Chapter 283: Chapter 283

"Did you miss me? Do I really have to say it out loud for you to know~?"

The broadcast that finally ended Diah’s long streaming hiatus had become even louder and more chaotic.

Even people unfamiliar with VTubers had flooded in after hearing about Diah’s red pill moment.

[ I hope we can keep having fun☆ ]

Thanks to that, Diah’s stream kept breaking viewer records.

Even surpassing the stream numbers of Squirrel, the head of Illusionary Realm and CEO of LUX MCN.

After she had ended the stream following the performance of the song from That Flower We Saw That Day, and then turned it back on 20 minutes later, the numbers had dipped slightly.

Most who hadn’t expected a second stream had already gone back to social media or community forums.

Still, even with all that considered—

The excitement and intensity of Diah’s current stream was hotter than ever.

[ Pina d 30,000 won! ]

: I’m a fan!!!!!!!!!!!

[ eternalyg d 30,000 won! ]

: For the comeback, pineapple pizza mukbang let’s go

"Aww, is that all you have to say after reuniting with your girlfriend after all this time?"

Diah’s last stream before her comeback had been a collab recap stream with Lucid.

After that stream from Japan, there had been about two weeks of silence.

To be precise, it wasn’t really a “hiatus.”

Less than a week after that stream, Diah’s red pill had been exposed.

Any platform even remotely connected to Diah had caught fire.

Now, the aftershocks of all that buzz were manifesting directly in Diah’s stream.

Ha-eun had expected something , but it was still more chaotic than she imagined.

"Did you... really miss me that much?"

Every time Ha-eun spoke, the chat would freeze for a moment—

Then erupt like a tsunami.

It °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° was proof of how massive the attention on Diah’s stream had become.

Which is why Ha-eun hesitated.

How should she use this overwhelming attention to help Diah’s stream grow?

How could she take control of a stream this chaotic?

The answer came surprisingly fast.

If the chaos had started because of the red pill, then she just had to make even bigger chaos.

At the same time, she needed to create content that only Diah could deliver, to turn all these new visitors into regulars.

[ God and the Goblin Best Scene World Cup ]

Call it a preemptive strike.

Before the stream could descend into total madness, she seized the reins.

There wasn’t any real issue with hosting a “best scene world cup” from God and the Goblin.

She’d done similar world cup streams in the past.

This was just Diah hosting a bracket of iconic scenes from the most popular drama recently.

Any other implications were just the viewers’ own misunderstanding.

If the viewers misunderstood, well... what could she do?

"Alright, let’s start with the round of 64~."

Equipped with as much shamelessness as she could muster, Ha-eun moved her mouse and began the world cup.

「...Mister. Do you... want me to live...?」

"Hmm. Starting off strong, huh."

The first scene was of Baeksulhwa leaving the hospital, running into Baek Jin on the street.

Ha-eun’s tearful face looking up at Kang Seon-woo filled the stream screen.

The scene that had made the Noeulis in chat sob uncontrollably was then matched up against a flashback from Baeksulhwa’s past.

The soft voice of Ha-eun in a white hanbok filled the audio.

「If the day ever comes when our general can lay down his sword and finally rest... then that alone will be enough for me.」

"Oh, that hanbok’s pretty..."

After a short pause, Ha-eun glanced at the chat window.

And saw messages that were distinctly different from before.

Most of the Noeulis clearly hadn’t expected Ha-eun herself—who had actually starred in God and the Goblin—to host a best scene world cup of her own acting.

Their confusion was almost wholesome.

‘The viewer count... went up again.’

There weren’t any chats asking her to turn on her cam or demanding to know if she was really Ha-eun.

Everyone had already accepted that Diah was Ha-eun.

Now, with her hosting a best scene world cup from God and the Goblin, almost all attention was purely on her commentary.

An actress reviewing her own performance from a popular drama during a VTuber stream—

The buzz from Diah’s red pill reveal paled in comparison to how surreal this moment was.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Ha-eun didn’t mind at all.

Diah was simply running an ideal type bracket tournament like she always had.

If Noeulis mistook Diah for someone else, that was just their own personal misunderstanding.

“Hmm... I liked the hanbok scene better. The sad one is good too, but it just makes me feel bad.”

Not long after, a new scene from Gods and Goblins appeared.

The screen showed Baek Seol-hwa walking into the cafeteria, getting bullied by her schoolmates.

“Not gonna look down?”

“Ha, you gonna hit me now?”

“...If you’ve got nothing else to say, I’ll be going.”

“Wow, that was mean... Friends should get along. Why would they bully her?”

And so, she kept comparing various memorable scenes from Gods and Goblins.

Of course, only as Diah.

Actress Lee Ha-eun had absolutely nothing to do with the current bracket.

The Gods and Goblins bracket finally ended just after midnight.

“And the final winning scene is... drumroll...!”

“...I won’t fall for it again. This is just a dream. You don’t... exist in this world...”

“I’m here. Right now. In front of you.”

“The reunion scene from the final episode! The part where Baek Jin gets summoned from the afterlife—he looked so cool.”

After selecting the reunion scene as the winner, Ha-eun glanced downward.

And saw the date on her computer clock.

Seeing the date associated with chocolates, she switched the stream to a standby screen.

Then began setting up the camera, table, a mountain of chocolates, and baking tools she had prepared in advance.

Part two of the stream began.

Since it had been a while, she planned to go a little longer than usual.

And with Diah’s stream receiving an unprecedented amount of attention, she knew she had to seize the moment while the tide was high.

“From now on, I’m going to make Valentine’s chocolates~ Can you see the cam clearly?”

Ha-eun streamed herself making Valentine’s chocolates in real time.

Only her hands were visible on the cam, but no one seemed to dislike the chocolate-making stream.

“And now, sprinkle a bit of powdered sugar on top...! Done!”

After making multiple batches of Valentine’s chocolates for Noeulis,

she picked the best-looking one, held it up to the cam with a playful “Ah~” sound effect—

And in the next moment—whoosh.

The sweet chocolate that had filled the screen disappeared into Ha-eun’s mouth.

“Mm~ I’m the one eating it~. It’s delicious~.”

As the chat slowly but surely returned to its usual rhythm,

Ha-eun logged into the Illusionary Realm café with a piece of chocolate still in her mouth.

She tapped away at her keyboard.

“Okay~ Special comeback event~. Write a five-line acrostic poem with ‘I love Diah,’ and I’ll send handmade chocolates to the ten best Noeulis~.”

Diah’s special comeback event, which had practically become a tradition,

received huge attention even before it started.

Partly because viewers had seen her make the chocolates live.

She stared at the still-boisterous chat for a while, saying nothing.

Then switched from the cam view back to the original broadcast screen and left a closing message.

“Thanks for coming even though it’s been a while~ I’ll post the next schedule soon~ Bye bye~”

After saying her closing line into the mic,

Ha-eun cleared her throat at the flood of chats asking her to keep streaming.

Then, letting out a soft breath—

she leaned into the mic again, but not in Diah’s usual cutesy voice. This one was slightly different.

“...Good night, everyone.”

Watching the chat spiral into chaos again, Ha-eun chuckled softly. Ding.

[ Diah has ended the broadcast. ]

She had finally wrapped up Diah’s real comeback stream.

She walked out of the pure white soundproof booth and collapsed straight onto her bed.

Exhausted, but happy.

She was so sleepy, yet couldn’t close her eyes completely—and so she tossed and turned in a half-dreamy state for quite some time.

: The girl next door made chocolate as soon as midnight struck. Witch-nim, aren’t you gonna do something?

“Chocolate? Senpai made chocolate?”

“Hmph... Sounds like a lie... If I ask and it’s not true, you’re all getting banned, okay?”

“If it’s real... well, I’ll consider it.”

“Oh, she picked up right away. Hello?”

[ Ah... Da-yeon-ah... Hye-min unni... said... congrats on graduating... she forgot to sa─ ]

[ Hida has ended the broadcast. ]