NOVEL WEB chapter 208
… ─ — Pazijik Gallery ─ ─ — …
[Magia) NeoCal Server Announcement]
Here’s what came up on Magia’s stream early this morning.
Uploaded the video first—summary is below.
(Pazijik_Supermassive_Server_Announcement.mkv)
- Everything’s subject to change a bit until mid-February. Keep that in mind.
- Entry requirement is 2,000 followers. Depending on how many people join, the requirement might get lowered during the event. Server capacity is expected to max out at around 300–400 participants.
- Both cam streamers and VTubers can join if they meet the requirement.
- The key is preparing a distinctive RP.
- Think of it as living a totally new life in a world different from reality—do what you want, but remember, you’re the one who has to deal with the image that creates, so be careful.
- By the way, I’ve prepared something insane.
[Comments]
— Pazijik851: Just how insane are we talking?
ㄴ Pazijik009: I’m actually hyped lol
— Pazijik266: Bet she’s just gonna show up with another troll RP again...
ㄴ Pazijik185: Isn’t she playing the villain again? lol just roaming everywhere
ㄴ Pazijik707: If it’s Magia... yeah that tracks!
… ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ …
… ─ — Pazijik Gallery ─ ─ — …
[But like, what’s even fun about a massive RP server?]
I’m a streaming newbie so I’ve never watched one, no idea what the appeal is.
[Comments]
— Pazijik765: Honestly, even the boomers don’t really know lol
ㄴ Pazijik765: RP and all that used to be treated like weeb trash, but with VTubers blowing up, it kind of came up along with them
— Pazijik662: It depends on how immersed the players get
ㄴ Pazijik662: Think of it like watching a movie
ㄴ Pazijik662: If the acting’s good, it’s fun. If not, you’ll feel like you wasted your money
ㄴ Pazijik582: That metaphor is spot on lol
ㄴ Pazijik775: Even if it’s janky, as long as it’s funny, it still works
ㄴ Pazijik775: It’s also a good chance for unknowns to blow up if they land one solid gag
ㄴ Pazijik329: Should I go teach Najaks a few tricks early then?
ㄴ Pazijik095: Does he meet the follower requirement?
ㄴ Pazijik329: He still needs to hit the target…
ㄴ Pazijik095: Tell him to find a way. 300 slots is a huge opportunity, gotta grab it!
… ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ …
The next morning, word spread fast, and a lot of people started paying attention to Pazijik’s
But even though my personal channel had launched—
The Slugs didn’t seem all that happy.
… ─ — Parallel (VTuber) Gallery ─ ─ — …
[But didn’t the Slugs already predict this template from the start?]
You should’ve started getting suspicious the moment Magia said she’d willingly make her own channel lol
Can’t believe y’all just believed her
[Comments]
— Parallel094: ffsffsffsffsffsffsffsffsffsffsffsffs
— Parallel559: You fix this mess!!!
— Parallel774: Not a victorious Slug, but a Wol-Dungi? LMAO
… ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ …
… ─ — Parallel (VTuber) Gallery ─ ─ — …
[But we still don’t know for sure]
Magia said it was temporary…
But if the channel does well, wouldn’t it be a waste to kill it off?
Also, she doesn’t do much on the comms office channel like before anymore. These days, most of her appearances are closer to collabs on personal channels.
Isn’t it kinda problematic to stream those from the official one?
[Comments]
— Parallel093: Are you a damn genius?
ㄴ Parallel093: I’m going straight to Parallel HQ to demand answers
— Parallel171: So I just go find Magia in person and confront her?
ㄴ Parallel511: You’ll get hauled off to the police if you do that
ㄴ Parallel085: lolololol
ㄴ Parallel226: That’s child abuse, dude
ㄴ Parallel171: I didn’t say I’d hit her, wtf
— Parallel009: But maybe we shouldn’t overdo it?
ㄴ Parallel009: I get the feeling even if we scream, we’ll just get wrecked again
ㄴ Parallel176: Why are you soaked in defeatism
ㄴ Parallel009: Because it’s true
ㄴ Parallel009: How are we supposed to win against a troll streamer…
ㄴ Parallel176: GO!!!
ㄴ Parallel176: You call yourself a Slug with that weak mentality?!
ㄴ Parallel176: Don’t give up, assei!
ㄴ Parallel009: Ack!
… ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ …
Still, let’s at least acknowledge that the channel exists now.
No one knows what might happen next—we’re all running on hope circuits.
Maybe that’s why I feel less hopeful and more... pessimistic?
Probably because I know full well that if I really wanted to, I could blow up this channel in a second.
This whole big project is being run with Pazijik, so I already got permission for the channel to be deleted at any time.
Pazijik’s side clearly wanted me to keep it running, though.
But it’s my duty and responsibility as Parallel’s streaming head to go live on the official channel as much as possible, and try to redirect every viewer who shows up for me toward the other members.
How am I supposed to pour effort into a personal channel like that?
Especially when my utaite gigs are all managed by CAT Entertainment—if they call, I go. If they say sing, I sing. If they say rest your voice, I rest.
It’s just not realistic.
But then again, does that mean I’m just gonna leave the channel dead until mid-February when the big server opens?
Nope.
Parallel assigned me, and Mind Network assigned Lupko, to promote the server.
And our plan to promote this RP server—something most people still aren’t familiar with—is to actually play
… ─ — Parallel (VTuber) Gallery ─ ─ — …
[Magia’s channel intro is freakishly strong lol]
:: Deputy Magia ::
- I moved to Neo California. I’m a former hitman, a professional contract killer.
This is RP?
So does that mean she’s just gonna ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) be out here popping heads off every person she meets?
[Comments]
— Parallel224: Bet she’s raising a black dog or something, lmao
ㄴ Parallel085: Jawick lol
ㄴ Parallel834: Damn, how long’s it been since we talked about Jawick? lol
ㄴ Parallel006: Is that the one where she landed three consecutive headshots with a pistol in that collab game?
ㄴ Parallel361: Yep, that one lol
— Parallel843: The explanation’s missing so it just looks funny, but this is actually a thing
ㄴ Parallel843: It’s supposed to be a warning not to do bad RP
ㄴ Parallel740: What’s bad RP?
ㄴ Parallel581: Like killing people for no reason in a life server
… ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ …
The RP I picked for the demo is someone who looks like a sudden millionaire who just moved to Neo California, but is actually a hitman who’s killed over a thousand people.
She’s the type who instinctively pulls out a gun the moment things get tense with someone.
Why this RP, though? Like I said in the gallery post—it’s to serve as a guide in advance.
When you throw first-timers into an RP server and just say, “Go live freely!” it always ends up full of crime and chaos.
So it’s about setting some baseline rules.
Because if those rules don’t get followed, the whole server turns into one giant UFC cage match and falls apart.
Pazijik’s dev team is putting a ton of care into this.
As the head of Parallel and Lupko as the head of Mind Network, we’re each doing a stream and a summary video in December and January to promote the event.
Only by doing that can we make sure the participating streamers fully immerse themselves and deliver an amazing two-week movie experience.
This is a huge project that Pazijik is placing big hopes on.
Which means I’ve gotta do everything I can, too.
***
The only thing I hadn’t predicted while setting all this up—
Was probably the absurd number of subscriptions that suddenly flooded into my channel.
It was about a week after the Burumable collab had ended, when I came into work. The CEO called me into her office...
What she showed me was genuinely shocking.
[Dashboard]
- Followers: 25,221
- Subscribers: 5,299 (Standard 4,441 / Premium 858)
This translation is the intellectual property of .
For most streamers, subscriber counts usually hover at around half their average viewer count or about 10% of their followers—that’s the standard.
But mine were at 20% of followers and nearly matched the average viewers.
Even the other members, like Maru who’s a master at soup-content and parasocial engagement, or Ena, couldn’t match that ratio. So the CEO glanced at me and asked carefully:
“Hm. Wouldn’t it be better to just keep your channel?”
“They subscribed that much?”
“You haven’t checked your channel stats at all?”
“I mean, the RP server promo streams are still a few days away, so I wasn’t really paying attention. And stats pop up on the dashboard anyway while I’m streaming.”
“Well, true enough.”
Since I registered through our company and got slotted straight into Partner tier (which is the most premium streamer tier Pazijik offers, above Standard and Business), my revenue share was 80:20.
With standard subs at 5,000 won and premium at 15,000, even after the fee cuts, just subscriptions alone came out to around 28 million won a month.
Twenty-eight million isn’t some random pet’s name.
That’s enough for two original member songs and at least three new outfits.
Even someone like me, who didn’t want to maintain a personal channel, couldn’t help but feel tempted by that.
Sure, there’s always a “first-month boost,” and retention will drop in the second month.
But even then, it’s projected to stay over 20 million.
If Magia keeps up her activity, it might even hold steady long-term.
The one thing bugging me—
Was how the Slugs reacted when I kept the channel going.
“But if I just keep it open, people are obviously gonna start yelling about me having debuted or whatever.”
“Also true. Honestly, I don’t want to pressure you... but that’s kind of a hard amount to walk away from.”
Hmmmm.
The CEO and I looked at each other, sighing as we both leaned on our chins.
Then she was the first to come up with an idea.
“Or... how about this? If you accept an ad, you use your personal channel just for those streams.”
“An ad?”
“Yeah. You don’t need to be a VTuber to take ads, right? And you’ve had a ton of inquiries lately asking if you take sponsorships.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Since you weren’t an official VTuber, we didn’t have a dedicated ad program for you. So I’ve just been telling them, ‘Sorry, please consider other members instead.’ But honestly, the demand for you was really strong.”
“Why me specifically, though...?”
“Well, before this, you didn’t have a permanent channel. But now you do. So these sponsors were asking if we could arrange something before the
Sponsorships usually come in when a streamer has a steady viewer base advertisers want to target.
For example, our members often get sponsorships from gacha games—especially collectible character ones—since the VTuber audience overlaps heavily with those types of gamers.
Surprisingly, I’d gotten not just gacha game offers but also ones from Battle Colosseum, and even Combative.
“You’re really good at shooting games, and
“Hm.”
“And you’ve been going around doing all these collabs lately to promote the Neo California server, right? That full-day Combative stream, dragging Lapits through Battle Col and hard-carrying…”
“They must’ve liked that, huh.”
The CEO nodded.
“By the way, your ad rate is...”
She pulled out a sheet of paper and jotted down a number.
I saw the zeroes piling up and my eyes went wide.
Ever since Parallel’s popularity exploded, our members’ ad rates have been climbing.
Rain has the highest, thanks to her quirky ad reads. Miho, who’s newer and not great at games, sits at the bottom.
But my ad rate was set a little above the average.
“And I actually asked them to lower it a bit because I didn’t want it to stress you out. You’ve never done ads before, and I thought they were going too hard.”
“What was the original quote?”
“For Battle Colosseum, they offered this much.”
She wrote another number underneath it—double the first.
Should I be thanking Battle Colosseum’s publisher for this?
Or should I be asking them what the hell they were thinking?
Either way, it’s money.
Money that fuels Parallel and keeps it growing.
Subscription revenue plus ad revenue...
Just what’s already come in means that by the time the RP server ends in late February, we’re looking at an enormous profit in just two months.
Walk away from that?
Right when we’re trying to scale the company up?
‘I’ve never done an ad stream before, so I’d kind of like to try something easy to start with...’
My main concern was that—even though I’d watched plenty of ad streams—I’d never done one myself.
I could make a stream entertaining, sure. But would it satisfy the advertisers?
If everything goes smoothly—stream is fun, ad gets good results—everyone’s happy.
...But life doesn’t work out that neatly.
“So... before diving into anything big, can I try something light first? And I’d prefer not to do collab ads with the other members.”
“Group ads with the girls? Wasn’t really planning to, but why not?”
“Because then it’ll look like a standard VTuber group ad. I’m doing this purely from a staff role for the money.”
I mean, there’s not that big a difference in the end—
But laying the groundwork now gives me something to point to later when the Slugs start whining again.
If I can say, “This was a company-driven financial move,” then I’ve at least got some kind of justification.
The CEO nodded.
“Got it. I’ll talk to the advertisers and see if there’s anything good we can start with.”