"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 don’t like it."
"But there’s nothing we can do... Deadraus Korea specifically requested you and Laura."
"I know."
Rinko nodded.
Labyrinthos is riding the ‘VTuber Coin’ wave, so to speak.
That wasn’t particularly surprising. It’s 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 didn’t have many users. But after they hired VTubers for advertising, the user count exploded, and the Japanese server was revived—it'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 didn’t expect them to extend that strategy to Korean VTubers, though.
"There aren’t many female users who have reached the Master rank to begin with, and on top of that, you’re a VTuber, Rinko. Deadraus holds you in very high regard."
"That was last year. Now I’ve been demoted to Diamond after going inactive."
"Rank isn’t everything. You’ve appeared at Labyrinthos events before, haven’t you?"
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"I know, I know."
Even if she wasn’t happy about it, she couldn’t 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 hadn’t found that reason yet.
"Next year, Laura will probably take over," she said.
"Huh?"
"I’m talking about Labyrinthos advertising."
Rinko shrugged.
"Oh, I can't wait for someone to overthrow me already."
===
【Virtual Aituber Gallery】
[General] What's this Labyrinth Tournament?
Does EYEAI even have enough people for the tournament?
[Comments]
ㄴ (OP) What’s Arcade Mode?
ㄴ It’s a new mode coming in the next patch.
ㄴ (OP) Oh, I see.
===
[General] Another public member announcement today
EYEAI Official @EYEAI_official
[#EYEAILabyrinthTournament
We are revealing today’s EYEAI Labyrinthos Tournament participants!
The dazzling leader of the 6th generation, ‘Ayano Kouji Sora,’ is joining the Winter Team!!]
[Comments]
===
[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]
ㄴ (OP) She’s the director.
ㄴ Does that mean directors don’t participate in the tournament?
ㄴ (OP) No clue.
ㄴ That’s lame...
ㄴ Looks like Autumn Team will be all 5th-gen members.
===
[General] They probably pulled Rinko and Laura out because their tiers are too high
Rinko was a Master last year.
Laura’s Diamond.
Ainatsu and Veronica are Platinum.
Everyone else is below Gold.
[Comments]
ㄴ (OP) She’s been grinding Duels to tone down her Berserker stats.
ㄴ Sora keeps distracting her with Minecraft.
ㄴ ???: "I have a cat at home, wanna come see it?"
ㄴ Why does Sora have this meme attached to her now, lol?
ㄴ Honestly, it kind of fits the vibe...
ㄴ That’s why it’ll be fun, lol.
===
[General] Hit like if you’re hyped for the event match
EYEAI’s top VTuber, Rinko.
The Virgin Queen, Laura.
This is gonna be epic...
[Comments]
[...Aren’t you going live? Why did you launch Labyrinthos first?]
Sora spoke in disbelief.
"Oh my, you asked me to share my screen, didn’t you? So I did."
[I meant to share the stream screen, not the game screen.]
"Is that so? Will this do?"
[...Why is the stream screen just showing patch notes and the game? At least show our Discord icons.]
Sora explained that it’s 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 who’s 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?"
[...You don’t know how to do that?]
"I’ve 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 Inagika’s channel, and since then, I’d only appeared on other people’s channels—I’d never hosted anyone on mine.
[First, click on ‘scenes,’ then ‘add source.’ You’ll need to copy a URL....]
Thankfully, with Sora’s 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 ‘Start Stream’ button.
【#EYEAILabyrinthTournament】 Winter Team Assemble 【Aurora/EYEAI】
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, let’s get back to what we were talking about. I want to try Arcade Mode, so should I go ahead and create a custom room?"
[...What are you even saying all of a sudden?]
"Oh my, didn’t we finish discussing Arcade Mode? The only way to really understand it is to play it, right?"
[I didn’t mean that... Aren’t you going to explain things to the viewers? Your stream doesn’t even have an opening? If you start talking about things only we understand, the viewers will get confused.]
"That’s a valid point."
I nodded.
"Alright, Sora, you explain it to them."
[Wha... Me?]
"You’ll be handling the explanation up until the Labyrinthos part. Then I’ll take over."
[...Every time I think about it, you’re such a handful.]
Sora sighed and began explaining.
[If you’ve seen the announcement on social media, you’ll already know, but EYEAI is hosting a Labyrinthos VR tournament.]
[Yes, it’s an advertisement. Laura’s viewers are sharp, aren’t they? This time, Deadraus Korea gave our office a proposal. So, we’re promoting the new Arcade Mode.]
[As for the rest of the tournament participants, we’re 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.
-"There’s going to be a Labyrinthos tournament at the office."
-"It’s time for us to share subscribers."
That’s what Rion said to me after coming home from work.
Sharing subscribers.
It’s something we’ve 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.
【Aurora】 183,219 subscribers
【Ayano Kouji Sora】 31,866 subscribers
【Inagika】 22,431 subscribers
【Chel Sumeragi】 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 wasn’t streaming, many of them would watch her instead.
I interacted more with Inagika outside of streams than during them, though we’d collaborated a few times.
Chel, on the other hand, didn’t 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 didn’t talk much, it didn’t 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 we’re assigning them to the same team for the tournament, I hope they continue to interact actively."
-"At the same time, I’d like them to start mingling with the seniors."
-"As they interact with the seniors, they’ll 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? ...This is where the director herself should answer, don’t you think?]
Sora handed the explanation back to me, though I wouldn’t have minded if she had finished it herself.
"Directors aren’t allowed to participate in the tournament because their tiers are too high. It would create an imbalance."
[...You didn’t have to go into all that detail. You could’ve just said you weren’t participating.]
"Oh, was that it? Well, if you were looking forward to my performance, I’m 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:
There are various missions, and here are a few examples:
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, it’s difficult for me to predict how the gameplay will feel.
The only thing I’m 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 that’s just speculation. There’s still not enough information to say for certain.
"No point in dragging out the explanation. You’ll understand the game better once we play it, so let’s dive into Arcade Mode together."
[You’re 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 didn’t deny it.