Maid Haruru
"What the hell is going on?!"
So this is man plans, heaven laughs!
People make plans, but whether they come to pass is up to the heavens. That lousy goddess had completely played me for a fool.
"Graaah!"
It wasn’t ten thousand subscribers. It was twenty thousand. How on earth had the number jumped by more than ten thousand in a single day? It made no sense. I still couldn’t make heads or tails of the situation.
The Goddess of Luck’s Blessing was exactly what it sounded like: lucky things happened. Which meant that if my subscriber count had suddenly shot up by more than ten thousand, something had clearly happened. Time to find out what that something was.
First, I checked Unknown Universe’s official community, Unknown Tory. Since this place was all about Unknown Universe, instead of talking about subscriber pledges, people were discussing the four-line Pluto roll I’d pulled yesterday. And right at the top of the trending posts was a thread about my legendary stream from the day before.
For the record, “today” in the title meant yesterday. That wasn’t the important part, though. What were the comments like?
Right. SSS-grade Mika full transcendence, the server’s first +10 enhancement, and a four-line Pluto roll. I’d hit absurdly favorable odds on all three. At this point, it was only natural people would joke that I had something going on with the admins.
But that would stay a joke, and nothing more. Unknown Universe’s game items were so expensive that the operators had opened up their logs to the users, which meant people could quickly tell whether there was any connection, whether someone had cheated, and so on.
Still, no matter how wild the reaction got, it was only a game system log. I was a person under the goddess’s protection! No one would ever have guessed I’d have a connection with a god.
Still, the reaction being this explosive was nice, but it didn’t seem like this alone had caused my subscriber count to jump so much.
There were a few comments like that, but the veterans who’d devoted their lives to Unknown Universe didn’t seem very interested. Then had the explosion happened not on Unknown Tory, but in the domestic VTuber gallery? If there was one thing that would grab them, was it the hand cam? Maybe. I hurried over to check the domestic VTuber gallery next.
There were all kinds of VTuber topics here, so I’d have to search for my nickname. That was what people in the know called ego-search, and you always had to be careful with it. You never knew what rough words might be waiting for you.
But just as I was about to click the search bar, I didn’t need to bother at all. The whole gallery was already lined up with posts about me.
She was an adult, yes. She just didn’t look it at all. Curious, I clicked that post, and the comments were already explaining for me that she was an adult and only adults were accepted.
Had the cooking stream yesterday blown up and caused my subscriber count to surge? I needed to scroll a bit farther down. I looked through the posts from around lunchtime to evening yesterday.
Only then did I find the culprit behind this whole mess. It had a ton of upvotes, so it had made the featured posts.
No way. What, Chae-money!
She uploaded our collab on the same evening we streamed together at lunchtime? That was some legendary execution. Her instincts for striking while the iron was hot were no less impressive than mine.
I followed the address in the post into NewTube.
And there, I found an absurd number.
Chae Restaurant with Shining Parade 2nd Generation - Black Fox Haruru
420,000 views.
13 hours ago
It hadn’t even been up for a full day, and it already had four hundred thousand views? Insane. I checked the comments sorted by likes, and this was what I saw.
What! More than a thousand likes?!
What exactly had I done to bark like that? I jumped straight to that timestamp.
-Hello, Haruru. I’m black fox Haruru. For those who don’t believe me, I’ll show you a little of my time as a fox. Conveniently, I drank a magical potion that turns me into a dog, so this should work, Haruru. Woof woof, growl! Hnnng! Hnnng!
"No way..."
So the saying about turning into a dog when you get drunk was real, and I was out there barking like a complete maniac. The secondhand shame was so intense it practically burned. I stopped the video.
Anyway, now I finally understood what had happened. That part must have blown up big, and my NewTube had ridden the wave along with it.
"Haaah... maid outfit."
Money I might not have, but I had my swagger. And now this man among men, this absolute king of masculine pride who’d once held himself together with nothing but style, had to wear a maid outfit because his body had become this fragile girl’s body.
"I’m going to lose it."
Fine. If I had to go down, I might as well at least make the cafe tour worthwhile, right? Human nature is that when something good happens, you want to be congratulated for it.
Half congratulation posts, half maid posts. I was losing my mind. Just then, a message from Chae-money arrived.
"Haru. Are you feeling any better? Text me when you wake up."
A single line, casually tender. I called her right away.
-Yeah. Haru. Did you sleep well?
"Yes. How about you, boss..."
-I’m fine. But I really didn’t think a single glass of wine would do that to you. That was my mistake.
"No, it was my mistake. My memory’s pretty hazy, but was the stream okay?"
Then I heard the CEO’s laughter through the phone. She was clearly holding it in so I wouldn’t feel awkward.
-It was the best. The response was fantastic too.
"I just checked the NewTube upload. Thanks to it, or because of it, my NewTube subscriber count didn’t just hit ten thousand. It’s twenty thousand now..."
-Hahaha! When you’re a little more awake, write a post on the cafe. The viewers are worried about you.
"Okay."
By the way, she still hadn’t mentioned the maid outfit. Or so I thought, right before the CEO brought up exactly that word.
-And about the maid half-cam cooking stream...
"Sh-should we not do it? Right. Like you said, boss, maybe that was a bit too much."
-I never said that. We’re doing it today. Let’s go buy the maid outfit together. If the tide is coming in, you put a motor on the oars.
Gah! Today?!
I let out a huge roar inside, then answered in a miserable voice.
"There’s no backing out, is there?"
-There’ll be riots if you do.
"Right..."
Of course we had to follow through, and if you broke a promise in the streaming business, you could crash and burn in an instant. Especially with a maid outfit. The moment I said I wouldn’t do it, I’d never survive the backlash. This was the price of running my mouth too freely.
On the other hand, though no one could see my face, the CEO sounded extremely pleased.
-Do you want to come to the company? Or should I pick you up?
"Ugh! Wow, my stomach hurts from the hangover. I can’t do the maid outfit stream."
-Sure. I’ll pick you up at your apartment, then. Be ready and waiting by 9.
Damn it. As someone once said, there was no such thing as an absolute in this world. I hated yesterday’s me for spewing that kind of empty confidence as if I absolutely knew it wouldn’t happen.
But if I tried to look on the bright side, a maid outfit stream was guaranteed to be a huge hit. No choice then. I’d turn this approaching crisis into an opportunity. I steeled myself anew and went into the cafe. I had to leave a post for the viewers, who were supposedly worried about me, just like Chae-money said. Though the fact that they were all talking about the maid outfit made it look like they weren’t worried at all.
Dear Harusalidan,
Thank you for helping me reach 20,000 subscribers.
I pulled off the four-line Pluto roll yesterday, then drank, spouted nonsense, and in every sense made it a legendary stream, didn’t I? Thanks to you all, I easily broke through what had once been a mountain of ten thousand subscribers and reached twenty thousand. These days, your hot support makes me so happy I’m practically spoiled rotten by it.
So, just as I promised yesterday, I’m going ahead with the 10k milestone reward: maid half-cam cooking stream. It’s currently 8:30 a.m. Chae-money and I are going to buy a maid outfit, and I’ll go live afterward. (I can’t promise exactly when, but probably sometime between 11 and 12.)
It seemed like everyone had been waiting for me, because the moment I posted, comments came pouring in like a flood.
The comments kept coming so fast the notifications never stopped. I turned them off for a moment and got ready to go buy the maid outfit. I threw on a plain, shapeless T-shirt and pants, then waited outside before the appointed time.
Before long, Chae-money’s expensive car pulled up. For a car that pricey to come pick me up, I couldn’t help feeling like I’d become the second son of some chaebol family. Then the back door opened on its own.
"Ruru-chan!"
"Hey there, our junior."
"You guys..."
Mizuki and senior Jua were in the back seat too. Right. How could they possibly miss a trip this entertaining?