chapter_0136

136 – From a Distance, It’s a Tragedy; Up Close, It’s a Comedy (2)

136 – From a Distance, It’s a Tragedy; Up Close, It’s a Comedy (2)

Here is the English translation:

The difficulty level of the question that could be guessed from the provided hint was roughly apparent from looking at the chat.

[— Kkeung…]

— LMAO

— Is this correct?

— Ah haha when she’s bored she goes “kkeung…kkeung…” and you give this as a hint haha

— Where’s that “kkeung” from?

— I really have no idea haha

However, it wasn’t a very difficult question for Majiya.

Maru has three types of screams in total.

Usually the intensity varies depending on how surprised she is.

It starts with a gasp.

From there, it changes slightly in stages.

In the most intense case, it ends with “—ack” with the end raised all the way up.

If represented with an arrow, it’s like this: ‘↗’

The next intensity level is like the hint we just heard.

Not a full scream, but when she’s too startled to speak properly.

“It sounds like she was trying to say ‘don’t be ridiculous’ but started with ‘wukkeung…’ like a scream. If I remember correctly, there are about five games where she screamed like this.”

Maru, startled by those words, said:

“Uh… game? How can you be sure it’s a game? It could be something else.”

“As far as I know, she’s never screamed like this outside of games.”

— ?

— Really?

— How do you know that haha

— Crazy akgwi* lol

*Akgwi: Obsessive fan

Majiya muttered while searching her memory database:

“Judging by the volume, it seems to be from the day she adjusted her mic volume for a group collab and then streamed with those settings. She usually reverts to her original settings within two days, so if we narrow it down to the days she did collabs two days prior, there are only two days left…”

“No, uh…”

— Hahahahahaha

— I’m scared…

— I know exactly what’s happening, she’s using her search chance right now, right?

“Please don’t accuse me falsely. Mapago is working hard searching inside my head.”

— You can do this much without searching??

— No way

— You’re not human!!

— Majiya AI theory finally revealed lol

Even as viewers protested that this was impossible, Majiya’s deduction didn’t stop.

“I’m a bit unsure since it’s less than a second long. But if you listen carefully to the background sound, it sounds like zombies. Going ‘urrrgh’.”

Maru wanted to keep her mouth shut to check Majiya, who was rapidly approaching the correct answer at an insane speed. But that didn’t change the outcome.

“The answer is Pandemic Z, which we played last summer. It’s difficult, but solvable.”

Maru muttered with a dumbfounded expression.

“You’re right…. But you guessed, right? You just guessed? All that thinking hard just now was just an act? Right?”

— Be honest!!!! You searched, didn’t you?!!!!

— Don’t tell me Maru leaked the answer too? lol

— As expected, Matube is the leak

“The Woldeungis are saying you leaked the answer?”

“No! Please say something that makes sense, guys!! Why would I leak the answer when I have to play a horror game if I lose?! And if Jia tried to search, we would have stopped her. She’s right next to us…”

— That’s true

OTNXSU9XcTFURXdtd0tweHpoait4akVEQVJoTmMrTm16VjVSWTNEeEJiU3hCclNTWWU0WmxuWTFiUWRLaFE2OA

— Haha sorry

— This was a false accusation, I admit

— If you feel wronged, you should leak less, right?

“Hehe they’re saying sorry. Yeah yeah, I’m sorry for leaking often… No, wait! You guys were happy when I leaked before!!”

— Don’t know~

— I don’t know!

— Those were bad Woldeungis, we’re good Woldeungis so we don’t know

There was a brief incident where Majiya’s innocence was doubted, but it was suppressed by Maru.

Anyway, now that this has happened, everyone is thinking:

What’s going on?

The question difficulty was clearly terrible.

How did she get it so easily?

There are still three questions left, but at this rate, won’t Majiya win?

…Then she won’t do the relay collab with the members?

The 1st gen group horror game will be fun.

Seeing this, even the Majiya Concrete who were conscious of Majiya’s graduation had their thoughts change a little.

Were we worrying too much?

No matter how you look at it, there were signs of graduation, but was that an overreaction too?

However, it’s still unknown.

Usually, major events like graduation are never discussed during broadcasts.

They need to hold onto Majiya without letting their guard down until the end of today’s broadcast.

— As expected of the Great Jiya

— She’s truly a role model for Paelfriends

— Woldeungis should learn from Majiya

Always saying she doesn’t stream, when will she debut, she never listens to us.

The Majiya Concrete, who usually teetered between being blocked and surviving with such words, were saying only warm things today, making the chat atmosphere cozy.

Even other fans noticed, saying ‘the chat is less spicy than usual today’.

Of course, it could have just been that Maru’s quiz was easy.

Seeing the difficulty of Komari’s next quiz, they couldn’t help but tense up again.

“Then here’s the next question. Since I made it, listen carefully, unnie.”

“Let’s see.”

[—sae—]

There’s almost no background sound to use as a hint.

It’s not a scream like Maru’s either.

A short hint that really seems like the middle of a sentence was cut out.

— ?

— ??

— Haha

— ?

— No, this isn’t a hint given to be solved haha

— Don’t you know what’s reasonable?

— She must have really gritted her teeth for this hint haha

— At this point, you might as well just do the relay collab haha

The general opinion was that this would be impossible even for Majiya, who had just sharply solved Maru’s question.

Even Komari, who gave the question, was confident.

“Maru unnie’s question was a bit easy, right? I couldn’t lose easily, so I prepared something much harder.”

However, Majiya, who had been quiet until then, caused a big ripple in the calm lake-like atmosphere with just one sentence:

“The intonation is exactly like when cursing. The ‘sae’ from ‘ssipsae-ya’.”

First, Komari was dumbfounded upon hearing that.

Maru didn’t stay quiet.

“I told you. That it’s too easy!”

“Ah, no. It’s not easy! Even if you know this, huh? It’s not like I’ve only cursed once or twice!”

“You’re really bragging.”

“Oh come on. Unnie, shh. If we give hints, we have to play horror games, remember?”

“…Ah, sorry about that.”

— Hahaha

— Trying to do a team kill haha

— If it’s Maru, she’d leak hints too haha

But as Komari said, the reason this question is difficult is because her cursing frequency is extremely high.

Unlike Maru’s “kkeung” sound which could be compressed into just a few cases.

If we count the days Komari said “ssipsae”, it’s almost half of all her streaming days.

It’s just one day out of nearly 200 days of streaming.

This is truly like finding a needle in a haystack without a magnet.

Compared to Maru, who left some room thinking “surely she won’t get it”, this was a truly malicious question made with determination.

However, not all “ssipsae” are the same.

“After listening a few more times, the tone is about level 5 anger to minor anger.”

“…What?”

— Huh?

— How on earth do you figure that out haha

— Hahahahahahaha

— Are you crazy?

— You really are an AI, huh?

— High-class curse analysis broadcast haha

“Please don’t call me AI, everyone listen carefully too. Even Mari’s ‘ssipsae’ sounds slightly different from extreme anger to minor anger. For example, this hint’s level is minor anger, and that sound is fixed.”

— I don’t know because I didn’t major in music!

— Majiya maji sugoi*

*Japanese: Majiya really amazing

— Anyway, there’s a fixed sound, right

— How can you know that…?

Ignoring the dumbfounded reactions of the viewers, Majiya’s analysis continued.

“For Komari to curse in a minor anger state, there are about two conditions that need to be met. First, you need to win at least 3 games in a row in ranked that day. And in that state, someone needs to send a pretty bad malicious chat or donation…

There are so many trolls in your room that the manager’s cutting speed is really fast. The fact that the blocking was slow enough for you to react means it was late at night. The manager was tired too… around 5 AM or later.”

“…Ah. No.”

“In my memory, there are only a few days when you streamed past 5 AM in a minor anger state. I can faintly hear the ‘whoosh’ sound of normal attacks in the background. I don’t know the name, but I remember it wasn’t a champion you use often. So if I narrow it down…”

Everyone was focused on Majiya.

If she got it right, this would be a record worthy of making history in internet broadcasting.

That’s how insane the difficulty of this question was.

Even Komari, who gave the question, couldn’t be sure of the result…

“I think I even know the date. It’s the Hangul Day Naore broadcast, right? You used a Korean champion. That fox-like champion, what was its name?”

Komari answered with a hollow laugh.

“Ahri… That’s correct…”

— Crazy hahahahaha

— No way haha

— Hahahahahahaha

— This is insane, right? haha

— This has to be staged hahaha

— Be honest, you already knew the answer!!!!

— How is this possible???

Before viewers could go find the answer, Komari showed the correct video clip first.

In the screen, Komari says while controlling a character with fox tails:

[Yeah, keep falsely accusing me, you ssipsaes. I’m going to win this round too, get my 5th win in a row, and then sleep soundly~. Idiots.]

It was exactly as Majiya had said.

“Really… are you crazy? How do you get this?”

“I hope you don’t forget that I’ve been watching your broadcasts 365 days a year. Ah, of course, I haven’t been able to watch everything recently because I’ve been busy. I was able to know this because it was still when I could watch all the broadcasts.”

In any case, with this, Majiya got closer to victory by solving two questions.

She even dared to provoke:

“The questions are difficult, but not to the point where I can’t solve them, you know? Are Dora and Rain’s questions similar in difficulty?”

“No? They’re even harder.”

“You just activated my trap card.”

“You mean they’re even harder? That sounds fun. I was about to be disappointed if the difficulty was similar.”

“”….””

— I’m scared……

— She knows everything about the 1st gen haha

— This is madness lol

Maru and Komari wanted to ask where exactly was this easy difficulty, but.

Since Majiya had already solved two questions correctly, that was impossible.

They were properly scratched, and had to admit they had underestimated Majiya.

‘Since we’re doing this…’

A fire should be put out completely in one go when extinguishing it.

If you leave it ambiguously, embers often flare up again.

So, very exceptionally, Majiya spoke up first with this:

“Everyone, would it be okay if I join the horror game collab too?”

— ?

— Huh?

— What?

The members had no reason to refuse.

Although this content itself was a proposal to resolve rumors of discord.

The relay collab that was set as a penalty was something they really wanted to do.

However, after setting the bet assuming they would win, and even losing.

They felt awkward about making the busy Majiya squeeze out time forcibly.

Since everyone couldn’t help but hesitate.

In that situation, Majiya had no choice but to speak once more.

“We don’t know when we’ll be able to play games all together like this again if not now, right?”

She meant that while she could take on the role of content host again under Cheon Do-hee’s instructions like today, opportunities for all five of them to play games together wouldn’t come easily.

After all, Majiya isn’t the type to like squeezing in between members unless there’s a clear reason like this time.

However, that intention was misinterpreted, and hit the Majiya Concrete, who had been anxious all day and just barely felt relieved, like a third wave.

‘We don’t know when we can do this again’. Depending on how it’s interpreted, this sounded like something someone who doesn’t know when they’ll leave would say.

— Come on, there will be other chances haha

— It’s not like this is the only time haha

— You’re talking like someone who will never do this again haha

If graduation talk that wasn’t officially announced wasn’t a ban reason, Majiya’s fans wouldn’t have had to speak in roundabout ways like this.

Even if it wasn’t a ban reason, there probably wouldn’t have been any suitable method other than quietly swallowing their depression.

Although she occasionally appeared on members’ broadcasts with her avatar, she was still an ordinary person who had never officially debuted.

–

Of course, it wasn’t just Majiya’s fandom that was swayed by her graduation hints.

There were also people who didn’t know much about VTubers, but knew Majiya.

Among them, there was exactly one person.

Who could immediately contact an acquaintance to resolve their curiosity as soon as they caught wind of Majiya’s graduation hints.

And so, one phone call came to Do-hee, who was in the middle of monitoring the broadcast.

[Don’t let Majiya go. As a black company CEO, you should firmly control her. Why can’t you do even that? You’re not qualified to be a CEO.]

Although the voice was distorted to give a suspicious feeling, the caller didn’t even try to hide their phone number.

Cheon Do-hee said, barely holding back laughter:

“Lee Dong-geon. Turn off the voice distortion and call again.”

[…I’m not Dong-geon though.]

“At least hide your phone number, you idiot. The ‘Mugeon’ text is too clear.”

Sure enough, Mugeon soon returned with a familiar voice and clicked his tongue.

[I forgot to restrict caller ID.]

“This isn’t just being stupid…”

Do-hee muttered, unable to hold back her laughter.

“So, you’ve made Majiya your favorite instead of the 1st gen?”

[No. Nothing like that.]

“Yeah right. That reaction just now can only come from Jia’s hardcore fandom. Do you perhaps also participate in Majiya’s mini gallery?”

[I don’t. Nothing like that.]

“Okay, I heard your self-introduction well. Why. Do you want to know the truth?”

[Of course. Is Majiya quitting? Graduating? What’s going on?]

Honestly, it’s a question that doesn’t matter to answer unless asked if it’s Fan_C.

However, Cheon Do-hee grinned.

This was a golden opportunity that Majiya had created.

After all, even though Mugeon had become a Virtual Youtuber, he was still one of those ordinary people who were somewhat distant from subculture.

His fanbase doesn’t blindly follow and watch Parallel broadcasts just because Mugeon is often involved with Virtual Youtubers.

However, even they could become potential customers of Parallel’s music.

Even if they don’t watch the live streams, they can provide enough support for the success of the music, especially on YouTube, not just the live streams.

“You often make short-form videos like clutch plays, right? Put our new song in there.”

[Wow… you’re a bit mean, aren’t you? That’s super expensive.]

“So? Don’t you want to hear the truth? Fine, forget it.”

Mugeon grumbled.

[When did I say I wouldn’t do it? I just said it’s expensive. Wait a week. I’ll make something so cool that people will go crazy.]

A word from the author (Author’s Afterword)

Uddya Ddya Utta Ya