I took deep breaths as I sat on the grass.

Happy thoughts. Calm thoughts. No violence. No head smashing.

Everything was fine.

I was safe.

The dungeon monsters here didn’t respawn unless the dungeon reset and even then, one only spawned when I entered a new room.

It was fine.

I was safe.

Deep exhale.

By the time I opened my eyes again I was relatively calm.

Chat was also exploding with all sorts of messages, but I wasn’t reading any of them right now. I couldn’t, lest something push me over the edge again.

“Chat… I… I need a therapist,” I suddenly announced, even if I internally cringed at my own words. “I… can’t keep going like this.”

I knew that I couldn’t. I could grin and cheer for the camera like a proper Vcuber, even when going through life or death situations once or twice… But there was a limit. I couldn’t do it indefinitely. And even though I could now use voice calls, I still felt so, so alone.

I didn’t want to go off the deep end completely. I didn’t want to murder the first actual person I met when I actually got back to Earth.

And I was going to get back.

“I never told you guys, but Officer Stew suggested I speak to one, but… He said he would send some to watch the stream. But, well…” I glanced over to the actual stream chat from which one would probably get a seizure just by looking at all the messages coming through. “...Yeah. Hard to communicate like this.”

I took another breath.

“So! I need you guys’ help. I want you to find a therapist who would be willing to have actual therapy sessions with me… for basically free, since I can’t exactly pay them from here.” I grimaced. “Well, I would pay them once I got back to Earth, but anyway… Yeah. Someone who’s an actual professional and not just someone who would want clout, you know?”

That was the whole pain point of it all. There would inevitably be people wanting to be my ‘therapists’ just for the fame and wouldn’t even have the qualifications.

And I couldn’t realistically pick out individual people in chat and vet them myself.

I stopped and frowned.

…Actually, I could. I just had to spend five skill points.

Stream overseer - Reserve half of your Intra to become capable of reading and processing everything happening in the stream’s chat.

…Should I? Was it worth it? Turning myself into some kind of supercomputer still felt kind of disturbing, though.

Who was I kidding? I was going to get that skill eventually anyway, wasn’t I? I had plenty of points right now, so might as well just get it now to start getting used to it as soon as possible.

Speaking of skill points, I’d gotten an achievement before the whole… murder rage thing happened, hadn’t I?

What was it again…? Oh, this one.

Meh, don’t need it - Completely ignore a floor reward chest. [COMPLETE]

Right, yeah. I had done that. Kind of forgotten there was an achievement for that.

Aaand I was distracting myself again.

“So yeah. Need a therapist, chat,” I concluded lamely. “I might actually get the Stream overseer just to chat with different people, actually.”

KaiEbikoOfficial: don’t know about that Nana

KaiEbikoOfficial: I thought you didn’t want to become a supercomputer

bloopbooper: boop… (づ•́ ᵔ •̀)づ

uptonMIKE: that really doesn’t sound like a good idea

trelipideliberitation: meh shrinks are overrated

Jeofffff: oh hell yeah galaxy brain time

SunOfABeach: you do need a therapist I agree

“I mean… I probably need to get all tier two Streamer upgrades to unlock the next tier again, right?” I explained. “And… Well, since tier two allows calls, the higher tiers might have stuff like video calls…” I trailed off as I thought about it. “...Which would mean that I could at least see back to Earth. Heck, maybe I’ll even end up getting something that lets me summon people here! So… Yeah. If I want that, I’m gonna need to get the overseer at some point anyway.”

KaiEbikoOfficial: I don’t like how that logic makes sense

KaiEbikoOfficial: I don’t wanna stop you from keeping yourself sane though…

uptonMIKE: it could be a trap though

uptonMIKE: you don’t need to get all the upgrades

uptonMIKE: it wants you to think you do

I groaned.

“I mean, you’re right, Mike. It could be a trap but… I just… I still need a therapist. And having Stream Overseer will help me find one. That ought to offset this, right?”

uptonMIKE: becoming less human isn’t

KaiEbikoOfficial: could you turn it off later?

uptonMIKE: we can find you one

I grimaced at Mike’s comment.

“Being human is overrated,” I murmured before raising my voice. “I’m already part phoenix or something, right? It’s gonna be fine! And, no. I don’t think I can, Ebi. It’s like the stream itself. Can’t turn it off… except for when I play ads, I guess.”

Purchase the [Streamer] skill upgrade [Stream Overseer] for 5 skill points?

Y/N

uptonMIKE: please reconsider

bloopbooper: b-bloop (｡Ó﹏Ò｡)

I pursed my lips.

Was I making another rash mistake here…? I was going to get this eventually anyway, wasn’t I? Even if I didn’t need it to unlock the next tier, it would just keep taunting me in the back of my mind.

No, it was gonna be fine. None of the skills and upgrades had ever actually hurt me. Sure, I still wasn’t thrilled that the system apparently read my mind, but other than that, it had never hurt me when I took care not to run out of Ether or Intra.

Why would it even give me a special skill that could be upgraded into something that screwed with me and couldn’t be reversed anyway?

I hesitated for one more second before finally pressing it.

‘Stream Overseer’ skill upgrade unlocked!

The moment that little window appeared, I felt a huge pressure in my head as a massive barrage of information poured in.

“Oh, what the…”

I could see everything. I could perceive everything. All the hundreds of messages being posted in the main chat every second. I could read them, evaluate them, form an opinion on them, and join the information I got from them with my greater consciousness.

Every. Single. Message.

It was both incredibly overwhelming, while at the same time, I had no problems at all perceiving it all. I could successfully absorb all the information and even read old messages – all the old messages – but it was just so much information coming in so quickly that my main thought process kept trying to go in one direction, then stuttered, then went in an entirely different direction.

In other words, it was immensely distracting.

And holy crap, I hadn’t realized just how much spam there was in chat.

People were posting links to random websites, advertising all sorts of things, flooding it with emojis, flooding it with ASCII art, sending generic copypastas, trying to threaten me, trying to flirt with me, trying to sexualize me, proposing to me, saying that they made a grave for me, cussing me out angrily, cussing me out in a suggestive way, reprimanding me for being inappropriate, goading me to be more degenerate, worshiping me, praying to me, saying that I was a goddess, saying that I was the devil, saying that they had sacrificed a goat for me, saying that they want my blessing for their upcoming marriage, calling me a menace to society, begging me to invite them to the group chats, complaining about not being invited to the group chats, threatening my group chat members, begging my group chat members to convince me to invite them, saying that life has no meaning and that they want to die, saying that they didn’t want to be invited to the group chats anyway, saying hi, saying overly ominous things, posting riddles, pretending to be the phoenix, pretending to be the fate weaver, pretending to be me from the future, pretending to be my subconscious mind, pretending to be my sister, pretending to be my mother or father, pretending to be my long-lost brother, pretending to be my daughter from the future, pretending to be Ebiko who lost the password to her main account, wanting to buy my magical items off of me, wanting to hire me to kill someone when I return to Earth, telling me what skills to get, telling me what skills to avoid, complaining about the system in this world, praising the system in this world, suggesting what achievements I should try to complete next, commenting on how much spam there was, telling everyone else to shut up, inviting me to a talk show, inviting me to an interview, asking me if I planned on taking over the world if I returned to Earth, telling me to try lucid dreaming, asking me if I was okay with fanart, saying that they’ve done fanart of me, saying that they made rule 34 fanart of me, apologizing to me, telling me to apologize to them, saying that they made an animated video recreation of my second floor water park dungeon boss fight, trying to hire me, asking for personal information, asking me if I was feeling okay, asking me to take a closer look at the plants and trees, asking me to analyze the rocks on this planet more, asking me to look at the night sky to see if they could see any recognizable constellations, asking me to drop a rock from a high place to calculate the strength of the gravitational pull of this planet, asking me to create a simple pendulum to calculate the strength of the gravitational pull of this planet, telling me to set up a trap for an animal and then leave it to see if it catches anything, telling me that they wanted to be my therapist, celebrating my survival, being annoyed that I’d survived, celebrating my death, mourning my death, trying to decipher the written language of the world, trying to compare the spoken language of the world to Earth languages, threatening to kill my sister, threatening to seduce my sister, calling me transphobic slurs, saying that I was brave for being trans, saying that it was really cool that I was trans and that they are also trans, asking what it meant to be trans, asking if I was trans, calling me a pervert, advising me on which way to go, being delighted by the ads, being annoyed by the ads, saying that I was a sellout, theorizing about the phoenix and the fate weaver, theorizing about what other skills I would unlock, telling me to shoot the resetting dungeon with my gun, telling me to drink the death water, telling me to spit in the death water, telling me to piss in the death water, telling me to shoot the death water with my gun, narrating my fights like a sports commentator, reprimanding me for fighting bad, suggesting better ways to fight, being weirded out by the space-warping dungeon, being delighted by the space-warping dungeon, telling me that they’d started a blog to document my journey, asking me how I’d created the special website, asking how I’d hacked the Snitch servers, asking what the point of this ARG was, asking what this stream was about, being annoyed that I’d left the stream running when going to sleep, saying creepy things about my sleeping noises, being jealous that I didn’t have to deal with insects, wondering where the animals were, wondering how the spaceship had been built–

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

A sudden clicking noise shook me out of my thoughts. Oh, there were still tsunamis of information actively flooding my mind, but I was no longer focused on all of that. Instead, my head snapped up and at the door leading out of this room.

“Wha–” I blinked at the door. “Huh?”

What had happened? Had the dungeon locked me in? What the heck?

“...Hello?” I called out as I scrambled to stand, alarmed.

I was still somewhat paying attention to the entirety of chat, although now I was ignoring the vast majority of it again, focused on the present.

I did notice people in the group chat sending messages and let my mind process them though.

uptonMIKE: I told you it would be bad

KaiEbikoOfficial: Nana you’re back!

“Sorry, everyone. I got a bit lost in the… everything,” I murmured while keeping my eye on the door and my surroundings. I didn’t need to flick my eyes to the group chat anymore.

bloopbooper: bloop…? (ó﹏ò｡)

trelipideliberitation: damn I thought you were braindead again

Jeofffff: galaxy brain successfully integrated?

“I’m fine, don’t worry… Well, except all the creative slurs and insults I just read. I could have done without all of that,” I said with a grimace. “Anyone know what happened? With the door? Oh and how long was I out?”

To my surprise, before anyone in my group chats could answer, several people in the main chat had already posted all that information and I couldn’t help but integrate it since I needed it anyway.

But then I automatically began integrating the messages near it and–

I shook my head and forced myself to focus as I shut it all out again.

“An hour? Damn, I didn’t even realize. The door clicked exactly an hour after I entered the room, huh…? That’s probably significant, yeah.”

Someone reminded me of the chest the archer had dropped and I turned to see that it was still there. I was about to just walk up and open it when several people reminded me of mimics, so I once again took the water gun out of my backpack and shot the chest.

“Not a mimic! Nice!” I cheered after the chest tumbled and stopped without showing any signs of life.

Of course, there were still people thinking it could totally be a mimic, and then some other people telling me I was stupid for always checking, and then more people wonder what the loot would be, and then others who–

I shut it down again.

God dammit, this was so distracting. Ugh… I needed to learn how to manage my own thoughts now, didn’t I? Fuck, that was so weird.

Why had I bought this upgrade again? I’d completely forgotten.

Anyway. Loot.

I popped the chest open and blinked in surprise at the beautiful bow laying inside. I immediately appraised it.

Infused emerald bow

A flexible emerald bow infused with some Ether.

How did that work, exactly? How could emerald be flexible?

I didn’t ponder on it too much and just shoved the bow into my backpack. Chat was already speculating on what I could do with the bow and how it was flexible.

I vehemently ignored it lest I got distracted again.

“Huh, you’re right. My stuff isn’t here either… Dammit, do I have to clear the whole dungeon to get it back? I really hope not… Hmm, you think there’s some kind of graveyard area where all the lost stuff is? Ugh, don’t say that! I don’t wanna find dead adventurer corpses!”

Once again, I forced myself to stop paying attention to chat and walked over to the door as the chest vanished into smoke.

“Okay, door. I really hope you didn’t lock me in for the funzies. That would suck… Mm, yeah it could be that the dungeon reset, we’ll have to see…”

I was about to reply to yet another chatter when I once again reminded myself to stop getting distracted.

I slowly approached the door, wary of something jumping – ugh, I hoped the archer didn’t respawn – placed my hand on the handle, and then opened it.

It led back into the city.

I frowned.

Listening to an errant suggestion from a chatter – and ignoring the others – I closed the door again, thought about continuing the dungeon, and opened it again.

The dining room greeted me on the other side of the door this time.

I stared at it for a second and then sighed.

“Looks like the dungeon really did reset,” I murmured as a flood of disappointment and cussing me out for missing it flooded chat.

I tuned it out.

“Okay, so… In other words. This dungeon is a timed boss rush gauntlet of sorts. I have to beat one boss after the other without leaving the dungeon and without taking too long.”

I groaned and shook my head.

“Yeah, I’m not doing this right now, chat. That’s way too dangerous. Especially because I get locked into the fights and can’t run from them. I don’t even know how long it is. It could be five fights or it could be fifty.”

I ignored all the complainers and instead focused back on my good old group chats.

uptonMIKE: yeah this dungeon is a terrible trap

KaiEbikoOfficial: are you sure you’re okay?

KaiEbikoOfficial: you’re spacing out

“Yeah, I’m fine! Don’t worry, Ebi!” I said as I closed the door and reopened it back into the city again. I walked through. “There’s just a lot I can perceive now, you know? It’s… very distracting. But I’m learning how to manage it!”

KaiEbikoOfficial: if you say so…

I bopped my head as I made my way out of the dungeon. Some people were asking how exactly the Stream Overseer worked and although I was still trying to figure it out, I had a general idea.

“Yeah, so… It’s like I have hundreds… or even thousands of thought processes going on at the same time now. It constantly changes and is pretty hard to tell how many it is…” I paused and frowned. “Actually, I would have thought I would have a lot more… Oh, yeah, you’re right PigMe, it’s probably because my Intra is limited.”

Aaand I was getting distracted again, great.

I shook my head.

“Anyway,” I said as I stepped out of the dungeon and felt the relief wash over me. “One of these thought processes is the main one. The one I always had, right? Me, basically. It’s more advanced than all the other ones. And then the other ones each attach themselves to an individual message from chat, analyze it, and think about it, before sending that info back to my main thought process.”

Which… really did sound like some kind of computer system, didn’t it? Like I was some kind of server.

Well, I shouldn’t think too hard about that.

“So like, at first, they sent everything back and my main thought process got completely overwhelmed by all the information. That’s why I froze up like that,” I said with a grimace as I slowly made my way back to my base.

“Which is obviously super dangerous since only my main thought process can pay attention to my surroundings. So I figured out how to… decline the information they send…? Or rather, I tell them what information they should send and what they should keep to themselves.”

Oh fuck, now I was talking about the other thought branches like they were different people. Was I going to get some kind of split personality syndrome?

Dammit, which chatter had said that? Now I was concerned.

I took a deep breath and once again blocked it all.

“But… apparently, sometimes they think some information is very important or too shocking not to know, so they send me that information anyway even if I told them not to.”

I opened my crappy door and shuffled inside my shelter.

“So… I’m going to need to learn how to… Err, manage my own thoughts? Manage my thought branches? Whatever you wanna call it.” I grimaced. “Don’t call them my kids! Or brain cells. Mini-mes? Eh, I guess…?”

I shook my head.

“Anyway! Chat! You’ve been… seriously nasty! I had a way to ban people for a while now, but I couldn’t do much since there was so much going on, but–” I summoned John and had him look at my evil grin shaded by my shelter. “–now I can.”

I let out an evil chuckle as some chatters began to panic.

“And guess what? My thought processes have access to the banning function, so this is going to go very quickly!” I grinned wider. “It’s banning time, chat! Thank you for volunteering to serve as a training ground for managing my thought branches!” I paused and hummed. “Forks is a good name for them, I guess… Wait, that’s a programming term? Dammit, don’t compare me to an AI!”

I spent the rest of the day moderating my chat and learning how to… exist now.

At some point, I inevitably realized that in the span of a mere hour, I had probably changed more than in all of my other days in this world just from the sheer amount of information I’d absorbed.

I didn’t dwell on it too much.