Treasure? If You Want It, I'll Give It to You - 3
Quiet Saturday morning.
Under the bright sunlight, the wreckage of a brutal barrage was laid bare. The place that had become a battlefield was a community board for a VTuber fandom other than ABCD's.
This is the mod team. I understand what happened, and I understand how you feel, too, but I cannot stand watching everyone beat each other up and burn through their emotions from Friday evening until dawn like idiots. If anyone stirs up anything related to this again, I’ll delete it all, so shut your mouths.
You'll be a head mod for life.
"Don't you guys want any more Urin Gwen merch?" Ugh, lol. I wanted this pathetic-ass drama gone already, lol.
Make him a lifetime mod.
Blocking the topic is a bad idea.
Damn, this is exactly right lol.
Honestly, I didn’t really care either, lol. I have no idea where all those losers who kept whining about merch until dawn came from.
So how long is the mention ban supposed to last?
└ I'm planning to keep it in place indefinitely, yep.
└ What about the trolls in the ABCD fandom? Shouldn't you go over there and complain?
└ Then you go do it.
└ Trolls? I looked through the hot posts, and it looked like nothing but shadowboxing.
└ lol, for real, it was hilarious how everybody suddenly lost their minds because one anonymous account was baiting them.
There were people who pushed back against the notice.
Title: Why are you defending those money-flashing fandom bastards?
Title: Damn it, even so, this isn't right.
Title: They were raging with envy themselves, and now they’re dropping truth bombs? lol
Those posts were blocked and deleted along with the ban.
[Deleted post.]
In the middle of all that, people who were only just learning what had happened finally came rushing in.
- What happened??
- Did something blow up yesterday?
- Nothing happened...!
- Wait, on an ABCD stream? What happened there?
- Someone said they trashed those guys’ tiny streamers.
- Seriously? Those guys were tiny-ass nobodies themselves.
- Did they mess with our Rollpi-chan?
- What? Those money-flashing bastards went after our girls???
- Strategic nuke deployed, go go go.
- What the hell are you idiots talking about? Snap out of it.
- All because of some Bigman or whatever and one gross otaku creep, damn it.
- No, but those guys really are awful.
- For real. Latching onto one big-name poster and worshipping them is disgusting as hell.
…
…
…
With the renewed complaints came the recycled anger, already cooling a little, now boiling back up. A few users said something stupid, and that was enough for the exact same feelings to start all over again.
Inferiority.
Loss.
Defeat.
Emotions like that.
The mods sighed in unison, and the community lit up warm and bright all over again.
There were no enemies there.
They were just fighting each other while punching at the giant’s shadow.
Inside, though, they were envying the people who had been pulled into the giant’s arms....
All of that because of a single broadcast.
Live: Clara the Shining Girl's Saturday Morning Stream ~Just Chatting!~
Live viewers: 2,811
A 2D stream she’d turned on again after a long while.
Clara spoke in a slightly hoarse voice.
“Let’s shine together for a shining moment! I’m Clara, the Shining Girl. Hm, hm—ah, my throat’s in pretty bad shape. Sorry. I’m going to drink some water.”
There was a swallowing sound through the microphone.
“Hm, hm! Ah, cough...!”
It sounded exactly like a cold had caught in her throat, as though her voice were genuinely stuck there.
“Hm? Ah, yes? Huh—! I just noticed, but there are a lot of people here, aren’t there? Did you all come after watching yesterday?”
- Yeah, came in yesterday.
- lol
- Cla-hi!
- Newcomers these days are so diligent.
- lmaoooo
- Good work yesterday.
- Subscriber count jumped by over ten thousand in a single day lol.
- Cla-hi.
- There are a lot of people for a morning stream lol.
- Clarararara.
- Sounds like your voice is hoarse? lol
- lmaoooo
- If you're tired, just rest.
- Cla-hi!
…
…
…
“Ah— Big, ahem! Ah. Sorry. Thank you for the donation, Bigman. Did you enjoy yesterday’s stream? I hope you did.”
- Ah, this is the good stuff lol. So huge, but still with that tiny-streamer flavor....
- lol is this a conversation between the boss and the talent?
- Just rest, T_T
- Don’t push yourself, sis.
- Yesterday’s stream was fun.
- For real lol, the dopamine kept me up.
- I looped the full version twice lol.
The praise for yesterday’s stream kept pouring in without end. Their broadcasts were that singular, that unmistakable. They had dumped dopamine over everyone like a waterfall, raining down content and merch like weather.
Even after all that praise, Clara answered with a strangely blank voice.
“Oh, really?”
- "Oh, really?"
- Ah... I see....
- Not very happy, huh....
- Whoa, that’s the line idols use when they’re annoyed.
- Isn’t that an industry-taboo phrase? lol
- lol damn, sis, what kind of line is that?
- lol no way.
- Idol fan-meet forbidden line lol.
- “Oh, really?” (translation: my throat hurts, damn it)
- Guys, sis looks tired. Let’s take the hint and leave.
- Cla-bye....
Clara’s fandom, the Carrots, could hear the fatigue buried in her voice. So the line turned into a harmless joke with no malice behind it.
“Heehee, I-I guess I wasn’t reading the room....”
“Boo.... Sorry. I’ll just go.”
“!”
Only then did Clara, still not fully awake, realize what reaction she had just given. After snickering for a moment, she offered an explanation that was barely an explanation at all.
“No, haha! Thank you, thank you for the donation. It’s not like that at all.... I just got up, so my head’s a little foggy. I couldn’t sleep late last night....”
- Stayed up all night?
- T_T
- I think I get the feeling....
- After finishing a huge project, you can’t sleep that night because your heart’s still racing lol. You’re tired and want to sleep, but your eyes won’t close lol.
- lol, exactly.
“That’s not it. I was fielding calls about subcontracting for the official store....”
- Damn, give me my feelings back.
- Sis, are you a T?
- Ugh, T-damn....
- lol, that was brutally matter-of-fact.
- Don’t get sick.
Clara let out a small laugh and said, “By the way, did you all check out the official store?”
- Yep lol. Pretty good value, right?
- How’d they pull that off?
- I bought all four ABCD members lol.
- lol, same.
- I got mine free from big sis.
- Wow, flexing like that is kind of rough.
- Still, the contents are really solid.
- What they showed off a little on stream looked pretty convincing lol.
- Feels like a mountain of rice Grandma packed for you.
- I got every quiz answer right and still didn’t get one....
- They even got the shipping ready crazy fast, whoa.
…
…
…
Fans were happy to receive the merch.
And they laughed and chatted about the things that had happened on stream. Through the medium of the broadcast, inside the territory called ABCD, they came together as one and enjoyed themselves.
It was calm, but steady and peaceful.
Vtuber and viewer.
Idol and fan.
That was the natural shape of things.
And that natural shape had been something I’d only been able to see in my dreams for the past year.
“...”
Clara spoke in a gentle voice.
“The notice should be going up soon, but our music will also be released next Monday. It’ll be up on streaming services too. We’ve been preparing it for a long time, so I hope you’ll enjoy it a lot.”
- ?!
- What?
- No way lol.
- It’s real lol. The notice just went up lol.
- Is Clara basically the power behind ABCD? Whoa.
- Wow, yesterday and today are a total content feast lol.
- The one you sang at the showcase?
“Yes. And not just that.... All four songs we prepared are going to be released. The physical album is still being worked on, but we should be able to show it to you soon.”
- Wow, four songs, whoa.
- That really is a mountain of food lol.
- Why are you going on a rampage, sis?
- Damn, lol.
- I love that this place gives you so much.
Clara’s calm announcement didn’t end there.
“And there’s one more notice going up now, but starting today, we’re officially opening memberships too. For each member, we’ll be uploading edited cuts from our special planning streams, focused on the best shots and behind-the-scenes shots. There’ll also be members-only streams.”
- No way lol.
- What even is happening lol.
- Looking at the notice, it’s 5,500 won lol.
- I already bought it, thanks.
- How did you buy it? Tell me, damn it.
- Of course I’m subscribing.
- This is like a factory, what the hell lol.
The viewers cheered.
It wasn’t the kind of price that squeezed them dry. What they could feel from the content was a genuine desire to tell stories together with the viewers.
Someone asked,
- Since when were you preparing all this? Whoa.
Since when...
Since when had it been?
Clara cleared her throat once and answered,
“We’ve been preparing since a year ago. We got a lot of help, so we were able to prepare a lot.”
- Wow, so she wasn’t just some tiny streamer after all?
- lol, all thanks to Bigman.
- These girls almost got buried.
- Salute to the boss!
- Roger!
- ? Why not just “loyalty”?
Fortunately, no one noticed the odd hitch in her cough just now.
With a full heart, Clara murmured brightly, “Really, thank you.”
Bigman— it was the prayer of a warrior who had come back from battle.
That quiet prayer rang out deeply.
The stream wrapped up early. Even in that short span, the merch had already gone into a second production run, and membership sign-ups had sailed clean past the thousand mark.
The fans were now looking forward to an idol they could actually see in the real world.
What would they show us next?
Fortunately, they could answer that expectation now.
A calm Saturday evening.
I’d finished the membership signup and merch reservations. Of course I’d signed up and bought everything for all four of them. Then I was sitting in a peaceful convenience-store chair.
I’d said I’d send it to Bigman for free, but merch only means something if you pay for it.
Far away, I could see the glittering shimmer of the Han River.
“...”
It had only been one broadcast.
And yet, ABCD’s world had finally been completed. Even now, countless clip makers were editing yesterday’s stream and spreading it around under the name “legendary broadcast.”
The world was learning the name ABCD at a frightening speed.
Not as a dying tiny VTuber group,
but as terrifying rookies.
That ripple effect was probably the price of the 1 billion won I spent.
But the faster something moved, the more enemies it would gather.
They might not be able to scale the wall of capital....
Still, someday there would be a time when we had to collide with them.
Even so, that was proof that ABCD was alive now.
Colliding,
absorbing,
and running without rest—that was the essence of life.
...
You could say it was a life completely opposite to that of a regressor.
Ping!
“!”
The moment I thought that, my phone rang as if it were scolding me.
“...”
She left behind a slightly strange line, and the text message went silent for a while.
Then, a moment later, it rang again.
...
What she was probably going to say was this:
“...I should probably quit my part-time job. From now on, I can really make a living just by working as a VTuber idol.”
That was exactly what Clara had achieved.
Merch.
Music.
Membership.
These were the “system” that could become ABCD’s income as an idol group. Even if they were only seedlings growing on the capital of the Big Plan, it was still an achievement they had made themselves.
In short,
the side job was no longer necessary.
“...”
I accepted it.
If someone like that is beside you, you really can keep moving forward as far as you need to.
So I waited for Ayoung.
A few minutes later, I saw swaying blonde hair and light footsteps.
- Manager!
“!”
She ran toward me with the Han River glittering behind her.
“Manager—!”
“...”
“H-hello—!”
“Yes, hello.”
Ayoung came running all the way to the front of the convenience store. With her hands clasped behind her back, she panted hard to catch her breath.
“S-sorry, just a sec.... Hoo....”
“...”
“Hehe, I wanted to say it quickly, so before I knew it....”
“?”
That she was quitting the convenience store?
Ayoung steadied her breathing and looked at me. In her eyes, a faint uncertainty and anxiety were surging and breaking.
“Manager.”
“Yes?”
“I said before that I was an idol trainee.”
“Yes.”
“Actually, that’s a little different.”
“?”
Ayoung handed me a box and said, her voice trembling more and more with tension.
“I-I couldn’t tell anyone because I hadn’t had any results until now, but...! The truth is... I’m a VTuber!”
“...”
“This is my merch! Please take it!”
What she was holding out was the All-Star Box (Type A).
Looking at it, I let out a low groan inside. It was the aftereffect of the red pill that had suddenly been force-fed to me.
...
I had already bought it.