After returning to the dorm, Myriad Dreams dove headfirst into her tablet.
She tinkered with it for a long time, stretching from early evening until it was almost time for lights out.
Yaeno Muteki had just finished bathing.
Surrounded by a faint mist of warm steam, she approached curiously while drying her damp, brown hair with a towel.
"Myriad? You've been busy with that ever since we got back. What exactly is so engrossing?"
Myriad Dreams had just finished the final settings for her YouTube account.
She looked up with satisfaction, a sly smile playing on her lips. "Oh, it's this."
"I discovered a very interesting rule. For some top-tier races, like the Arima Kinen, even if you lose and don't get a direct qualifying spot, you can still gain entry as long as your fan vote count is high enough."
"So, you're paving the way for the future?" Yaeno Muteki sat down on the edge of her bed, the towel draped casually over her shoulder.
"Exactly!" Myriad Dreams nodded vigorously, her eyes sparkling.
"In case I suffer a setback in a race down the line, isn't this a perfect backup path? With the buzz I built up from my debut race, I'm sure to have plenty of supporters..."
Just as she finished speaking, a rapid string of notification pings erupted from the tablet. She triumphantly turned the screen toward Yaeno Muteki.
"Look!"
The follower count was jumping rapidly. In just a few minutes, it had climbed from zero to nearly eight thousand.
"A very strong start," Yaeno Muteki evaluated objectively, before raising a more practical question.
"But accumulating fans requires consistent content. Have you thought about how to run this account? For instance, what kind of videos will you post?"
"No need for you to worry about that, Yaeno-san. I've had a plan all along!" Myriad Dreams patted her laptop confidently. "The answer is gaming streams!"
Yaeno Muteki was slightly taken aback, a visible question mark practically hovering over her head. "Gaming?"
"That's right! Don't let my looks fool you, I'm actually amazing at games!"
As she spoke, Myriad Dreams lit up her laptop screen, which displayed the recently downloaded icon for CS:GO.
She was brimming with confidence in her System abilities. That intuition which allowed her to predict an opponent's moves and find the optimal path was just as invincible in gaming.
The moment the stream started, a crowd of viewers flooded in, drawn by the novel tag "Uma Musume Game Streamer."
At first, the live chat was full of skepticism:
"An Uma Musume playing an FPS? For real?"
"She looks like a total noob. Is this a comedy stream?"
Myriad Dreams ignored the comments. She took a deep breath and immersed herself in the game.
Initially, due to her unfamiliarity with keyboard and mouse controls, her character moved somewhat stiffly, and her search for enemies seemed a bit frantic.
This only fueled the doubtful atmosphere in the chat.
However, the turning point came when the first opponent leaped out from a tricky angle at a high vantage point, attempting a backstab.
Almost as a primal reflex, Myriad Dreams flicked her wrist. Her field of vision snapped nearly 180 degrees.
With a crisp bang, a [HEADSHOT] kill notification flashed in the center of the screen!
The stream went silent for a second, then the chat exploded:
"??????"
"Holy crap! Does she have eyes in the back of her head?"
"Is that reaction speed even umanly possible?"
"Total fluke, right?!"
The skepticism didn't last long.
In the following rounds, it was as if Myriad Dreams had activated some kind of cheat mode.
As long as an enemy showed even a sliver of themselves in her vision, even for just a fraction of a second, they were inevitably met with a pinpoint headshot.
She even stopped buying expensive rifles, clearing the entire battlefield using nothing but a basic pistol.
When the round ended and the post-match stats popped up, the entire stream was in an uproar.
Headshot Rate: 100%.
"Hacker! Absolute hacker!"
"Reported! She's not even trying to hide it!"
"Even a pro couldn't pull off stats like that!"
Not only was the stream in chaos, but her opponents were also filing reports one after another. Such an absurd performance truly defied common logic.
However, the official anti-cheat results quickly came back: No third-party cheating software detected.
This time, it wasn't just the stream— related gaming communities blew up immediately.
Discussion threads about the "Mysterious Genius Gamer Uma Musume" quickly flooded the boards.
Myriad Dreams played a few more rounds with ease, maintaining a terrifying 100% headshot rate in almost every match.
Only then did she close the stream with satisfaction, looking over at Yaeno Muteki boastfully.
"Well? What do you think, Yaeno-san?"
Yaeno Muteki had watched quietly from beginning to end. Now, she finally nodded, her calm tone carrying a hint of imperceptible awe.
"Unbelievable skill. If you maintain this momentum, it is indeed very likely you could gather enough popularity through this account to influence race voting."
"Hehe, of course~" Myriad Dreams happily closed her laptop and rubbed her slightly aching fingers.
"Alright, time for bed! We have training tomorrow!"
After wishing each other goodnight, the two of them lay down in their beds.