I'm a Girl?!
“Okay. Master rank, done.”
Creeeak—
The gaming chair let out a pained screech.
Kim Jio kneaded the stiff nape of his neck and let out a long sigh. Right in the center of the monitor, the Master rank emblem was flashing bright.
For some people, that mark was a realm you could chase all night and never reach. Countless players poured everything into the game—practically asking after their parents’ health—just to pin that single badge to their profile.
For Jio, it was just a rank he could slap onto any account within a few days. As long as the client paid him the kind of money that came with real sincerity.
“Trying to carry a bunch of bug-ass teammates is draining the life out of me, fucking hell.”
This account’s final promotion series had been pure hell. Top lane started inting from minute one. The jungler treated the jungle like an RPG, just looping around forever. Any ordinary player would have thrown in the towel long ago and flaming until they ate a chat ban.
In that kind of game, Jio had grabbed the team by the scruff of the neck with pure mechanical skill and shoved the nexus in.
How much longer am I gonna keep doing this…
He’d hit the goal, but all that came out was a weary sigh. Even if you sat in the top one percent in-game, reality was still an endless stretch of being worse off than everyone else. The people who were supposed to be his parents had bolted before he could even crawl, dumping him on the doorstep of an orphanage with nothing to his name. His oldest memory was probably just bickering with a girl his age at the orphanage until he cried.
Anyone who heard the messy summary of his life would almost certainly tear up. Thankfully, they say even if the sky falls there’s a hole to crawl out of. The one talent the gods had handed down to a kid who had nothing was game sense. AOS, FPS, TCG—even the grind-heavy RPGs—once he put his hands on a keyboard and mouse, he hit the peak of every single one. Inside the limited world of games, he was the undisputed talent freak, an invincible god!
“Maybe I’ll just grab pizza for lunch today.”
Even with that kind of gift, the way Jio chose to make money was nothing more than account boosting—the shady gig of taking someone else’s account and grinding it up to whatever rank the client wanted. It wasn’t honest work, but if he wanted to put food in his mouth right now, this was the only hustle he had.
Should’ve just grown a thick face and tried streaming…
People he’d met in the scene had suggested it once. With physicals and game sense like his, they said, he’d blow up overnight and rake in cash. It hadn’t been empty talk—even pro players whose names everyone knew went on full alert the moment they ran into Jio in-game.
If only I hadn’t run my mouth.
Unfortunately, that advice had come right after he’d eaten a hundred-year ban from the number-one game in the country, Legend of Legend. Swearing and trolling, fine—whatever. The problem was he’d straight-up taunted the company. He’d advertised that he was boosting, full stop. Once your handle got plastered into the official notices, even if you debuted on stream the viewers weren’t going to look at you kindly. With all the karma he’d stacked up, a public roasting was guaranteed. On top of that, male streamers lived and died by their chatter, and even he knew his own mouth wasn’t smooth enough to keep hundreds or thousands of people entertained.
Click.
The pizza place’s lunch sale was still a ways off, so Jio moved the mouse out of habit, just to burn off some stress. What filled the screen a moment later was Outside, the biggest community site in the country. He navigated, by pure muscle memory, straight to the VTuber Sniping Gallery.
The name made it sound like a den of antis who only existed to tear virtual YouTubers apart. That wasn’t entirely wrong, but day-to-day it was more of a holding pen where people just gossiped about the streamers they loved to hate.
“Wonder what kind of drama’s rolling around today.”
He didn’t particularly enjoy VTuber culture. One day the gallery had hit number one on the hot rankings, he’d clicked out of boredom, and that had been the start. Of course he’d landed right in the middle of a full-blown fandom war—the so-called “Gal-de Cup” at its absolute peak. Watching that mud-slinging had been so entertaining he’d just… stayed. Think of it like YouTube Shorts, basically.
“Oh. Something actually blew up.”
They said if you lurked the VTuber Sniping Gallery for a few months, even a school dog could recite every VTuber’s name by heart. Jio was now at the level where he could rattle off the entire family tree of VTubers streaming on the platform Pazizik.
Today’s target was Aisori Mayumi, a VTuber who’d been climbing the ranks with variety game streams.
“Ha!”
Jio clicked the bait-title recommended post, skimmed the body, and snorted. During a stream she’d accidentally leaked her PC CocoTalk, and more than ten names that looked male were sitting right there in the friend list. Personal chats, group chats—she apparently had a whole assortment of rooms going.
“Why the hell would you even install PC CocoTalk on your streaming computer? Dumbass.”
The thought slipped out as actual words. This was a job where you made money by locking your private life down tight, and she’d gotten caught this sloppily? Was there even a brain in there?
He scrolled straight down to check the frothing comments from the gallery regulars.
Jio read down the thread and snickered. How much money did you have to have to donate to streamers like that?
Watching the fans’ tearful defensive battle was pure entertainment. The real charm of Outside was that juicy hit feedback—drop a couple casual jabs and the replies would explode with a satisfying papapap. Dopamine, plain and simple. This place was the perfect stress relief station for shut-in Kim Jio.
“Man, the thinking is just short-sighted.”
An internet streamer’s career wasn’t exactly long. When the water was coming in you had to row like crazy, and she went and made a mistake like that? She could have squeezed it dry, retired quietly, and lived well. Instead she’d kicked over the goose that laid the golden eggs with her own foot.
But other people’s misfortune was his happiness. Thanks to her, Jio’s energy had been topped off bright and early.
“Ah, right—pizza lunch sale!”
He’d been grinning at the gallery for a while when he suddenly let out a yell. While he was mindlessly lurking, the sale window had snuck right up on him. He shoved up from the chair, snatched the gray hoodie that had been rolling around on the floor, and yanked it on in a rush.
If I book it I can still make it safe—
He was charging toward the front door when his vision spun once, hard. Did this dogshit world really have zero mercy for bottom-rung lives? Pulling all-nighters to force that account up to Master had probably been the trigger—a vicious wave of dizziness slammed into him.
Uh. This might be pretty fucking bad.
He staggered and tried to brace against the wall, but his hand grabbed nothing but air.
Thud.
Consciousness cut out clean, and his skinny body crumpled onto the linoleum.
His closed eyes opened.
What entered his field of view a second later was an unfamiliar ceiling.
…Huh?
As awareness sharpened, he started to understand where he was. Windows divided into panes. A space too big for a studio apartment. And an IV bag hanging on a stand right next to him.
Someone must have luckily noticed him collapsed and called an ambulance.
Creeeak—
He was still lying there blankly, leftover fatigue clinging to him, when the hospital room door opened. Civilian clothes—probably family of another patient. That was the thought, yet the middle-aged woman looked at him and her face went blank with shock. Then it crumpled into tears.
“A-Arin!!”
She rushed over, wailing, and pulled him into a crushing hug.
Arin? Who the hell was that?
It sounded like a girl’s name, sure, but why wasn’t she going to someone else—
“Uh, wait a sec—”
He tried to calm the complete stranger down. The voice that left his mouth made him clap a hand over it.
That was not a post-puberty tone.
Then the hand he slowly pulled away was a size no adult man could possibly claim.
“Oh my god! You’re finally awake! You’re finally awake!!”
“…….”
He left the woman who looked ready to cry herself unconscious and turned his head toward the window that held the night outside. The reflection that met him in the glass was more than enough to rip his soul clean out.
…Huh?
Black hair falling all the way to the waist. A straight nose and eyes like deep lakes. And a small, delicate frame.
“Uwaaaaaaaaaaah?!”
The me in the glass, eyes locked with his, was unmistakably a little girl.