't have the same kind of YouTubers or streamers in her timeline?
Could she maybe… steal content? No, it wasn't stealing, it was repurposing ideas! Besides, copying is the sincerest form of flattery.
It was going to be a thought left for the future…
[AdmiralRoux: What's going to happen now?]
"Hmm… since I've already reached diamond armor, I'd like to try killing one of the bosses and put a pause on the gameplay. I still need to read up on the next stage of the game."
Minecraft had an… interesting departure from what Kia knew. Alternate universes were weird in that way.
The game had more elements that extended the world with a greater variety of biomes and monsters. Crafting had reached the point where Kia thought it was modded.
No guns in the official game yet, but some machinery was craftable; simple things like auto miners and chunk clearers were ripped straight out from mods that Kia remembered.
Other things like additional bosses for every biome existed. All of them had a common quality: they all could only be fought after defeating the boss of the End biome, the Ender Dragon.
So after finishing up that boss, it'll open up, meaning Kia had to prepare before she ventured into a very unknown part of the game.
"That reminds me of challenge runs. Do you think it'll be fun to watch?" Kia comments while preparing her character in-game for the fight.
[AdmiralRoux: It's the streamer that makes it fun.]
Kia nodded. "...True. Then maybe for some future streams, I'll need a mouse or maybe a dance pad and a lot of time."
[AdmiralRoux: Are you going to try dancing to beat this game? wwww]
When Kia said she'd beat the game with her feet, she meant using dance pads as controllers. It was the perfect combination of challenging, interesting, and somewhat funny.
…No, she wouldn't grip a mouse with her toes or anything like that while pointing a camera at it — the only people who'd watch that are weirdos.
*Cough.*
Kia swung the imaginary scale of having dignity often; at least she was trying to have some kind of moral compass regarding content creation. The key word is 'trying'.
"It'll be hard but it sounds like a good idea," Kia responds.
[AdmiralRoux: You said you don't have a mouse?]
"Not yet, although I am planning to buy one but I still have two or three weeks before I get paid."
Kia didn't see a quick response, so to distract herself from the conversation, she fetched a few Ender Pearls to find the End portal. It was the only material she needed left to continue her journey through Minecraft.
Minutes passed and Kia questioned, "Roux? Are you still there?"
A bass-boosted Among Us sound effect crackled slightly as her laptop speaker blasted its full volume, startling Kia. "Fuck! I'm glad that worked, but that's too damn loud…"
[AdmiralRoux has donated 5,000 Yen]
She slackened her shoulders, leaned forward, and opened her mouth with widened eyes. Kia's American brain processed the amount in dollars; it was about $30. "Roux… I'm actually pogging right now. Thanks, my guy!", she exclaims.
After almost a few days of streaming, she'd gotten money! Was she lucky? Definitely. New streamers can barely break a single view sometimes after a few months or years.
She would thank G O D for giving her an attractive female body but she curses that omnipotent being. Kia would rather thank the girl who previously inhabited her current body since they're the ones who took care of it originally.
[AdmiralRoux: What's Pogging?]
Kia snaps out of her excitement. "Er… It's one of my emotes. I can't draw so I just used my webcam to make the reaction images and cropped it."
[AdmiralRoux: What do these mean?]
Kia's life had a lot of free time, especially after leaving her family back on Earth, so often she'd just browse Twitch or YouTube. She much prefers the emotes that Twitch spawned, so some of them were embedded in Kia's knowledge of internet culture.
Making them was not easy; there are some emotes out there that would probably be considered higher effort, but after seeing that the MHA world didn't have these emotes, she decided to make some, albeit of lower quality.
Explaining, Kia paused her gameplay and enlightened the viewer. "Well, there's only a few, there's PogU, it's like being surprised and happy… maybe just happy after the streamer does something impressive. I also have KEKW and OMEGALUL, laughing basically. I know it's harder to type than just 'W' but I'm used to saying these. Oh, oh! And I want to add a few Pepes ah but I can't draw it and I suck at descriptions but it's a green frog and stuff…"
[AdmiralRoux: You're cute being passionate about these things.]
"Of course I am cute!" Kia declares. "…What the fuck am I admitting right now?"
[AdmiralRoux: KEKW]
Unbeknownst to her, being stuck as a girl meant slowly attuning your mind to being one, and Kia was starting to get some of their effects. "Oh shut up… I'm glad those emotes wouldn't go to waste. Let's kill this Ender Dragon."
After killing a few Endermen who dropped their Ender Pearls, Kia crafted enough Eyes of Ender to hopefully find the Stronghold to get to the End Portal and have enough left to open the portal to the End.
Even her viewer had to ask why the names were all lazily created. To be fair, there wasn't much room to name the items related to the End.
Soon, Kia geared up for the fight, a bit excessively too. She knew about the speedrunning strategies that can make it possible with literally an inventory full of beds, but that felt disingenuous to the game. It was going to be her first time in years playing Minecraft as well as showing Minecraft back into the world of MHA. Killing one of the bosses with beds would look funky.
As she rechecked her inventory for all the potions, enchants, weapons, and armor on her character, Kia took a deep breath. The fight wasn't hard, but Kia wasn't going to take chances, especially since someone else was watching.
It has happened to people at some point, the moment someone else shows up to watch you play, you end up doing worse.
"Okay, here we go."
[AdmiralRoux: Good luck!]
When the boss's health bar appears, Kia reacts fast, platforming towards the main aisles as her spawn is a bit outside the actual territory where the Ender Dragon flew around.
Kia's fingers were already trembling. No, not from fear but because playing with a trackpad while attempting to speed bridge was hard.
She sees the boss itself flying around, knowing the game, she starts placing blocks upwards to reach near the top of one of the obsidian spikes littering the End biome.
Before she knew it, a roar echoed from the speaker, indicating an attack by the boss. "Shit, that's early."
A ram from the boss sends her straight to the stratosphere, the attack wasn't lethal as Kia made sure to put on feather falling on her boots. However, she would rather not lose her hit points if possible.
Quickly, she switches to her water bucket in her hotbar and as she falls… she correctly times the landing and doesn't take any damage, splashing harmlessly in the placed water. "Phew! Every time I have to do that, I still feel like I'm going to die."
[AdmiralRoux: PogU!]
"Eh… not poggers yet. Only when I kill it."
Resuming her climb, she finally reaches the apex of the tower. After reaching the top and destroying the iron bars protecting the End Crystal, she takes out her bow and arrow and shoots the crystal, destroying it in the process.
"So there's ten in total, and two of them are like this, I have to climb the other one and start shooting the others. If I don't take out the crystal, the boss will keep regenerating."
Kia naturally comments on what she is about to do to her audience. Her viewer might've already looked up the game, but if someone ever clips or sees her VODS, it'll be better to explain along the way.
But as she got down from the tower to resume towering the other cage-protected End Crystal, an Enderman, amongst hundreds, started to attack her. "Seriously?! I haven't even looked at you! I swear these things are racially motivated against the player once they enter the End."
After a while, she destroys every tower, encountering the Ender Dragon's attacks. It'd be a waste to attack before she destroys the crystals, so she does her best to dodge and continue.
"There we go, it's time to actually start killing this lizard… is it a lizard? Never mind, ignore what I just said."
Kia starts shooting down the Ender Dragon, seeing its purple health bar slowly going down. The Ender Dragon tries attacking her; throwing fireballs with an area of effect, ramming her, or just flying around.
Eventually, opportunities present themselves with the Ender Dragon perching near where the portal to exit the End spawns. Like a madman, Kia furiously starts spamming her spacebar and shift button while simulating Parkinson's disease with the amount of jittering her fingers do. "I'm so close! Using a trackpad with this fight is fucking torture. My index and middle finger are going to be jacked after this."
The bar is close to fading and with the bar going down and leaving only a slimmer of health, she finally sees the Ender Dragon's death sound effect, popping, and hearing a final death groan.
The boss was finally dead.
"Hahaha! Yes!" Kia jumped up from her seat, a bit exaggerated but she was truly happy she managed to beat Minecraft after such a long time.
Well, in MHA where the year is more advanced, the Ender Dragon wasn't the final boss anymore but still, she felt happy finishing a childhood memory.
[AdmiralRoux: PogU PogU PogU]
"Pog, indeed," Kia felt a bit empty but this time, as the credits loaded in and were playing, she knew there'd be more after the Ender Dragon. "Next up are the different Biome Bosses, although after that I don't know what else to build."
[AdmiralRoux: Have you tried moving in villagers to whatever you built?]
"Nope… although that reminds me of kidnapping them for an Iron Golem farm and some enchanted books. It's a bit excessive though, I'm not going to play that far after what's left."
[AdmiralRoux: I can watch anything, I'm enjoying just doing stuff and watching you on the side.]
"Alright then, I guess I'll get Netherite and make the strongest armor for a boss rush tomorrow. It'll be a free day so I'll be streaming almost all day tomorrow, we'll be alone for a while, heh."
[AdmiralRoux: I'll make sure you won't be lonely with just me.]
Kia eyed the comment with curiosity. "What do you mean?"
[AdmiralRoux: :)]
She decided not to question whatever her viewer sent, it's the internet, and people say the most random things sometimes.
The rest of the stream wasn't special, Kia got a few more items in the End like Elytras and Shulker Boxes before heading to the Nether to try mining for Netherite. However, she only managed to get two veins worth of Netherite.
Her one and only viewer stayed to the end, no one new ended up joining the stream but she was satisfied. Tomorrow, she'd head out to finally buy a mouse from that suspicious music store.
She'd received a donation and after being taxed, the money was enough to buy a cheap mouse.
It was working, streaming led to her getting a donation! She was pretty sure it'd take months but now that she gave the stream a bit more attention to detail, Kia would finally live a life of freeloading and effort-free income!
<>
In a certain forum…
[Anonymous29210128: I'm running out of content to watch, it's all hero games and stuff, and I'm fucking sick of it, someone send something please]
[Anonymous27219272: I've been watching someone recently, look up K-Tari1773 on YouTube]
[Anonymous26519273: >Replying to 27219272< How'd you find her?]
[Anonymous29210128: >Replying to 27219272< Damn, she's hot. Why doesn't she have an audience?]
[Anonymous27219272: She plays this old game. It's not even in Virtual Reality. I donated enough for her to buy a mouse because she used a trackpad on her laptop. KEKW]
[Anonymous26519273: >Replying to 27219272< She's only been streaming for a few days and you already donated?]
[Anonymous27219272: >Replying to 26519273< The first stream she had, she yelled at me and told me to go fuck myself.]
[Anonymous26519273: >Replying to 27219272< I have to watch her now. Do you have a clip of that?]
[Anonymous29210128: >Replying to 27219272< Nice. A fellow man of culture. I'll take a look.]
[Anonymous27219272: >Replying to 26519273< KYellsatMe.mp4]
