Ch.194194. 20 Million Subscriber YouTuber Farmer Hunter

YouTube editor Yoon Hyunji was incredibly happy these days.

“Is it really okay for me to be this happy?”

She had been recruited during the early days of an SSS+ rank Hunter Farmer’s channel, and she hadn’t even uploaded ten videos yet.

Ten? More like six or seven at most.

She hadn’t been at this job long.

Just a little over a month, it felt like.

Yet since her arrival, the channel had exploded in growth, surpassing 10 million subscribers, then 15 million, and now it was about to break 20 million.

Just yesterday it was at 18 million, and she thought it would soon reach 20 million… but today it had already shot past that mark and was racing toward 21 million.

Even with her years of experience as a YouTube editor, she couldn’t understand how this channel was growing so rapidly.

Honestly, it’s not like she had done anything special.

She had simply edited in her own style. While there were some compliments about her editing, it was absurd to think that editing alone could attract this many viewers.

If that were the case, she wouldn’t have been repeatedly criticized at her previous job for adding too much of her personal flair to her edits.

Even accounting for some subjective preferences in editing style, this success could only be attributed to the YouTuber’s own qualities.

And as the editor herself, Hyunji acknowledged this fact.

That’s why she felt troubled.

This YouTube channel would gain subscribers even if the owner just posted videos of himself breathing and defecating.

All she did was make his videos look a bit nicer with her editing.

And for that minimal effort, she received an astronomical salary.

When her friend Kim Soojeong recruited her, she had promised exceptional terms, and the conditions had improved even further since the initial contract. Now she received a monthly salary of 3.2 million won plus 20% of the YouTube revenue.

Since YouTube work is essentially freelance, every channel has different payment arrangements for editors, but places that offer both a base salary and performance bonuses are rare.

If this had been offered by a smaller channel, Hyunji might have declined.

A 3.2 million won salary isn’t small—it’s enough to live comfortably—but offering such a salary usually means the 20% performance bonus is essentially meaningless.

Typically, as a channel grows and the performance bonus increases, the base salary would decrease.

Anyway, the terms were good, and given the channel’s size, even with relatively few uploads, her 20% share of the revenue amounted to millions of won deposited into her account.

To be honest, she hadn’t worked for many channels, so she didn’t know exactly how channel revenue was calculated.

What she did know was that while video revenue was part of a YouTube channel’s income, advertising revenue and other external sources made up a much larger portion.

Moreover, to increase the proportion of view-based revenue, a channel would need to upload frequently, but that wasn’t even the case here.

This was an insane anomaly—a channel that uploaded just once or twice a week yet consistently garnered views in the hundreds of millions.

“I feel like I should upload something… but it feels wrong to do it on my own…”

The boss was busy exploring dungeons, so YouTube-related matters were usually discussed with Kim Soojeong.

Last time when Soojeong was around, they had created content about unboxing the Silver, Gold, and Diamond plaques all at once.

That was already a week ago.

The Silver, Gold, and Diamond plaques had already arrived according to the email notification, but there had been no contact…

Hyunji was still regularly uploading videos she received.

Comments flooded in every time, many from overseas viewers.

The audience wanted interaction, but as just an editor, it felt inappropriate for her to communicate on the boss’s behalf, so the channel was essentially running on one-sided communication from viewers.

Normally, this kind of situation would cause interest in a channel to wane.

– “Wow, how many talents does this person have?”

– “The ironic thing is that he’s a Hunter Farmer, but we never see him farming.”

– “Isn’t farming supposed to be the main focus? lol”

But YouTube viewers didn’t seem to mind.

They cheered and enjoyed each occasional video.

Perhaps it was because these videos showed content that was hard to find on other Hunter channels.

And in a way, the videos on this channel satisfied people’s needs.

Not only did they showcase powerful abilities, but the recent collaboration video with Seo Hyoju had received such positive feedback that both Hyoju’s channel and this one were flooded with comments about how well they matched together.

Of course, there were jealous people on both sides, but they were quickly silenced by the majority opinion. Hyunji had been a bit worried since Hyoju had idol-level popularity, but it seemed that the boss’s specs were no less impressive than Hyoju’s, so viewers reluctantly accepted their pairing despite their envy.

– “Damn… handsome, talented, rich… his personality must be terrible, right?”

– “Bet he has a small dick”

– “Would Hyoju noona date him if that were true?”

Inappropriate comments seemed to be automatically filtered out, but even from Hyunji’s perspective, the boss didn’t seem overshadowed at all when standing next to someone as impressive as Seo Hyoju.

“He’s so handsome…”

He was like the dream subject for YouTube editors.

Since editors typically spend hours or even days looking at the same footage, they inevitably develop feelings for the person they’re editing.

Whether the person is attractive or not, you get used to their face after seeing it constantly.

If they were unattractive, you might grow accustomed to them and develop a friendly, comfortable feeling. But when someone is this handsome, the more you look, the more your heart races and flutters, making editing quite challenging.

“Soojeong is so lucky.”

She gets to explore dungeons with the boss.

Where could they be going that they’re out of contact for weeks at a time?

Sometimes Hyunji indulged in mischievous thoughts.

“That Soojeong… no way, right?”

Forbidden relations between siblings…

A thought that would earn her severe criticism if either Kim Soojeong or Kim Suhyun heard it.

Anyway, Hyunji’s role was to grow the YouTube channel.

Even if communication with the boss was difficult and she faced tough choices and concerns about how to nurture the channel.

At another channel, she might have already quit, asking why she should care so much about someone else’s channel as if it were her own.

“I need to work with ownership, even if I’m not the owner. Like an owner.”

With the amount of money being deposited into her account, she needed to work diligently like a part-timer who takes ownership of their responsibilities, even if they’re not the actual owner.

She couldn’t reply to each of the tens or hundreds of thousands of comments, but she could at least respond to some of the popular ones.

Most surprising were the official proposal emails coming to the YouTube account.

Not spam, but emails from YouTube-verified companies and channels.

Most were advertising inquiries or collaboration requests.

From well-known major corporations to Hunters with enormous subscriber counts.

Famous YouTubers.

Even celebrities.

Hundreds of official emails piled up every day.

She was tempted by some of the offers with particularly appealing amounts.

“Please come back soon, boss…”

It seemed like it was time to address subscribers’ questions about when they would do a Q&A.

This channel might be the first to reach 20 million subscribers without doing a single Q&A.

Hyunji also received an interesting contact.

“Hyunji, I heard you’re the editor for Hunter Farmer? I was surprised when I heard.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Any chance we could arrange a collaboration with our channel?”

It was her previous workplace.

A fairly large YouTube channel.

The editing director of a channel featuring a renowned S-rank Hunter had contacted her directly.

Hyunji found the boldness of the request amusing, regardless of how they had learned this information.

She understood that every channel had its own concept, and they might request changes if her style didn’t match.

But that channel’s editing director had treated editors like they were the channel owner, pushing them around, pressuring them, and rushing their work.

Acting as if there were plenty of people who could replace them—did they not realize that such behavior hadn’t fostered enough goodwill to make this kind of request? Or were they knowingly being thick-skinned, hoping to get even the smallest benefit?

She didn’t harbor any ill feelings.

In fact, thanks to that editing director, she had been able to leave what should have been a stable job for an editor without hesitation, even though it came at a friend’s request.

“I’ll mention that a collaboration offer came in.”

“Thanks, Hyunji. Let’s meet sometime. We haven’t seen each other since then, right?”

“Yes. But I’m quite busy.”

“Ah… right, right. You’re the editor of a 20-million subscriber channel. I’ll make time for you.”

“Sure. Let’s meet when we have time.”

She ended the call politely, leaving the possibility open, then immediately added the number to her block list.

Hyunji liked this job even more now.