The Villainess VTuber Tears People Apart

“A VTuber, not a streamer? It’s because of the vibe.”

Anna said as she sat next to me.

“Vibe? Isn’t there not much difference in content between a streamer and a VTuber?”

“It’s like saying you should use a muscular man instead of a pretty girl in a pretty girl gacha game. Whether it’s a pretty girl or a muscular man, it doesn’t make any difference in the gameplay, right? But consumers don’t just look at gameplay; they think the vibe is important too.”

“I see.”

I nodded.

Having played various games up to now, Anna’s analogy resonated with me.

“In my case, I liked anime since I was young. But when I couldn’t find anything to watch, I eventually started watching VTubers. Then I got interested and became a VTuber.”

“Come to think of it, Rion seemed to like anime too.”

“Isn’t it likely that the reasons people become VTubers are somewhat similar? You need to have a fondness for subculture to be a VTuber.”

Anna shrugged her shoulders.

“In the end, the ones watching VTubers are nerds like me. And most of them are men, the complete opposite gender. It’s a job where understanding their vibe is important.”

“The vibe….”

That wasn’t difficult for me.

No one could understand a man’s vibe better than I could, and I was once called an unparalleled beauty among the noblewomen of the ducal families.

But it seemed like being a VTuber required another reason.

“Oh, it started.”

The monitor, which had only shown a thumbnail, started to change.

Along with a soft BGM, the words ‘Now Loading…’ appeared. That must be the stream preparation screen.

I was currently watching a VTuber broadcast with Anna.

-“There’s a VTuber I really like. She usually stream at 11 PM, but today, she suddenly changed the schedule to 8 PM.”

-“It’s a VTuber who’s been active for seven years. And in those seven years, I’ve almost never missed one of his streams…!”

-“Oh, would you like to watch with me, Teacher? She’s really fun!”

A VTuber stream that she would skip training to watch. On top of that, a VTuber she had been following for seven years—it was naturally intriguing.

And it was a good chance to learn what the VTuber job was about.

So, I decided to cancel today’s training and watch it with Anna.

“Oh, it started!”

[ちょっとまってね…。]

“Isn’t that Japanese?”

“Yes, it’s Japanese. Why?”

“I thought it was a Korean VTuber.”

“There’s no Korean VTuber who’s been around for seven years. Teacher, you don’t understand Japanese?”

“Not very well.”

“Ha, this is why newbies…. The real experience is listening to it in Japanese… just a moment, I’ll change the settings.”

Anna fiddled with the settings, and the voice on the screen changed.

[Ah ah, how’s my voice? Is the BGM too low? Just a moment….]

“I used a translation feature. Now you can hear it in Korean, right?”

“Translation? It sounds surprisingly clean for that.”

“It’s possible because of VR. Data processing speed is extremely fast in VR.”

And since voice in VR is also a type of data, analyzing and translating it into Korean wasn’t too difficult.

“So in VR, the boundaries between countries are particularly thin. Real-time language translation happens seamlessly.”

[How is it, everyone? Is this good? Just right?]

The VTuber on the screen chuckled.

The voice was quite young, and the modeling matched, looking like a middle schooler.

But she probably weren’t actually a middle schooler. According to Anna, the VTuber had been active for seven years, so she couldn’t be that young.

Besides, the things she was saying:

[Remember I stayed at a hotel because of an event yesterday? It’s a good idea to bring your own drinks when you go to a hotel. For those who’ve been to a hotel, you know the water there is really expensive.

I was really thirsty last night, but the water was so pricey that I didn’t want to spend money on it. But you know, there’s a place in hotels where you can get ice for free?

Rui filled a cup with ice from there and left it on the table. After showering and sleeping, I woke up to find it all melted. So I drank that.]

…It was quite a petty story.

Glancing to the side, Anna was grinning happily, as if just hearing the voice was enough for her.

“Ah, so cute…. Hehe….”

“Don’t laugh so frivolously. It’s a bit off-putting.”

“Teacher, being off-putting is the default for otakus.”

Is… that so?

Since Anna said it with such confidence, it felt like it might be true. Even as a noblewoman, it was difficult to argue against.

Anyway, it seemed that Anna really liked that VTuber, as she couldn’t take her eyes off the screen.

I… wasn’t sure if it was interesting.

Since the stream was filled with personal stories, it was hard for me, who didn’t know the VTuber, to find it entertaining.

It would have been nice if Anna explained about the VTuber,

‘For some reason, I don’t feel like asking for an explanation….’

For now, Anna seemed completely absorbed in watching that VTuber.

And if I rashly asked for an explanation, I’d probably be bombarded with an extremely long story. …Otakus especially love explaining things.

Having no other choice, I discreetly opened another screen to lightly research that VTuber.

‘So the name is Hanabane Rui.’

A VTuber affiliated with a Japanese company called ‘Ink Palette.’

With 400,000 subscribers, Rui had the most followers within ‘Ink Palette.’

The VTuber’s setting was that they were usually a middle school library committee member, but in reality, they were the leader of an armed organization called ‘Rui Cartel’… quite a bizarre setting.

[I’ve been chatting for too long because it’s fun. I started this stream to play Labyrinthos today.]

Thump.

With a light sound effect, the broadcast screen changed.

[I couldn’t play Labyrinthos for the past few days because of events. So I’ve been itching to play~.]

[There’s also a tournament, right? I think they might hold another tournament this year too? Last year’s was well-received.]

[People also said I haven’t done viewer participation for a while. How long has it been? It’s been a year? No way~.]

[The password is six digits, I’ll only tell you the first four~. 2408 blank blank. 2408 blank blank. …Wow, someone’s already joined.]

A custom room was created, and it quickly filled up.

From the subscriber count, it was clear Rui was quite popular. Rion had around 10,000 subscribers, and Anna had about 40,000.

And in addition, her rank was also impressive.

‘Diamond, huh. Higher than I expected.’

Soon, the game started, and Rui locked in as ‘Puppeteer.’

Puppeteer was known as a very difficult character in Labyrinthos, but perhaps because Louie had been maining Puppeteer from the beginning, she played quite smoothly.

“Was that the person you wanted to meet at the tournament?”

Suddenly, I remembered a conversation I had with Anna before.

“Ah, yes. That’s right…. How did you know?”

“Wouldn’t it be strange if I didn’t notice?”

“That’s true….”

Anna hugged her knees.

“As you can see, Rui is a Japanese VTuber, right? And she do a lot of offline events too, but it’s hard to participate in all of them unless you’re a local.”

“Do VTubers also participate in offline events?”

“Popular VTubers do quite a lot. Like collaboration cafes, handshake events, concerts.”

“Hmm…?”

A handshake event? But they’re a VTuber, how do they shake hands…?

I didn’t understand, but I nodded for now.

“I’ve thought about meeting her once, but I keep failing in the lottery. But Louie participates in the Streamer League every year…. So I thought maybe if I joined the tournament, I could meet her.”

“It’s hard for me to understand. Why do you want to meet her?”

“Isn’t it natural for a fan to feel that way…?”

Anna made a somewhat self-deprecating face.

“Rui has two dogs. I know the names of Rui’s dogs, and I also know Rui’s family situation. Because she told us all of it on her stream.”

“…….”

“You know, Teacher. I don’t have many people I can call friends. So besides my family, Rui is the person I know best in this world.”

“But can you really say the persona on the stream is entirely truthful?”

“No one can keep lying all the time. It’s tiring to always put on a façade.”

That’s what Anna said.

With that one sentence, I felt like I understood a lot of things.

Why Anna became a VTuber. What the job of a VTuber was like.

Why Anna wanted to be good at Labyrinthos. And what Anna was trying to achieve.

“Anna, go ahead and participate in the viewer match.”

After thinking about various things, I said.

“Really? I was actually debating whether I should join or not. I want to play with Rui…, but since you’re here, Teacher, I thought it might be rude to leave you and join… Ah, would you like to join too, Teacher?”

“Of course, I’ll participate. As an enemy.”

“…Huh?”

“Anna.”

Anna blinked at my words.

I smiled slightly.

“Let’s go kill Rui together.”