Not Allowed

As you live, you occasionally run into people with rather... distinctive attitudes toward life.

People whose actions, the kind that surface now and then on the news, simply cannot be understood by ordinary common sense.

What is even more terrifying is that they do not even possess the awareness that those twisted behaviors are deeply wrong.

Take the power-tripping of chaebols or the clueless antics of celebrities, for example.

Every time I saw those incidents and scandals, I would click my tongue and think:

That's why a person's upbringing environment is so important.

Chaebols are the sort who have been power-tripping as a way of life since childhood, and celebrities get coddled by fans around them, so they grow arrogant or quietly develop a sense of privilege.

I was thinking exactly that while on the phone.

This person is probably one of those cases too.

"Seo-a, are you listening? The server's got big corporations now, and quite a few mid-sized ones have come in too. So I'm thinking of properly rolling out updates and pushing ahead with all sorts of things."

"Th-that's a great idea."

This person, let me sleep a little!

Yesterday had been Christmas. After the crew joint stream ended, I had done extra broadcasts for individual fans, and it dragged on until I finally fell asleep around two in the morning.

Yet when I snuck a glance at the clock, it was just past 7:12.

I tried imagining it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for a moment.

If I delivered my honest inner feelings straight to Rena-ttang right now, what would happen?

Naturally, the aftermath began replaying inside my head.

—No, Seo-a, when I was active in the entertainment industry I got by on two or three hours of catnaps in the car. Five hours is plenty; exactly how much more do you intend to sleep?

First pattern: the type who unleashes their full boomer energy without restraint.

Ah, of course there was another style as well.

—Really? I made a huge mistake then. Got it. From now on I'll be too scared to even call.

The case where my rebellion, coming from someone she had regarded as a subordinate, wounded her pride and left her nursing a grudge.

Honestly, Rena-ttang was so unpredictable that I could not even guess which reaction she would show.

"Seo-a, you are listening, right?"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Yes! I'm listening carefully."

Anyway, Rena-ttang was a time bomb you did not mess with lightly.

I was a little tired, but I had no choice except to play along.

I was not some big-corp streamer who could say whatever I wanted; for now I had to keep my head down.

She was the server admin currently riding high after Rim-ani and Su-ppi had joined.

"Seo-a, I've been thinking. I feel like the time has come."

"For what?"

"The My House inspections. Back then I even put up a notice, but it seems a lot of streamers are taking my words lightly. They should already be busy building as it is."

"Ahaha. No way. Everyone respects you so much, Rena-ttang."

"Really? I can see it. Especially those friends who went over to the Poko Server."

"Ah..."

Should I call her the Rena-ttang who never forgot even the smallest grudge?

Back during the Poko Server days, how thoroughly she had ranted about the small-time virtual streamers who had played both sides.

Thinking back on it, the fact that I had taken all of that complaining over the phone was still legendary.

"I think I've given enough time, so we should implement it within this week."

Rena-ttang, who had held a grudge yet waited in order to build justification.

That wait had borne fruit.

Already the server dogs were active in the community, starting to put streamers whose My House construction was lagging under the scope.

"Seo-a and the crew friends have all finished their My House builds, right? Like I said beforehand, shared houses are not allowed."

"I know, I know. We each already have one."

While making Lucy's drug farm underground, we had finished the builds for our crew and company on that plot.

Han A-yeon and Subnitti had followed along as well.

It was quite a distance from the Pokémon Center—the Gangnam of Rena World—so everyone had been puzzled at first, but I had forced it through.

With wings, travel distance was not a big issue, and places with too many people lagged and were noisy, I had reasoned.

Actually, it's because of the Rena government's tax policies. Right now they're collecting taxes based on company headcount, but later we'll have to pay building and land taxes too.

Since land grades were set with the Pokémon Center as the reference point, those living nearby got hit with truly terrifying tax amounts.

So moving residences in advance was the way to survive.

That's why I'm buttering up Rena-ttang. After all, some of the pre-regression memories are a bit fuzzy.

With Rena-ttang sticking to me one-on-one and spilling important events like this, how could I keep my distance?

For the time being, I had no choice but to thoroughly serve her as a VVIP...

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"Alright. Work hard on today's stream too."

"Yes. You too, Rena-ttang!"

The moment the call ended, I let out a deep sigh and collapsed back onto the bed.

Fatigue was already accumulating from the morning.

But unfortunately, there was no time to rest.

Based on the information from Rena-ttang, there was something I had to do.

The V-Live Company building. I have to sell it.

It had been a temporary headquarters we had built from the start with relocation in mind.

This was the last chance to clean it up.

From morning I put up a promo post on the bulletin board in front of the Pokémon Center and personally went into world chat to sell.

A total all-out war!

After receiving Rena-ttang's call that morning, I had grown urgent.

I originally thought there would be more leeway.

Apparently history had twisted a little.

I remembered the first expulsion had been in January, but seeing the timing pulled forward...

The original plan was to try hooking Blueby or Mist.

Blueby was someone I hated for no good reason because of pre-regression trauma, without even giving her anything, and Mist was someone who would disappear in incidents and accidents anyway, so I had put him on the candidate list with a "do me one last favor before you go" mindset.

But I never expected him to go berserk on Christmas Eve and drop that bomb.

I had been lurking the public opinion on the Panbang Gallery that day, and even there the mood felt quite flustered.

They had egged him on, but maybe they had not expected it to work that well?

Did I scratch him too hard? His mental must have been completely shattered.

So he had fallen for the toxic chat-window opinion war.

In the end, the hostility toward me from the Panbang Gallery also seemed to fizzle out a bit.

Like a community that flips opinions like a palm, with a fun new toy for a while, I was out of sight, out of mind?

The atmosphere was of digging the already-dead Mist out of his coffin for a posthumous execution game.

Mist ended like that, and Blueby already has a My House. So the candidates I originally thought of are already out.

A bit of a headache.

At this point, was there a streamer with enough funds to buy a building of this size?

If the sale proved difficult, I would have to demolish everything and take the materials, but considering the labor costs for that work, it would not add up.

Still, there was time left, so I should not get too impatient.

I remembered the period when various taxes increased as around late February.

No matter how twisted history became, there should be at least a month of leeway.

Couldn't I catch one sucker... I mean, customer by then?

"Hello, Seo-a."

"Eh? Ah, hello!"

I had been lost in thought and reacted a little late.

A character ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with pink hair and cat-like upturned eyes.

Someone I was meeting for the first time in Rena World, but I knew exactly who they were.

"I think this is our first time one-on-one. I'm Tu-nyang-i."

"Yes. Nice to meet you. I'm Seo-a, president of V-Live Company. But what brings you here?"

Why is this person suddenly like this?

I did not know since when, but as one of the main culprits of the X-ray incident, Tu-nyang-i was someone to be wary of.

That was why I had deliberately kept my distance from the early server days, not wanting to get involved.

If I built a friendship for no reason and the X-ray scandal broke, I might get lumped in for the hate or fall under suspicion.

From afar she seemed like the other small-timers, blinded by trickle-down and rubbing elbows here and there.

But the results had not looked good.

In fact, though it had been a trap card, she had gotten bounced from Mist's Bad Potato—which looked like the first opportunity on the surface—and after that had not been picked for Dananyang's Partner Company either.

Later she had buttered up to Kim Hak-do too, but when he acquired Milk Company he gave priority to existing members, so the opportunity never reached Tu-nyang-i.

In the end she was being pushed more and more into an isolated-island atmosphere.

It was like this pre-regression too. Could that be why she used X-ray?

Everyone else was joining companies and getting opportunities, while she herself was being left behind—that anxiety.

Maybe the calculation that if she made a ton of money with X-ray, she could use it to curry favor with other streamers.

In reality, Tu-nyang-i had used the money from X-ray to gain trust in a company and even received trickle-down.

"I'm really good at mining diamonds. About four or five hundred a day? So if you just let me join the company, I can become a really hardworking laborer. I'm pretty good at building too."

"Not allowed."

"What?"

"Not allowed."

"..."

The atmosphere froze coldly.