chapter_0002

2 – I’m Quitting, Please Don’t Stop Me

2 – I’m Quitting, Please Don’t Stop Me

I have translated the Korean novel excerpt into English as requested. Here is the complete English translation:

I had to spend some time in front of the mirror.

After muttering to myself for about 30 minutes, I got somewhat used to the cute, childlike voice.

At first, it felt like hearing someone else’s voice from outside, but gradually I could clearly feel it resonating through my skull.

My face?

My hands hadn’t stopped kneading it like rice cakes since earlier.

I couldn’t help it – the texture felt too good.

How many chances would I have in life to touch a face like this?

After an hour of staring blankly in the mirror while feeling my cheeks and various parts of my body, I was finally able to shift my thoughts elsewhere.

How did I become a woman?

Did I catch some disease that turned me into a woman while keeping my identity intact?

Did I move to a world line where everyone perceives me as a woman?

Or did I find out I was reincarnated, living a new life while recalling memories of the past…?

There are various possibilities, but the method of confirmation was surprisingly simple.

“The wallet is… the same.”

The card wallet I used to pay for the taxi yesterday was still sitting in front of the keyboard.

Inside was a single credit card I opened when I became a working adult, along with my resident registration card.

So checking my ID would reveal who I am and how I became a woman.

My heart pounded.

[Majiya (Magic Spider Crow)]

[001122 – 40XXXXX]

The age was the same. The birthdate was the same.

Only one character in the name and the last digits of the resident registration number had changed.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the face that exuded cuteness even in the ID photo for a while. Then I shook my head and picked up my phone.

The model, color, and hastily attached jelly case were all the same.

I opened the phone app and checked the contacts.

“Boss, 1st gen girls, Mom and Dad…”

These were all the same too.

It seemed I had fallen into a world line where I alone had become a woman.

Only then did I look at the clothes rack in the corner of the studio apartment. Instead of the white shirt I usually wore to work, there was a small women’s blouse, and in place of the gray pants was a women’s H-line skirt.

Thinking there was no need to look further, I went back to the mirror and pulled my eyelids up and down.

The most distinctive features were these eyes and my significantly reduced height.

“I didn’t know pupils could be this clear.”

Though I was surprised by the eyes at first, I quickly understood when I recalled that my great-grandfather was an American who participated in the Korean War and ended up settling down here.

He was said to be a soldier with black hair and blue eyes. In fact, a very small number of my relatives had blue eyes like mine now.

It’s not that I looked completely foreign though, probably due to my Asian facial features with little vertical difference and black hair color.

“But… isn’t this height too short?”

I felt at least a hand span shorter than before.

There’s an elf girl named Midori Komari among the 1st gen, and I felt even shorter than her setting of 148cm.

Touching my thin arms that looked like they might snap if someone bumped into me, I wondered if I could properly lift anything.

Though I spend my time at work sitting in an office chair until it’s time to go home, it’s not like I never have to use any strength at all.

So I tried lifting an unopened box of instant rice that was sitting to the side.

Whoosh.

“… I guess this is okay?”

Though I looked like I might break at any moment, my muscles and bones were surprisingly solid.

It did feel a bit more difficult to exert strength than before.

Maybe because I wasn’t very athletic to begin with, I didn’t feel much difference aside from the reduced range of motion.

In the end, my identity was intact.

There was no major disruption to my life.

My connections and company remained the same.

So there shouldn’t be any problem going to work as usual.

Everyone at the company must know me as a woman now.

In the end, I just need to adapt, right?

Even though I suddenly became a woman, as long as the streams I watch with our boss and the VTubers we manage at the company are the same, what I need to do hasn’t changed.

“I should leave a bit earlier today.”

Though there’s no big change mentally, my body is very different, so I need to get used to it or I’ll make mistakes eventually.

As it is, due to the nature of my work, I already go in 7 hours later than others, starting at 3 PM.

If I end up being late even though I walked like usual because my legs are shorter, I’d feel bad for our Parallel employees working hard at their posts.

It’s not like I can say “I was late because my short legs couldn’t move as fast as I wanted.”

So I immediately sent a Ding Talk message to the boss to ask.

I was thinking of stopping by the dollar store on my way if anything was needed.

[Me: Boss]

[Me: Is there anything the office needs?]

Figuring it would take at least 10 minutes for a reply, I put down my phone intending to check after washing up.

Ding.

It was an impossibly fast reply.

[Boss: Not really?]

[Boss: I am out of sticky notes though]

[Boss: But this, I can buy when I go out for lunch later]

[Boss: Rest well and see you later]

He’s even using informal speech.

The boss who never spoke casually to me in our 5 years working together was now addressing me informally like a close younger sibling.

[Me: Ah I need to stop by the dollar store]

[Me: So I was going to buy it on the way]

[Me: Don’t bother during your meal, I’ll bring it]

[Boss: Oh ok]

[Boss: What do you want for dinner tonight?]

Dinner?

Why is he asking about dinner?

[Me: Why dinner?]

[Boss: What’s with you suddenly]

[Boss: You don’t want to eat with me anymore?]

What is he talking about?

When have I ever eaten with the boss?

The last time we ate together was the week after the 1st gen debut early this year.

And it wasn’t even just the two of us – it was a celebration with the four 1st gen members, six people total whose faces we actually knew.

I replied with about ten thousand question marks floating above my head.

[Me: Did we eat dinner together yesterday too?]

Trying to casually gloss over it with the common memory loss tactic, the boss’s replies came pouring in.

[Boss: Jia]

[Boss: Are you sick?]

[Boss: Did you eat something bad after checking Dora’s sound issue yesterday?]

[Boss: Or are you suddenly feeling dizzy?]

That was enough of an answer.

The female me apparently has dinner with the boss every day.

[Me: No no no]

[Me: I was just joking haha]

[Boss: -_-]

[Boss: Are your old troll habits coming out again?]]

[Boss: Anyway, just the sticky notes please]

[Boss: See you later]

[Boss: Be careful on your way to work]

That fact was both interesting and puzzling.

As the boss said, I used to be his toxic viewer, even a sniper.

My nickname was Signal Flare because I would appear as a random teammate in his favorite battle royale game (though his skills never escaped bronze/silver tier) and draw all the aggro I could.

This often left the boss isolated and forced to become floor loot for the swarming enemies. Unable to hold back, he let out a roar of “Signal Flare you son of a bitch!” a few times.

Though he’s an emotionally expressive person, he rarely swore like that, so those clips are still circulating as part of the “Extreme Rage Momo” series.

But you know that famous saying, right?

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

So the boss took the drastic measure of making me his manager.

He said he’d pay me, so instead of causing chaos with my toxic behavior, I should catch other trolls like myself.

And he didn’t just propose this online – he went all in and said we should meet in person to discuss.

That’s how we met through bad blood, and somehow our goals aligned so we ended up working at the same company, but we had always maintained a strange distance.

Now he’s suddenly acting like we’re close friends, so I can’t help but be flustered.

The only difference is that I’ve become a cute girl.

“… Don’t tell me it’s because of that.”

I could understand if he had been constantly monitoring and checking me because of my troll background.

But what if even that wariness disappeared because I’m cute now?

Even when I sniped and trolled the boss, I still carried the games. So the boss, who hates losing, might not have disliked playing with me that much.

Maybe we became this close after laughing and chatting while playing games together a few times.

“So we can play games together…”

Back when Momo only had 30,000 subscribers, I would join to fill out the numbers. But after he passed 100,000, there was no place for me anymore.

But there were two reasons I became a troll:

I enjoyed Momo playing with me, and I also enjoyed helping him win.

So even after Momo became a big company, I kept trying to snipe using alt accounts and borrowing friends’ IDs. Though he didn’t know it was me, I was still continuing my toxic behavior.

The problem was that it was getting harder to snipe as I had to get through needle-sized stream snipe openings and diversify my patterns to avoid being discovered.

But if we’re friends who even eat dinner together, is there any need to snipe?

I could just openly ask to play games together.

… ─ Momo (VTuber) Gallery ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ …

[What’s Signal Flare up to these days?]

He’s still gaming as usual

But strangely not sniping Momo

It was really hilarious when that bastard sniped Momo for a whole week straight

[Comments]

— MongMong001: Did he switch to someone else?

– MongMong050: Signal Flare is a hardcore Momo simp, he’d never switch ㅋㅋ

— MongMong091: There was a rumor before that he became a manager

–
MongMong005: Was that true?

–
MongMong005: I thought it was just typical nonsense from a random commenter

–
MongMong122: No way he’s a manager

–
MongMong122: If he was, he would’ve shown his face during the Momo Family content ages ago

–
MongMong801: Maybe he participated but wasn’t introduced?

–
MongMong801: Would you be able to proudly introduce yourself as a former troll? ㅋㅋ

–
MongMong801: I couldn’t

–
MongMong122: Why not?

–
MongMong122: Don’t trolls like getting attention?

– MongMong369: You can’t snipe forever ㅋㅋ

… ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ …

In the evening.

While waiting for Momo to come down from the office building, I browsed the gallery and found people curious about my news.

I left one comment.

Saying I was planning to graduate from being a sniper.

If I’m friends with the boss, I can play games with him anytime, so there’s no need to snipe to tease and joke around.

So, full of anticipation, I ran up to the boss as soon as he walked out of the elevator and asked:

“Boss. Wanna play Battle Call after today’s content?”

The boss replied nonchalantly.

With the face of a weary working adult.

“Sorry. My schedule is packed until two months from now.”

Aren’t we friends?

Or is work more important than friends?

My expectations crumbled in an instant, and the shock was immense.

In the end, for a moment my instincts overtook reason and my inner troll burst out on its own.

“Boss. I want to quit.”

Author’s Note (Afterword)

How could I make such a mistake