Kwon Seah’s Unusually Rare Clarification Stream (2)
Heretic was checking the Galaxy Express Gallery while letting the stream of one-thousand-won punches fly past her without a second thought.
At first, this woman had been so indifferent to Galaxy Express Gallery that she had actually assumed Kwon Seah was a man.
No, to be exact, she had kept her distance because she was afraid that if she got curious for no reason, her own past would get dragged out and exposed piece by piece.
"Ah... n-no, this isn’t my fault, th-th-though..."
Heretic covered her face with both hands and trembled.
When Heretic made her accusation, the Express fans had come to the public board to tell everyone this woman was a lunatic, and the post had not been deleted.
However you looked at it, the mods were the ones who screwed up, so they should be handing out ten gift subs.
Heretic had thought she’d cleanly washed away her past, but there was no way that was happening.
In the Seventh Heaven Gallery, they hated her so much they had even set her name as a banned word.
The only reason they hadn’t shown up in Heretic’s stream to hurl insults was that she no longer played Seventh Heaven.
But now things were different.
She had pulled the exact same stunt and gotten spectacularly humiliated for it, so of course everyone was dying to talk about what a rotten bitch Heretic was!
"I-I’ll b-ban them f-first... if they c-cross the l-l-ine..."
Sniffling and unable to speak properly, Heretic gripped her mouse.
Heretic gave up on banning with a few futile clicks.
The one-thousand-won punches flying at her every ten seconds and the chat that kept climbing without rest were already far beyond the level of rage she could manage.
"N-no, look!! I’m not the weird one, okay? Even here in this gallery, they’re saying I’m the weird one!"
She refreshed the page for no reason and clicked on a post that seemed to defend her.
He said he was just some temp worker or something.
And if an ordinary user asked for proof, is it really normal for someone at section-chief level to hop on stream?
I think they were just making a fuss to defend her.
"Ah... uh."
"F-fuck...! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"
Heretic ended up swearing and clicking every post she could see.
(angry frog meme)
Then fucking what, was I supposed to keep paying three million won a month...
...to a game that, as it turned out, wasn’t some dump-and-play playground, but maybe a filthy trap game where some miserable middle-aged bastard like Thor was playing PVP against accounts that the operators had given cheat items to?
Would I just shut my mouth and keep playing because some section chief came out and said Heretic was just making false accusations?
If they hadn’t explained it like this, I would’ve been spending every single day getting dragged through the mud in the middle-schooler gallery and the Singly-Bubbly Gallery, wouldn’t I??
"U-uh... n-no one, n-no one’s sh-shi... shielding me."
Heretic clicked the hot posts as if wandering in a daze, but nowhere did she find a single story defending her.
Instead, all she found were posts packed with blatant insults and the shameful, embarrassing things she had done in the past being dug back up.
Even when there was a lone comment in her favor, the atmosphere didn’t change at all because the replies were already flying in like mad.
"N-no, that’s not it. These bastards are all sockpuppets!! They’re just using throwaway accounts like mine to talk shit about me... y-you know."
Clinging to the last fraying rope she had, Heretic clicked on a few of the accounts insulting her in the hot posts.
Unfortunately for her, they were fresh accounts—users who absolutely could not be called throwaways.
They were maniacs from the community who had written at least five hundred posts and more than five thousand comments.
"Ugh... ughhh, ughhhhhh!!"
Heretic grabbed her hair with both hands and burst into tears.
Their pitying little display wasn’t visible to the audience through the camera, but everyone could see her virtual avatar shaking miserably.
"G-guh... ugh... haaahhh, w-wooooeh...!"
No matter where she looked on the internet, Heretic couldn’t find a single ally.
And that atmosphere was the second knife Kwon Seah had prepared.
As the youngest daughter of a chaebol family, she had more than enough power to manipulate public opinion in a community like this.
And she wasn’t even asking to reverse the mood into one that would attack Heretic less. It was just a cute little request: dig up her past and light a small, appropriate fire on the house while it was already burning.
"Ugh... I... I think I’m gonna... hurl..."
Heretic covered her mouth with both hands, her face gone ghost-white as she trembled.
The whole world was cursing her out.
The crushing pressure of something impossible to imagine unless you had lived through it pinned her down and flattened her whole body.
"Huh...?"
Heretic stared at the screen with a blank expression.
Only now did she understand how the present situation was unfolding.
Heretic had outstanding drawing skills, and she made her living from them.
It wasn’t as if she had only made her own “virtual avatar.”
Even after laundering her name through the alias “Heretic,” she had never changed her art style, so anyone with a good eye could still tell who she was, even if they didn’t bother to say anything.
There was nothing wrong with her art.
Her queen-bee antics back in the gallery had all happened before she’d started doing proper internet broadcasting.
"W-wait a second! I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I-I’ll apologize! E-everyone, please calm down!"
Heretic only now realized that a hellfire had fallen right on her foot, and she screamed.
The Discord hadn’t exploded yet.
But if the VTubers using her “virtual avatars” started to suffer “damage,” then the story would change.
"A-ah... uh... um... first... I-I’ll a-apologize to... L-Labellehar, n-nim..."
Sniffling and with the corners of her eyes turning red, Heretic froze.
She couldn’t actually apologize.
She didn’t know Kwon Seah personally. She didn’t even know her Discord ID.
And if the actual person wasn’t here, what would happen if she just apologized into empty air?
Heretic realized it then.
Unless she made a proper apology in front of the actual person, this atmosphere wasn’t going to change.
If a meme started spreading that mocked the VTubers using Heretic’s work, then it was obvious what would happen next.
"Ah... I’m fucked..."
With tears streaming down her face, Heretic collapsed into her chair like she’d been struck unconscious.
─ Baam-pa-ba-bam! ♬
"W-what...?"
Heretic urgently checked the ID of the donation that had just come in.
It was indeed Kwon Seah’s account—the one from which she had forcibly refunded three million won.
"L-l-older sister! I was wrong! I was really, really wrong! P-please forgive me just this once!"
Sniffling, Heretic rubbed her hands together furiously, begging for mercy.
On the broadcast screen, that movement was being subtly replicated by her virtual avatar.
"I-I’m really, truly sorry for making such a stupid false accusation. Some idiot who didn’t know anything was spouting nonsense. I’m really sorry!"
She had to be forgiven.
This was her last chance!
Heretic stripped off her pride and pleaded with all her might.
"Y-yes! Older sister! I’ll do anything! If you forgive me, I’ll really do anything!"
Kwon Seah didn’t exactly want Heretic to go and kill herself over this.
She didn’t want her to become a permanent joke in the internet world either—something people would bring up forever like, “Haha, remember that idiot?”
...In fact, if it ended like that, the aftertaste would be a little awkward from Kwon Seah’s perspective.
What she wanted was a refreshingly satisfying apology.
"A-a... um... a drawing? D-dogeza? M-my avatar as is?"
Up until now, the atmosphere that had been ripping her to shreds turned faintly festive.
Heretic instinctively realized that Kwon Seah had opened a way out for her.
"I-I’ll draw it! I’ll draw it and post it, so p-please wait a second. Older sister!!!"
An apology disappears once it’s made.
But a dogeza illustration gets preserved like a mounted specimen and lasts forever.
From Kwon Seah’s perspective, which one made for the more interesting story didn’t require any serious thought at all.