I Trusted You
I stared at the message in disbelief. For a split second I wondered if this person was another one of those deranged emailers, but Do-hee calmly typed out a reply.
Judging by the way he was talking, he was still sane. Overworked to the point of breaking down, maybe… but sane.
Still, the truly impressive thing about Pino was that even in this mental state, the quality of his rigging never dropped. Some people say that once you reach a certain level, rigging becomes mechanical busywork, but if you treat it like simple labor, it’s impossible to add those subtle movements that reflect a character’s personality and quirks.
The Mazia model Pino sent over was flawless for the amount of time invested. The way one corner of her mouth lifted in a smirk, the awkward smile, the way shadows fell across her face as if she’d seen something she shouldn’t have—every little detail was captured perfectly. It was almost like he had met the real Mazia in person. He had nailed her distinctive traits that well.
…Though I doubted Mazia would ever use the cute expressions he’d included.
Only then did Cheon Do-hee finally reach one firm conclusion.
This guy had bet on the wrong coin again.
“He really is the last person who should be investing…”
He had lost forty-five million won on failed stock investments and another thirty-five million on crypto. Somehow he had borrowed from his family to cover it all, but I heard he still couldn’t live like a normal person because he was busy paying back those massive debts. And yet the next coin he decided to ride was Mazia of all things.
Setting aside his terrible investment habits, he was otherwise a decent person, and his peculiar tastes were strictly limited to 2D. If we built a good relationship with him now, we might be able to sign outsourcing contracts surprisingly easily before the second generation debuted.
Back when he was making Komari’s model, our relationship had been the complete opposite. It really was astonishing Mazia magic at work.
The only worry was that the vicious Mazia fan club’s attacks would only grow fiercer because of this. Even just revealing the model had brought in over a thousand emails. What would happen the day we showed a living, moving Mazia? We might actually need to hire someone just to sort through the inbox.
“…For now, we need to find Jia’s replacement as quickly as possible.”
There were many thoughts about what role to assign Jia in the future, but the immediate priority was hiring someone to lighten Mazia’s workload as soon as possible.
The major incident that many leaves had probably been looking forward to—something like Komari and I sharing a bed—never happened. Komari hated having anyone next to her while she slept, and I felt uncomfortable sharing a blanket with someone I saw as a little sister.
Even so, she apparently didn’t want to sleep alone in the bed, because she laid out a blanket on the floor and lay down beside me. Then she said she had watched a bit of the broadcast today and that it was amazing, and I thought she was about to start some girl talk, but she immediately went koo—out like a light.
I, who usually didn’t fall asleep until four or five in the morning, passed out around three as well. I had thought participating in MoovGun’s stream wouldn’t be a big deal, but maybe I had been more nervous than I realized.
That’s how I woke up around ten the next morning, left the still-sleeping Komari behind, and hurried back home. Part of it was to get ready for work and catch up on the live streams I had missed yesterday, but more than anything, I wanted to check on the gallery situation that I had only glanced at before falling asleep.
After the promotional broadcast, not only had the number of people looking for Employee D increased, but I had also received a bunch of unnecessary misunderstandings. There was no way I would write posts like that.
I had written plenty of things in the Momo gallery like “Momo shower special today,” “Momo says moe moe kyuu,” and “If she doesn’t stream tomorrow I’m going to other galleries to set fires,” but those had all been about the boss. That was the only way to keep the memes circulating so that people who only lurked in the gallery would come back to the actual streams.
In other words, if I added even one line about Employee D right now, it would only increase the number of people searching for me. The best course was to stay quiet.
Never forget—the power of noise marketing. Of course, posts that were pure hate or garbage had a high chance of getting banned, so those were exceptions.
…Hmm. Still, staying completely silent felt a little boring. Maybe I should write a few lines.
It looked like a random nonsense post, but it was surprisingly effective at catching the hardcore fans. If you set a trap, there were always people who walked right into it. I wanted to feed them for a whole year, but since it was technically a sting operation I told the managers to only hand out one-week bans.
A few days later, I went to the PC bang with the boss. The first idiot had finally stepped on the trap I had set in the Employee D gallery.
Spamming every five seconds meant he wasn’t your average troublemaker. A celebrity? Even I, who normally wouldn’t have paid much attention if it were an ordinary person, grew curious when I heard it was someone famous.
I logged into Pazizik with the general manager account and checked the ban list…
When I saw the nickname, I could only blink for a long time.
Integrated Ban (7 days) — pin0_live2d
(Click to view blocked channels)
It could be an impersonator, but people rarely copied a rigger’s ID. Riggers weren’t as publicly visible as illustrators, and there was almost no benefit to impersonating one.
Wondering if it was really him, I went to the “Prison” section of the Parallel integrated fan cafe. Sure enough, there was a fresh post uploaded just this morning. The Pazizik ID of the poster was pin0_live2d. The fan cafe ID was also pin0_live2d. Just to be sure, I checked Z as well…
The world has stopped.