Why Do You Always Wear the Same Clothes?
"I'm gonna lose my mind...."
Muttering that, I killed the sample track I'd recorded myself—the Lee Hari version. I'd been listening to the Loe version, and the second I switched over, the drop-off hit me square in the face.
"And I tried to match it as close as I could...."
...Still different. Years of craft? Or just the gap in talent? I chewed on it for a moment, then went in for another take.
This time, don't try to copy her. Sing it once, the way my heart wants to go. Yeah. If I'm doing this anyway, then this time I'm manufacturing a reality where Loe actually jumps and Loe's manager can't even hide the shock.
"Lee Hari! I shall sing!"
"...Everyone. Turns out effort really can't beat talent."
And right up until today's stream began, I never even caught a thread of hope.
They don't call Loe a genius singer-songwriter for nothing....
Slamming into the high wall of talent while I sang, and feeling crushed about it, was its own problem. A stream is a stream. At the end of the day, my real job isn't singer—it's streamer, isn't it?
So venting the gloom as a little nonsense muttered at the top of the broadcast was more than enough. And I had a secret weapon for shaking that gloom off.
"Today's Part 1 game is none other than the god-tier game that's getting a World Grand Prix in the future, and a national museum besides! Raider!"
Boot up Raider, drop the camera to a low angle, and just admire the character—I'm telling you, a whole day's stress melts clean off. A stress-relief god game, Raider.... That's what I'm supposed to say, right?
"I really am going to reach the second city today... right? No, I want to go, I do, but stuff just keeps popping out of nowhere! Not my fault!"
Case in point: you kill a boss, and weapon crafting unlocks. The gear you can make from boss drops hits hard enough to slap a four-star weapon back and forth across the face, so you end up on farming grinds that were never even on the schedule, just to craft them. Which meant the trip to the second city had no choice but to keep getting pushed back.
...The one-handed sword I'd made was a perfect match for the protagonist, though, and I was extremely satisfied. How satisfied? Satisfied enough that even if I pulled a better one-hander from the gacha, I'd still wear this one day to day.
And the viewers' reaction back then? Well....
...Roughly that kind of vibe?
But a weapon's look is a critical matter, isn't it? So in the end, the call was made to use Techsecular's byproducts.
"All right, so first I finish collecting the money I'm owed from Catarina, and then...?"
...Mm.
Something else just popped out. At this rate, I'm not making the second city today either, am I?
Thinking that, I hit the button and slowly advanced the lines.
The moment I heard Nana say that, something stung in my chest. These past few months, aside from a handful of streams, have I also been wearing nothing but the Raider T-shirt...?
...Huh? Wait?!
"Nana!! You can't just say that!!"
...I'd let my guard down. I never imagined the game would bring this up.
And of all people, it had to be Nana, with a line that poked the custom-ordered T-shirt—the Raider one that had settled in as Märchen's trademark.
Nana.... Terrifying child...!
"...A Märchen who doesn't wear a Raider T-shirt on stream? Isn't that basically a steamed bun with no red-bean filling, a cake with no whipped cream? It'd feel weird not to wear this on stream now, you know?"
Of course, the T-shirt wasn't the only thing I'd worn on stream. I'd worn a maid outfit. I'd worn a nun's habit. I'd even worn bunny pajamas. So yeah—saying I only wore T-shirts on stream is pure bad-faith dragging. It's just that ever since the day I custom-ordered the Raider shirt, the days I wore a T-shirt have overwhelmingly outnumbered the rest.
Then I could just say that, right?
...The second I do, they're going to tell me to wear the maid outfit and the bunny pajamas more often. Special costumes like that only become a cheat code for the stream if you break them out once in a while. Wear them too often and the cheat-code shine wears off. So for the future of my channel, that excuse is absolutely forbidden!
In the end, because I never managed to clear my name against the bad-faith dragging, my attempt to escape the viewers' collective verbal lynching unfortunately ended in failure.
...That New Outfit reveal content sounds pretty good, though. I should remember that.
While real-world Märchen was busy making excuses to the viewers, in-game Märchen started offering Nana excuses dressed up as explanations, just as hard.
"...You little—!!!"
This kid really has nothing she won't say to the hero unnie who took down a Ruler?!
The moment the conversation with Nana ended, an explanation window surfaced and announced that a new system had been unlocked.
Let's see.... What popped out this time....
Limited-Time Skins
For a set period, limited-time skins may be purchased.
"...Skins, huh?"
I still had about seventy percent left of the $1,800 in currency I'd blown during that last fight with Techsecular. And what does that mean? It means the current me is someone who can buy every single skin released for the launch celebration!
"Bring me everything in here!!"
I bellowed that and flung the skin window wide open. Of course, if something didn't suit my taste, I was prepared to filter out one or two. Glasses, for instance. Or glasses. Or things along the lines of glasses.
What skins would there even be? A maid? Or a pure, pitiful sort of dress? Before buying anything, I was just going to sweep the visuals once———
"...This shop sure knows how to move product."
When I came to, I'd already bought every skin.
...But what was I supposed to do? Swimsuit skins were lined up in a glittering row. How was I supposed to keep my grip on reality?!
Yeah, it's still August, so it is the season to be pushing swimsuit skins. I can accept that. Of course, even if it were December, I would have found a way to accept it—something like, actually that world is in the Southern Hemisphere, so December is summer. Swimsuit skins were more than worth that kind of reasoning.
"All right then—shall we see just how disgustingly well I scored on these skins?"
With that, I dressed our princess knight in a pure-white bikini and a sheer pareo you could see right through.
Without a word, I took one shot from a low angle and one from a high angle. The whole day's fatigue seemed to blow clean away.
I'd seen everything worth seeing on our princess knight's swimsuit skin, so maybe another skin....
"...Hold on? Do the skill effects and the ultimate cutscene change too?"
Just in case, I fired off a skill and the ultimate right away.
...They changed. The light effects had become water effects, matched to the swimsuit skin's concept. The Raider high started surging, fast.
The second I confirmed the effects and the cutscene had changed, I couldn't hold that rising Raider high down, and went straight to the custom T-shirt site. And immediately started building a design.
On the front, the protagonist's ultimate cutscene; on the back, a First Clear proof shot. And the line across the front—Raider is safe! Start right now!—up through that, it was identical to the custom-ordered T-shirt I was already wearing. The differences this time: the protagonist was in the swimsuit skin; the proof shot was a Techsecular First Clear, not the closed-beta boss; and the line on the back read, Märchen, the player who landed a global First Clear on a Raider boss—fighting!
I put in a generous order for about five, then smiled and said:
"Ta-da! Märchen's new skin! Now I can just rotate between this and the old one!"
Unfortunately, the viewers' reactions weren't exactly warm.
...Fine. Next time, not a T-shirt. A hoodie.
I've got to have something to wear in the winter, too!