In the quiet dead of night, when all were asleep, a place where stories of low-tier streamers—hundreds born and gone each day—and trivial, empty gossip came and went.
The Low-Tier VR Streamer Gallery.
The gallery was as peaceful as ever.
[This place is really a dead gallery now]
Ahhh
Where’s a soft, chewy new male streamer…
There’s nothing to watch, nothing to watch…
Is there really this little talent?
└ For real, these days even scraping the bottom of the barrel yields nothing worth watching. The rare decent newbie either burns out fast or disappears.
└ You killed them.
└ ? I just gave them 5,700 characters of ‘healthy feedback’ on what to fix, what’s the problem?
└ No, you literally killed them!!!!
└ Gallery dude, please live in reality…
└ (Dad believes in our daughter icon)
└ ? I wake up at noon, watch streams for 20 hours while eating, browse the gallery, sleep 4 hours—perfectly regular life, no?
└ This chick’s insane;;; Any interest in being a mod?
└ “I want to be a mod.”
└ This guy’s for real. Scary as hell lol
└ (Dad’s a human too, human! icon)
And then, a post went up.
[「Clip」 19, NSFW) Insanely Hot Physical, Check Out Tangle Yuhyun’s Alpha Male Moves]
A title combining the holy trinity of clickbait: ‘Clip,’ ‘19,’ ‘NSFW.’
‘Tch, this is obviously just a bait post…’
‘Damn, they’ve crammed every aggro trigger in here.’
‘Isn’t this a tactical nuke?’
But the trinity wasn’t called that for nothing.
Like spotting an oasis in the desert, even knowing it might be a mirage, it compelled you to step forward!
Click—
Click—
Click—
Driven by a 365-day thirst for stimulation and dopamine, people couldn’t help but click the post one by one.
Thankfully, it wasn’t a tactical nuke scarring their eyes and brains.
Instead, it was a game clip.
A man’s bewildered face filled the screen in a VR game.
Flawless, clear skin, long eyes without double eyelids, full red lips.
Thick, jet-black hair.
A decadent, pretty-boy vibe.
‘Oh… his looks are insane?’
‘Wow, is this a guy training to be an idol?’
‘Who is he? No way I wouldn’t know him, a real newbie?’
‘This’ll spawn more face-obsessed fans.’
‘What’s his name? Tangle Yuhyun? Is that his name?’
People marveled at the face dominating the screen.
In the current VR streaming market, the greatest talent was, without question, appearance.
Early VR games allowed free customization of looks and gender, but not anymore.
With VR graphics indistinguishable from reality, impersonation and scam crimes had spiked.
As a result, excessive customization was banned, and a game-friendly appearance became a ‘talent’ in itself.
Sure, some streamers leaned into quirky looks for laughs, but that was already a saturated red ocean.
For a moment, admiration for Yuhyun’s looks continued.
But this was the Low-Tier VR Streamer Gallery.
A brutal arena where dozens, hundreds of low-tier streamers’ clips battled daily and vanished.
A place that prided itself on having the sharpest eyes for streamers.
A pretty face alone wouldn’t win them over.
‘Oh, Escape? A game clip?’
Realizing it wasn’t the ‘alpha male moves’ they’d hoped for, people frowned, adopting strict, stern, serious expressions as they watched.
The clip, about five minutes long, started with the man choosing a kitchen knife as his weapon.
‘Picked a knife ‘cause he’s chopped some veggies at home? Tsk, clueless noob.’
‘Another one screaming and running from zombies…’
‘So, where’s the alpha male stuff?’
Then the twist came.
Anyone who’d played or seen Escape knew the scene: Han Seola sacrifices herself to save the player.
They expected this guy to tremble or scream at the zombies.
Slash—
But out of nowhere, he decapitated a zombie!
‘!?’
What followed was even more absurd.
Wielding the knife like an extension of himself, he slaughtered zombies, then launched into a midair tumble, hurling an axe to split the last one’s head.
Mouths dropped open.
The short clip ended.
Predictably, the gallery’s reaction exploded.
[Holy crap, alpha moves, knife skills insane!!! More clips? Gimme more!!!!!!!]
[Insane for real;; First time I’ve seen Han Seola saved without a scratch…]
[Tangle Yuhyun <- Looked him up, registered full-dive biometrics yesterday… legit newbie;;]
[Names himself like a flirty, hip-shaking male streamer and then does this lololol]
[Ran straight to subscribe, when’s this guy streaming?]
[Is this a hack? That face and a physical streamer? Makes sense?]
[Tangle Yuhyun <= Here’s the truth: ‘National Intelligence,’ ‘Special Forces,’ ‘Ex-National Athlete
Injured in Accident.’ One of the three, argue and I’m right.]
[Hell yeah, confirmed lol National Intelligence, Special Forces, ex-athlete pretty-boy streamer? Time to stan?]
[What the hell is Tangle Yuhyun, why the fuss, you damn weirdos!!!]
└ Oh, you don’t know…
└ Sent~^^
In the dead of night, the Low-Tier VR Streamer Gallery burned hot with talk of the bizarre new streamer ‘Tangle Yuhyun.’
The floor was littered with food.
Remnants of pizza, chicken, and jjajangmyeon filled the room.
Freed from bland, gamey monster meat and mystery soups even the cook couldn’t identify, Yuhyun reveled.
Back then, a decent meal meant risking his life.
Here, a few finger taps brought everything to him.
“Ugh, this is the real deal!”
He genuinely marveled at the stimulating genius of food science.
Gulp, gulp, gulp!
The sharp fizz of cola danced down his throat.
“Man, this is why I came back…”
His voice grew moist with emotion.
He finally understood why isekai protagonists in novels obsessed over cola, desperately trying to recreate it.
‘How the hell did they make this?’
He tilted his head, staring at the can’s shimmering, reflective surface.
In the other world, missing Earth’s food, he’d tried recreating it.
All failures.
To make cola, he’d mixed bubbling gas, lemon-like juice, sugar, and black dye—only to create a toxic mess.
When the primitive locals saw it, they’d cheered, “As expected of the Hero!” and used his homemade cola to torture demons.
‘It was pretty effective, actually.’
Savoring a meal that delighted his tongue, nose, and eyes for the first time in ages, Yuhyun researched streaming and watched top streamers’ broadcasts.
Slurp—
He clicked his tongue, a chicken drumstick in his mouth.
“…Being a streamer isn’t just about good combat skills.”
Plenty started streaming on raw skill alone.
Most did, in fact.
But Yuhyun couldn’t settle for being average.
His goal was to easily rake in 100 million won a month as a top streamer.
The conditions for that were varied.
Physical skill, acting, looks, charisma, luck, multitasking, game sense, humor… and more.
Even top streamers rarely mastered all these.
But they needed something unique to their broadcast.
“Not easy…”
Self-assessing, his charisma and humor were borderline disastrous, a real concern.
“Still, my path is clear.”
Skill-based streaming.
Dominating games with overwhelming physical prowess, clearing them perfectly.
This field didn’t strictly need amazing charisma or humor, which suited him.
And it was a blue ocean.
‘Hardly any male streamers do proper skill-based content.’
Most flirted with coy smiles, chatted for hours, struggled with easy games, or played pseudo-romance with viewers.
A skilled male streamer was rare and in demand.
‘Who’d have thought a gender-reversed world would benefit me like this?’
At first, learning this world flipped genders had just been absurd.
“Alright, time to dive back in? Oh, but first, the nickname.”
Yuhyun stood, grabbing his smartphone.
Opening the app linked to the full-dive machine, he navigated to the nickname change option.
But a red warning filled the screen.
[Registered nickname can be changed after one week.]
“What, why!”
[Registered nickname can be changed after one week.]
He tapped the phone again, but the message stayed firm.
“…So I’m stuck streaming with this lousy nickname for a week?”
Yuhyun set the phone down, raking a hand through his hair.
Waiting a week to change it and then streaming crossed his mind, but the debt wouldn’t wait.
He couldn’t waste time over a name.
“Ugh, fine, let’s do it. It’s not that important.”
Sure, he’d get teased, but it’d die down.
Yuhyun stood and headed to the full-dive machine.
Lying in the capsule, he started the system, and a prompt appeared.
As he connected, numbers flashed before him.
[Tangle Yuhyun – Newbie Streamer Day 2. Escape.]
[Current Viewers: 127 / Followers: 46 / Subscribers: 11]
“Huh…?”
– This guy finally crawled out lololol
– Tang-ha~ Tang-ha~
– Been waiting—!!
– Oppa!!!!!!!!!!!!
– Is this the insanely hot physical, alpha male knife-master stream?
– Show us epic knife moves!!! lololol
– I’ll judge strictly, sternly, seriously if this guy’s legit
– Obviously inflated hype, you lot tsk tsk
– Is Han Seola really alive????
A flood of chats filled his vision.
Yuhyun’s jaw dropped.