Where Those Feet Have Never Gone (4)
"Oh, that? Yes. Of course I heard. I watched the clip that went up, you know."
Mary, midway through neatly sorting the items in a chest, checked the Super Chat that had just come in and confirmed it.
The chat had split roughly down the middle: viewers putting on a knowing air, as if to say they already knew that story, and viewers whose curiosity showed plain as day. Seeing that the former made up a surprisingly large share, Mary felt the popularity of Serena—real name Senjoji Chiyo—settle in for real. It was a decidedly spicy stream, the sort over which tastes split hard, but then again, there were always plenty of people drawn to whatever stung.
Of course, stack up the actual results—subscriber counts and the like—and Mary's side ran a little higher, so tossing off a remark like that was an excellent way to get yourself called a baiter. In Korean, was the word bitik? She'd picked it up when the miraculous gacha showcase succeeded thanks to Han Seoyeon's help this time around, and Seoyeon stopped her as she was about to post the screenshot on Twitter.
Even without any extra baiting on her part, a picture in which more than half of a ten-pull blazed rainbow was more than enough to stir complaints. But Mary Tepes was a villain, first and foremost. She said as much, and then, without a shred of hesitation, went and bragged about it online, and for a while she had to weather envy and resentment in equal measure from people who played the same mobile game.
In one of the Korean communities Han Seoyeon had quietly shown her, there had even—so she heard—been a brief fad of setting out Mary's picture, or rather her illustration, and holding little rites to pray for gacha luck. An unexpected inflow of Korean viewers came along as a bonus.
At any rate, Mary explained it for the viewers who hadn't caught Serena's stream. It wasn't a long story. They had bumped into each other by chance, and Sister, warning her to watch out for anyone trying to hit on her, had tagged along as escort and conversation partner. That was about the size of it.
"Hm? Just because we live together doesn't mean I have to keep track of every little move she makes, you know?"
She had heard, once the other came home, that Seoyeon had happened to run into Chiyo—Serena—today. She had not heard exactly what took place. That was all there was to it.
Even if a story about Han Seoyeon had reached her through someone else's mouth, and not from the woman herself, it wasn't particularly...
Well... mm. Not particularly......
......Now that I actually dwell on it, I kind of feel myself getting annoyed.
Mary frowned for a moment, but fortunately it never surfaced on the model. Face tracking or not, expressions were built first and foremost off a base configured in advance. Shift her eyes a little on that brightly smiling face, and from the viewers' side it would register as nothing more than a blink.
"I'm back, Mary-chan."
"Ah, welcome back."
Just as she hurriedly got her expression back in hand, there came a clunk. The sound of a door opening in Prasava was somehow crude and thunderous; zone out for even a second and it never failed to make you jump.
Mary shut the chest she had been sorting and looked toward the entrance, and an avatar came into view—something like a wolf beastkin squashed down into super-deformed proportions. No VTuber was about to run an avatar that clashed with their own RP, so of course it was Charlotte Lupus.
Unlike reality, where you actually had to consider how the living would work, sharing a roof inside the server was hardly much of a burden. If anything, dividing the labor—building included—could be said to make the game easier. And though it wasn't the sort of thing one could say outright to the viewers, living together in-game let you quietly suggest that kind of relationship and draw out their enthusiasm. To put it a little more crudely, you could milk them for quite a lot.
When Charlotte had proposed they live together, Mary had accepted with a show of being unable to refuse, and that calculation was exactly why. But the truth was that, take the long view, it wasn't wholly without risk.
Drawing fun out of the chemistry between them was important, of course, but let that bond grow too strong and problems had a way of following. Let their meetings in public spaces—streams and the like—thin out even slightly, and rumors of a falling-out would start circulating at once. Or you'd be midway through a collab with someone else, and the chat would spit out a where's so-and-so.
Anathema knew full well that yuri fanservice made money and pushed it to a certain extent, yet the reason no VTuber went so far as to run an outright couple concept was the same. Call it friendship between genmates, call it kizuna, and the essence was still a solo broadcast. Let collabs become the main of the channel, and things grew considerably difficult.
Even so, Mary's reason for choosing this was nothing special.
"...What are you doing?"
"An 'I'm home' hug?"
"What are you doing?!"
However much Mary tried to hold herself back, this oblivious wolf was going to act in ways more than sufficient to set certain viewers fantasizing. The lack of intent only made it meaner.
Mary swung a fist at Charlotte in a fluster. She did not, even then, forget to blush.
Thunk—!
"...Huh?"
"Eep."
"No, you're supposed to let a hit like that land!"
"Ah, sorry. That was reflex."
Catching sight of the shield now in Charlotte's hand, Mary let her displeasure spill out. They had been close enough that their characters were all but overlapping, and in the middle of that she had swapped gear and thrown up a guard—what kind of absurd reflexes even were those? Werewolves, Mary decided, were a dirty cheat. The only physical growth she herself had gained from VTuber work was the snap speed required to seize her model and paint a blush across her face in a single instant.
"Anyway, how far did you get this time?"
"The Statue of Liberty. It was still under construction, though."
"Oh—right, the one Rin-senpai was building?"
Charlotte's character nodded.
Tachibana Rin. A first-generation senpai whose concept was a serpent god who had lived since ancient Japan—and one of the two addicts whose excessive playtime had gotten the first-generation Anathema server shut down.
"Correct. And right now, I'm offering you the chance to hop in on that grand construction project."
"...Rin-senpai?"
Clunk. The door of the house opened again. The game had nothing like a lock, so anyone who felt like it could intrude to their heart's content.
What came inside was a white-haired character. Prasava's avatars had a hard time rendering things like that signature tongue, or the scales, but white hair in all of Anathema belonged to exactly one person. Even if it hadn't, the name would have given her away regardless.
"W-wait! No cutting ahead, Rin!"
Right on her heels, another character burst in—a shrine maiden in red and white, a navy headband tied over her hair.
"Rokumondera-senpai as well? What brings you here?"
Rokumondera Aki. First generation, like the other, and the matching half of that pair of Prasava addicts.
"Because I'm the one who's going to take Mary with me?"
"Who knows. That's for her to say."
As if to match the suddenness of the visit itself, the two of them abruptly started squabbling.
"Um... so, senpais, you've come because you want to recruit me. Is that it?"
"Yes, exactly!"
"Affirmative. Charlotte too, if possible."
"But why on earth?"
What followed was the obvious question. Why, exactly?
"Well, you see, this server has rules now, right? The rule that says you can't stay logged in more than eight hours a day."
"An exceedingly grave outrage. Corporate tyranny."
"No, I think that's perfectly reasonable treatment, for the two of you......"
At their peak, hadn't their average daily playtime cleared twenty hours? Mary answered with a frown. The senpais averted their eyes in unison.
"Anyway. That's not the important part."
"R-right. Just this once, Rin has a point."
"...Even granting that, what does it have to do with this?"
"Mm." Rin nodded.
"Humans are animals that form societies. We found a way through."
"If a build needs ages and you don't actually have the time, you just go get that much more labor!"
"Objective: president of a construction company."
Having heard that much, Mary's face became the face of someone convinced. In summary, they simply wanted to form a group and enjoy Prasava together.
"Join this Tachibana's organization now, and it's free. Signup gift: ten sapphires."
"Rokumondera Construction's signup reward is fifteen rubies. A far more valuable choice, wouldn't you say?"
"But I'll stress this here. This side has already recruited a loli demon."
"That's a difference of one person, at most?"
"One person and zero persons are completely different. Mary knows that, right?"
In a heartbeat, the two of them launched into hawking. Mary watched them in silence for a moment. She hadn't chosen either side just yet, and besides, it seemed like a decently entertaining bit of stream.
"And a god is greater than some mere shrine maiden. A comparison even a monkey could make. Obviously."
"M-my god is incredible too! Don't you look down on Lord Yorozuyoroi. Polar bears tear people apart!"
"Hoh. Picking a fight? I'll take you anytime."
"Hmm......"
Charlotte, who had been watching the quarrel, let a thoughtful hum slip.
"Couldn't the two senpais just make one group together? Our company still only has nine VTubers, so even without splitting anyone up, it'd be enough, right?"
"No, you can't just say that, you idiot wolf. Competition like that is part of what makes the stream fun."
"Ah. Is that so?"
"Oops."
She put on a belated show of being startled, but this, too, was calculated to a certain degree. A line like this situation is staged, to some extent, for the sake of the stream wasn't something to overuse, of course—but every now and then, nothing else worked half so well for getting viewers to swallow an awkward moment. And saying something you weren't supposed to say could itself, to some extent, be what got the laugh.
"Mary-chan, decided which side you're joining?"
"What about you, Char-chan?"
"For balance, should I go the opposite of you?"
Charlotte said it, and then, a moment later, grinned.
"Mmm, but I want to stay together after all, so cancel that."
"Meaning?"
"I'll follow wherever Mary-chan goes."
And with that, everyone's gaze drifted back to Mary, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"A buy-one-get-one?"
"Mary, please—make the correct choice!"
"Ehh......"
Whether the attention weighed on her, Mary let a groan slip out. Being told to simply pick someone, out of nowhere, was hard enough on its own. With the stream running, it was harder still.
"Then... I'll go with Rokumondera-senpai. If I'm choosing, I'll take the side that gives more."
"Yes! I did it!"
"Tch. This damned capitalism......"
After turning it over for a while, Mary finally produced an answer. The moment it became a matter of feelings or relationships, things got complicated, so deciding by a clear, hard benefit was easier—and less likely to leave talk in its wake. Rokumondera Aki had come up in idle chatter on a previous stream, so privately she had been drawn this way already.
"If that's what Mary-chan wants, maybe I'll come this way too."
"Hehe. With this, the headcount flips!"
"...Still a difference of one. I'll hand your own words from a moment ago right back."
"But it's double, isn't it? The gap in personal virtue between me and Rin looks pretty wide, wouldn't you say?"
So the senpais had relationships of their own, too, of one sort or another. Mary was thinking as much, watching them, when—
"This being the case. The final measure."
"?"
At Rin's abrupt declaration, every one of them turned to stare, question marks all but floating overhead. And Rin, beneath that downpour of gazes, calmly drew out a single item.
"Uwaah?! Wh-what is that?!"
"Eek?! What are you doing, Rin?!"
"Oh. This is a problem."
It was dynamite.
At the sight of Rin, fully prepared to blow the entire house sky-high, everyone panicked and poured an assault down on her.
"Aah."
"Th-that was nearly a disaster......"
"Whew. Good thing we could subdue her."
"W-would my juniors at least care to split the sapphires that dropped?"