Bottom-tier voice actress wants to become a big star on VTuber.

"I'll leave it here. I'm sorry, I can't invite you in for a cup of tea because my parents and younger brother are home."

Shimizu Toru looked out curiously and saw a Japanese-style mansion in front of him that resembled a kendo dojo, a place often seen in anime.

Holy crap, a Chinese princess?! Wait, Jin Hanhan, are you serious?!

In Tokyo, where land is incredibly expensive, the existence of such a mansion suggests that it must have been the residence of a powerful daimyo (feudal lord) a few generations back.

"Hey, can I take a picture with you? I want to keep it as a souvenir~ the kind without a mask~"

Hearing Rion Takamiya's slightly coquettish words, Toru Shimizu thought it wasn't a big deal and nodded in agreement.

"Come closer, I'm going to take a picture, okay? *kiss*"

With a click of the phone, the photo captured the moment when Shimizu Toru's eyes widened slightly, while Takamiya Rion, with a triumphant smile, looked up and kissed his cheek.

"Hey~ More memorable for me than signing autographs is the time I spent with you today~"

Rion Takamiya waved her phone with a smile, then walked backwards with her hands behind her back: "Toru, you'd better be careful in the future, don't get fooled by girls' tricks again."

Image: "No version of regular uniform found", Location: "Images/1752506998-100444248-113595038.jpg"

Having succeeded in her plan, she immediately adopted a strategy of "one generation cuts down the tree, another suffers the consequences," to prevent Qingshui from falling into the same trap twice.

"...Are you not drunk at all?"

Shimizu Toru wiped his face with the back of his hand, and wow, it spread evenly all over his face. Startled, he quickly pulled out a pack of tissues from his pocket.

"Hehehe~ Didn't I tell you from the beginning? It's just a bottle of sake, no big deal~ Bye-bye!"

Humming a little tune, Rion skipped home. As soon as she stepped through the door, a boy of about fifteen or sixteen years old peeked out from behind her.

"Sis, was that your boyfriend just now? He has terrible taste, or did he get fooled by your pretentious act?"

"Huh!? You, you just saw that??"

“It wasn’t just me, my parents saw it too. They said they’d go back and get ready before you bring your people over.”

"Yeah!!!"

Volume 1: Chapter 41 Sekiro: One Life to Win? [Bonus Chapter]

Late the next night, at the very moment the time finally jumped to 00:00, countless loyal fans of Hidetaka Miyazaki, who had supported the series from Bloodborne to Dark Souls, clicked the payment button on the Steam store.

Toru Shimizu, who had been waiting for this day since his debut, finally got to see the release of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

The moment the game was installed, he started a surprise live stream.

To prepare for tonight's live stream, he even took a nap in the afternoon to avoid losing focus due to staying up late.

[Huh!? A surprise live stream in the middle of the night, are you really Tou-kun??]

[Is Touken going to stream Sekiro too? Aren't you planning to race with the Prisoners?]

How about we make a bet? Let's see how many times Tou-kun will die on the first soldier he encounters?

Although Sekiro has only been released recently, it is, after all, a game by Hidetaka Miyazaki, and has long been synonymous with high difficulty and torture.

In addition, since a demo and live gameplay were shown at Gamescom last August, players who are interested in this game already have a basic understanding of its difficulty.

"Good evening~ I'm Toru Hanyu, a virtual YouTuber from 2434. That's right~ I'm playing Sekiro too!"

After plugging in the controller, Shimizu Toru answered the comments on the live stream, explaining why he wasn't doing RTA racing with the Prisoners: "Racing isn't difficult. I'm going to try a one-life run. If my character dies, I'll start over."

Compared to those pros who can speedrun through Sekiro in twenty or thirty minutes without taking damage, even though he had played Sekiro for hundreds of hours before transmigrating, he didn't dare to say he wanted to speedrun without taking damage right away.

As for Ge Ye, Ye Shi, and their group of prisoners, all I can say is that I hope they have enough coffee prepared, so they don't burn themselves out.

Even so, after hearing that Shimizu Toru planned to complete the game in one life, no one in the entire live stream believed that he could do it.

In other words, the Japanese aren't used to using question marks. If this were on Bilibili, the live stream would be filled with question marks right now.

"It seems everyone thinks I'm just bragging. Well, let's wait and see. How about we make a bet?"

Thinking of the comment in the chat that bet on how many times he would die at the hands of the soldiers, Shimizu Toru smiled confidently and said:

"If I can kill a boss every time I encounter one, you guys can give me a SC (Super Special) reward. There's no requirement on the amount, just 100 yen will do."

In other words, YouTube doesn't have the betting function of Douyu and Tiger Shark, otherwise everyone would definitely be betting against him right now.

"What kind of thing qualifies as a BOSS? Does it include anything with a separate health bar displayed in the upper left corner of the screen?"

In my first playthrough, I only encountered 53 elite monsters, and only 14 of them had battle memories. Since it's a sure thing to make money, I'll definitely aim for more.

After adjusting the key bindings and seeing that no one in the live stream objected, Shimizu Toru watched the opening CG with everyone.

The CG briefly explained the game's background before the scene shifted to twenty years later, where Emma, ​​holding an umbrella, threw the letter written by Miko into a well, and the story officially began.

Pretending to be a novice, Shimizu Toru followed the tutorial to familiarize himself with wall climbing, stealth, and other operations. After receiving the weapons, the unbreakable Kusabi and the gourd, from Miko, he began his skill show.

After opening the door, assassinate the two soldiers below the steps, and execute the others along the way after weakening them. You will then quickly encounter the first elite monster.

Samurai General—Shigenori Yamauchi!

Bullet, AA, bullet, A, the opponent's posture bar is immediately full, and the first health bar is completely emptied.

The second vial of blood followed the same pattern, causing Qing Shui Tou no trouble whatsoever. He didn't even drink a drop from the gourd, remaining in the same state of low blood, practically ready to die at the slightest touch.

"Well, a bet's a bet, 100 yen each, thanks for your patronage~"

One hundred yen is only one-tenth of the hourly wage for Japanese people. Except for a few who refused to pay, everyone else in the live stream readily paid.

Shimizu Toru's usual live streams have a stable audience of around 6,000 people, but today, due to the popularity of Sekiro, the number rose to over 10,000.

Even if passersby don't keep their bets, only half of the fans are willing to accept their losses, and each bet is worth more than 300,000 yen.

It's foreseeable that if he can actually complete the game in one life and kill all fifty-plus bosses on his first encounter, he will definitely break the highest record in SC.

After defeating the samurai general, you descend from the cliff along tree branches to the bottom of the bridge, deal with a member of the Rampage on the bridge, and find the tunnel to leave Ashina Castle. The prologue then comes to an end.

Aside from Shimizu Toru, this was also the first time the audience had seen Kenichiro, but they were still immersed in the moonlit scenery of the initial and final battle.

"Let's get this straight, I have a feeling there'll be a plot-driven death here, but that can't be counted in our bet, okay?"

Watching the wolf in the cutscene, using his still-intact left hand to block Miko, drawing Kusabimaru and standing in front of Kenichiro, Shimizu Toru couldn't help but think of that famous meme.

This is offense, this is defense, this is Genichiro Ashina.

Lacking skills and damage output, and without even the ability to detect attacks, one can only rely on dodging and using basic attacks to weaken the opponent's resilience.

If it weren't for wanting to show off his skills, he would have preferred to let Kenichiro kill him with one strike, since he would have been killed by the plot anyway.

The process was indeed grueling; after only a few exchanges, a danger sign would appear above your head, and if you couldn't see through it, you could only quickly dodge.

There's another phase where you only have a thrust and a jumping slash, and you need to be careful of the five-hit combo. If you take the initiative to attack, you're less likely to get into trouble.

Shimizu Toru quickly filled up his stance bar, executed him with a single strike, and entered the second phase.

The second phase only adds a low sweep followed by a combo. Shimizu Toru, who is extremely familiar with Kenichiro's hand-raising movements, can always preemptively disrupt this move when he is focused.

Soon the second phase's stance bar was full, and then the famous scene unfolded.

Just as Wolf was about to execute Kenichiro, a shuriken flew from a distance and was deflected by Wolf's sword.

Then, Kenichiro took the opportunity to ambush the 69-year-old man, cutting off his left hand, and finally said, "Ninja, don't call me despicable."

"Ugh! How dare you say that? You're a complete scum of a samurai! You might as well stop calling yourself Genichiro and just call yourself Scum Ichiro!"

In front of more than 10,000 viewers in the live stream, Shimizu Toru preemptively registered the meme "Kenichiro".

In the future, when people talk about the origin of this title, his name will also be mentioned. Isn't that a way to go viral?

The screen then went dark, and when it lit up again, a hairy little leg appeared in everyone's eyes, and the Buddha sculptor officially went online.

After going through all the dialogues with him to let the audience understand the situation, Shimizu Toru first went to the back of the Buddhist temple to pick up the money bag before finally saving the game.

Even if you're aiming for a one-life run, you can't just run the whole way on foot, right? You still need to have teleportation points available.

------------------------------

I currently have 435 blades (likely referring to a number of stats or keywords), and I'm still one chapter short, but it's obvious I'll need to add two more chapters tomorrow.

How am I supposed to save drafts if you guys do this?

Volume 1: Chapter 42 You're Impressive

In games like Sekiro, the most annoying thing is the "instruction fan," which is the person who tells you how to play.

In the entire Nijisanji, there is only one person who can leave even the most dedicated fans helpless, and that is Yokoshi Fuyuki, who will debut at the end of next month and is known as the "Silver Dumb."

In addition to Fran E. Rustalia, who will debut at the end of January next year, along with Rion Takamiya, who will be known as the "Bronze Dumb," they will be called the "Gold, Silver, and Bronze Trio of Dumbness."

Fortunately, Sekiro was only released today, and the audience is seeing it for the first time. If Shimizu Toru had streamed it a month later, the chat would have been full of people who were obsessed with the game.

At this moment, all they could do was marvel at Shimizu Toru's amazing skills while reporting on the progress of other streamers.

"Kuzuha just finished watching the CG and came out of the well? Why is he taking so long? It's been more than ten minutes. Should I call him and bother him?"

It wasn't that he looked down on Kuzuha and the others' gaming skills; for most people, in their first playthrough of Sekiro, reaching Tenshukaku Futami Kenichiro in three hours and Mibu Village in twelve hours was considered fast.

So, I really don't have high hopes for this speedrun organized by the Prisoners group. I'm sure none of them will be able to complete it before the stream ends.

It's worth mentioning that there were two unofficial members in the Prisoners group who later joined Nijisanji as supporters, but then left.

They are Fairyschan, the parrot-like character, and Tenkaiji, a reference to the protagonist of "Kaiji".

As for Fukuyama Mast, who later became popular at Tokyo University for a while because of his Genshin Impact livestream, but then ruined himself by betraying the BBQ group, there's no need to introduce him. And I really don't know the last one.

Image: "Looks familiar, name unclear", Location: "Images/1752560282-100444248-113597485.jpg"

—Yabi-niku, meaning the person in the body is male, but the costume design is female. This doesn't include characters like Inuyama-san, whose soul is a seaweed-like man but whose costume is a cross-dresser.

Tenkaiji, who later became famous for muttering to himself on the tatami mat for half an hour, has always had a good relationship with the members of Nijisanji. He often appears as a host, such as at events like the Nijisanji Kouka and Mahjong Soul Cup.

Perhaps it's because the predecessor of Rainbow Koshien was his and Shiina Yuika's power baseball live stream.

Shimizu Toru, who was planning to create some entertainment value, immediately made a voice call via Discord: "Moshi moshi?"

"Yuzuru? Is something the matter?"

Before Shimizu Toru could reply, he heard the other person suddenly yell, "Kuso! This damn button, I accidentally pressed the □!"

"Um...you didn't fall off the cliff while walking along it, did you?"

It seems like that's the only place in the tutorial where you could die. It can't be that you were discovered while sneaking, right? That would be too stupid.

"Hiss—you, are you deliberately trying to mock me!?"

Kuzuha was clearly getting anxious. After taking a deep breath, he gritted his teeth and said, "You're also streaming Sekiro? Then let's see who can finish it first!!"

"Heh~ Are you sure? How about we make a bet? If I lose, you don't have to treat me to a meal, you just have to admit that I'm better than you."

What is the greatest compliment you can give a boy?

You're really something!

Yesterday, or rather the day before, Shimizu Toru had just finished eating barbecue with Takamiya Rion, and he didn't plan to go out to eat with another guy, making it seem like he was bisexual.

Speaking of Jin Hanhan, I don't know why, but these past two days when I chatted with her on Line, Shimizu Toru could sense from between the lines that she was very conflicted.

It's as if there's something they want to say, but they don't know how to start. It's like the other person keeps showing that they're typing, but after ten minutes there's still no follow-up.

He thought that Rion Takamiya had only dared to ambush him last time because she was drunk and cowardly, and now that she was sober, she was starting to dig her toes into the ground.

In reality, the other person was having a headache about how to invite him to their home, because their family had witnessed that scene earlier.

Rion Takamiya's parents and younger brother wanted to vet her, since their daughter and older sister were a bit naive and they didn't want her to be fooled by some bad man's sweet talk.

She didn't dare to confess that she had fallen for a minor she had only known for half a month, fearing that her father would turn against her for personal reasons.

"Tsk, don't think you're guaranteed to win just because you started a dozen minutes earlier than me. I'm Nijisanji Gam!"

"Enough with the boasting. Let's settle this with our skills. I might have already cleared the game while you haven't even faced the boss yet."

After hanging up the phone and talking to Hanbei and Emma, ​​Shimizu Toru continued playing the game.

Unlike Miyazaki Hidetaka's previous works, Sekiro's protagonist, Wolf, can be said to be the most capable protagonist in the series.

Leaving aside the various cool skills, just the grappling hook and the knee are enough to make the undead green with envy.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice's Game of the Year award, along with its staggering sales of 2 million copies in ten days, 5 million in a year and a half, and 10 million in four years, are testament to the success of this revolutionary title.

This also foreshadowed the later Elden Ring, where the difficulty level was further reduced, allowing even those with poor hand dexterity to complete the game using various wheelchairs.

With the grappling hook, Toru Shimizu turned Sekiro into an Assassin's Creed game, never engaging in direct combat with monsters he could assassinate.