Am I a Genius?

The chat message popped up first.

“But Lady Lene, why do you keep telling the viewers you’re using a voice changer?”

“Ah, um… that’s… I figured if I drew attention with it first, then later revealed I was actually a girl, it would blow up and bring in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠even more viewers…”

“…Um, Lady Lene. Are you perhaps an idiot?”

After listening to Lene’s explanation, Tyuni had blurted it out without thinking. It was her honest, unfiltered opinion.

“Uh… am I… an idiot…?”

Lene’s eyes trembled violently, as if she couldn’t comprehend why she was being told this.

“No, it’s not that I don’t understand at all…”

That, too, was the truth. Even in Tyuni’s opinion, Lene’s logic wasn’t entirely wrong. It was true that voice-changer streams drew a certain amount of interest, and revealing she was actually a girl once the channel grew would definitely become a hot topic.

But the biggest problem was this.

“You’re throwing away every single viewer who could join right now, all for the sake of hypothetical future viewers.”

The person who desperately needed money immediately was only staring at the distant future. When it came to voice changers, the dislike far outweighed the appeal. In other words, she was abandoning nine potential viewers to secure one loyal one.

Turn that one into two. Then three. Then four. Keep growing the number, over and over, until she reached at least mid-tier streamer status. Only then would Lene’s plan have any realistic chance of working. For someone who needed cash right away, it was basically self-sabotage.

“There are only two situations where a streamer’s content becomes a hot topic and reliably gains loyal viewers. The first is when you’re not a small-timer like us but a massive corporation. Even trivial issues spread like wildfire when you already have that many eyes on you. The second is when the content is so attention-grabbing it doesn’t matter what size your channel is. Of course, that usually means it has to be pretty sensational.”

Tyuni laid the cold truth before Lene: her plan matched neither scenario.

“Even if you announce, ‘Actually, I was a girl all along!’ I think there’s a high chance only your current loyal viewers will be surprised before it ends there. Personally, it doesn’t seem like an incredibly shocking story, and there aren’t many people who would spread it anyway. Sure, it might work if you invest a lot of time, but didn’t you say you need money right now? Taking that into account… it’s a failed plan.”

“Wow, I thought it was perfect…”

Hmm. She really is an idiot.

Tyuni’s mental image of Lene shifted once again—for the worse.

Just turning the camera on would probably double her viewers.

At this point, even without Tyuni’s input, people would start getting suspicious. She could gain so many more viewers by showing her face, yet she refused to turn the camera on. Even if she kept it off, revealing from the start that she was a girl would have kept at least half the viewers who eventually left. Instead, she chose the lie of a voice changer. And on top of claiming she had no money, she lived in a nice apartment complex.

Is she just messing with people? Some of us are struggling to pay rent… Does she find life too easy and boring?

Of course, the real answer was simply that Lene was dumb.

“Anyway, I think your current direction is mistaken.”

“Thank you…”

There was no way Tyuni could have known the truth.

“See you later, Tyuni unnie! See you tomorrow, Lene unnie!”

“Yeah. See you, Bora.”

“S-see you tomorrow, Miss Bora…”

“I told you to call me comfortably, geez!”

“I’ll… try my best…”

“Then I’ll head out too. I hope we can meet again sometime.”

“Ah, goodbye…”

After seeing Bora and Tyuni off, I sat alone in the room, deep in thought.

What should I do now?

Thanks to Tyuni, I had learned that my perfect plan was not so perfect after all. Of course, it was possible she was wrong… No. Honestly, I was 99.99 percent sure she was mistaken. Still, she was my streaming mentor. If my teacher said so, I should trust her and follow her advice even if I had doubts.

So what was the best move going forward?

Our mentor seemed to believe in a rather strict teaching philosophy. She had told me my method was wrong but hadn’t explained how to fix it. In other words, she had shown me the path; now I was expected to overcome this trial on my own.

Let’s summarize.

Continuing to push the voice-changer concept was bad. A lot of people felt strong aversion to voice-changer programs. It meant abandoning current viewers for the future, which made it uncertain whether my grand plan would actually succeed later. While there might be some possibility if I played the long game, for someone who needed money immediately, it offered zero benefit.

In short, pretending to be a man while claiming my voice was altered by a changer was far more harmful than helpful. No—more precisely, it was nothing but harmful.

“Hmm…”

Then what was the best solution?

Should I just honestly admit I was a girl?

But after I had already declared I was a man using a voice changer, how many people would believe me? I had done my research before starting the stream. In a situation like mine, simply claiming to be a girl wasn’t enough; people demanded solid proof.

A photo of an ID card wouldn’t cut it. That would only raise suspicions that I had borrowed someone else’s. The only way to authenticate beyond doubt was to turn on the camera and show my face…

Honestly, I didn’t have the confidence.

I didn’t go outside often, but every time I did, countless stares rained down on me. When I noticed and turned my head, the people watching would instantly look away, as if they didn’t even want to make eye contact. As though they had seen something they never wanted to see.

That was how alien my appearance was to them.

And I was supposed to turn the camera on in front of those people? The moment I did, every last remaining viewer would flee.

“Sigh…”

I hated this alien look of mine. That said, I didn’t think I was ugly. No—if anything, wasn’t this quite beautiful? It was an appearance crafted directly from a goddess’s tastes, after all. Yet for some reason, people in both that world and on Earth couldn’t easily accept it.

Still, Bora had been telling me I was pretty a lot lately, which helped. It replenished my self-esteem.

…Anyway, turning the camera on was also rejected for that reason.

I couldn’t turn it on, no one would believe me if I claimed I was a girl, and continuing to use the voice changer was idiotic.

…This was a stalemate.

Maybe I should just quit streaming. The only donations I had received so far were a measly 1,000 won anyway. Wouldn’t it be more productive to spend that time attaching eyeballs to dolls?

“Why did I ever say I was using a voice changer…”

If I hadn’t told that lie, things might have turned out differently.

“…Wait a second.”

So the problem was that I had lied about using a voice changer, right? Then couldn’t I solve everything by turning that lie into truth?

“Am I… a genius?”

Having realized something incredible, I immediately began preparing for the stream.

It was time for a reversal.

Strange messages flooded the chat. Why would I apologize for killing heretics? If anything, those guys should be apologizing to me. I was working so hard, yet they refused to change and kept blaming everyone else.

Well, whatever. Twelve people had joined the moment I started the stream. It seemed many viewers had enjoyed yesterday’s heretic interrogation review broadcast.

Tyuni had said I needed to turn these people into true fans—not just viewers who dropped by because the stream was entertaining, but fans of the streamer Lene.

And the story I was about to tell would be the first step in making them exactly that.

“Ahem. Hello…”

The chat was heating up at a speed that made twelve viewers seem impossible. Of course, I had expected this. What they were seeing was the usual pitch-black screen. But what they were hearing was an unfamiliar male voice.

“I am… the Heretic Inquisitor, Lene.”

Once I thought about it, the solution felt absurdly simple.

What was the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠problem with my current stream? People were uncomfortable because they thought a man was using a voice changer to sound like a woman. The important part wasn’t that they believed I was a man. It was the fact that I had used a voice changer.

The solution was therefore equally simple. I just had to use a voice changer to produce a male voice. Since everyone already thought I was a man, I could simply use the changer to make my “real” male voice and the problem would disappear. No one would feel uncomfortable about the voice changer anymore.

What a perfect plan. I had come up with it myself, yet even I was a little scared of how brilliant it was.

“I, Lene, used a voice changer to pretend to be a girl because I wanted to attract viewers’ attention. I deceived you all and manipulated you.”

“I am truly reflecting on that fact, and from now on I will proudly stream with my real voice.”

“…Is she actually an idiot?”

Tyuni’s voice rang out, filled with utter disbelief. She meant every word.