Chapter 11
"Ugh...."
I returned to my medium-sized one-room apartment with a heavy sigh and tossed and turned aimlessly. I didn't even have the motivation to tidy the room.
[Mana Manipulation]
-Consumes mana according to her will to enhance something.
-Mana continuously decreases during casting according to the amount consumed.
The skill I got was this, but... I could consume a certain amount of mana all at once to enhance a particular part, or something like that. The mana consumption was so extreme that I wondered whether it was possible only because my entire body was made of mana. Should I say it felt like all the mana rushed toward one spot whenever I moved?
After practicing it diligently, I was able to change my clothes.
Until now, I hadn't given it much thought, but Wakamo's outfit was completely fixed.
Wakamo, clothes and all.
In other words, even her clothes were part of her body.
With [Mana Manipulation], I could change my appearance to some extent, though the mana consumption was enormous. If that was possible, didn't it mean I could mold and change my entire body in reverse? But judging by how much mana it consumed just to change one outfit, I figured it would be better not to.
Click, click─
For now, I uploaded the edited video to the channel.
Clips were already circulating everywhere, so anyone who wanted to watch had probably seen it already, but shouldn't I still upload the video to my own channel?
I thought I'd come up with a channel title and change it someday, so I left it as [Wakamo Inarizushi]. After uploading 【The Fox God Climbing the Tower】, which could fairly be called my first video, I opened the community page. My subscribers had increased quite a bit, so their reactions came more quickly than expected.
[Author : Believer No. 1]
[Title : The video is up!!!]
(A meme of a monkey screaming).
The boss who was climbing the back Tower has uploaded a video, believers!!!
Did you see it? It's fucking awesome (haven't watched it yet). I hope there isn't some tone-deaf bastard posting stuff like that.
It's just fucking awesome. Five years of experience as a clipper don't disappearㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Is it really that amazing?
-Wow~ So this is VTubing(?) Amazing.
-She edits videos insanely well, so why does she live like a caveman??
-Maybe because she's a beast by birth??
-Why, isn't she a fox (disappointed).
As you know, the first video I uploaded didn't have any particularly good lines, so I didn't bother adding any dialogue.
I laid suitably serious music over it as background, took a portion from another video filmed at the Incheon Tower, and inserted it. Soon, it showed the scenery inside the Tower. Viewers would marvel that the first floor they had only heard about was truly another world, while Climbers ascending the Tower would look back on it with the nostalgia of remembering how things were then.
Unless one conquered a Tower, no other Tower could be challenged, so quite a lot of Climbers were trapped in a single Tower.
Taking even those people into account, I showed plenty of scenery, and before long, an [Oil Slime], a bouncing lump of oil, appeared. A monster of the slime variety. The mere fact that something resembling a liquid monster possessed a will and moved on its own would be fascinating to viewers.
Ten years had passed since the Towers appeared. There were plenty of photographs and records of monsters that had emerged from the Towers, but few people would have had the chance to see one moving so vividly up close.
And in a documentary-like video that seemed as though it would show the utterly peaceful daily routine of a slime, a sudden intruder barged in.
Crunch!!
Bare feet ruthlessly stomped and crushed the slime. As the camera panned up, it showed the back of a black-haired woman with fox ears, dressed in traditional clothing fit for a historical drama.
Then it showed [Horn Bunny] and [Angry Boar], and as their charging forms overlapped with the scene, [Feral Deer] burst into view.
The screen changed again, showing the Fox God striking stones together and carving them down before a burning campfire, then using materials nearby to make a weapon. It showed her hunting the [Horn Bunny] with that weapon and smashing the [Angry Boar], before the [Feral Deer] appeared reflected in the fragments of the weapon as it shattered to pieces.
Since it was stone, there was no way it could have reflected anything, so naturally, it was just a staged effect.
What unfolded next was the Fox God grabbing the antlers of a giant deer charging at her and splitting its head with a knife-hand strike.
As the Fox God advanced with only her bare hands and feet and no weapon, a [Killer Ankole Watusi] charged at her with a roar. Its giant bull horns broke and its head crumpled as it collapsed, and then the Fox God appeared again in front of the campfire, tearing into the meat she had hunted.
The vivid red blood flowing from her chin down to her chest looked eerie at first glance, but it possessed a strangely exciting allure.
The viewers knew everything up to this point. That was why they watched the time remaining on the video and waited expectantly.
Clatter, clatter─
What emerged was a real undead! The most commonplace skeleton, something seen only in movies or comics! But they knew. What kinds of incidents had occurred amid the Tower's collapse over the past ten years? A bite from that rusty sword with a missing tooth could kill someone through tetanus, and although rare, there had been people who died after being chased by tireless skeletons.
It was difficult to make out because it was completely black, as though blending into the darkness, but soon the torchlight of the abandoned mine illuminated the Fox God, and she beckoned.
The undead, which should have had no intelligence, charged with a roar and swung its sword. She caught it with a knife-hand, twisted its wrist, and snapped it.
A clean, no-frills blade catch. Then, with a movement large enough for viewers to understand, the skeleton raised its shield, but an upward kick sent the skeleton, shield and all, crumpling into the ceiling.
Even in the unbalanced pose of letting both arms hang limp while one leg stood in a perfectly straight line above her head, the Fox God did not waver in the slightest.
Splash.
When she lowered her foot, the sound that came was the slosh of water.
And what appeared in front of her was a monster of the [Frog] variety, said to occasionally emerge from rivers and drown people. It immediately shot out its tongue and wrapped it around the Fox God's arm. The Frog Fighter grinned with disturbingly sly eyes and twisted its head, trying to pull her in, but the taut tongue did not move even slightly.
What appeared immediately afterward was nothing but the black shadow that burst apart with a boom when the Fox God pulled the Frog Fighter toward her with all her strength and threw a single punch.
Along with a sight that looked as though it were smashing through the darkness, a [Corrupted Dwarf Gunner] stood aiming its muzzle at the Fox God, who had already unfurled a golden thread in her hand.
When charging in immediately still would not have been enough, a real gunshot rang out─bang!─and a bullet shot toward the standing Fox God. The fan that swung through the air sliced the bullet apart, and the folded fan shot from the Fox God's hand as she danced around once, sleeves fluttering in a circle, lodging itself in the dwarf's head and knocking it down.
I went down to Floor 8 once more for this part and filmed it using the two cameras I now had.
Without looking back at the fallen dwarf's corpse, she lightly brushed off her sleeve and turned toward the door leading to the next floor. The light pouring from that door soon filled the screen, and the video ended.
Videos filled with combat were common these days, but the viewers began posting comments recklessly, excited by the pure, physical martial-arts-like movements they could imagine and feel from fighting monsters one-on-one inside the Tower, as well as the martial arts that looked as though they belonged in a wuxia novel, shown at the end.
-Wow, the thighs are insane. Seriously.
-"What stands before you is a fox god who has lived for a thousand years."
-A "career" that knocked away arrows during the Tang dynasty and survived matchlock guns during the Joseon dynasty.
-It perfectly captures the fact that she's lived through a different span of time.
-This goes beyond a truly bizarre concept and inspires genuine admiration.
-Can't a Climber at least cut bullets apart?
ㄴMonsters die if they get shot too... Climbers on the lowest floors are still human...
ㄴThen how does the Fox God, a lowest-floor Climber, do that?
ㄴLive for a thousand years and you can do it too, yeah.
ㄴAha!
ㄴDon't go saying 'aha' like that. Has everyone lost their intelligence because of tits??
-0:13,0:28,1:31,1:42.
ㄴThank you, great hero...
ㄴRattle..tap. Rattle...tap.
In a way, it was fair to call this the first proper video after Wakamo Inarizushi's debut as a VTuber. And the reaction was more successful than expected. There were, as expected, even more questions about whether this was really VTubing... but most of the responses were positive, so Wakamo could breathe a sigh of relief.
And after a brief moment of thought.
[Wakamo Inarizushi is streaming!]
"Everyone, kon-muscle~! I'm Wakamo Inarizushi, the Fox God with a fluffy fox tail."
-Explain the back-Tower stream.
-Do you really have a tail? Show us. Seriously, it's fucking urgent.
-Why, the camera... whoops! You don't have a 2D model??
-The boss's voice is really deep in every sense, seriously.
-Why does this person swing wildly between high and low energy every time she goes live?
-Just pick one: are you sweet or fucking nasty?
-So foxes aren't canids, but felids? Then I understand.
-The boss might be a Chihuahua, for all we know.
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋAhㅋㅋㅋㅋ
They complained, pouring out their grievances about how I could climb the Tower behind their backs, but it was closer to something they were saying just to try it. Regardless, Wakamo said in a relaxed tone that she had prepared a new model and told them to wait─she was going to put on comfortable clothes and do a chatting stream, which viewers called just chatting.
"Mmm-mmm, can everyone see this Fox God clearly~?"
-If it isn't too much trouble, could you show us the full character body too?
-Asking for the 1,340th time: are those dolphin shorts?
-Are you barefoot? Show us your claws, it's urgent.
-Show us the fox tail, hurry.
"They are dolphin shorts, I can't show you my feet, and here's the fox tail."
With a whoosh, she swayed her large fox tail from side to side. More precisely, it was closer to something that passed behind the character's back before disappearing. She had used [Mana Manipulation] to make part of her hair imitate a tail.
In any case, the viewers cheered as they looked at the fluffy, soft-looking fox tail.
"Mmm, first of all... my sensibilities are too strange. I wanted to apologize a little."
-An apology? "I'm sorry"? A green avatar?
-Hey! This isn't that kind of stream!
-She just brings it all in one big chunk. What a fucking mess!!
-Please bow deeply at 90 degrees to apologize. I can't see the angle very well.
-Seriously, you bastardsㅋㅋㅋ Aren't you afraid of getting suedㅋㅋㅋ
-Even after seeing the boss's strength, these bastards still act like they have nothing to lose... That's just what these bastards are like....
-No, seriously, where have you been and what have you been doing instead of turning on the stream right away?
It really felt like people had poured in from every community imaginable. Well... it was indeed a problem that I hadn't turned on the stream right away because I had been wandering around worrying about various things.
I had also uploaded the video and waited to see the reaction. But during that time, I thought a lot about what kind of feeling I, as a VTuber, should move forward with. The ideal VTuber was so far beyond me, yet I couldn't dance or sing. I was a professional at playing instruments, and I was fairly confident I could put on a good show with taekwondo since I had a black belt, but wasn't taekwondo a little awkward for a VTuber to show off?
As her ears drooped on their own, the comment feed began scrolling at tremendous speed.
She didn't notice it, merely staring somewhere else, lost in thought with her cheeks puffed out.
"No, well... I just tore into the cow I'd hunted and caught, thinking a cooking stream would make good content, right..? When I think about it, it was kind of gory. I thought maybe that was a problem... Since I became a VTuber anyway, I wanted to do things like the VTubers I like, but I guess I made a mistake because I was in too much of a hurry."
-You're suddenly so damn sweet that I don't know how to feel.
-A fox hunting and eating its prey is pretty content-worthy, right?
-She did what someone who's lived a thousand years would naturally do. Shouldn't we understand?
-I was going to call her a beast if she were human, but since she's the Fox God, I understand.
-No, common sense says that if you catch it, you should eat it, yeah....
-Those ears swaying are insanely cute. What the hell is with the gap from her voice?
-No one can claim not to know how much the boss loves VTubers.
-Isn't the ideal so high that she's forcing herself and making it burdensome instead??
"Right~ Like, back when I was spouting profanity while streaming about stocks and crypto. Or back when I was clipping other VTubers. It's not as though I can hide those beastly sides anymore. I have to stream while taking all of that into account.... To believers? I thought maybe it wasn't right to treat them so roughly. Ugh─but this is really difficult."
-So, what you're saying is that you're taking your position as a VTuber seriously and treating us politely?
-Yeah, normally the boss would say, Yo, ant friends, this body's here.
-But honestly, with this many more viewers, it makes sense that the boss would think seriously about it, yeah....
-The government will take care of the ones running wild, so let's leave them alone, right?ㅋㅋ
-The fact that they really get taken away is horrifying as hellㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Please save me, Fox God!! I merely drew a golden bikini!!!
-No, so does that mean you're not doing stock streams anymore?
One chat message suddenly stood out while we were talking. There were quite a few messages with similar content. Of course, with this many people, if I did a stock or crypto stream, they would all swarm over there, so the list of problems would be truly endless. The stocks I had invested in in my previous videos had already spread among the believers and were skyrocketing, after all.
Of course, I had sold everything. You have to know when to cut your losses on stocks.
"Mmm... actually... I was using divine powers. I was quietly shut away in a fox den, living leisurely while watching VTuber streams, when the Tower suddenly said I had to climb it, reduced me to Level 1, and dropped me here. It's not that I didn't use sorcery; I can't use it.... So I can't even use transformation magic, which is a huge problem. I can't go outside.... Could there really be two women like me in this world?"
-That's true, yeah....
-The boss is 240 CM tall, about as big as an ordinary car.
-Her heart is big enough to be seen wherever she is.
-Can a Tower really take someone's power away like that?? How fascinating.
-If the boss can't go outside, she's screwed. Can't she go to collabs or Comiket?
"Exactly! To put it in the believers' terms, it's like living well as a stray fox, then suddenly being kidnapped and spayed. Is that a little hard to understand?"
-How would we know what a stray cat feels?
-I don't know. I haven't met a woman either, even though I wasn't neutered...
-I've been born into this world and never once touched a woman's flesh....
-They say people who've never had sex are psychopaths.
-So this place is full of maladjusted, boob-obsessed freaks!!
-Is this right? I've never heard any of the words these people use before??
-Why are you suddenly picking a fight?? I'll hold back for our goddess's sake.
Communication... was going surprisingly smoothly. I never broke character as the Fox God. I was guiding the conversation while communicating with the genuine feeling of being Wakamo, the Fox God. I chatted naturally and slowly warmed up the stream.....
I was only doing what other VTubers did.
The viewers were spreading clips of Wakamo glancing toward the chat and swaying her ears to all sorts of places, but she herself had no idea. She continued speaking kindly while being as polite as possible. Thankfully, there were few reactions like, 'Don't force yourself. Just be honest, okay?'
"I really love VTubers, but I never thought I would end up doing this... Huh? A collab with the Queen? I can't... Honestly, I only have this many subscribers. I'm a complete novice at VTubing, I tell you. I'm a virgin, just the way you like. Yeah? Are you asking if I'm really a virgin? I've been busy living here and there for a thousand years, so I've never dated anyone."
-Is that really true? Do you even have a mating season?
-A thousand-year-old virgin sounds like it would smell worse than a squid.
-The unicorns are probably bowing their heads for an entirely different reason.
-No, so what were you doing on other streams instead of turning yours on today?!
-Look at Daegam-nim's reaction in the fan cafe.
"Oh, the fan cafe. I had one of those too, didn't I?"
Come to think of it, I did. When I went in, it was an absolute madhouse. What had the cafe manager even been doing...? I couldn't remember.
There were fan arts people had drawn of me, clips taken from here and there, and posts like [Let's Find Out Which VTubers the Boss Went Around Looking For, Part 81]. Were there really 81 parts.... The viewers who saw them were dumbfounded, asking how many VTubers she had gone exploring to produce that many. The believers would lord it over such newbie believers, telling them to watch all 2,000 videos on the boss's channel before coming back.
Ignoring all that, I searched around... and found one video.
It was just the part where I had registered an item on the stream of a VTuber who specialized in antiques.
["Ah, your humble servant has seen many antiques. But... this imperial seal. No, young lady, is this genuine? If it is, that's an even bigger problem... You ask why I don't drive out this monster of supernatural power? Your humble servant is a civil official, not a military officer, so I'm no match for it!! For something like this, um... not your humble servant, but go see a more qualified expert, young fox lady."]
"I like VTubers, you know. So when I heard they did antiques, I brought out one of my treasured possessions...."
-A treasured possession (an imperial seal lost during the Tang dynasty).
-Fuck, why is this genuine? Why do you have thisㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-I pay my respects to the true Chinese empress!!!
-No, shouldn't China be demanding that you hand this over??
-What legitimacy do those bastards have to ask for itㅋㅋㅋ It's the boss's treasured possession of a thousand yearsㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Ahㅋㅋㅋ That's rightㅋㅋㅋ We're a great power after allㅋㅋㅋ
-How about leading your subscribers and unifying the world??
"Mmm... honestly, world unification is kind of tempting. We could pacify China and eliminate injustices like the forced doxxing of Chinese VTubers, thereby reviving VTubers."
-There's nothing in this woman's head except VTubers.
-This fox is a VTuber demon. A true, genuine VTuber demon.
-A lover of VTubers bows her head to the great senior.
-So why are you suddenly doing VTubing now, of all times??
-But why did you curse so much on the first day? Not that I'm saying you shouldn't, hehe... Please insult me....
-(A fox glaring meme).
"Mmm... Since I was climbing the Tower anyway, I wanted to do VTubing too. I guess I was a little excited then? Should I say I became like a beast?"
-Ahㅋㅋㅋ I admit itㅋㅋㅋ
-You do become a beast when you trade stocks.
-There aren't any actual humans in League of Legends, anyway.
-Our boss is a famous Iron.
-Is Iron a beast?
-It means she's not a human.
-That's the same thing, isn't itㅎㅎ.
"I like VTubers, so I said I would do it!! But honestly, I also wondered whether I had the right to. People say that if you just put an avatar on, you're a VTuber. Still, I want to take it seriously and do it properly... I'll study content ideas from now on, play games... and, if possible, I'd like to do collabs with the VTubers I like. But that would be... a nuisance, wouldn't it? I'm doing a collab because I like VTubers, but it could hurt that person, couldn't it?"
-"There is no curse more twisted than love."
-Shouldn't you just treat us more politely than Ethereum or Bitcoin?
-The boss has talent. Just keep doing exactly this.
-"How rude. It's pure love."
-Wouldn't it be enough to say, 'I'm a VTuber who happens to stream in an era when I don't exist'?
I had thought only about the ideal of being a VTuber, but talking with viewers in real time felt strange. Before, I had simply talked about VTubers without worrying about anything else.
Hadn't these viewers come to see the genuine [Wakamo Inarizushi] as a VTuber? A VTuber could not exist without viewers. There was something called the Milgram obedience experiment, though it was a little out of place here. It could also be compared to the Stanford prison experiment.
People are strongly influenced by their roles and positions.
Yes, right now I had to sincerely and seriously take on the role and position of a VTuber.
On the first and second days, I treated the viewers as I normally did, but I faced the question of whether that was truly right for me as a VTuber.
Doing whatever you want and running wild is also a VTuber's talent. The unconsciousness that springs from purity... I don't have that!
A shrine maiden famous as a VTuber across the sea could be called the foremost example of that talent.
["Now then, shrine maiden. What does this word (HIDE) say?"]
["Hmm... It says 'hide'!"]
["Ahahahahahah"]
Among VTubers, there is a phrase: 【I'm glad our oshi became a VTuber】. Put another way, it means possessing an innate talent suited to being a VTuber!
But I didn't need to stubbornly cling to or obsess over being a VTuber. I only needed to climb the Tower.
That was the conclusion I reached after hurriedly climbing to Floor 8 to acquire skills, being hit hard by a severe bout of post-nut clarity, and spending a long time objectively examining myself with a cool head.
Let's work hard.
What I had seen and learned as a clipper, the way my oshis treated their viewers, and the boundaries they observed with viewers during streams.
It was also a problem to run wild recklessly just because I was in a comfortable position.
The ideal VTuber I dreamed of... and the compromises with reality that existed between us....
"Being a VTuber is as profound as martial arts in a wuxia novel...."
Immediately after I finished an unremarkable two-hour chatting stream with the viewers, I looked back over the record of my third day's broadcast, reviewing once again what had gone wrong, what the problems were, and what attitude I should adopt.
And regardless of whether Wakamo was seriously studying VTubers like this.
The believers had a meme of Wakamo's ears swaying according to her mood.
A meme of her pouting sadly after getting rejected by Daegam-nim.
All sorts of memes overflowing with the generosity that allowed golden bikinis up to a certain level of indecency.
In another sense, the fan cafe was enjoying a bumper harvest.
The manager felt like she was going to die.
On the off chance, she had sent Wakamo an email as the manager, but no reply came, making her feel even closer to death.
The manager flailed about, writhing in agony. Department Head Won Da-hye─
Even so, she felt better when she found a cute, well-drawn SD Fox God meme of Wakamo in the cafe.