Gathering Suspicions (1)

I hadn't wanted to step into the abyss, but when it came to scraping together even half-reliable information out of pure nonsense, there was no place quite like this.

She's blowing up more than I expected.

On Jijijik Gallery they were roasting her frozen avatar; on Nup VTuber Gallery they were reenacting the math from the short and laughing themselves sick. Both galleries were dying to know whether ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this brand-new face could hold the line in front of a hundred people. There was no better moment to watch her verbal tics and how she handled chat — the things you could never catch from an edited clip. And even if I didn't poke the hornet's nest myself, there would be plenty of trolls to do it for me.

I skimmed a few more replies, then clicked the Rion stream link I'd already bookmarked.

"It's gone up already?"

Back in the meeting room, the short had already cleared twenty thousand likes, so I'd figured she'd pull some kind of audience… but overnight clips and posts must have been piling on the kindling. The real-time chatterboxes flapping around the galleries probably helped too.

Two hundred people on a second stream. That was a lot for a newcomer to handle.

Watch the stream and I'll know soon enough whether it's a reincarnation or not.

I shoved the gallery window to the left and parked the stream dead center. On the right, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I opened Miscode and a notepad. A throwaway account — no profile picture, no follow history. Would ordinary questions and ordinary answers be enough…? Mio unnie had only authorized plain, harmless questions, but if I needed more…

…Well. I'd watch first and decide.

A pink-haired avatar bobbed in the corner of a blank Excel sheet. No matter how long I stared, the combination looked wrong. Her eyes alone flicked rapidly, tracking the chat.

She must have lost her place. The pupils that had been bouncing up and down in a neat little rhythm stuttered, then started trembling side to side.

From my prepared account, I dropped a short greeting.

The avatar's pupils swung right, then rolled back left. Her lips parted a few times, but no sound came out.

Is her mic off?

Ordinarily I would have called two hundred viewers a small crowd. For her, it was apparently enough to lose the timing on a simple hello while she tried to read chat.

"W-wait a second. That's too fast."

"…Huh?"

A young girl's voice. Of the four of us, I was the only one who had ever spoken with Link on Miscode. At least the voice I remembered was nothing like this. Not extremely deep, but still a man's voice. I'd been hoping it might be Link… but by voice alone, this leaned closer to the copycat. A voice changer was possible, of course. I'd have to look at other angles.

"Yes…."

One short answer, and the chat drowned in laughter and question marks.

"Yesterday… there weren't this many. What on earth… is going on…?"

"A short…? Wow…."

I propped my chin on my hand and watched the avatar's eyes. She was still tracing every single line of chat. If the free version of the model had been a little less capable, at least I wouldn't have had to watch her panic like this.

When is she planning to finish reading all of that?

Thankfully, other viewers piled on with the same advice.

"I don't have to read everything?"

The avatar's gaze finally lifted from the chat. The cursor drifting over the empty sheet came to rest on the first cell.

"For today, first…."

Her words cut off again. I decided to focus on the speech habits and response patterns you could never catch from an edited video. No need to open with something hard. Conditional formatting was something you could follow just by watching the screen, and it was the kind of question you'd actually use at work.

"Past the due date… and only the ones that aren't complete, right?"

"Ah — please don't send me the file."

My hands froze over the keyboard. I hadn't said a word about sending anything.

"Just in case someone tries. Last time there was actually a person who was about to send me a real company file!"

Come on. She had to be teasing. Surely.

"If it has a company name or a manager's name in it, that's not okay. You have to wipe out clients and real amounts too."

"Oh, then that's fine."

Rion typed Task, Due Date, and Status onto a new sheet. She stalled for a while picking examples, then filled three rows.

Pork purchase date: 2026-06-22. Onion purchase date: 2026-02-23. Green onion purchase date: 2026-05-21.

"It's an example! …As long as it's easy to follow, it's fine."

The moment the conversation turned to Excel, her shaky voice began to steady, bit by bit. Feeling a little more alive now?

Rion put yesterday's date in the due-date column and wrote "In Progress" under status.

"If you only check the due date, finished work turns red too, so you have to check whether the status is complete at the same time."

"We're going to check both things together."

"Compare today's date with the due date so that if today is larger and the status cell is Complete, it returns true — then when it's true, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠change the color with conditional formatting. You only need those two."

"Of course I'll show you the formula."

Rion opened the conditional formatting window and snapped the range into place. I pretended to follow along, then typed a beat late.

"Ah. Was that too fast?"

"Sorry. I'll do it again."

…Wasn't this a little too slow?

…That was an aggro troll I'd permanently banned from my own stream.

Aggro types got weaker the fewer people backed them up. On stream, my only real option had been a chat ban — but sitting in chat myself, shutting them down was almost easy. Once I framed them as a troll, everyone lined up to take turns swinging. The effect was so good I almost wanted to try it on my own stream when I had the bandwidth…?

"Umm…. From here…. to…. here…."

The cursor selecting the range moved slower than before. She didn't dump the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠whole formula in at once either — she broke it into pieces and showed each one. Matching the pace right away. She really could pull off a tutorial stream… if only it weren't Excel.

"In this state, if you put in the greater-than sign and then politely ask Excel to make it red…."

Maybe I'd watch a little longer.

I entered the same formula, then deliberately limited the applied range to a single row.

"The applied range might only be set to the original table you made. Want to go into Manage Rules?"

"Check how far the Applies to range goes. If you're going to keep adding to the table, either set a generous range or convert it to a proper Table — that's easier."

These people had eyes like hawks and nothing else.

"Searching is fine. Almost nobody memorizes everything from the start. That's what lecture videos and reference books are for."

Instead of answering further, I fixed the rule. When I changed the date and the status, red bloomed and then vanished. She never padded her speech with unnecessary jargon, and whenever she got stuck she rolled the cursor all the way back to the start. Before she taught a shortcut, she even checked how far everyone had followed.

I jotted short notes in the notepad.

Matches explanation speed.

Sensitive about personal info.

Reactions aren't bad for a second stream.

…All of it was just the obvious stuff. Nothing that could identify whether she was Link.

…This was getting awkward.

"You did great."

"Sensei?"

I hadn't felt like calling her Rion, so I'd tossed out "sensei" as a joke — and now everyone was copying it. I felt like a border collie herding sheep. Wait. A broccoli. No — a border collie. …Was I the one stirring the pot and dragging the aggro around?

Questions stacked up all at once, and the avatar's eyes went frantic again. How to sum cells, how to line-break inside a cell, how leading zeros disappeared — everything tangled together. She looked ready to panic all over again….

"Uh…. Hang on a second."

I immediately added another line.

"Then I'll take questions one at a time. If you put a Q in front, they'll be easier to find. If I miss one, please type it again."

"I'm going to pass on that one."

"I can tell the difference at least that much."

Why did she sound so pleased with herself…?

"The person whose zeros in front of numbers were disappearing — are you still here?"

"What kind of number were you trying to enter? If it's personal information, don't say it — just give me a similar example."

Rion asked what it was for first, then walked them through changing the cell format to Text. This time she waited patiently until the viewer posted that they'd found the menu.

"Yesterday was useful too. Do you know how important saving is?"

"That was…. learning various perspectives on calculating cost."

The avatar's cheeks puffed out a little.

"Pfft. Pff— uh…. Didn't everyone agree with me?"

"Please don't screenshot. Next question."

The sound of her gulping water cut her off. Even while her voice went silent, the avatar's eyes stayed locked on the chat.

"Good job. You should save often."

"Aagh! No — we said no screenshots!"

"I— I saw it! I did!"

"Ugh…. No…. What kind of person saves the chat window while they're streaming…."

The way she wilted was honestly pretty cute. Link had been kind, sure, but he'd never given off an image this adorable.

"Ha. Now everyone understands how important saving is, right…? See? I didn't save, and now I'm in trouble."

The avatar's mouth tugged up at one corner; she narrowed her eyes and grinned like a total fool. Chat still showed no interest in stopping. It was a little slower than before, but the shape of it was starting to settle into something orderly. Rion hunted for the Qs in front of questions, picked one, and turned back to the screen. When a joke message caught her eye she bounced it back in a short line and moved on. I'd only steered the direction twice, and already other viewers were re-posting buried questions and holding back spam while she explained. Had they written their own rules already?

"Haa. I'm tired. I need a short break."

"…."

"…Eugh…. Gross…. Just tell me and I'll teach you. What is it!"

The voice was completely different… but the way she handled people was far too much like Link. Playful, and yet a quiet warmth had seeped into it. Could someone really match this closely?

I opened Miscode and joined the room with only the four of us.

I watched Rion pick her next question for a long moment.

Either way, I'd need to know whether she was using a voice changer before I could give a real answer.