So When's It Coming Out? - 3
It had only been a single announcement.
And yet people had no choice but to shiver.
He had founded a corporation for VTubers.
He had really gone and done that crazy thing no one could have imagined. And at a glance, the owner of that corporation could only have been BigMan. That was why people were afraid.
People were afraid.
They refused to believe that one person’s goodwill could be that enormous.
They believed there had to be some other motive.
They wanted everything to be a lie.
If....
If he really was only supporting ABCD.
Then that was no longer human support.
That was already the unconditional love of a god.
People wanted him to be a wealthy, idle capitalist rather than a benevolent god.
What the hell is BigMan even doing?
So someone started by digging into the corporation name and tried to uncover BigMan’s identity. They were able to check the documents quickly enough.
The pleasure of dethroning a god.
People eagerly exposed BigMan’s identity, shouting about “CEO Kim Min-su, lawyer” with fervor. They firmly believed the scraps of information they had found were a piece of the truth.
So BigMan was just a person.
They had dragged an incomprehensible terror down into an identity they could understand.
But that relief lasted only a moment.
More testimony followed.
BigMan was not Kim Min-su.
Kim Min-su was merely a proxy.
Everyone was confused.
No one knew.
“...”
“...”
“...”
Really.
Really....
He wasn’t some capitalist planning to invest?
He had hidden himself,
and made a corporation for no reason at all.
BigMan...?
“...”
The false truth crumbled with ease.
Ignorant humans fell to their knees.
What returned to that place was reverence.
Fear,
awe,
and wonder....
...
...
...
There was a myth there.
But there was no human memory.
No one knew his name.
*
[Live viewer count: 6,018]
The live viewer count had jumped by almost ten times.
But I wasn’t happy.
“...”
It was a clearly strange number.
Aki-chan stayed silent for a while after starting the stream.
So it really was because of the announcement....
The chat was in chaos.
BigMan’s donation did not come.
He was indifferent,
but he was definitely not a machine.
Please behave naturally.
He was probably holding back because donating in this situation would only create more confusion. At least, that was the kind of person BigMan felt like to Aki-chan.
He said nothing,
but naturally inspired respect....
At the very least, he was not a machine.
No matter where you go, no matter what you do....
I support you.
He was human.
Just a person whose goodwill carried more weight than most.
That was all.
“...”
...We can’t keep going like this.
Aki-chan opened her mouth.
As brightly and naturally as ever.
“Hello! I’m Aki-chan, a prospective idol who shines like a star in your heart! Thank you so much for the donation!”
And then she continued,
so that he would no longer be misunderstood.
“Um. Actually, there’s probably something a lot of you are curious about. There’s something I want to say too.”
!
!
!
Everyone held their breath.
“First, yes. I thought about how to say this, very... carefully, but... I think what you’re all imagining is probably right. I think so too.”
What does that mean?
Get to the point instead of dancing around it!
Stop pestering her, you idiots.
“Ahaha....”
After a brief laugh,
Aki-chan rolled her eyes and spoke cautiously.
“Um. How should I put it.... We received it from that person.”
What did you receive?
“A world for us.”
?!
The chat exploded again, to the point that a moderator from somewhere had to slap on restrictions. Even so, the stream was still flooded with stunned messages.
Aki-chan looked at the chat and spoke slowly.
“That’s all. Nothing has changed. We only received something. We never even saw that person’s face. But....”
But?
“...From here on, the stage we’re going to show you is one we have to run on our own? The stage we have to be the ones running? Singing, dancing... all of it. That person never told us to ask for anything, and never told us to do anything, either.”
Aki-chan quietly declared it.
“So from here on out, it’s all our fault.”
Our fault?
What does that mean?
“If we can’t sing, if we can’t dance, if the stream isn’t fun, if what we prepared is weird, if the broadcast cuts out... it’ll all be because we weren’t good enough. So if anything happens, please curse us and hate us instead.”
??
???
???
“Just accept it as our stage.”
Aki-chan said with a bright smile,
“So... in the world we received, please look forward to the most amazing stage we can prepare. We’ll run at full speed.”
The world of fans and idols.
If you couldn’t run there....
Then you had no right to call yourself an idol.
There’s no going back now.
This was human choice alone.
“Nothing has changed.”
Only.
The wall had been torn down by that person.
Only a world had been given.
Nothing about herself had changed.
What stood here was only an idol at the starting line.
“So from here on out, it begins.”
Aki-chan grinned.
And then, at that moment, the donation she had been putting off finally flew in.
!
As expected....
...BigMan is human.
Even if he was bad at expressing himself,
even if he looked lonely in some way,
he was a person who had feelings.
“Hehe.”
Aki-chan smiled naturally. Her face lit up as she spoke to her most passionate fan.
“Thank you. Please look forward to it.”
The answer between fan and idol was so quiet
that the viewers’ confusion settled down.
....
And so the myth ended quietly.
What came back was the story of a human being.
*
Clara, Choi Ye-seo, was in a conference room.
In front of her sat the ABCD members, senior staff from OffEnter, and the executives from the companies under Big Plan A Company.
As the representative of the stream’s side, Choi Ye-seo was running the meeting.
“Then let’s begin the Big Plan planning meeting.”
“...”
“...”
“...”
The Big Plan planning meeting.
It was a name they had slapped on at random, but it stuck to the tongue.
This really was a meeting where they could draw the big picture freely.
“First, I’ll explain the purpose of the meeting. Until the live event scheduled for July is finalized, this is a place where we’ll freely discuss planning that can raise the brand value of the ‘ABCD group.’”
In other words....
“It’s a meeting to make a broadcast that can gather as many fans as possible for the July live show.”
At that, the first to raise her hand was Aki.
“What kind of conditions are there for the planning?”
“Hmm.... As the CEO decided it,”
The corner of Choi Ye-seo’s mouth twitched. It looked like she was holding back a bitter laugh.
“He said it should be fun.”
“Pardon?”
“He said to try anything on stream that would be fun. Except for anything that clearly violates criminal law or social norms.”
“...”
“The budget set for this meeting is 100 million won. But depending on the scale of the plan, additional spending is allowed.”
“...”
Isn’t that basically unlimited...?
My mind went blank.
!
After getting her head back together, the youngest, Kang Do-dam, shot her hand up fast.
“Me! Me! I’ve got one! I’ve got a plan that’ll be insanely fun and make us do backflips—! It’ll make BigMan roll on the floor too!”
?!
At that, Kim Ae-ri immediately raised her hand.
“H-hey, hold on, unnie! I mean, vice manager! I’ve got an idea too!”
Aki raised her hand again in silence.
“Then I also....”
Watching them, Choi Ye-seo smiled faintly.
“Actually, I have one too.”
In the end, every member’s proposal was presented one after another. All of them seemed like they would cost a lot of money, but for some reason, they also seemed like they’d be fun if they actually did them.
Choi Ye-seo fanned herself, her face slightly flushed. Like the otaku she was, a little embarrassment came after the heated presentations.
“Th-then... let’s proceed sequentially starting next Monday.”
The people gathered in the conference room snorted with quiet laughter.
....
....
....
They had already been paid either way.
There wasn’t even any money they had to earn from this.
How far can you grow a brand?
That was all they had to think about.
So they hired everyone.
That was the freedom of the world they had received.
---