Are the Two of You Twins?
To make a seat for a guest I hadn't had in ages, I carried a dining chair all the way into my room.
Just plop it around here and... there. Done!
I nodded to myself a few times, wearing a satisfied smile, then shifted my gaze to the camera.
"It'd be rude to keep someone this important waiting any longer, wouldn't it? Setup's done, so I'll call them in!"
I cupped my hands into a megaphone and shouted.
"Master Veteran! Come on out!"
The moment I called, today's guest filled the camera.
Even at a glance, she gave off an aura that was anything but ordinary. The custom Raider T-shirt and track shorts, for one, screamed hidden master living in seclusion so hard it practically echoed. The pixel sunglasses, worn to protect her identity, went just as hard at advertising that this guest was an eccentric of no small renown.
And yet the sunglasses apparently couldn't hide a face of national-treasure caliber. What kind of face, specifically? The kind that gets street-cast once and, at least once, a love call from a major agency.
Wrapped in that distinctly un-ordinary atmosphere, the guest opened her mouth.
"Hello. I'm Marchen — invited today to the Veteran Guest Seat. Owner of the all-server boss First Clear in Raider."
And today's guest had a great voice, too.
And yet, for all the grandeur of that entrance, the chat still showed its usual handful of mischievous viewers taking shots at me. Seeing it, today's guest stepped up to lay down covering fire on my behalf.
"I've always respected Marchen. Admired her, even. Getting the chance to appear on Marchen's stream like this is an honor."
Right — this was where Marchen the broadcaster had to actually say a line.
I took off the sunglasses, got up from the dining chair, and moved over to my fifteen-hundred-dollar one. Then I clasped my hands and put on a bright smile.
"Hearing that from the owner of Raider's boss First Clears — if anything, the honor is mine!"
...This is already turning into a pain. Isn't there an easier way?
In that instant, the demon of creativity that had been sleeping inside me opened its eyes. I had thought of one. An easier way.
I split the camera in two, then mirrored the right-hand feed so we'd look like we were facing each other. Over the me on the right, I laid a pixel-sunglasses-and-mask image. Over the me on the left, just the mask.
And last of all — label the top of the left screen Pure-Hearted Delicate Beauty Streamer Marchen, and the top of the right screen Raider Boss All-Server First Clear User Marchen, and then?
Marchen
Marchen
I would never again have to suffer the nuisance of standing up and sitting back down.
This — this is what it looks like when your brain is good enough that your body doesn't have to suffer...!!!
"The layout was a little messy, wasn't it? I've cleaned it right up! Well? Better now, right?"
More convenient, yes. Perfect, no.
The split-screen method had a fatal flaw. If Pure-Hearted Delicate Beauty Streamer Marchen moved, Raider Boss All-Server First Clear User Marchen moved at the exact same time — and if First Clear Marchen moved, Streamer Marchen moved too.
Well, what can you do? If you want to gain something, you also have to know how to give something up. I had surrendered a little detail in exchange for convenience.
Not that I could ignore detail completely. So I tacked on a short explanation and filled the gap, if only a little.
"Feel like something's off? Most of that is a bug. Anyway, it's a bug. We clear?"
Nice! With that, it's perfect!
A Veteran Guest Seat segment, by custom, includes a stretch where you show the viewers just how good the veteran actually is. There are always people who don't know why the old-timer you booked is called an old-timer in the first place.
Of course, among my own viewers, almost no one was in the dark about how good today's star was at Raider. Unless they'd only just washed in after yesterday's VR dating-sim stream.
...I feel like there might quietly be a few of those.
Anyway, a Veteran Guest Seat is a Veteran Guest Seat. Even if our viewers already knew today's star inside and out, skipping the skill showcase could be rude to a veteran who had carved precious time out of their life to show up.
Which meant the thing I was about to do was an act without a single speck of shame under heaven.
"All right — first we've got to understand just how incredible Marchen is, so how about we take a quick look at a video of her being absolutely god-tier?"
And with that, I played the clip I'd prepared ahead of time. The final battle against Techsecular, reborn as a full-blown MAD video.
"For reference, this one's from Marchen's private collection. The version meant for the world, she says, is being produced separately."
At that, Marchen nodded and added an explanation of her own.
"Yes. I'm thinking of passing this video down to my descendants as a family heirloom. Someday, when Raider has taken its place as the biggest IP in the world and the Raider World Grand Prix has become the greatest festival on earth, the value of this footage is going to shoot through the ceiling. My account, of course, will be no different."
"Ah, so you're planning to leave the account to your descendants as well!"
"That's right. Oh — and if a Raider National Museum ever comes to exist, I intend to leave a will saying this video and my account should be donated to it. The public good matters too, after all."
The Raider World Grand Prix. A Raider National Museum. Just saying it — no. Just hearing it made my heart pound. If I became a Raider partner streamer, would I get to cast the World Grand Prix?
The viewers, of course, burst out laughing at how absurd it all was.
But I heard that absurdity, was genuinely impressed, and applauded. It wasn't simply that I'd been hooked by the words Raider World Grand Prix and Raider National Museum.
It was because I felt, in the guest's words, a love almost exactly on my level.
Ah — the love in question was, of course, love directed at Raider.
"Your love for Raider really is something else. It was because that love ran so deep that you could be truly sincere about it, and because you were sincere that you could achieve an all-server First Clear. That's how it seems to me."
Anyway, we'd seen the First Clear video, so it was about time to ease into some story-time about the Techsecular clear.
But in the very instant before I could open my mouth to move things along, a heavy ten-dollar punch came swinging in.
Judging by the ten dollars, they seemed perfectly aware that a line like that, sent for one dollar, carried a very real risk of a paid ban.
Unfortunately for them, I wasn't bothered in the slightest.
Why?
"I do have friends — internet friends! We're... tomodachi, aren't we?"
I said it, then threw a fist-bump at the camera.
And, just in case, I pinned a message of my own in the chat.
Of course, I only said I'd hand out one-hour bans. I didn't actually hand out a single one-hour ban.
I did hand out ten-minute ones. ...Anyway, I'd proven I was friends with several thousand people, so everything was fine, wasn't it?
The viewers would be perfectly satisfied just being friends with a beautiful girl in possession of national-treasure looks. A girl like me.
You bet. And then some.