Black Company Woes (2)

The chat window, filled with cheerful laughter, suddenly erupted from the bottom like a massive waterspout as hooks shot upward.

Do-hee was flustered. She never expected Jia to take those words at face value. But then again, she'd heard the whole Demon King, evil boss, dictator spiel more than once or twice by now. And she knew better than anyone that trying to explain herself in this situation would be pure poison. So her follow-up ad-lib came out perfectly sly.

“Hey, what are you talking about? There’s context to that, you know?”

“There is context, sure, but it’s still true, isn’t it?”

“Even if it’s true, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you can’t just say it like that. What does that make me?”

“Thank you for the ten thousand clouds. I’m sorry, but I chose this myself, so it’s not imprisonment. I willingly became a slave.”

“Hey. Slave is—”

“Thank you for the ten thousand clouds. I receive pay equal to the work I do. Though that pay goes right back into Parallel. Please don’t misunderstand. It’s a voluntary contribution.”

As she kept responding to the ten-thousand-cloud donations, Mazia’s character naturally took shape. From the viewers’ perspective, there had never been a more pitiful person.

In the middle of all this, Mazia still glanced at Do-hee whenever that kind of question came up. The viewers burst into laughter when they saw Jia’s eyes dart slyly toward her boss.

When Do-hee signaled her to keep going as planned, Jia added one extra line to what she’d said earlier.

“Thank you for the ten thousand clouds. Part of it is taken as a fee by the streaming platform Pazizik, and the rest all goes to Parallel’s revenue. I don’t take any cut in the middle, so please rest assured.”

Anyway, even as Employee’s pitiful image grew stronger and the company became the root of all evil—

“Yes. Everything you donate goes to the company and the first gen. Please donate with peace of mind.”

—Mazia kept accelerating the solidification of that image.

Even though most people were taking Mazia’s side and raising their voices, Do-hee didn’t push back. Instead, when the moment felt right, she fully embraced the evil boss role and praised Mazia in a refreshingly bright voice.

“She really is such a good employee, isn’t she? Parallel runs so smoothly because we have someone like her.”

Mazia’s immediate agreement was pure art, as if she’d been waiting for it.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Everything Jia said was technically true, but the listeners were inflating it however they liked. Their goal was to paint Momo as the villain no matter what. That way they could pressure her to quit the company and just stream. Thanks to that, the story had become extremely exaggerated. No matter how you looked at it, it only came across as broadcast-grade exaggeration. Some people in the chat might actually believe the things they were saying about Momo, but most were probably laughing and thinking, ‘Ah, this is prime WWE content.’

Before anyone realized it, it had turned into a natural one-woman show by Mazia. The perfect environment for Mazia Magic to unfold had been naturally prepared. The flow was similar to what had happened during MoovGun’s civil war, so Do-hee trusted Jia and fully committed to the evil boss role. Even though this whole mess had been created, Mazia’s ultimate goal was still the success of tomorrow’s concert.

“Like I said before, we’re all in the same wage-slave boat, right? Please pay your friend tax to the boss ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠or the first gen instead.”

“If the company does well, some of it will eventually come to me. Right, Boss?”

“That’s right. If Parallel earns a lot of money, our Jia-nim’s salary will rise accordingly.”

“There you have it. If you donate generously to the stream, Parallel’s finances will improve, the first gen will be happy, the boss will be happy, and I’ll be happy too.”

“Yes, it went up recently. That’s why I gave everyone pizza for Halloween, remember?”

By that point, even Do-hee could tell what Mazia was aiming for. No matter how much people donated, it would all go into the official fund. But if they wanted to slip even a little something her way, they should donate like crazy. The bigger Parallel grew, the more Mazia would benefit. And that was exactly what she wanted!

In the end, she had split the message across several sentences: ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the viewers would have to buy out all the online concert tickets, sell out every piece of merch, and spam donations like maniacs before a single ten-thousand-won bill could reach the starving Mazia’s hand.

But viewers were only human. Most of them earned money by working, so bills didn’t magically sprout from their wallets. And since yesterday had been the 3D showcase, anyone who actually attended wouldn’t have any money left. In other words, roughly half of the twenty-thousand-plus people watching the stream were already broke.

Even though everyone was chanting Mazia’s name, most were simply riding the wave of the broadcast’s atmosphere. When people around them went “Wow, Employee!” “She’s so cute!” “Do more, do more!” and kept coaxing Jia along, the average social animal’s response was to think, ‘Oh, so this is the vibe right now?’ and join in.

Everyone tried to rally together and donate, but the amounts that came in were adorably tiny. One thousand, two thousand, one thousand, five thousand. The donations that followed were pitifully cute.

Seeming to sense the timing was right, Do-hee flipped a page of the script with a flutter. It had been a while since she’d hosted something this fiery, and her heart was pounding for no real reason.

“Alright everyone, we’ve seen how much you all care about your Jia-nim. I’ll enjoy this thoroughly and invest it into even better content. Jia-nim would like that too, right?”

“Of course.”

The viewers were screaming in protest, but their words basically amounted to the defeated villain’s classic line: ‘Ugh, fine… I’ll let it slide just this once!’

“Then, from now on, we will officially begin the eve of the Parallel First Gen 1st Anniversary Concert!”

Even though the start had looked like total chaos, the actual eve event proceeded extremely smoothly. The biggest factor was Mazia fully committing to the role of ‘pitiful exploited employee,’ whether she meant it or not.

「It’s fun, right? The boss and I stayed up late preparing this together.」

When she casually dropped lines like that, the viewers had no choice but to pay attention. How could they brush it off when the poor employee had sacrificed her sleep to prepare? They wanted to give her money, but their wallets were empty. And on top of that, the stories she told in that state were—

“Okay, this scene. Do you remember it, Jia-nim?”

“Yes. Rain-nim’s words are still crystal clear in my head. ‘Here! Enemy! Die! Die! Cybel! Cybel-ryun! Gotcha!’”

“That was actually my head, you know.”

“But wasn’t it the boss’s fault for jumping in diagonally…? You should’ve predicted that Rain might team-kill.”

“Wow, Jia-nim, it feels like you’ve been subtly dissing me since earlier?”

“After that stream, Rain apparently said it wasn’t her fault at all. And tomorrow is the first gen concert. Can’t you generously overlook a little dissing today?”

“What does that have to do with anything?!”

At this point, the viewers couldn’t help but think the same thing. This person seemed to love her main job so much that she was willing to grind her own body into dust for it. The more Mazia unpacked old stories, the more her true value shone through.

“I’ve seen a lot of the ambush missions, but that was the first time I saw four people tangled up and falling together. And the funny thing is, that wasn’t the end. The next day they did it again in the unarchived stream. I have the gif right here… Look, they die in exactly the same spot the exact same way. I couldn’t sleep that night because I was laughing so hard. Every time I lay down to sleep, it kept coming back to me.”

Before long, the viewers felt as if they had been transported back to the exact day they first saw that stream. Normally sharp-tongued like a little hedgehog, Mazia transformed into a natural-born storyteller whenever she unpacked first-gen stories. The clumsy but distinctive voice impressions she sprinkled in were great, but the real feast was the insider Parallel-only stories and codes that only she knew. It was gourmet content at its finest.

So the viewers could only marvel. They had assumed she was just a slightly talented employee who wouldn’t know as much as the real hardcore fans, yet here she was dishing out stories with perfect flavor. It was exactly the scene Cheon Do-hee had been hoping for.

And this impression wasn’t limited to Do-hee alone.

…

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