A Trivial Prank Only a Lady Can Do
"If I just show it off, I don’t think I’ll get any attention. What should I do?"
The spoils I’d brought back from the pop-up store were the kind of items any self-respecting fan of the game would drool over.
In particular, the hanging scroll stand priced at 450,000 won and the keyboard were wildly popular; the scroll stand was a super-rare item with a hard limit of just five sales a day.
The extended mouse pad was also getting a lot of praise for its quality, but that one seemed to be in ample supply.
"Hmm, if I just take a picture of these and brag, it won’t be interesting."
For some reason, if people brag too openly, others tend to take it in stride.
That’s why people in gaming communities hate those who humblebrag.
They know it’s good, and yet they still have to go, "Is this any good?" or some other nonsense, and then you start wanting to smack their heads with a keyboard.
"Ah... I’ve got a slightly creepy idea. Should I try it?"
If it worked, it would be outrageously attention-grabbing.
I steadied my already racing heart and quickly sorted out the loot.
First I needed a table to display the goods on, and a glass cabinet to put the figures in.
"In the youngest daughter of a chaebol family’s house... ah! There is one! There it is!"
Just in case, I dug around the little storage room attached to the veranda, and there it was: a folding wooden desk.
It was incredibly light, and the tabletop was pretty wide, perfect for laying out the merchandise and taking pictures.
"I’ll have to buy a glass cabinet later. For now, I’ll use the one in the dressing room."
Which, honestly, was even better.
In the walk-in closet there was a glass display cabinet where rings, earrings, watches, and the like were neatly arranged.
I quickly cleared out everything inside and put the figure in.
"Your name was Modreda, right?"
The forty-centimeter figure radiated an incredible presence from inside the cabinet.
I could have just gone click, click and taken photos of it as is, but I had absolutely no intention of doing that.
"This, my friends, is how young women brag on social media without being obvious."
Honestly, I’d never understood why people bragged this way in the first place...
But doing it myself had my pulse pounding like crazy, and that made it fun.
"Ahem... I’ll put the mouse pad at the very bottom, then the keyboard and mouse on top of it... and I’ll unfold the hanging scroll stand just one-third of the way so only the characters’ faces show...!"
As I muttered to myself and spread the goods out on the table, the setup started looking surprisingly convincing.
"All together, this is 800,000 won, you know..."
The hanging scroll stand, keyboard, and mouse took up most of the price, but a normal person would never spend that much in one go.
"Even just this much already reeks of money being burned for fun. But..."
I picked up my smartphone and took pictures of the goods.
The angle was important; the trick was to catch the glass cabinet in the background so the figure peeked into view all sneaky-like.
Even in the photo bragging about the keyboard, and the one bragging about the mouse pad, I made sure the figure showed up just a little here and there.
Put those subtle glimpses together, and you could practically piece Modreda together like a puzzle.
"Mmm... still not enough, I think."
Right, it was still a little lacking.
...If I’m going to stir up insane amounts of attention and blow up the gallery, this isn’t enough.
Just as I’d thought at first, I guess.
I hurried back to the bedroom and took out a pair of black lingerie panties, then stared at them in silence.
"Yeah. This is the kind of bait that works."
It was insane, no matter how I looked at it, but just imagining the hundred-plus comments it would draw made the lower half of my stomach burn hot.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Before posting my brag thread, I signed up and made a throwaway account.
[Photo]
[Photo]
[Photo]
[Photo]
"Heh, heheheh..."
Just as expected, the comments started out by roasting my cheesy gimmick, then gradually shifted into shock as people noticed the quality of the goods.
The comments were ordinary enough up to that point.
What should I do? Should I log out and deliberately bring up the glass cabinet?
Ah, but honestly, having someone else notice it for me would feel even better than me manipulating the situation...
"Ah...! It’s spreading!"
In the blink of an eye, replies started piling on top of replies, and people began fighting.
They started arguing over whether it was Modreda or not, and the flames began to spread openly.
"Ah... a-ah, aaah..."
The community that had been talking about performance just a moment ago was suddenly talking only about my meme thread because of me?
Galaxy Train Gallery grew more and more chaotic every time I refreshed it.
And before long, comments started pouring into my own post too...
[The brag photo posted by Kwon Seah]
[A brighter photo where the figure is easier to see]
[An enlarged photo of Kwon Seah’s black lingerie panties reflected in the glass cabinet]
Once the arrow was loosed, it turned the gallery into a raging inferno in an instant.
Compared to the usual five-minute pace per page, the gallery’s firepower had exploded so much it was flipping pages once a minute.
And before long, the gallery had been flooded not just by the regulars of Galaxy Train Gallery, but by outsiders who’d come running after hearing the rumor, turning the place into a garbage dump in no time.
[Kwon Seah’s waist reflected in the glass cabinet]
[Kwon Seah’s butt reflected in the glass cabinet]
[Her upper body, roughly covered by a short-sleeved shirt, reflected in the glass cabinet]
In the end, the brave citizens of the gallery yanked out every trap I’d so blatantly planted and told the whole world about them.
Thanks to that, Galaxy Train Gallery was no longer a gallery about “Galaxy Train” at all...
Honestly, if I’d pushed the trolling any further...
We could’ve all ended up meeting each other at the police station.
I’d already deleted the top post, so please, just talk about the game...
The gallery’s moderator finally deleted all the hot posts, and only then did the commotion die down.
"Ah... I should do this again next time too..."
My body was too soaked, so I decided to stop here for now.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"Uuuhhh...! In the end, Clan War is basically a fight over who can recruit people first!"
Today, too, I was sitting in front of the computer wearing nothing but a pair of dolphin shorts and a loose tank top, leisurely browsing the gallery.
The game itself was running on auto as diligently as ever.
I was gathering materials to level up a skill, and while Trailblaze Power could be bought infinitely, there was nothing I could do about the time it took for a character to run through a dungeon.
The gallery was, as expected, a total mess.
"Looks like everyone’s hyped because Clan War’s about to open soon."
Clan War was content where the clans competed for rank by adding up the score of every member who took part.
So, naturally, everyone wanted to get into a good clan somehow.
If I was a little weak, I wanted to slip into a clan full of carriers and get a ride.
There was no avoiding a whole parade of human behavior.
Still, I was relaxed. After all, our household’s Selea was currently ranked number one in combat power.
While I was scrolling the gallery, I clicked on a post that looked pretty informative without even meaning to.
5th
[Teacher XiaoXiao and the Suckers]
The greatest clan in the Galaxy Gallery, known to all, yeah.
From the main mod all the way to the big-name regulars, everyone’s participating.
4th
[Landlords]
A clan of ordinary gods among men.
Just like the name says, a clan full of rich suckers.
If the rumors are true, you can only join if you have at least two fully-copied characters.
3rd
[The Trailblazer’s Fluffy Baby Factory]
No idea what they do.
But their combat power is no joke.
There are rumors the people who ranked first in the closed beta made it, but I have no idea.
2nd
[UnBlessed]
Clan made by streamer Mallang-i.
He said he was going to take first place in Clan War, so the future looks promising.
1st
[FlowerlessFlowers]
Clan made by streamer Heretic.
Apparently, the welfare package is absolutely insane.
She’s a streamer who came over from Genshin, and since Genshin’s PvP is event-based, she supposedly settled here in Galaxy Train.
0th
[Lilith’s Children]
The Great VTuber Lilith’s clan.
It’s the clan where the adorable, pretty Lilith lives, so of course you should join, right?
If you apply right now, there’s a chance to become one of Lilith’s loyal fans!
"So the thing I saw last time wasn’t nonsense after all. I never thought there’d actually be someone streaming Galaxy Train..."
I’d never even imagined a VTuber would use it as content.
"...What on earth are these people broadcasting? Is there even anything to broadcast in Galaxy Train? And they’re popular enough to make a clan and selectively accept people?"
I shouldn’t have had that thought then.