The Eternal Seventeen Maid

The chat had caught, and it was burning hot.

The fire didn't stay in the chat. It jumped.

To the fan cafe, that is.

…Still blazing.

Even granting that my fan cafe ran pretty hot on a normal day, the rate at which posts were refreshing was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠anything but normal. Still, this was civilized by comparison. Right after I'd ended the stream it had been the actual end of days—so much so that I half-wondered whether I was living through a guillotine revolution.

Of course, the plan had been built to provoke exactly this kind of reaction. Start a blaze, start a craze. Sounds good, doesn't it? I was already sold from the moment the rhyme clicked so cleanly into place.

But…

"A plan that works too well is its own problem."

I honestly hadn't expected the reaction to burn this hot. The teaser for that fan-art contest I'd staged in a similar spirit hadn't gotten anything like this. I'd grown. No question about that.

Now I just had to turn those flames into pure anticipation.

…So I really did have to use that.

Then again, it was about time I kept the promise, wasn't it?

Not bad.

No—better than good.

Watching the Märchen fan cafe still refreshing at a furious clip, Märchen's manager decided as much. Make a blaze, make a craze. Buzz is already half-won on impact and presentation alone. Märchen had dropped that little maxim in a meeting, and then gone and proved it. Judging by the cafe's refresh rate alone, today's viewer count was more or less guaranteed. And today was Saturday—a weekend, when numbers always came in better than on a weekday.

Add the special circumstance of a weekend to buzz built on impact and staging? It was only natural that Märchen's stream would blow straight past its usual audience. People draw people. A big crowd pulls in the floaters. And the moment that scraped-together audience hit its ceiling—if they dropped the music-video details all at once, right then?

She and the streamer she managed had put their heads together and planned it all the way to here. They'd even pulled off the most important part. From this point on, the plan's success was as good as in the bag.

Which was why the only thing the manager had asked of Märchen was this: release the MV info the moment viewership peaked. The rest, she'd figured Märchen would handle just fine. Micromanaging a broadcaster had never been her style to begin with.

But.

If I'd known it would turn out like this…

"Welcome, Master! The cutest eternal seventeen-year-old maid in the whole world! Welcome to Märmärchen's maid stream!"

…wouldn't she have said one more word?

Too late for that now.

On the Q&A celebrating a hundred thousand subscribers, I'd said it once. That someday, if I worked up the nerve, I might put on a maid uniform and do a maid-concept stream.

Might was vague, sure. In practice it was no different from promising that a maid-concept stream would happen eventually. Bring it up on the hundred-thousand-subscriber Q&A and then walk it back? Hide behind the excuse that I'd said might, not will, so it was fine?

…If I was going to do ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that, I never should have opened my mouth.

So I hadn't forgotten. The maid-concept stream.

And today was the day.

An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. A craze for a craze.

Partly to keep the promise from that Q&A, and partly to cap the uproar—ending a stream after dumping a mountain of bait—with a maid-concept broadcast, I'd pulled the maid uniform that had been sleeping in the closet.

And whether that strategy of mine had landed or not, given the riot after I'd shut the stream down, the chat right now was in remarkably good shape. Of course I knew they were only holding it in for the moment. If I let today slide without saying a word too, then some of them might not be able to laugh it off anymore.

Not that that was going to happen.

"Worry not! An eternal seventeen-year-old maid is simply another name for perfection! Forgetting the things I'm supposed to say? That would never happen!"

I said it, then folded my arms and tipped my chin up just a little.

"And clearing up my Masters' questions… wouldn't that be far too easy a task for the eternal seventeen-year-old perfect maid?"

I waggled the index finger of my right hand.

"The maid stream continues until I turn the broadcast off, Master."

Why?

"Because I am the eternal seventeen-year-old perfect maid!"

As expected of the maid who'd taken the crown in the Märchen Cup—heroine-job ideal-type world tournament—the viewers were taking it well.

"Well then, before the eternal seventeen-year-old perfect maid Märmärchen begins her duties…! No matter how busy the work gets, leaving every one of my Masters' questions unanswered would hardly be maid-like, would it?"

Saying so, I brought out the sign I'd prepared in advance. On it was written:

Handmade, for the record. By me.

It was a maid concept. Just announcing things the ordinary way would feel… off, wouldn't it? So I'd prepared something with a maid attached to it. What does a sign have to do with a maid, you ask? Everything, obviously!

Anime school-festival episodes turn up all the time. And in those school-festival episodes, what does the maid hawking for customers carry around?

That's right. A sign.

So the eternal ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠seventeen-year-old perfect maid Märmärchen using a sign? Nothing strange about it at all! If anything, it was profoundly maid-like!

"The first piece of info is… right here!"

I let the pause hang, then spun the sign around fast and showed it to the viewers—the side that read:

"The fact that internet broadcaster Märchen—famous for national-treasure-tier beauty—has signed an MCN contract with AY Entertainment!"

They could ask all they wanted… I didn't have anything more to tell them. So I pretended I hadn't seen the chat and kept going.

"Now that I've cleared up my Masters' questions… I'll begin a maid's duties in earnest!"

In English, maid means a housemaid, or a housekeeper. So a maid's duties are housework, obviously. Cleaning, cooking, laundry… that sort of thing. And the world is wide and games are many, so of course a game about cleaning existed too. If I wasn't going to play a game that might as well have been made for a maid during a maid-concept stream, when would I ever?

"Cleaning complete! This is the handiwork of the eternal seventeen-year-old perfect maid. You understand, don't you?"

So I did.

"A maid who's good at games too, you say? Thank you for the praise, Master!"

I kept up a comfortable back-and-forth and checked the viewer count. It didn't look like the numbers were going to jump any more dramatically from here…

Good. Time to move things along.

"All right then, next up is cooking!"

Everyone seemed to assume that since I'd knocked out the cleaning with a game, I'd obviously knock out the cooking with a game too. There was precedent—I'd once considered doing a real cooking stream, agonized over it, and ended up playing a cooking game instead.

But they were wrong.

Today was different.

"I'll have to broadcast from the kitchen, so I'm ending the stream for just a moment. Your understanding, please, Master?"

Everything else could be swapped for a game. This one thing, I meant to do with my own hands.

A maid's soul food.

Omurice—omelette rice—let's go!!!