Chapter 12
Chapter 12
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 12
Chapter Title: Members Over-Immerse in RP
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The happy harem life with the world's cutest beautiful girls has begun!
That was what Evangelion had thought.
But reality wasn't so straightforward.
The four members of the virtual idol group KEYS.
Excluding herself, more than half of the remaining three—two of them—weren't even human-like!
"Wanna go hiking together?"
A suggestion from Wang Rang that sounded like it came from a fifty-something company manager.
Of course, Evangelion had never worked at a company, but it just gave off that vibe.
She was thrilled when they bought kimbap and headed out for their first hike.
It was a shame there was no handmade bento from a beautiful girl, but in Korea these days, talk of "bride training" had become taboo, so she could forgive the lack of a domestic beauty who could cook.
She was confident in her stamina, naturally.
Her body was exactly the same as back when she was slaying demon lords—no degradation at all!
And then the next week, hike number two.
Why were there so many mountains in Korea?
KEYS gathered again at Wang Rang's initiative, but half the members were absent this time.
Seeing Yun Byeol and Jang Gyeon-u bail, Evangelion belatedly realized.
The last hike had been way too intense!
Just the two of them on a date? Not bad at all.
Evangelion looked forward to some cozy alone time.
But for some reason, after running down the mountain, it turned into a suspicious tennis schedule.
Evangelion realized something.
If she kept up with Wang Rang's pace, she'd end up in the Olympics!
Sure enough, the next week, Wang Rang suggested running a marathon!
42.195 km in the dead of winter? Are you insane?
It wasn't that Evangelion lacked stamina—she just wanted to be an idol, not an athlete, so she decided no more outdoor activities.
A beautiful girl working out was attractive, sure, but Evangelion preferred the more subdued type.
And the other non-human-like one was Yun Byeol.
At first glance, she seemed ridiculously tiny and cute, the kind you just wanted to dote on.
But talk to her, and she went beyond simple fourth-dimensional weirdness—more like seventeenth-dimensional.
She was from a world too far away to just find cute.
Conversations with her drained your energy with their sheer otherworldliness.
But that could happen.
She seemed pretty strange, sure.
"But Akari's cute, right? So we forgive her!"
Evangelion was shocked during Yun Byeol's broadcast rehearsal—watching her perform as Hoshimiya Akari.
Total viewers: five. The rest of the KEYS members, the president, and the manager.
They were playing the role of viewers, typing practice chats that might appear in a real stream.
Akari on stream was thought-provoking in many ways, but one word summed her up: pro.
How could someone converse and act this flawlessly, yet show only seventeenth-dimensional vibes until now?
It bugged Evangelion so much she couldn't stand it.
Unable to hold back, she asked, and Yun Byeol replied:
"Analysis showed the character I should play in KEYS is impish succubus type. So that's what I'm doing."
The concept was "seventeenth-dimensional," but every conversation in the two months since they met had been seventeenth-dimensional.
Hearing such a normal statement out of nowhere made her head spin.
'My only healing potion is Gyeon-u!'
Gyeon-u's first impression was this:
She's huge.
Her chest, obviously.
And her height too.
Her face looked cold, probably from frowning a lot.
With that intense vibe, Evangelion wondered, 'Can someone like her adjust to viewers?'
But Gyeon-u was the type whose first impression didn't match her real personality at all.
Despite a body and face that could slap both cheeks of a top Hollywood star and flick their forehead, her inner self seemed like an upper elementary schooler—at most, a first- or second-year middle schooler.
To Evangelion, expressionless faces fell into two categories: faint emotions or poor emotional expression.
Yun Byeol was the former; Gyeon-u the latter.
'I wanna dote on her.'
A fatally alluring appearance that could make a thousand men weep, but with the heart of a total kid.
That insane gap was irresistible.
She got so shy, like she'd never had a friend before. It was kill-me-cute.
That's what Evangelion thought.
Evangelion's age: 17 + 10 years.
It might not seem that old at a glance (or so she wanted to believe).
But those ten years in another world were as dense as fifty or a hundred for anyone else (or so she thought).
Having matured beyond her years, Evangelion was at a loss over how cute Gyeon-u's much younger personality was.
"Ehehehe..."
And now rehearsal time—Gyeon-u's turn.
Her character: Song Princess Uta.
A 17-year-old idol aspirant.
Evangelion thought lowering it to 13 or 14 would suit better.
Gyeon-u had suggested just being honestly twenty, but the president said it had zero merit and set it at seventeen.
Making the listening 17+10 furious—why does twenty have no merit?
But that ambiguous adult-yet-kid age, high school girl title at seventeen—it was hard for even Evangelion to deny its appeal.
-Uta-chan, what color panties today?
Ah, this was absolutely not her personal desires bubbling up.
It was purely a rehearsal vaccine to build tolerance against sexual harassment chats that could appear on real streams!
"Eva, what are you doing?"
"Preventive inoculation. Preventive inoculation. Real streams will have worse than this!"
"Not filling your personal desires?"
But once broadcasting started, such chats popping up one or two at a time was inevitable.
Streams were open to anyone, and the world was full of crazies.
The current issue was one of those crazies sitting among the members.
President Kim Mi-myo decided to observe Uta's judgment.
'The right response is to ignore. No reaction.'
Trolls, aggro-pullers, and toxic types hated being ignored most.
They loved anger or curses.
Overreacting often made you a target for sustained attacks.
Ignore and stay unresponsive, and the manager would handle the chat.
"Seriously, just ban them!"
"Congrats. You're Uta-chan's first ban."
"Uta-chan's first? Sounds good? Hehehe..."
The president straightened up at Evangelion's creepy, desire-dripping expression.
"Want a group ban too?"
"No way, I can't live without Uta anymore."
"Then behave."
"But member-on-member harassment could boost group popularity? That's the fun flavor."
"We don't need popularity gained so sleazily!"
"No, 'harassment' is wrong. This is body praise—no, body worship!"
Gyeon-u was insanely beautiful.
On par with the goddess from another world.
And her modeling followed the original: a violently voluptuous figure.
Worship-worthy, absolutely.
"Body worship—nice phrase. Gotta push that as my catchphrase."
Memes built viewer camaraderie and made streams more fun.
So many virtual streamers forced catchphrases.
"Please stay on the safe side of the line!"
Sunny side and shady side—a subculture distinction.
Roughly, sunny was non-19+, shady 19+.
More precisely, sunny was content that could enter TV/news/public realms; shady was insider-only, backlash if exposed.
"Safe spots are boring. Thrill comes from tightrope walking."
"You already fell off that tightrope and got suspended!"
In the roleplay radio "Zero Viewer Experience," Evangelion moaned wildly and got the hammer from ops.
Against the president's intent, she charged the Vtuber community, pulled aggro, expanded her faction, then spectacularly burned it all to ash.
Her "tightrope" was deep in the shady side.
The president had to fix that.
For KEYS to remain idols safely.
"But seriously, why are they curious about panty colors? What's good about knowing? Why like it in the first place?"
Maybe too late.
Even the normally sane Uta was getting mentally corrupted by Eva!