The Place Where You Stand Is Holy Ground (1)
“Ufufu... I’ve finally brought you the news you’ve all been waiting for. Well, I suppose the stream title already spelled the whole thing out.”
“Ah... that’s true, I suppose. There was a bit of noise over the outsourcing contract, so... Mmm. Any more than that and management will scold me, won’t they?”
By management, of course, she meant her agency—Anathema Production.
For anyone belonging to a company, even saying aloud that a problem connected to that company existed was no simple matter. Some people bulldozed ahead on a who cares about that; others, with no sense for the room at all, let slip things that should never have been said. But the viewers knew perfectly well that Mary was neither of those.
Put another way, this remark of hers had been permitted by the company. From a certain point of view, she had quietly let the agency’s intentions show through in its place. A sniping shot, in short, fired at the company level.
“Anyway—shall I go ahead and unveil the form of this noble queen?”
Mary, however, turned the subject at once. She had shown their stance on the agency’s behalf, but she herself had not particularly wanted to play with fire. She did think the other party aggravating enough that she was willing to accept a role of that sort—but that was as far as it went. Not far enough, at least, to throw away a monumental first unveiling of a 3D avatar.
Today’s protagonist had to be Mary Tepes herself.
On the stream, a full-body silhouette of the character was drawn. From the length of the hair and the curves of the figure, one could just barely tell that it was a woman, and nothing more.
Of course, in context, that person could only be Mary Tepes. There was no special evidence for it, and yet it would have been strange if it were anyone else.
...Well. Someone out there had apparently discovered a basis that even Mary herself hadn’t known.
“Ahem. You’ve all been looking forward to this, so I won’t draw it out.”
With that, Mary put the 3D model up on the stream—
...only the feet, in their shoes.
“—is a lie! Ufufu. Where’s the fun in showing you everything so easily?”
It was a fact everyone forgot often, Mary herself included, but her setting, for what it was worth, was that of a villain ambitious enough to aim at conquering the world. As if to remind them, she let a wicked little laugh slip—though not a single person felt any wickedness in it—and clicked the mouse, setting the model in motion.
Slowly she pushed it into frame until the shins were showing, then whisked it back out of sight. This time she offered only the crown of the head, letting the hair peek through in glances.
“All right, then. Shall I really reveal it now?”
After that brief and thoroughly annoying tease, she giggled as if well satisfied, and cleared the screen.
“One, two!”
And into the center of the empty screen came the avatar at full length: a platinum-blonde woman standing with her legs set just about a shoulder’s width apart, her arms held a similar distance from her sides. Crimson eyes, the outer corners lifted a fraction; a confident smile; a small fang just barely showing. Snow-white skin was wrapped in a gothic dress grounded in black, with points of a reddish, wine-dark color worked in here and there.
Dress though it was, it had almost none of that trailing, billowing air. Forced to a comparison, one would have called it a Chinese qipao rearranged in a European style. Through a slit cut deep along one side, a pure-white stocking could be seen climbing nearly to the thigh—a color chosen, perhaps, to answer the black of the outfit. Where the white thigh-high ended, she wore a cat garter, the thing also called a garter ring, and from it hung an ornament shaped like a bat.
The bodice was nearly sleeveless, while the collar alone rose high enough to circle her throat. Even so, just as with the legs, white gloves covered her arms to the elbow.
“White gloves and white socks... well. Mama’s tastes are coming through rather strongly, aren’t they.”
She did not, of course, mean a biological mother, nor a legal one. It was closer to a piece of slang.
It would be no exaggeration to call the model—the “plank,” as the character art is known—one of the vital elements of a VTuber. In this industry, the person who draws that appearance, and the person who breathes life into a model from the drawing, are spoken of with affection and respect: Mary Tepes’s designer and her engineer, called Mama and Papa respectively.
The 3D model seemed to have been built from that same design. There was hardly any difference in costume from the model she had been using all along, and so the tastes of Mama, Mary’s designer, showed through in this one just as plainly.
“According to her, the point is the way the gap shows the boundary between sock and bare skin... Mmm. As ever, I really can’t say I understand Mama’s tastes.”
“Are my servants nothing but perverts? Or rather—an acquaintance of mine is awakening to a very strange fetish...”
Mary’s voice took on a color of pure bewilderment. Even so, the sight of a friend hurling ten thousand yen because she liked the socks was a difficult thing to know how to judge.
“Haa... everyone, wait just a moment.”
Ninomae sighed, and took the model off the screen again. For a while, the microphone caught nothing but rustling.
“...Good. Done.”
And when the avatar appeared on the screen once more, its posture had changed. More precisely, it was no longer locked into a single pose at all.
Yes. Mary’s character was now reading the movements Ninomae made in the real world, and moving with them.
From the moment the stream began, Ninomae had trackers on her body and the motion-capture cameras already running—preparations laid in advance. The rustling of a moment ago had been her checking those preparations over again, and starting the capture.
Most of the viewers looked considerably fired up by this small surprise. Ninomae smiled at the fact, though the smile on her face itself went unread.
It wasn’t that the face wasn’t tracked at all. At most, though, the system managed the direction of her gaze and the slight opening and closing of her mouth. Nearly every expression of feeling had to be swapped by pressing a button.
Ninomae flicked her arms and legs this way and that, peering at the monitor. She had already tested it several times with the stream off, and still an avatar that moved as she did felt fresh.
Then Mary grinned, as if something had just occurred to her. This time the expression was one she had made on purpose, by operating the avatar.
At last she nudged the camera’s viewpoint a little downward, and looked smoothly down into it. Not only that—she lifted one leg, and eased it gently forward.
“Heh. You servants like a composition like this, don’t you?”
A composition truly worthy of a queen and her servants. Mary smiled with her eyes, and watched the chat.
The reaction was, on the whole, split down the middle.
Even so, Mary knew that on the side which didn’t look particularly pleased, some of the viewers were enjoying themselves all the same. They belonged to a faction not unlike boys who can’t be honest, and so tease a girl for no good reason.
“The truth is, when I moved, I ended up with a room just for streaming, you know? Thanks to that, I can wander all over the place even with the VR gear on!”
Mary said it as if showing the place off, then walked in long strides until she met the wall. She turned, and went on to the wall at the opposite end.
“I can move all the way out to heeere! Well? Isn’t it incredible?”
Mary gave a smug little shrug. Unlike her usual self, there was a pride in it just sharp enough to be annoying.
No doubt because the thing she was showing off was not herself, but Sister—Shion.
“Jump? Yes. That’s nothing—”
Answering so, Ninomae bent her knees a little, meaning to hop. And then, still holding that posture, her face tightened.
Carefully, she brought a hand up, as if to cover her chest.
“No, I’m not falling for that! Did you think I wouldn’t notice the goal was bust morphing?!”
“Well, even so, since we’re here, I’ll at least dance for you. —And with that, what I’ve prepared for today is Saturday Door.”
She worked the PC, and before long a screen glittering like a club was joined by a bright, racing melody.
“Does any servant know it? It’s a rhythm game of the sort where you actually have to perform the dance steps it specifies.”
Mary said so, and grinned.
“Behold the vampire queen’s overflowing charisma, her movements of perfect discipline—and don’t you dare faint from the shock!”
“Heyyy!”
The call reached Han Seoyeon’s phone around the time the stream of Mary Tepes had ended, and she was steeping in the satisfaction of a day well spent.
“Hello?”
“Ninomae-san. Is something the matter?”
What struck her as odd was the person on the other end: her own roommate. Even now, nothing but a single wall stood between them—close enough to reach. There had been no need to call. Ninomae had only to open the door of the next room and come through.
That she had called even so must have meant she had a reason of her own. Seoyeon turned that question over.
“A promise, you say?”
“...Ah. Right. You did.”
Now that she thought of it, Ninomae did seem to have made an offer of that sort. The memory came back of how she had rejoiced—a chance, through VR, to see Teppy standing right before her eyes.
Even setting that aside, it amounted to a second broadcast meant for Han Seoyeon alone. There was no world in which that failed to please her.
“Yes. I’ve seen it connected before, at least.”
Seoyeon switched the call to speaker and set the phone on the desk. Then, just as Ninomae had said, she found the VR headset and hooked it up to the computer.
“But why did you go out of your way to call? I’m in the very next room.”
That, though, remained an unanswered question. Turning it over again, she still couldn’t find a reason they needed to speak by phone.
“Yes. You did.”
Ninomae murmured it in a voice that shrank in on itself, shy. For a moment, hearing her, Seoyeon was silent.
“Teppy, Ninomae-san is far too cute. What am I supposed to do with myself?”