As Expected, the Leak Is from Matube

Do-hee had to doubt her own ears.

“Uh. Are you talking about our Assistant Manager Mazia?”

[Yes, that’s right. If Momo and Maru come, the other first-gen members will probably come too and enjoy the server…. But I was curious about Mazia, so I asked.]

There seemed to be a line that should clearly separate employee Mazia from the members, yet it felt like that line had vanished. Momo asked Wicker,

“You do know that Jia is our employee, not a streamer, right? It’s a streamer server, so I’m worried that letting a non-streamer join might spark unfairness controversies.”

Wicker chuckled softly.

[I know. But she did a solo broadcast on the official channel this time. I think that’s enough to recognize her as a broadcaster.]

“Uh. Well, that’s true, but… that was a monthly broadcast, wasn’t it?”

[The main one is monthly, but she keeps showing up on the members’ streams too, right? She even has a properly rigged character.]

“No, no. I’m telling you this because I’m afraid you might be misunderstanding her as a VTuber. She really is just an employee……”

Wicker spoke firmly.

[Honestly, only people inside Parallel think that way. Outsiders don’t see it the same. I consider Mazia a unique streamer, not a complete civilian with zero connection ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to broadcasting.]

Do-hee’s head spun at those words. Wicker was right. Inside Parallel, they had drawn a hard line: “Mazia is an employee.” People treated her as a staff member wearing a VTuber skin, not an actual VTuber. But that perception existed only within the Parallel fandom.

Anyone unfamiliar with her would see one of Mazia’s monthly review videos and immediately ask, “Wait, this person is a streamer?” Then the fans who knew her even a little would bombard them with clips. Every single one of those clips showcased her presence on air. Newcomers who discovered her through streams and clips would have no choice but to conclude, “What? She really is a streamer. Was the whole employee thing just a concept?”

They had nearly imprinted on the public that Mazia was nothing more than an employee, yet they couldn’t hide her genuinely brilliant talent.

Of course, apart from those external circumstances, there was another reason Wicker was being so proactive.

[And there’s a specific reason I’m asking.]

“Uh… what is it?”

[Three people have already asked me. They wanted to know if they could use a Special Invitation Ticket to bring Mazia in.]

In other words, even if Mazia entered the server via Special Invitation Ticket, there would be no controversy. The item had been created specifically for situations like this.

Yet no internal discussions had even taken place inside Parallel, and now outsiders were already requesting her invitation? Do-hee couldn’t help asking who had brought it up.

[MoovGun asked the moment he was chosen as a starting member last month. Invitations went to Ronze and Serena last week, and both of them asked a few days ago as well.]

“I can understand MoovGun and Ronze, but… Serena?”

[Surprising, right? I thought about it for a long time too. Then I heard you’re collabing with Maru today, so I decided to ask now.]

Stubborn hardcore users might still question Mazia’s qualifications. However, using a Special Invitation Ticket was a privilege the server owner had approved. The server owner would normally cut anyone who might cause trouble, but since Wicker himself had given the green light, there was nothing left to debate.

[Anyway, I’d appreciate it if you’d consider it positively. If Mazia didn’t know a single person on the server I would have hesitated until the end. But quite a few people in MoovGun’s crew and Ronze’s Night of Legend group already know Jia. I think the collab synergy will turn out pretty good.]

Do-hee didn’t agonize over it. At this point, the decision belonged to Jia herself, not her.

“First… I’ll ask Jia and get back to you right away. Is that all right?”

[Of course~ I’m staying up late preparing the server tonight, so contact me anytime.]

“Wow… you always work so hard. We just keep enjoying ourselves and never have anything proper to give back…”

[Hey. You’ll throw a concert at the end, won’t you?]

“Ah. That’s a given. We definitely will. It promotes our kids and it’s mutually beneficial.”

[That’s more than enough. I owe the bosses a lot. I’ll be waiting for your call, then?]

The moment I arrived at the office, the boss called me over. The story she told me was astonishing. No fewer than three people were thinking of spending their Special Invitation Tickets on me. Plenty of desperate low-level fans would kill to join the server, yet they specifically wanted me?

“But why me?”

“Because of everything you’ve done so far. Wait, saying it like that makes it sound like you committed a crime. Anyway, they have a connection with you, so they want to invite you. But since you’re our company employee, they asked for permission first.”

I tilted my head, unable to follow the flow. Since I’m not a VTuber, it should be normal that I wouldn’t be invited to a massive collab server like Wicker Town…. Above all, I could understand MoovGun and Ronze. But why would Serena want to invite me?

She was the VTuber who had sprinted over to greet me the instant she saw me during the previous I’m a Wolf collab. One of the second-gen members of Rapits, the corporate VTuber group that constantly battles us for second and third place in the industry. We latecomers had been working hard to catch up, and lately our first-gen average viewer counts had been seesawing with theirs. For a VTuber from a rival agency to specifically pick me out for an invitation was genuinely strange.

During I’m a Wolf, Ronze had been the host, so the party had naturally centered around people he liked. But the 64 Cubics server would gather pretty much every Pazizik streamer. Picking me out of that crowd? If I had been an actual VTuber, I might have suspected an attempt to poach talent from a competitor. Since I was merely an employee, I set that suspicion aside for now.

‘Maybe she also turned me into her oshi or something.’

But that didn’t make sense either. I hadn’t done anything for her.

… I’d ask her about it separately later.

“If I participate, would it actually help the first-gen members?”

“Well… that depends on how you do it, doesn’t it?”

“Is it okay if I go around promoting the first-gen on the server?”

“Doesn’t matter. In fact, this kind of large server is the perfect place to promote blatantly. The other side often asks you to introduce yourself anyway.”

Come to think of it, during Season 1 of Wicker Town that the boss and first-gen had joined before, the boss had literally carried the members around on mounts and introduced them to all her acquaintances. It really was the age of self-PR. As long as you introduced people without making others feel burdened, continuously promoting wasn’t a problem.

Luckily, I didn’t need an introduction. I was Parallel’s true workhorse. If I simply went around like a walking loudspeaker saying “Please try our kids” and kept feeding them to everyone, at least one person was bound to get hooked.

Even MoovGun was proof. When I first went to promote, he had asked “Why would I watch VTubers?” Now he occasionally showed up in Rain’s streams to donate, and whenever a cover song dropped he left comments so fast they got pinned at the top of the list.

You never knew who would get hooked when. The more promotion, the better.

‘It would be nice if the PR team could go instead, but that’s not an option.’

Looked like I had no choice but to visit PR Team Leader Oh Seok-jae. Learning how to sell without making people uncomfortable would definitely help. I felt bad about just demanding “Spill all your trade secrets!” so I’d buy him a drink at least.

“By the way, there’s a rumor that BatchuKR is coming too. What’s the status on that?”

“Ah. Still unclear. Wicker sent them ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an invitation, but they haven’t given a clear positive reply, so I can’t confirm anything.”

It was a rather pathetic thought, but Batchu Batchu KR was the undisputed industry number one. We were still tiny sparrows facing a massive T-rex. The fact that they probably wouldn’t come was honestly a relief. No matter how well Rapits and we traded blows, we couldn’t beat Batchu Batchu KR right now. Those guys had built a thirty-billion-won studio in Japan and casually invited Korean branch members whenever they felt like it, pumping out high-quality content nonstop. I’d heard that if the concept was good, the company even covered flight costs for EN, IN, and other distant branches. Just how deep were their pockets? On top of that, every 3D concert used patented cutting-edge hologram technology that drove audiences insane. All we could do was stare in envy; we had neither the technology nor the capital.

Anyway, competing with such monsters was out of the question. Personally I didn’t see any reason to avoid them—our kids were amazing too—but from a corporate standpoint, it was better if Batchu Batchu sat this one out. And while they were absent, we needed to push even harder. Market share! Popularity! All of it was impossible without promotion.

“Then I’ll join the server.”

“…For real?”

“If I get invited, I’ll work hard to support the members. My goal before the server ends is to make sure everyone remembers all their names. I’ll promote like crazy too.”

The boss looked at me with worried eyes.

“But you’ve never even played 64 Cubics before.”

“I’ve watched a ton of it. I roughly understand how the servers run. And I’m playing 64 Cubics with Maru tonight, so I can gain as much experience as possible then, right?”

The boss swept her side hair behind her ear and let out a small laugh.

“Yeah, well. Your game learning speed is ridiculously fast, so…”

“So, are you the one inviting me, boss? Or is it Maru?”

The boss made a troubled face.

“You saw the last server. You know my Special Invitation Ticket luck is absolute garbage, right?”

“Hmm. Then I guess I’ll have to break into my savings.”

“Hey, hey, hey! Don’t say insane things. The moment you break that savings account, your skull is next.”

“But otherwise we might not get the invitation.”

“…Well, it’ll work out somehow. There’s no way that out of the five of us, not a single ticket for you will appear, right?”

I stared at the boss with deep suspicion.

“It definitely feels like it won’t come and you’ll immediately start cursing.”

“Hey!”

The next day.

Thanks to Maru’s invitation, I turned on Virtual while still at the office after arriving for work. The moment I placed my panel right beside Maru’s, everyone greeted me as if they were already used to it.

The overlapping greeting with Maru had bothered me at first, but since this was our second collab it had naturally become “Jiaha.”

…For some reason I suddenly felt like I could hear a hairy pirate’s laughter from somewhere.

Anyway, 64 Cubics. As I explained before, it was a sandbox survival game with considerable freedom: dig the ground, mine ores, gather materials, craft, refine, create armor, forge weapons, and fight monsters.

On average it took about forty-eight hours for a first playthrough to defeat the final boss—a very long game. Enjoying every piece of content required three times that. People who had exhausted everything brought in mods and devoured even more. There were so many players that the number of available mods was staggering; if you played seriously, you would never run out of things to do.

Maru, however, was a Payoen who had already consumed all of that content. Yet whenever she got bored she would abandon her current world and start digging from scratch again. Her fan nickname was “Donggeul-i,” but some even suggested we should change it to “Gakhyeong-i” instead—because 64 Cubics was a world made of perfectly square 64-pixel blocks.

Anyway, that Maru was now my teacher. There was absolutely no problem learning from her.

[There are two ways. Start in complete wilderness and learn the game from zero, or learn the rough idea on the Parallel server first.]

Given those choices, my first thought was how to make Maru’s broadcast more entertaining. How could I make Maru shine the brightest?

The former option. A game I had seen many times but never played. Still, since I had been invited to the server, I needed to know it perfectly in order to support the members.

“I’ll learn in the wilderness.”

[Hmm. I figured you’d say that, so I prepared a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠separate server.]

When I said I would play the vanilla version of 64 Cubics—pure wilderness with no mods installed—everyone immediately burst into mischievous laughter.

They seemed to be looking forward to me jumping in surprise at every little accident. I had clearly told them I didn’t get startled in games that had weapons, but apparently they didn’t remember. Oh well.

After that, progress was rarely blocked. Whenever pro 64 Cubics player Maru taught me something, I often realized “Ah, so that’s how it works.” It was all thanks to having monitored her streams for so long. This was my first time playing, but I had watched it countless times.

[You made wooden tools. Next you just need to make stone tools.]

But when it came to fine details, Maru was the expert. A good teacher made everything click instantly.

[Okay. Full stone set complete. Next is iron. Iron only appears if you dig underground, so you need to prepare a bit before going down.]

It was surprisingly interesting how many preparations were needed before descending. Maybe because it was a game with heavy survival elements. You packed your bag full of water, food, and various supplies, mined until the spot was exhausted, then ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠returned. Speedrunners seemed to rush underground with nothing but wooden tools the moment the game started, but that was apparently only for veterans.

We went underground, mined iron, fought desperate battles against the monsters that swarmed out of the darkness.

[Kyaaak, zombie here! Skeleton here!! Witch! Kyaaak, what is this, why are there so many!!]

“I’ll take care of them.”

We smelted the iron, processed the ingots into iron armor and tool sets, built a system that automatically turned mined iron ore into ingots, mined copper to create a simple generator, connected wires, linked it to a water wheel to produce electricity, and watched the iron travel the line and transform. By the time Maru and I clapped hands in celebration, four hours had passed. The promised four-hour collab was already over.

[Phew. Still, that was pretty fast. Complete newbies keep dying or getting lost underground, so reaching this point is hard for them. Jia, have you played similar games before?]

“I haven’t, but it fits my hands surprisingly well. Catching mobs was especially fun. Must be the headshots.”

[…It certainly looked that way. Anyway, shall we stop here for today? I have to record a cover song tomorrow, so I need to sleep early…. I wanted to stay up all night with you, but I can’t. Sorry.]

“No, this is more than enough.”

[Yeah. If you know up to this point, adapting to most servers won’t be a problem. A lot of people skip the development phase entirely anyway, so after this you can play however you like. First, try mining some diamonds. The first diamond is always special.]

“I’ll mine a bit after work when I have time. If I run into anything I don’t know, can I ask you tomorrow?”

Seeing how quickly I adapted, Maru was visibly excited. …Which was why she ended up saying something she didn’t need to say right then.

[Of course! Ask me anytime! At this rate you’ll be fine on Wicker’s server too. So how was it today? Was it fun? The thrill of building tech and growing is pretty great, right?]

I was about to answer when I glanced at the chat window first. I still hadn’t mentioned that I might be joining the Wicker server.