A House for the City's Hero

"Surely there isn't some bottom-feeder of a streamer out there who actually suspected a mayor like that of being the secret mastermind?"

The new pickup gacha was over—the heart of this update, its alpha and its omega, the one feature that by itself could fairly be said to have cleared half the content. And what did that mean? It meant that even with the gacha finished, a full half of the new content was still sitting there, waiting to be enjoyed.

A free four-star character. Weekly boss content. Housing content. Three pieces of brand-new content, all lined up and waiting for me.

"I'll push the weekly boss to tomorrow."

And just like that, I handed one of them off to tomorrow's me. Tomorrow-me was blessed. She was even getting the tasty content yielded to her.

Our viewers, it seemed, wanted to see it today, not tomorrow. Unfortunately, I wasn't going to be able to grant that particular wish.

"You don't think I put it off for no reason, do you? There's a reason it's tomorrow."

Yes. There was a reason. A reason founded, no less, upon capitalism.

The ads I'd received through my manager, back then, had totaled five, and of those five the ones I actually picked were exactly two: the mobile-game spot for Emerald Tablet, which I'd already done, and the gamepad spot scheduled for tomorrow. Those two.

And Märchen—a professional broadcaster devoted to the pursuit of high-class sponsored streams—had agonized at length over how to lend the gamepad ad a little dignity. That was when it came to me. The weekly boss content, that is. And so it was decided: the weekly boss would be spent on the gamepad ad. A premium gamepad commercial deserved a high-quality formidable foe.

Techsecular.... Thank you...! I'll be leaning on you again later, when I cut a veteran-shenanigans video for NewTube...!

What? I wasn't even sorry toward Techsecular?

...And whose idea was it to jump out first? There's a saying, isn't there—stick to the middle and you're already halfway fed. Techsecular had failed. Because it came out swinging as the very first at-bat...!

"So the content I can actually do today is the heart-pounding, secure-your-own-home housing content, and the four-star-tier, freebie-tier, dupe-tier welcome-your-companions content...."

The dilemma didn't last long.

"...Those four-star-tier, freebie-tier, dupe-tier companions will want to see a protagonist who's succeeded at securing a home even more. Come on! Housing content first!"

Humanity's savior, who had felled a Ruler, and the city's hero, who went beyond the walls, found whatever might help the city, and breathed life back into it. Catarina, mayor of the city, felt guilty that she had been unable to offer a hero like that a fitting reward.

It could not be helped. The city simply did not have the means. Merely providing the food, clothing, and shelter essential to human life for the citizens who lived there was already a strain.

...Catarina did not want to lean on that comfortable excuse and treat the hero's goodwill as something she was owed. She was not that sort of person. Nor did the city's mayor stop at guilt. Catarina was not so incompetent as that. Little by little, she gathered the spare capacity the city had gained thanks to its hero—conserving resources, rearranging the city's space, and working to win the citizens' understanding.

And at last, the city's mayor—

—could place ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the city's hero's hands a reward far larger than any repayment she had offered before.

Of course, set beside everything the hero had done for the city, it was still a hopelessly inadequate gift.

Even so, she believed it had to be done, and so she did it.

And Märchen's reaction, upon seeing that, was———

"Glasses Mayor.... When you actually get added later, you'll take the glasses off, right? I'll still pull even if you show up wearing them, but better is better, isn't it?"

Or so it went. For the record, she also left behind two immortal lines as a bonus: But the glasses can't be helped, and Wear contacts, or get LASIK.

Housing content. The feature that unlocked once you accepted the city mayor's SOS and helped the city past a certain threshold. And Märchen—a national-treasure-class beauty in possession of a kind, warm heart that knew how to help people—had pitched in whenever she had a spare moment after hearing Catarina's SOS, which meant she could unlock the housing content the very day it was added.

So all this talk of calling me human garbage? Pure, malicious slander. If we're being honest, aren't the real human garbage the people who still haven't unlocked housing even though they've been around since launch...? They're definitely hiding somewhere among the viewers watching this stream right now.

Anyway, I was in a position to taste the new housing content immediately.... Honestly, though, my heart wasn't pounding all that hard. I could already guess, more or less, what kind of content housing would be. And why wouldn't I? ...How many years of gaming seniority do you think I've stacked up? Would I, having passed through countless otaku games, really never have touched housing content before? From the moment I learned the new addition was housing, I could spit out a rough estimate of the whole thing in an instant.

The first thing to greet me would probably be furniture crafting and furniture placement———

"...Architectural blueprints?"

———not that, but the architectural blueprints for Märchen House. A floor plan, at that. The size of the living room, the size of the bathroom, the location of the kitchen, the size of the rooms, even where the doors went. I could decide ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all of it.

"Uh, um, uh...."

They say that when a person is given too much freedom, they get flustered instead. That was me, right now. I'd assumed it would be nothing more than placing a bit of furniture and maybe changing the wallpaper color. I had never imagined it would suddenly demand the temperament of an architect.

...Huh? Was my gaming seniority, in fact, not all that reliable?

Even in the moment I came face to face with that shocking revelation, my mouth carried on with the broadcast patter as if nothing were wrong.

"Uh, um.... Changing the room layout is free this time, but from next time on it'll cost gold."

...In other words, they wanted me to produce one proper masterpiece while I still could. The pressure hit all at once. That's just how people are. Tell them it's free only this once, and they feel the squeeze to milk it for everything it's worth. The problem was that I had absolutely no experience drafting architectural blueprints.

Of course, recommended blueprints existed, for people with neither the interest nor the talent for architecture. If I weren't a streamer, I would have picked a decent one from among them without much agonizing. Or taken a recommended plan and lightly rearranged it.

...If I weren't a streamer, that is.

Did I really need to rush through the housing content—the other core feature of today's Raider stream? Was that the right move, as a streamer? And so I resolved to build it up piece by piece from nothing, without borrowing the power of a recommended blueprint.

"...Too many boatmen, and this ship isn't even headed for the mountains. It's about to launch into outer space."

Things had devolved into five minutes before total meltdown.

...I'd known it would turn out like this!