I was running home. My lungs still hadn’t fully recovered from my run in the park, but the stream notification on my phone left me no chance to stop.
Under normal circumstances, twenty-four minutes might have been enough to make it home. My circumstances, however, were anything but normal.
Everything I knew about starting a livestream came from someone else’s memories. On top of that, I had to hide from dozens of viewers that I was nothing like the body’s original owner.
And if I failed to reach one hundred concurrent viewers...
I didn’t even want to think about it.
As I quickened my pace, I spotted a small convenience store by the side of the road with its lights still on. I was about to run past it when my stomach growled loudly, bringing my feet to an abrupt stop.
"Ah."
I still hadn’t eaten anything. Aside from a few sips of water, nothing had entered my stomach since I woke up.
I could ignore the store and try to make it to the stream on time, but sitting down at the computer on an empty stomach would make my already foul mood even worse. If I streamed while hungry, I might scare away all my followers with my temper.
What harm could being an hour late do? My viewers would probably wait.
At least, I hoped they would.
After hesitating for a moment, I turned toward the store.
"I’ll just grab something and leave."
When I pushed open the door, the small bell above it gave a light ding.
The old man sitting behind the counter didn’t even look up. His phone was propped on a small stand by the register, and he was watching something on the screen. Quiet voices came from the phone, followed by the occasional burst of laughter.
I wasn’t sure whether he had noticed me, but that worked in my favor.
I slipped my uninjured hand into the pocket of my sweatpants and began walking through the store. Thankfully, there were no other customers inside.
I had no idea what to buy, but some instant ramen and a drink would be enough for now.
I headed to the drinks cooler first. Bottles and cans of different colors were lined up behind the glass door.
I didn’t recognize any of the brands. The red can had a winged lion on it, the purple bottle featured a three-eyed fruit, and the black can showed a white rabbit racing through flames.
"Is it illegal to use a normal logo in this world?"
I crouched in front of the cooler and examined my options. Noctis’s memories made me think I knew what some of the drinks tasted like, but I wasn’t the one who had actually tasted them.
Remembering the taste of something I had never drunk before was a strange feeling. It was as if a friend had described a drink to me in great detail without ever letting me hold the bottle.
In the end, I chose a pale yellow can with a picture of sliced lemons and fizzy white bubbles. It looked like lemon soda, so it seemed like a safe choice.
Then I moved to the shelf with the instant food.
Most of the ramen packages had cute animal mascots on them. One featured a red chicken with flames shooting from its eyes, but I had suffered enough for one day, so I put it back immediately.
Eventually, I picked up a blue package that I assumed was chicken-flavored ramen. I didn’t have time to read the back, so I had no idea how accurate that guess was.
I placed the soda and ramen on the counter.
Only then did the old man look up from his phone. His eyes moved from my face to my bandaged hand, but he scanned the items without asking any questions.
I was grateful. I didn’t have the energy to tell another stranger my life story tonight.
I paid the amount shown on the display. After putting the items into a small bag, the man went straight back to his phone.
"Have a good evening," I murmured.
Without taking his eyes off the screen, he raised one hand.
"You too."
The moment I stepped out of the store, I started running again. I had the pharmacy bag in one hand and the convenience store bag in the other, both swinging with every step and slapping against my legs.
I no longer checked my phone because I was going to be late either way. An hour or so wouldn’t make a difference. At least, that was what I kept telling myself.
By the time my apartment building came into view, my legs had begun to tremble. I pulled open the entrance door and rushed inside. Rather than waste time waiting for the elevator, I headed straight for the stairs.
By the second floor, I regretted that decision. By the time I reached the third, I could hear my lungs protesting. After climbing the last step and making it into the hallway, I had to lean against the wall for a few seconds.
"I’m definitely... going to improve... this body’s stamina."
I pulled the key from my pocket, unlocked the door, and hurried inside. I kicked off my shoes and sent them flying toward the side of the entryway. One hit the wall and toppled over.
I stared at it for a moment, then shrugged.
The quest to avoid breaking anything had already failed. At least I no longer needed to treat the doors and furniture as if they were babies.
The sight through the open bedroom door made my anger flare up again. The cosplay outfits thrown across the bed, the kicked nightstand, the broken mirror, and the pink-and-blue decorations scattered everywhere were all still there.
I took a deep breath.
"Calm down."
Even if the system didn’t punish me for breaking something else, I would still have to pay for it. That thought was enough to rein in my temper.
I took the bags into the small kitchen and set the ramen package on the counter. Then I pulled a small pot from a cabinet. Relying on Noctis’s memories, I turned on the tap, filled the pot with what looked like enough water, and placed it on the stove.
As I turned on the burner, I studied the controls for a moment.
"At least these are the same."
While waiting for the water to boil, I opened the pharmacy bag. I took out the headache medicine Rose had given me, read the instructions on the box, and swallowed one tablet with a glass of water.
The headache had been caused by the system’s punishment, so I wasn’t sure whether the medicine would work, but there was no harm in trying.
The water would take a few minutes to boil, which gave me some time to look through my phone.
I hadn’t properly used the device since arriving in this world. I had only checked the time, opened the GPS, and looked at a few notifications.
I pulled the phone from my pocket and touched the screen. The moment I pressed my finger to the sensor, it unlocked.
The home screen didn’t look very different from the phones in my old world. The app icons were unfamiliar, but their purposes were easy enough to understand: messaging, social media, a video platform, a streaming app, banking, and the gallery.
My gaze stopped on the last one.
I knew opening the gallery would only annoy me, yet I tapped the icon anyway.
Hundreds of photos appeared, and just as I expected, most of them were cosplay pictures.
In some, Noctis was dressed as a blue-haired mage. In others, a priestess in a white dress or a tailed anime character whose name I didn’t even know.
The outfits weren’t revealing, and most of the poses were cute, but that did nothing to lessen the embarrassment I felt while looking at them.
"Noctis really wore all of this willingly..."
As I continued scrolling, I came across photos of other cosplayers. They were probably content creators Noctis followed.
Farther down were screenshots from old livestreams. A blue-haired VTuber avatar laughed on the screen while hundreds of messages raced through the chat beside it.
In another picture, the avatar had collapsed to the ground as if crying, while the character in the game was being crushed by a gigantic monster in the background. Noctis must have found it funny.
Next came 3D artwork sent in by fans, cute character designs, and pictures of the avatar wearing different outfits.
As I kept sliding my finger across the screen, one photo caught my attention and brought it to an abrupt stop.
There was a red-haired girl in the picture. Her hair fell past her shoulders, and while one of her eyes was bright red, the other shone pale blue.
The girl had pressed her cheek against Noctis’s. She held the phone in one hand and raised a game controller with the other as they both smiled at the camera.
Noctis’s smile was different from the ones in the cosplay photos. It was calmer and more genuine.
For a few seconds, I did nothing but stare at the picture.
I knew this girl. Eris Arclight was the original Noctis’s only friend.
The Arclight family had been close to the Evernights for many years. They were also an influential family, full of Nexus users and people in high-ranking positions.
Noctis and Eris had known each other since childhood. They had studied and played games together, and during boring family gatherings, they would escape and hide in the garden.
When I scrolled a little farther, I found more pictures of the two taken over the years. There were photos of them sitting across from each other in a café, walking under the same umbrella on a rainy day, and cutting a small cake decorated with blue stars to celebrate Noctis’s first stream.
After the Evernight family threw Noctis out, everyone except Eris had kept their distance. Despite her family’s reaction, Eris had refused to leave Noctis alone. She kept sending messages and visiting, remaining by Noctis’s side as though nothing had changed.
A strange warmth formed in my chest, followed by a longing I couldn’t describe.
This feeling wasn’t mine.
I had never met Eris or spoken a single word to her. Even so, seeing her smile in that photo made me feel as if I missed someone I hadn’t seen in a long time.
"Damn it..."
I placed the phone facedown on the counter.
"Why am I getting emotional?"
Noctis’s memories weren’t just images sitting inside my mind. Sometimes the emotions attached to them seeped into me as though they were my own, and I didn’t like it one bit.
The water began bubbling in the pot, pulling me away from those thoughts.
I opened the ramen package and dropped the noodles into the boiling water. After adding the seasoning packet, I waited a few more minutes.
Once it was ready, I carried the pot to the small table. When I opened the soda, the can let out a soft hiss.
I took a sip.
The lemon flavor was milder than I expected, leaving a sweet fizz on my tongue afterward.
"Not bad."
I picked up the fork and began eating the ramen. Thanks to my hunger, it tasted far better than it normally would have.
As I ate, I thought about the stream ahead of me.
Starting the stream itself wasn’t much of a problem. Thanks to Noctis’s memories, I more or less knew which program to use, how to run the avatar, and where to find the microphone and camera settings.
The real problem was what I would do after the stream began.
At least in front of the viewers, Noctis was incredibly energetic—talking nonstop, overreacting to little things, making ridiculous noises, and laughing at every mistake.
My personality couldn’t have been more different from Noctis’s, and even if I tried, I couldn’t act that way.
"I can’t."
The words slipped quietly from my mouth, but the thought behind them only continued to grow.
"No..."
I set the fork against the rim of the pot.
"I CAN’T DO THIS!"
My voice echoed through the apartment as I imagined all the curses that might slip out during the stream.
If I died to an enemy, I would swear at the game. If the viewers made fun of me, I would insult them. I might drive away half the channel within the first ten minutes.
On top of that, the game planned for tonight was an RPG, and I had barely played any RPGs in my old life.
Noctis’s memories might have given me knowledge of the controls and the game’s basic mechanics, but remembering information and actually being able to play were two different things.
If I played badly, the viewers might assume I was putting on an act. They might think I was fumbling on purpose to look cute, which would give them a completely wrong impression of me.
Then again, the impression they already had was wrong.
The person they knew was no longer here.
That thought dulled my appetite. I ate the last of the noodles in the pot, finished the soda, and stood up.
I couldn’t keep running away. The quest was still active, and I had to reach one hundred viewers. I didn’t have to become an exact copy of Noctis. For tonight, finding some way to get through the stream would be enough.
My expression hardened with resolve.
"All right..."
I took a deep breath and raised my head.
"Let’s do this."
After leaving the pot in the sink, I walked toward the bedroom.
One corner of the room was entirely dedicated to streaming. Two wide monitors stood side by side on a white desk, surrounded by small blue-and-pink star-shaped lights.
An illustration of a blue-haired anime character holding a staff covered the transparent side panel of the computer case. The fans inside glowed pale blue, resembling magic circles spinning around the character.
The keyboard was white and pink, with tiny stars, rabbits, and cats printed on the keys. A sleeping anime girl covered the enormous mouse pad beneath it.
A blue cat-paw pop filter had been fitted in front of the microphone, while a pair of white cat-ear headphones hung from a hook beside it.
The setup was expensive and professional, as well as unbearably cute.
I stood in front of it for a few seconds.
"Of course you couldn’t just use a normal black computer."
A system window opened before my eyes.
[Ongoing Quest]
[Reach 100 concurrent viewers during a livestream.]
[Failure Penalty: Large Breasts.]
I stared at the window without blinking, then raised my middle finger.
"I know."
When the window disappeared, I took the cat-ear headphones from the hook and stepped toward the computer setup surrounded by blue-and-pink lights.
Tonight, whether I wanted to or not, I had to be Noctis Evernight.