Are You an Idiot?
‘…She lives in a nice place?’
That was the first thought that crossed Tyuni’s mind the moment she arrived at the apartment where Lene lived. The transportation was convenient, all the nearby amenities were close by, and since it looked like a newly built complex, the exterior was spotlessly clean. ‘Didn’t she say she was becoming a streamer because she needed money?’ At least in Tyuni’s eyes, this was absolutely not the kind of apartment someone without money could afford. ‘…Well, I guess there’s a story behind it.’
She pushed that question deep down inside. Deciding never to bring up anything that might sour the mood, Tyuni started walking again. The front entrance of Lene’s apartment building was wide open—someone seemed to be in the middle of moving—and a truck and a ladder truck were parked right in front of it. After passing through the shared entrance and stepping into the elevator, she pressed the button for the 17th floor. The elevator reached its destination in the blink of an eye. The view that unfolded beyond the railing was impressive enough to be called eye candy.
Ding-dong~.
While listening to the intercom chime, Tyuni’s mind wandered in all sorts of directions. Just what kind of person was this Inquisitor… this Lene? Well, she definitely wouldn’t be normal. But weren’t streamers basically all attention-seekers and weirdos anyway? She didn’t have any streamer friends, but the big-name ones she’d watched for research purposes had mostly been like that. So maybe someone who enjoyed playing a concept like that could still count as relatively normal. No matter who came to the door, she told herself not to look surprised. It would be rude.
“Who is it?”
While she was thinking, a somewhat languid woman’s voice came through the intercom. It was the voice of Lene—the one she had heard several times on MissCode’s streams. “This is Tyuni… Jeong Se-yeon. I contacted you saying I’d come today~.”
“Ah, yes….”
With a click, the front door opened. And the person who appeared before Tyuni was a stunning foreign woman.
“Ah, hello…”
“Hello…? …Huh?”
Her silver-white hair, which flowed all the way down to her hips, swayed softly with every movement, clearly well-maintained. Her ruby-red eyes were so vivid they almost seemed unreal, and her flawless, radiant skin gave off a bright, lively glow. The black short-sleeved top and dolphin shorts she wore should have looked like simple, comfortable loungewear, yet somehow they made her look completely dressed up. “Appearance is plausibility.” Tyuni now understood exactly what that phrase meant.
‘So this… is that Inquisitor…?’
The concept-obsessed Inquisitor who smashed the heads of every Priest and Holy Knight she saw in New Dimension? She knew the character was female, but she never imagined the concept-obsessed maniac would turn out to be such a pure, beautiful woman. ‘No way…’
I must have gotten the wrong house by mistake. Thinking that, Tyuni pulled out her phone and opened MissCode.
Inquisitor: Unit 1, Building 103, Room 1702 of XXX Apartments
‘1702… that’s the right number. Maybe I got the wrong complex or building? …No. This is definitely the right place.’
The moment her head started spinning from the incomprehensible situation—
“Um… Tyuni?”
“Ah, yes?! I’m sorry?!”
She. Lene. The ‘Inquisitor’ from New Dimension had just called her by her streamer nickname. It felt like the truth was staring her right in the face, refusing to be ignored.
“Uh… so… you’re the Inquisitor… I mean. You’re Lene, right…?”
“Yes, that’s me….”
Someone please tell me this is a lie. That was Tyuni’s honest, unfiltered wish.
“Unnie! When did you get back?”
While Tyuni was still standing at the entrance, stubbornly denying reality, a small girl poked her head out from inside the room. She had short dark-brown hair and bright, sparkling eyes that were very cute, but she looked nothing like Lene.
“Oh… is she your little sister?”
“She lives upstairs. I just watch her for a bit when her parents are out….”
Well, that makes sense. Tyuni nodded. No matter how big the age gap was, they didn’t resemble each other at all.
And then—
“It’s the other way around, Lene unnie! I’m the one taking care of you!”
“…Pardon?”
Unable to understand what the girl had just said, Tyuni tilted her head in confusion.
“Ah, well, um…”
“If I leave unnie alone she’ll just worry about nothing, so I come over!”
The girl’s eyes were filled with pure sincerity as she spoke. Of course, it could have just been the kind of playful nonsense typical of children her age, but to Tyuni, those eyes looked completely genuine no matter how she looked at them. And the person in question—Lene—couldn’t even properly refute her, only fidgeting awkwardly.
‘…Just what kind of person is she?’
In New Dimension she was an extreme concept-obsessed maniac who could barely speak properly, yet in real life she was getting completely tongue-tied and flustered by a girl much younger than her. It was impossible not to have questions. Tyuni’s mind was rapidly filling with confusion.
“Anyway, Bo, Bora. This is Tyuni, who came today to help me with my work. Tyuni, this is Bora, the girl I watch during the day, like I just m-mentioned….”
“Hello! I’m Yu Bora, a first-grader at Areum Elementary School!”
“I’m Tyuni. Nice to meet you. Let’s get along well from now on, Bora.”
“You can just call me Bora!”
“Got it, Bora. You can call me Tyuni unnie. I’ll be counting on you, okay?”
“Yes!”
Of course, she didn’t let any of those feelings show on her face. Since she didn’t even know what kind of relationship they had, she absolutely didn’t want to accidentally stumble into some serious conversation. Even though she was still a small-time streamer, Tyuni had been active for over three years; hiding her emotions was nothing to her.
But if there was one thing she had realized for certain—
“I’ll go prepare s-something to drink… please make yourself comfortable in the living room….”
“Ah, yes. Thank you.”
The image most people had of the ‘Inquisitor’ from New Dimension and the real-life ‘Lene’ were…
“Lene unnie! I’ll check if Tyuni unnie is a good person or a bad person! You’re so naive you might get tricked by weirdos!”
“Haha, yes…”
“…”
Completely. Utterly different.
“Tyuni unnie.”
“Yeah?”
“What does Lene unnie do for work? I asked earlier but she said it was a secret and wouldn’t tell me!”
Bora stared at her with those bright, sparkling eyes and asked. But Tyuni had already figured out Lene’s intention from what Bora had just said.
‘She’s deliberately trying to hide the fact that she’s going to start streaming.’
Since Tyuni herself didn’t like telling people around her about her own streams, she could fully sympathize with how Lene felt.
“If Lene unnie won’t tell you, then I probably shouldn’t either.”
“That’s so mean!”
Even though Bora said that, she didn’t actually seem upset—she just giggled brightly. Seeing the typical lively energy of a young child, Tyuni smiled gently and patted Bora’s head.
‘She’s so cute…. Does Lene usually get her energy from being with Bora?’
Of course, that guess was completely wrong. It wasn’t that Lene disliked spending time with Bora, but it definitely didn’t give her energy. If anything, she probably thought, ‘It feels like my energy is being sucked out…’ But there was no one around to correct that misunderstanding.
★ Since I didn’t know what Tyuni liked, I prepared my favorite honey water. A whole bottle costs 1,800 won. A legendary drink that I only allow myself on special occasions…! Normally I wouldn’t serve something like this to a regular guest… but I couldn’t possibly offer ordinary drinks to someone who came to help me. I am, after all, a person who knows proper etiquette.
“Here’s the h-honey water….”
“Ah, thank you. I’ll enjoy it.”
“Would you like some too, Bora…?”
“I told you to just call me Bora?! I’ll drink it, Lene unnie!”
“Ah, yes…”
The three of us enjoyed a light tea time—or something like it—before moving on to the main topic.
“Bora, could you wait in the living room for a little while…?”
“Huh? I can’t stay?”
“It’s a bit of an i-important conversation…”
“…Lene unnie, I hate you!”
I wanted to tell Bora properly once I had settled in, so it had to stay a secret for now. After all, the reason I started internet streaming in the first place was because of Bora.
“You two seem really close. It’s nice to see.”
“I h-haven’t really done anything special for her…”
“Hehe…. Anyway, getting to the main point—did you prepare what I mentioned yesterday?”
“Ah, yes. I prepared… it.”
After watching the VOD of my stream, Tyuni said she had found problems with the video quality. If there was nothing wrong with the reverse capsule itself, then it was probably an issue with the streaming settings. But since the reverse capsule already had my personal information registered, it was difficult for others to adjust the settings. She had asked me in advance to prepare to connect it to the computer.
“As expected, your bitrate settings were completely wrong. The audio quality is also two steps too low…. You really started with the absolute default settings.”
“Ah, yes…. On the internet they said you didn’t really need to touch them…”
“It’s not entirely wrong, but if you’re going to stream seriously, it’s better to change the settings. Small details add up and eventually make for a much better broadcast. Well, it’s not really something a three-year small-time streamer like me should be saying… haha.”
Tyuni spent about ten minutes fixing all my streaming settings, then stretched and asked me,
“Oh, right. I’ve been wondering—why do you tell your viewers that you’re using a voice changer, Lene?”
“Ah, um… well… I thought if I used this to g-gain attention first, then later revealed that I was actually a girl… it would become a hot topic and I’d get even m-more viewers…”
I firmly believed it was a strategy that was guaranteed to succeed. No. It wasn’t just guaranteed—it was a genuinely genius idea. Once I succeeded, wouldn’t other small-time streamers start copying this method? If that happened, I would definitely leave a new mark in streaming history. When Tyuni heard this, she would surely be shocked and call it a brilliant idea…
“…Um, Lene. Are you an idiot?”
I was certain it would work…