The VTuber Heiress's Secret Hobby Stream
Personally, I wanted to start broadcasting.
Since I had money, I wanted to begin internet streaming with proper help from real professionals.
So when Lee Eunbyul, my chief of staff, suggested that we talk at a café near my house, I happily agreed.
"I’ll look into a proper studio for you. Or perhaps a suitable building..."
"Ah, n-no! Ms. Lee Eunbyul, chief of staff!! I don’t need a broadcasting studio or anything! I just want to do some small-scale internet streaming as a completely personal hobby!"
Was I talking about something too amateurish in front of an expert?
Why had she jumped straight to studio talk?
"If you mean small-scale... ah, I see. You’d like to stream from home?"
"Phew... yes. A studio feels way too serious, doesn’t it? And I don’t want to go somewhere else just to stream."
Lee Eunbyul nodded as she took out her laptop.
"You may not be planning a grand streaming operation, but I still don’t want viewers to feel as though something is lacking."
"Understood. If I contact StyleOn, it seems I could bring in people who can be of great help to you, young lady."
"StyleOn?"
"Ah, it’s one of the subsidiaries spun off from Hanseong Lifestyle. An MCN with more than 320 influencers under contract."
Oh, ooooh... so she was talking about total professionals, huh?
"Then I don’t need to worry about things like a dual-PC setup or microphones at all?"
"Yes. There’s nothing difficult you’ll need to check yourself, Ms. Seah. As for the studio setup, should we install it in the room where your computer is already located?"
"Yes, please. I think it’d be more convenient to stream from the room where I usually game... ahem! I mean, work!"
Lee Eunbyul’s fingers paused over the keyboard.
"Very well. Then we’ll begin work tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. Would that be acceptable, young lady?"
Nine was a little early, wasn’t it? No matter how I looked at it, there was no way I’d be awake then.
"I’d prefer if you started at 11:00."
"Yes, confirmed. Then we will begin at 11:00 and finish before dinner."
"Got it. But what about the cost? Should I give you my card?"
Lee Eunbyul suddenly looked at me.
"As with your previous IP business, the expenses will be handled through the Irish corporate account owned by you, young lady. Would that be acceptable?"
"Ah, y-yes...! Then please do that. I keep forgetting things."
So nothing at all would come out of my personal account?
Wow. I didn’t know how much this would cost, but so this is what a chaebol family’s youngest daughter can do?
And anyway, I can’t just use the corporate card however I want in normal life, so now’s the time to use it!
"As for editing and copyright matters, StyleOn will handle them, so you won’t need to worry too much."
"Wait a sec...! I’m not planning to join one of those MCNs or anything! I just want to do this casually, as a hobby. A hobby!"
If I joined some huge MCN, then on paper it would look like chaebol daughter Kwon Seah was playing at being a broadcaster.
No way. Absolutely not.
If my grandfather heard that his granddaughter was doing internet broadcasting, there was no chance he’d be pleased.
"Personally, then... Understood. I’ll do everything I can to ensure that you can stream 'personally,' Ms. Seah."
Only later did I realize that Lee Eunbyul had completely misunderstood the word personally.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"My goodness! My goodness! Shinwoo! You’re here at last! Come on in! I thought I was going to die, seriously!"
At the sight of the PC room owner appearing while pounding his own back and shoulders with his palm, Ryu Shinwoo let out a snort of amusement.
"What’s wrong, boss? Did that guy who was playing Thor come back again?"
"That old man’s been quiet lately."
"Then is it because those little kids playing shooter games are being loud again?"
Ryu Shinwoo naturally went behind the counter, then froze in shock.
The kitchen was, quite literally, a disaster zone.
"Boss... if we keep running the place like this, we’re going to go under, you know?"
"Oh, Shinwoo... do you think I wanted this? It’s because of those customers over there, the ones sitting at the couple seats. They’re driving me insane."
"What does a couple and a wrecked kitchen have to do with each other..."
─ Ding-a-ling!
"Ah, damn it! They ordered again!"
The PC room owner clutched his curly hair with both hands and let out a tiny howl.
Ryu Shinwoo couldn’t understand what was going on.
These days, they said PC rooms made their money from food, so an order like this should have been something to make the owner hum with pleasure.
"Hey, hey! Shinwoo! Take this over first."
The owner hurriedly brought out a tray and a bowl, then handed over a plate of chili cheese fries, white steam curling up from it.
"Ugh, ugh, I’m really going to die earning money today."
The owner fled back toward the kitchen.
Ryu Shinwoo did as he was told and carried the chili cheese fries toward the couple seats.
...What is this? A woman?
When he reached the couple seats at the very back of the PC room, Ryu Shinwoo felt an odd sense of unreality.
A woman was sitting there alone, playing a game.
The sight was bizarre. No one else was sitting beside her, and the computer next to her was powered on, logged in, and sitting there blankly.
Normally one might think the person beside her had gone to the restroom, but not now.
What about all this food? Did this woman order all of it? Is that why the boss said he was going to die today?
On the seat where the person accompanying her should have been sitting, food she had nibbled at a little before abandoning it was piled up like a tower.
Where a keyboard should have been, there was a tower of trays.
"Um... ma'am? Your chili cheese fries are here. Where would you like me to put them?"
"Ah~ those! Put them here!"
At the woman’s bright, lively voice, Ryu Shinwoo’s hand hesitated for a moment.
"Yes, ma’am. Then should I clear away the dishes you’ve finished?"
"I left a lot behind. Is that okay?"
"That’s fine. We’ll clear them away."
"I’d appreciate it~ I was a little sorry to keep telling the boss about it earlier."
Ryu Shinwoo quickly gathered the dishes with food left on them into one stack and balanced them on the tray tower.
All the while, he kept sneaking glances at the woman.
Have I seen a beautiful woman like this somewhere before? That can’t be right.
The woman, absorbed in her game, was astonishingly beautiful.
She had sharp features that could have belonged to a model, and a perfectly maintained body.
The clothes she wore exuded luxury, and the handbag tucked beside her monitor was a high-end designer piece expensive enough for even a man like Ryu Shinwoo to recognize.
What’s more, her generous chest, the wide curve of her hips, and her full backside were strangely eye-catching.
"Hmm..."
Still, she wasn’t deliberately putting her body on display.
She was so focused on the game, glaring at the monitor with such intensity that she didn’t even seem to notice how she looked to other people.
Weird... I’ve definitely never seen that face before. So why do I feel like I’ve heard her voice somewhere?
Ryu Shinwoo finally returned to the counter after clearing away the tower of trays.
"Boss, who’s that woman?"
"How should I know? I don’t know her either, but she came in at lunchtime and has been ordering food, leaving it, ordering more, and leaving that too."
"Really? So she isn’t someone you know?"
"Of course I don’t know her... sigh. She’s incredibly pretty, but I have no idea what she’s thinking, ordering food one dish at a time and just picking at everything."
Listening to the owner grumble, Ryu Shinwoo tilted his head further.
Then who on earth is she? I swear I’ve heard that voice before...
He thought about it and thought about it, but he still couldn’t get a grip on it.
Which was only natural.
He had met 'Kwon Seah' in real life.
I don’t know... who is she really? There’s no way I’d know a lady that beautiful...
Ryu Shinwoo, using the in-game nickname 'Shuri,' had no way of realizing that he had just met 'Labellehar' offline.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"Did you enjoy your outing, Ms. Seah?"
After spending the evening at the PC room and coming home at my own pace, Elodie welcomed me with a bright smile.
"Oh, Elodie unni. Didn’t you reply to the text I sent?"
"No, I’m afraid I’m not here to prepare your dinner, Ms. Seah."
Elodie stepped back a pace and took my handbag and coat from me, carrying them for me instead.
...She hadn’t found out I went to the PC room, had she?
I’d even asked the driver to drop me off an hour away from here on purpose, then taken the subway to go to a PC room in the university district.
"I’m here to pass along what Lee Eunbyul, your chief of staff, wanted to tell you."
"About the dual-PC setup and all that stuff?"
Well, even if they set everything up for me, it would be meaningless if I didn’t know how to use it.
"Then could you explain it to me right away? The room where I used to use my computer..."
As I spoke and headed toward the familiar room, I came to a stop.
What? Why does the door look like it’s doubled now?
"Uh...? Is this a soundproof booth?"
When I opened the door to see what was going on, my eyes landed on walls covered in all sorts of soft, cushy-looking material.
There was even lighting hanging from the ceiling that hadn’t been there before.
"This is a professional studio..."
No matter how I looked at it, this wasn’t a soundproof booth.
This was basically a recording studio. They’d just turned my room into a full-on studio...!!!
A-and where had they even gotten that glass display cabinet? They’d even taken the figures and merch I’d bought and put them in there.
"Yes, indeed. We’ve completed the soundproofing perfectly, so you can conduct professional recordings here without any issues."
"R-right. Well, this is nice! Looks like I can shout without worrying about the neighbors above, below, or next door!"
How much did it cost to build a studio inside a room?
At minimum, this looked like it had cost tens of millions of won. And there was an air conditioner mounted in there, too, as if that were the most natural thing in the world.
"Could you explain the computer setup?"
I sat down first in the one chair in the room that still felt familiar.
"This red case here is the gaming PC you’ll be using from now on, and this blue case here is the broadcasting PC."
Elodie turned them on with remarkable ease and began setting up the stream.
"This is the device known as an audio interface, you should use this microphone, and the camera..."
"Ah! Right! I won’t be using the camera. I don’t want my identity exposed."
"Oh? Then I’ll remove the camera."
Kwon Seah, the youngest daughter of a chaebol family, was someone ordinary people might not recognize immediately, but if anyone tried, they could find me without much trouble.
And I didn’t want to become one of those expendable extras in some trash chaebol drama.
From the start, all I wanted was the kind of pleasure that came without responsibility!
I didn’t want to end up on the chopping block as some chaebol third-generation brat being dissected over internet broadcasting and the supposed addictive nature of games or whatever.
"Anyway... can I assume Elodie unni will handle the stream setup for me?"
"Yes. I’ve also prepared a separate PDF file explaining the equipment you’ll need to handle yourself during broadcasts, Ms. Seah."
Elodie clicked on the PDF file on the desktop, one she had named TIP.
"Wow... you made this all by taking photos one by one, unni?"
It was so detailed that even the grandmothers and grandfathers at a senior center learning computers for the first time could probably follow it without fail.
If I looked at this later and read it properly, I’d never make a mistake.
I nodded in satisfaction, stood up, and took a bunch of photos of the game room, which had turned into a tiny studio.
"Hmm... nice. Good work, Elodie unni. Then I’m going to shower."
I went into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet. Showering wasn’t the important thing right now!
How should I put it? At a glance, I could tell I’d gotten a ridiculously good broadcasting studio.
But somehow it still lacked a little something.
Maybe because I normally cared about internet streaming, but not so much about the actual broadcasting setup? The quality was clearly amazing, but I just didn’t fully feel it yet.
"And this is exactly when you need a good test subject...!"
Labellehar
「Are you busy?」
Heretic
「?」
「What is it, unni?」
Anyone who’s eaten a lot of meat knows which cuts are expensive and which are truly premium...!
I quickly sent over the PC specification sheet Lee Eunbyul had sent me.
Labellehar
「I bought this for the broadcasting PC. How is it?」
Heretic
「???」
「Unni, I think you got scammed.」
Huh? What was that reaction?
Labellehar
「Why?」
Heretic
「Who told you to buy a broadcasting PC with specs like this?」
「DDR5 ECC 256GB and a 7970X? That’s workstation hardware.」
「If you need specs like this, you should be pulling in 100,000 concurrent viewers.」
Labellehar
「So it’s the best thing for broadcasting, right?」
Heretic
「No.」
「If you’re asking whether it’s the best, then yes, it is the best.」
「But if you build it like this, you’ll easily blow past 20 million won.」
「For a dual-PC setup, even a 2 million won machine will last you a long time.」
Labellehar
「I already bought it and set it up at home.」
Heretic
「?」
「The photos you just sent are at your house?」
「Not a studio???」
Labellehar
「Unni has a lot of money.」
Heretic
「?」
「No.」
「What the hell.」
「Just from the photos, the audio interface is insanely expensive, and that microphone is the kind used in recording studios.」
After that, Heretic kept sending me links to online shopping pages as if she were having a seizure, explaining in detail what cost how much and what counted as pure money-wasting extravagance.
"Mm... mm! This is it, yeah! She’s telling me in the kindest possible way that I really did spend money like crazy...!"
Heretic
「No.」
「Does your family’s money just rot and overflow or something?」
「You installed this at home???」
「What studio do you work at that you’re making all this up just to mess with me?」
「This is insane, it makes no sense!!」
Watching Heretic lose her mind made it very clear, in the most objective way possible, that my stream setup was absolutely ridiculous.
"Ah... I should shower."
As I peeled off my sweat-soaked skirt and underwear one by one, the corners of my mouth twitched upward.
"What should my first stream be? A gacha stream? Watching the story together? No, no, since it’s my first broadcast I should do something fun."
I thought of the particularly nasty PVP content added in Galaxy Express’s 1.1 update.
"Repaying kindness with betrayal is probably the most entertaining option."
When I thought about which streamer had been the parent-like figure who helped boost Labellehar's recognition all over the internet, there were really only two.
Mallang-i and Lilith.
Those two absolutely knew who I was, and after my last clarification broadcast they’d even uploaded YouTube videos centered on me, showing off the kind of sense for turning drama into views that bordered on alchemy.
If it was them, then even if I tormented them with the Space Station Invasion content, they’d probably take it as a fun prank!