Preparations
Time flowed swiftly, the days passing in one long stretch of preparation for the VTuber debut.
There was, granted, the incident where it came out that I'd been hiding my singing ability, and the CEO denounced me roundly as a liar. But when I asked whether that meant she actually disliked it, she clammed right up again.
Well, after all — the person deployed as the substitute already met every condition there was, someone who wouldn't have been out of place debuting on the spot. From the CEO's standpoint, there was no way she could genuinely dislike it.
Only, the more that happened, the brighter the eyes around me sparkled, and all I could manage was a sigh.
And then there was Producer Yoon Sea, who clung to me with ever more burdensome expectations every time I stopped by her studio. She clearly wanted something from me — or hoped for something — yet like a predator biding its time until its prey ripened, she refused to open her mouth.
I picked up the smartphone that had been droning — vzzt, vzzt — for a while now.
Hm. The same atmosphere as always.
Ultra-compact Tanker — Cha Narae.
Counter Dealer — Han Mari.
Fact Assassin — Yoo Chaewon.
These were the nicknames I had pinned on the three of them.
And my role amid those three was...
A burst-damage mage... just kidding.
Mediator. Or healer.
Not that "healer" amounted to much more than talking Cha Narae down before she blew past her limit and detonated.
At the promise of care, the chatroom finally fell quiet. I set my smartphone aside and lay myself flat for sleep.
With the debut now breathing down our necks, the company had grown as busy as it could possibly be.
Over on NuTube, the company's official account and individual member accounts went live; a promotional video introducing the first generation was uploaded, its reactions monitored in real time. Social media accounts were created under the virtual characters' names, basic profiles revealed alongside brief self-introductions. An official website launch, the debut schedule announcement, a debut-song teaser, equipment inspections — the works. In short, you could say we were shouting "We're really debuting!" from every rooftop we could find.
And in proportion to how busy things became, the staff began dying off.
"Grraaaagh... equipment... must... fix..."
"Sortingthetasklistinordermatchingthedebutschedulefirstofall..."
"Malicious comments crossing the line... delete! DELETE!! DeleteDeleteDeleteDeleteDeleteDelete!!!"
Day by day, the staff looked less like people and more like zombies — or raving lunatics.
Even though I personally tended to them whenever I could spare a moment, they were fine only for the moment of care itself before reverting right back to those states. You can imagine how serious it was.
"Judging by your use of the term 'first generation'... you seem to be thinking of the next generation as well. You're not planning to keep running things like this, are you?"
"Of course not. Before we recruit a second generation, I'll need to hire staff first."
"A wise decision."
I drew out the recorder I'd hidden behind my back and stopped the recording.
"What...?"
"If you had been planning to recruit a second generation with things as they stand, I was planning to report you to the Labor Office first."
"You crazy woman! The company would go under!"
"And you know it full well."
"That's! Exactly! Why! We're short on money right now! With the 3D outsourcing already commissioned on top of it all, I'm literally penniless!"
"Haah... how on earth did I ever come to work under a boss like you."
"Kukuku!"
"Well, you've said you'll hire people, so I'll trust you and wait."
"Someday I will have my revenge..."
"If you can manage it, that is."
I left the CEO's office and headed for the practice studio.
There, the other members were seated in a circle around the practice computers, deep in idle chatter.
"Look at this. Comments my 'fans' left for me, all on their own."
"Huheungheung~ You talk like Narae's the only one who got any."
"No, that's not what I meant..."
"By fan count since the accounts opened, it goes Mari, me, Narae, Seha."
"Kht! I... I'm not first or even second, but third?!"
"Obvious result."
"What's obvious about it! Kht, I may be third now, but in the end I'll win it all!"
The three of them, without sparing my entrance so much as a glance, were logged into their recently opened social media accounts, reading through the comments left by fans gained in a matter of days. They looked, as usual, like they were scrapping over numbers and rankings — but it was plain to see that all three were delighted by the comments their fans, few but precious, had left for them.
"And here I thought you were supposed to be practicing?"
"Oh, Seha's here! How was the sit-down with the CEO?"
"The usual."
"Sounds like you spent it bullying the poor CEO again."
"Poor CEO~"
Nod, nod—
That the CEO and I were relatives. That the CEO more or less lived under my thumb. There was no one in the company who didn't know.
Hm. Poor CEO, is it. They ought to have been worrying about themselves first.
"By the way — I leave the three of you to 'practice,' and I find you up to no good."
Flinch!
"W-we were practicing until just this second! This is... yeah! A refresh? Something like that. Right?"
"Narae said practicing was boring and said we should go look at people's reactions instead."
"Hey!!"
"You're making me dizzy."
Faced with Chaewon's zero-hesitation betrayal, Narae seized Chaewon by the shoulders and shook her, her face a portrait of betrayal. Since no denial followed, it presumably wasn't a lie.
I distinctly remembered telling them to keep practicing before I headed to the CEO's office — and the moment my back was turned, they were resting as they pleased. This called for a reward.
"Hmm, let's see. In Narae's case, her mood swings are severe enough that viewers could easily knock her off balance. In Mari's case, she's honest to a fault — one slip and she could blurt out information related to the Red Pill. And in Chaewon's case, conversely, her answers are so sparse that viewers might feel as though they'd been left on read."
"Uuu." "Kht!" "......"
"Our fans have expectations of us, so each of you will polish out as much of this as possible before your first broadcast. Which means there is no time to be lounging around like this. Everyone else is toiling for our debut — you'll put in the effort to match."
I marched the three of them — trembling as though they'd glimpsed a monster — into a full-scale practice session.
Meanwhile, where there is a bright side — NuTube accounts, official social media, the homepage — a dark side is bound to exist as well.
The prime example was the newly founded Mirage Live Gallery.
With the first generation's debut only days away, and the basic profiles and PV now public, all sorts of people harboring expectations for the group founded directly by the streamer Yu Yuri had gathered in the gallery. And what do people who gather in a gallery do? Naturally, nothing but the sort of thirsty, lewd talk that would never fly in polite company.
Well, not every post was like that — but most were.
While perfectly normal posts like this did exist...
the majority looked more like this.
This was the average.
Even so, if these posts shared a single thing in common, it was that everyone was eagerly awaiting the broadcasts of Mirage Live Company's first-generation group, VIVID.
And so time flowed on, amid every manner of speculation and pointless chatter.