I May Be a Virtual Youtuber, but I Still Go to Work

[PIN0: RELEASE STAFF-DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII]

For a moment, Do-hee wondered if this person was also part of the notorious spam mail brigade, but she calmly replied.

[Me: This is Pino, right?]
[Me: You haven’t been hacked, have you?]

[PIN0: I’m on my third can of Predator White. I have one project I need to finish today, another due this week, and three more due next month. Please save me. MiMax is trying to kill me.]

Judging by the way he was talking, he was still sane.

Even if he was barely holding it together because of the sheer amount of work.

[Me: You have debts to pay, don’t you?]
[Me: Gotta work hard, what else can you do?]

[PIN0: KYAAAAAAAH]
[PIN0: SO UNFAIR SO UNFAIR SO UNFAIR SO UNFAR SO UNFAHR SO UNAFR]
[Me: Please calm down…]

The amazing thing about Pino was that even in a state like this, his rigging quality never dropped.

Some people claimed that once you reached a certain skill level, rigging was just a mindless, mechanical grind.

But if you really approached it like a grind, it’d be impossible to add those little unique motions that matched a character’s personality and traits.

The rig Pino sent of Magia was flawless for the amount of time he had put in.

A smug smirk with one corner of the lips lifted, an awkward smile, a shadow darkening her face as if she had just seen something horrifying…

It was so accurate that it felt like he had seen Magia in real life.

…Though, knowing her, she probably wouldn’t even use half of the cuter expressions he made.

[Me: I’ll send you the commission request form.]
[Me: You don’t have to rush. Take your time with the work.]

[PIN0: I’ll finish it within a week.]
[PIN0: Staff-D must come to life. That is my one and only mission.]

That’s when Cheon Do-hee came to a realization.

This guy… had made another bad investment.

“He’s really the last person who should be putting money into anything…”

4.5 million won lost in stock investments.
3.5 million won lost in crypto investments.

Luckily, he had managed to borrow money from his family to pay off his debts, but even now, he was still barely scraping by.

And now, of all things, the new coin he was betting on was Magia.

[Me: I’ll send the request form first thing tomorrow.]
[PIN0: Holding my breath. Huuuup.]

At least, aside from his terrible investment choices, he was a pretty normal guy, and his unique preferences were strictly limited to 2D characters.

If she handled this well, she might be able to secure an external contract for the second-generation VTubers without much trouble.

Back when they commissioned Komari’s rig, the dynamic had been completely different.

It really was Magia magic at work.

But the real concern was the inevitable escalation of the Magia Fanatics’ aggression.

Just from revealing the rig alone, they had already received a thousand emails.

If they actually showed Magia moving?

She might have to hire someone just to clean out her inbox.

“…First things first, I need to find a replacement for Gia.”

There were plenty of ideas for how to utilize Gia moving forward.

But for now, the priority was hiring someone to take some of Magia’s workload off her shoulders.

* * *

There was no big incident where Komari and I shared a bed, which I’m sure plenty of leaves had been hoping for.

Komari absolutely hated sleeping next to someone, and personally, it felt weird to share a blanket with someone like a little sister.

Still, she didn’t want to sleep alone, so she laid out a futon on the floor next to my bed.

She seemed like she wanted to start some kind of girls’ talk after mentioning she had watched part of my stream earlier and was impressed… but then she just knocked out.

Even though I usually stayed up until four or five in the morning, I passed out around three.

I thought participating in Mugeon’s stream wouldn’t be a big deal.

Maybe I was more nervous than I had realized.

I woke up around 10 AM, leaving the still-sleeping Komari behind and rushing home.

I needed to get ready for work and catch up on yesterday’s streams.

But more than anything, I wanted to check what had happened in the forums after I fell asleep.

— Parallel Staff-D Mini Gallery —

[Was the one who sniped Mugeon really Staff-D?]

That guy said he’d reveal himself in 60 hours.

[Did some digging.] - Source: Mugeon (Internet Broadcaster) Gallery

No matter how you look at it, the only person who could shoot that well inside a smokescreen is Flare Gun.

They were probably stirring up attention before revealing the rig.

Not accepting any counterarguments.

[Comments]
— Staff-D901: But doesn’t it seem like they won’t debut?
ㄴ Staff-D345: Take that back immediately.
ㄴ Staff-D901: No, think about it.
ㄴ Staff-D901: If they were really planning on debuting as a 1.5th-gen VTuber, they’d have done a proper presentation and a whole announcement stream.
ㄴ Staff-D901: This was literally just “Here, take this model and go have fun.”
ㄴ Staff-D742: Hmm, when you put it that way…

ㄴ Staff-D414: I got it. I figured it out.
ㄴ Staff-D414: Momo’s testing her.
ㄴ Staff-D414: Everyone already knows Staff-D’s talent—rapping, impressions, Battle Call sniping.
ㄴ Staff-D414: But if they debut her right away, people will say it’s favoritism or nepotism.

ㄴ Staff-D095: But if that was the case, why did she tell people not to pressure her?
ㄴ Staff-D414: That’s the point.
ㄴ Staff-D414: If you tell people not to do something, they’ll want to do it even more. What was that called again? The Streisand effect?
ㄴ Staff-D002: Streisand effect.

ㄴ Staff-D735: What the hell is this sophisticated discussion?
ㄴ Staff-D811: This isn’t the Momo fandom I remember…

— Parallel Staff-D Mini Gallery —

[Wasting energy on pointless things again.]
[Author: Staff-D368]

You can tell just by the way Staff-D talks.

They are never going to debut.

Waiting for the second-gen talents to debut would be faster than waiting for Staff-D.

(Upvotes: 0 / Downvotes: 34)

[Comments]
— Staff-D835: You’re Staff-D, aren’t you?
— Staff-D921: Staff-D caught posting anonymously at home, arrested on the spot. ㄷㄷ
— 🟧 Staff-D1: Hmm…

Ever since that promo stream, the number of people looking for Staff-D had skyrocketed.

And as a bonus, I’d somehow gotten caught up in a misunderstanding.

Like hell I’d be the one writing posts like that.

Sure, I’d made plenty of posts on Momo’s gallery with titles like:

• "Momo Shower Special Today ㄷㄷ"
• "Momo says: Moe Moe Kyun~"
• "If there’s no stream tomorrow, I’m setting other forums on fire."

But those were all strictly related to the CEO.

After all, if people kept bringing her up, the memes would stay alive, and even the lurkers who only browsed the gallery without watching streams would eventually get curious and tune in.

In other words, if I chimed in on all this Staff-D speculation, all it would do is make even more people start looking for me. So the best course of action was to keep my mouth shut.

Never forget.

The power of noise marketing—
Of course, spamming outright hate posts or low-effort garbage would just get me banned, so that was an exception.

…Hmm.

Still, staying completely silent was getting a little boring.

Maybe I should write something.

— Parallel Staff-D Mini Gallery —

[Guys, I figured out the magic spell to summon Staff-D. LOL.]
[Author: Staff-D369]

First, open any first-gen VTuber’s stream.

Then, keep sending the same message using the 1,000-won Punch:

"Holding my breath until Staff-D appears. Huuuup."

If you punch a thousand times, Staff-D will appear.

100% real.

[Comments]
— Staff-D301: Staff-D evaluation: Hmm.
— Staff-D500: There’s no way anyone’s actually doing this, right?
— Staff-D003: LOL.

At first glance, it looked like some random nonsense someone just threw together.

But this was actually a great way to catch certain problematic users.

Set a trap, and there were always idiots who’d walk straight into it.

I wanted to hit them with a full-year ban, but that felt a little too cruel, so I just told the managers to hand out one-week bans instead.

* * *

A few days later, on the day I was supposed to go to a PC café with the boss.

The first fool had taken the bait in the trap I set on the gallery.

[Komari’s chat moderator 1: Someone sent the same 1,000-won Punch message every five seconds, thirty times in a row, so I hit them with a one-week ban…]
[Komari’s chat moderator 1: But they seem like a well-known person.]
[Komari’s chat moderator 1: I’ll leave the rest to you, Chief.]
[Me: Got it.]

Sending that kind of message every five seconds… that wasn’t just a troublemaker.

A well-known person?

Normally, I wouldn’t even care, but the mention of a famous name piqued my curiosity.

Click.

I logged in using the main moderation account.

Then I checked the ban list… and when I saw the username, I blinked.

[Global Ban (7 days) - pin0_live2d]
(Click here to see the full list of banned channels.)

Could be an impersonator.

But usually, no one bothers copying a rigger’s ID.

Compared to illustrators, riggers weren’t as well-known to the public, and there wasn’t much to gain from impersonating one.

Still, I needed to confirm.

I opened the Parallel Integrated Fan Café and checked the "Jail" section.

There it was.

A fresh post from early this morning.

The account’s ID? pin0_live2d.

The fan café username? pin0_live2d.

Just in case, I checked Z’s profile as well…

PIN0☑ @pin0_live2d – 2 hours ago
"The world has stopped."