Sunwoo-nim Looked at Me!
The first time could have been coincidence.
But when coincidence repeats itself, people start to grow suspicious. Naturally.
"We've been... suspended."
"...We've barely been live for thirty minutes."
Reasonable doubt.
It wasn't completely incomprehensible, either.
"Hnyaaa...?"
"...Tsk."
Harin, who'd been sprawled on her back purring away, must have looked about as lewd as a gravure idol.
I could have brushed it off with a half-hearted "let's be more careful next time" and left it at that.
Playing it completely safe, never even approaching the line, was another option.
But could I actually keep a broadcast within bounds while managing these girls?
No.
Absolutely impossible.
Spirit contractors weren't spirit contractors for nothing. People who lived side by side with nature always had at least one screw loose, for better or worse.
With girls like that on stream, there was no way I could film every single broadcast with perfect self-control.
In the end we'd get suspended somehow, and once those suspensions piled up, permanent ban was inevitable.
"So the options are..."
Switch platforms,
or wash our hands of streaming entirely,
or else...
[Sunwoo.]
"...I haven't even said anything yet."
[I won't stop you.]
"Right. You just won't stop me, is that it?"
As if I was going to say anything reckless. Without solid proof, jumping to conclusions was a bad idea.
"Sunwoo—Producer! The stream just cut out all of a sudden!"
"I know."
For now I sent the Nature girls off to individual practice. There were other things that needed preparing besides this, so they left without complaint.
"Duhuhuhu...!"
Though she probably wouldn't practice.
She wouldn't. I could trust that at least one of them absolutely would not.
What kind of nonsense was "I trust that she won't do it," anyway? But facts were facts, so what could I do.
"Producer...!"
"Hold on. Chance to explain myself."
"I'll give it to you."
Go ahead and bark.
...She was getting me back like this?
I shook my head and showed her other girl cam streams instead.
Co.Ka.In
Co.co.Ka.In──!
Ne~~ Thank you for the donation!
"See this?"
"......?"
A look that said she had no idea what I was talking about.
On the phone screen, a big-chested cam girl was dancing to a sticky, seductive track. Suggestive and tempting, yet carefully never crossing the line.
Viewer count already past five thousand and climbing like mad.
"This level of heat doesn't get touched."
".....!"
A look that said she'd finally caught on.
Yeah.
No matter how sexy Harin's soft, bouncy abs and her mewling little "heuuut" sounds might have been, she hadn't gone full clingy-cam-girl like the one on that screen.
If you asked me whether it was hot or not, I wouldn't have much of a defense—but I could at least say we'd kept the line.
"I was being as careful as I could this time. And we still got hit. No warning, nothing—straight three-day ban."
"That... is definitely strange."
"Hyewon. Think you can put in an inquiry for me?"
"An inquiry?"
Yeah. An inquiry.
Not the kind that gets you a canned form reply, though.
"More like... actually dig into it."
"...I'll check."
That was the end of the meeting for the day.
Two days later.
In the office, Hyewon spoke up.
"They said reports came in."
Roughly a hundred of them.
"...That's weird, isn't it?"
The viewer count I'd seen last time. It had only been around two hundred, right?
And half of those people filed reports?
They filed reports—and then kept watching?
"Fifty of those would even be our own center people, wouldn't they?"
".........."
Something was off.
Way too off.
"The staff side said something felt strange and they'd look into it. But..."
"Hard to know anything right away, yeah."
"The good news is the suspension's been lifted. Not that it means much."
"....Hmmm."
I leaned back against the chair.
There was a smell. A thick, coppery stink.
And I already knew exactly what that stink belonged to.
"Funny how it's only our streams that keep getting hammered, huh?"
"...Tsk."
She clicked her tongue like she'd already figured it out.
Yeah. These were the same people who canceled our stage. Stepping into our streams at this point wasn't even surprising.
"Didn't think they'd choke us this hard... They're playing dirtier than I expected."
"Agreed. Internet streaming, of all things..."
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
The sound of my index finger drumming the desk.
Through the haze of half-formed thoughts, I asked Hyewon,
"That stream channel we had running before. What's happening with it now?"
"We've got it looping random channels for now. If a channel that was suddenly on just cuts out, it could mess with anyone who might've been watching, right?"
"...Thank god for that."
If we hadn't kept broadcasting from here, we'd have been sniped dead-on.
I quietly propped my chin in my hand and tried to sort my thoughts.
"....Hmmm."
They refused to line up. Everything blocked from start to finish—even I was starting to feel cornered.
[Help?]
"Not you right now."
Sure, catching a purification beam from Hecate would force my mind awake whether I wanted it or not.
But what I needed right now was more like...
"Lan."
I needed the golden doggo, Lan.
"Hey, bro. Listen for a sec."
[Woof!]
"Producer...?"
I scooped Lan into my arms and ruffled his head.
And then—
"Now."
CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE-ZZZT!!
"....Hieeeek?!"
Electricity poured off Lan's entire body.
Vision spinning. Consciousness climbing higher and higher.
Nothing complicated about it.
Thought is just electron exchange in the brain, right?
I was simply accelerating the flow of thought through Lan.
And while I was at it, dipping a little into the brain's latent potential too.
────Ah.
Inside the accelerated stream of thought,
I leisurely found the method.
"Guerrilla concert."
"...What?"
"We throw a guerrilla concert. And while we do, we debut our girls as VTubers."
".........."
A look that said keep talking.
I scratched Lan's back the wrong way and answered,
"Have the girls pre-record about an hour of stream."
"Then while we're outside running the concert, we just play it back."
"All the attention's already on us anyway, right?"
In short:
"Feint east, strike west."
"We use the guerrilla concert to pull every eye our way, then make sure the VTuber debut goes through no matter what."
Of course someone might get suspicious.
If our home base suddenly starts streaming VTuber debuts while we're out.
So we use that suspicion.
"We just make sure no one realizes the girls are on pre-rec."
"...How?"
"Easy. Write the script in advance."
Record according to the script.
And while that recording plays, we type chat according to the same script.
Then a pre-recorded stream that answers on-script can pass as live in that moment.
"If they start answering chat without even opening the chat window, they'll just look like lunatics—but they're rookies, right? First time. Forgetting to open chat is totally believable."
What mattered was only what was shown.
With the aggro already pulled hard onto us, no one would give the stream more attention than necessary.
"But... can we keep that up forever?"
"It's fine. They're spirit contractors, after all—even if they don't look like it."
Spirit contractors were social misfits by default.
Like it or not, the quality of a spirit contractor was how closely they resembled nature itself.
And humans were creatures that openly defied nature.
Put simply:
"Once they debut, they'll blow up whether they want to or not."
People whose very natures were warped against society—
people who howled about nature while living in defiance of it—
if they saw someone closer to nature than anyone else, their eyes would be drawn whether they liked it or not.
"Looking at it that way, the idol thing was a good call. Maintenance is the problem, but that's on you, so handle it."
"Ugh... Can you pick one? Praise or roasting? Just one!"
"You're not planning to quit even now, right?"
"So it is roasting!"
Of course it was roasting.
After putting us through this much hell, who wouldn't roast her?
"........"
Meanwhile, around the same time, Yun Ayoung.
...Something. Feels strange.
It was strange.
There was no other way to put it.
"Ayoung unnie... heal me a little..."
"Yes. Of course!"
Was there a problem with her life right now?
No. None at all.
Compared to those days back then, nothing was wrong.
Money wasn't piling up the way it had in the party,
but she wasn't diving into dungeons the way she had in the party either.
Just a modest amount. Enough to live comfortably.
"Ayoung unnie.... Me too, just a little...."
"Yes. Please stay still?"
And was there discomfort at work?
Not really. No discomfort at all.
If anything, simply being able to remain by Sunwoo's side like this made her happy.
Yes. Even like this.
Even just being able to stay near him.
She was content with that alone.
She didn't dare speak words like love. That would be shameless.
She had wronged him, so she believed she had to pay the price for it.
So truly, sincerely, from the bottom of her heart, there was nothing for her to feel lacking about....
Clack!
"──!"
The sound of a door opening.
Beyond it, Sunwoo-nim strode in and scanned the room.
Yeonhwa.
Sujin.
Harin.
And....
"Harin. How many times do I have to tell you? Even when I'm not around, keep the cat ears and tail on! You really want me to shove something up your ass? Are you a pervert?!"
"I-I'm sorry!"
".........."
Yes.
It was fine.
This was natural.
This was how it was supposed to be.
Sunwoo had settled here as Nature's producer.
So of course his eyes would go to the Nature girls, not to her.
"...Hm?"
Her phone chimed out of nowhere.
She pulled it out and checked— a text from the obstetrics clinic saying it was time to come get the baby.
The baby...
A child.
My... child?
She didn't really know.
But leaving it there forever would just cause trouble for people, so...
"...What do I do."
She felt lost.
The world in front of her went dark.
But no other option appeared.
So there was nothing to be done.
"Daaa...?"
"Baby?"
The next day.
She brought the baby to work.
What would happen? Would she get scolded after all?
In the middle of that anxious heart—
"Heeeeh... So the little one I saw back then has grown this much? Guess kids born to awakeners really are a bit different?"
"Huh? Ah, um...."
Sunwoo-nim looked at her.
"Ah, sorry. Hard to answer?"
"N-no, not at all! Not at all, it's just...."
Sunwoo-nim. At last.
"...You can ask me anytime."
He looked at her.