The Holy City, New Jerusalem (1)

Her fingers raced over the keyboard, the mouse answering in a bright, crisp rhythm, and the character on screen darted this way and that in time with every input. A giant assembled from nauseating slabs of meat slammed the ground—but an instant before the shockwave could arrive, the character jumped and slipped the blow. Then she went scurrying in, tapped the giant once, twice, and fled again.

"I won't get greedy this time!"

She had to say it. On the attempt just before, she had gotten greedy for damage and died for it.

The boss's HP gauge along the bottom of the screen was nearly drained. The next opening, and she would put it down for certain—but she shoved the rising urgency back down with everything she had. All she had to do was endure, until a timing came that she could punish in perfect safety.

And at last—

"You may fall now!"

A two-hit string. A tearing scream ripped out of the monster's maw.

A brief silence held until the clear message appeared.

"I did iiiit!"

Super Chats changed color with the amount, and the highest tier of all was red—the so-called akasupa. The instant it burst into the chat, Ninomae Hitomi—Mary Tepes—broke into a brilliant smile and let the cry fly. The window plastered itself with variations on Shutan's so cute, but just then none of it quite reached her.

She only managed to settle her heart again once the ending cutscene began to roll.

"Ahem... Now then. Did you all see that? This is precisely who I am!"

"Anathema's very first all-clear... was taken by Tachibana-senpai. Even so, second place is mine."

"What? Wait. That can't be... Shar-chan only started Slayer the other day, didn't she?"

"That's absurd..." Mary muttered, the wind gone out of her.

"How much longer must that insolent wolf torment me before she's satisfied!"

They had a relationship built up over time; a complaint of this degree wasn't going to blossom into breakup rumors. If anything, considering the character, the attitude was the correct one. She had grumbled on that judgment, and the chat's reaction suggested it had been the right call.

For the record, she wasn't actually sulking. True, the title of second place was a little regrettable, but...

Maybe I should send her a congratulatory message once the stream's over.

If anything, congratulations were the appropriate thing. Ninomae let out a sigh, and smiled.

"Still, well. A clear is a clear. Shall we watch the ending?"

Having felled the mastermind and resolved the crisis bearing down on the kingdom, the protagonist returned in triumph to the royal capital and was hailed as a hero who would be remembered forever... A perfectly ordinary hero-tale ending unspooled across the screen. Mary admired the high quality of the direction, and then—

"But no matter how I think about it, this got swapped with the main ending, didn't it?"

Why was the ending where you absorb the Outer Gods and ascend the canonical one? Setting aside the question so many Slayer 2 players had nursed, Mary closed the game.

"Haaah..."

After going back through the Super Chats she had missed while locked on the game, Mary Tepes—Ninomae Hitomi—ended the broadcast. A stretch eased some of the stiffness knotted through her body. For a little while she simply sat in the faint afterglow of the stream. Then Ninomae picked up the phone she had kept at her side.

Sure enough, a message had been waiting. The name on the screen read Miss Shion. As expected, she had watched today's live broadcast and left a message the moment it ended. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Hitomi checked it and called at once. Over the past several days, it had become something close to a routine.

"Hello."

After a short ring, Shion's voice came through. Quite husky, for a woman. The delivery was thoroughly deadpan.

"You were watching the stream, weren't you?"

"Of course."

"How was it?"

"It was the best."

Immediate. And the exact same answer as yesterday.

"There you go again. It's been the same reply for days."

"Because it genuinely was the best, every single time."

"...Miss Shion, isn't your bar a little too low?"

A puzzled hmm? came back, genuinely at a loss. She truly didn't seem aware of it at all.

"But a Shutan stream is already a full one, even if all you do is breathe."

An outlandish answer she wasn't sure she ought to thank her for. It was, at the very least, exceptionally effective at embarrassing a person. Ninomae pursed her lips and let a small, suffering sound slip out.

Of course she was grateful that someone loved Mary Tepes. She was grateful, and yet...

Miss Shion already feels as though she's finished drawing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a perfectly clean line between Mary Tepes and Ninomae Hitomi. Otherwise she could never toss lines like that at the real her without so much as a flicker. She watched the broadcast strictly as a broadcast. As a viewer, it was an exceedingly admirable virtue. That much was true.

Mmm.

But standing across from her as an acquaintance, it wasn't as though no discontent stirred. There was a reason people told you to keep the stream and real life apart. It wasn't actually easy, and plenty of people couldn't manage it. Ninomae Hitomi herself was no exception. A broadcast wasn't scripted from beginning to end. Of course she couldn't present nothing but a manufactured personality. Her real self slipped naturally into the performance—not only the vampire queen Mary Tepes, but the self that was Ninomae Hitomi, undergraduate in folklore. Even she found that line difficult to draw cleanly. No: precisely because it was her, it was harder still.

Which is why I'm out here doing this tiresome, womanish thing.

The day her identity as a VTuber had been found out, she had been relieved that Han Seoyeon wasn't disappointed. She had even scolded herself for worrying, needlessly, over someone so decent. Separate from that, though, having a fan of hers right there beside her made her painfully conscious of how she was being judged. And so, every time, a small anxiety tucked against her ribs, she went out of her way to call and check the reaction.

Like this, she could only be called a troublesome woman. Knowing it, and doing it anyway, only made her more pathetic in her own eyes. Set against all this fretting, Seoyeon drew the line between public and private with a clarity so crisp it was almost refreshing—and that, somehow, left her oddly sulky.

I really am an idiot. Ninomae sighed.

Pressing the point any further would have felt wrong, so she turned the subject, lightly enough.

"What was your favorite part?"

"Hm. The SharMary yuri move at the very end, I suppose. I even sent a Super Chat before I realized what I was doing."

"Ah, so that was you, Miss Shion..."

The name had definitely been Natacchi, hadn't it? Ninomae let her eyes drift, thinking.

"I did say it on purpose, I'll grant you... but do viewers really watch something like that and come away thinking yuri move?"

Her tone made it plain that, honestly, she didn't quite understand.

"But you were planning to message Charlotte after the stream, weren't you?"

"Well, yes. That part's true."

"And then, later, Miss Charlotte reveals it on her own stream and establishes Shutan as a good girl. The whole thing comes as a set."

Was that still prediction, or had they crossed fully into delusion and a self-indulgent happy fantasy...? The thought occurred to Ninomae.

"As a SharMary supporter, just imagining the two of you bickering on camera and then going perfectly teetee the moment the stream ends is already enough to leave me full."

"...Miss Shion. I've been noticing it lately. You're much sharper than I thought."

"Even as you say so, you still deliver it in your Shutan voice, packaging it as carefully as you can so it lands like praise, because you're afraid of hurting me. I can feel the kindness in that."

"Haaah..."

Even if you've figured it out, you say it right to my face? Ninomae's ears flushed a soft pink. Even so, as if something had just come to her, she spoke.

"Um, this might be good news for you, Miss Shion. Actually, Shar-chan ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and I are working out a date for an offline collab right now. In person."

"Wh—?! Truly?"

The force of it suggested that, had they been face to face, she would have leaned all the way in. Ninomae offered a wry smile no one on the other end of the line could see.

"It goes without saying, but you can't go telling anyone, all right?"

"You really don't need to get that serious about it..."

To think that only a week ago, she hadn't known this side of her existed. How very strange.

"Anyway... I'll see you tomorrow, then, Miss Shion."

"Yes. Tomorrow... ah, that's right. Have you finished the report? There are two days left until the deadline."

"...Ah."

She had completely forgotten. Through the phone came Shion's voice, threaded with a sigh.

"I'll help you, so go ahead and turn the computer back on. We're making this an all-nighter."

"I'm sorryyy..."