Chapter 23

A Great Victory for the Loli Faction

I’m Lili-chan?

Well... I am, but... but that’s not the problem.

No, they figured this out already? Are these bastards seriously some kind of internet investigation squad or something?

Did they learn professional hacking, or did they hack my brainwaves? D-Don’t tell me, a VeriChip?!

I had the illusion that the doorbell could ring at any moment and hundreds of viewers would come storming into the house—

“Hoo... hoo...”

First, calm down. At times like this, act like usual.

They say if you endure three times, you can avoid murder—. No, was that not how the saying went?

“What nonsense are you spouting? Lili-chan? This princess knows no such strange name. Hmph.”

I even finished with a snort, perfectly brushing it off.

I think that came out pretty naturally. Should I just become an actress?

-No, your voices are identical

-Princess, search Paint Addiction Lili-chan once

-For real, the communities are going crazy right now

-Huh? I saw that stream too, and now that you mention it, they do sound similar

...Search it?

A chill runs through me. A dagger flies straight into my chest.

But do not worry. My hands are faster than the eye.

Behind the stream screen, I quietly opened a browser. Paint Addiction. Lili-chan. Search.

Hmm. Something about South Korea getting eliminated in the World Cup group stage, something about the coach.

“Well, it’s been a few days, so the hype has died down a lot...”

The problem was that the hype had unfortunately moved on to a completely different topic.

“Good grief...”

[Paint Addiction guest Lili-chan = VTuber Lilith same-person theory.jpg]

[Summary of evidence for Lili-chan = Lilith theory (voice comparison included)]

[Breaking News) VTuber everyone thought was a sis may actually be a middle schooler]

...What is this.

The posts had already spread all over the communities. The view counts were climbing frighteningly fast too.

With trembling hands, I opened one of the summary posts.

The gist was this. The voice of the guest called Lili-chan who appeared on Paint Addiction’s livestream was identical to VTuber Lilith’s. Their ways of speaking were different, but the actual voice itself was the same. Listen to the voice comparison clip.

And beneath that was one more finishing blow.

For exactly three seconds during the livestream, a certain voice had faintly been picked up by the microphone.

‘Ah, yes. You can put that over there.’

It was unmistakably Ms. Sejin’s voice.

Apparently she had answered when a staff member brought something over, but I had been too busy drawing to even hear it.

That completely insignificant line, that tiny sound that was barely even audible—

Some bastard had actually clipped it and placed it side by side with the voice caught on Lilith’s stream back in the early days.

‘Remember that woman’s voice that got picked up on stream before, calling her “Miss~”? It’s the same voice as this one. In other words, Lili-chan’s guardian = Lilith’s maid(?)’

...They figured that out?

From a three-second sound clip with about as much informational value as a piece of straw?

The internet truly is a terrifying place. There are so many people in this world with nothing better to do.

And I wanted to punch myself for failing to predict this.

Paint Addiction has 1.5 million subscribers. 1.5 million is about the population of a decent-sized metropolitan city. Hoping that not even one of my viewers would be mixed in among them was...

And I only realized that now. Idiot. Moron.

-Princess?

-Why did you suddenly go quiet

-She’s probably searching it right now lol

-Is this the loli stream everyone’s talking about?

-Is it true sis is 14?

-Even better

-Hehehe

-Wanna be secret friends with oppa?

-You crazy bastards, don’t cross the line

-This is dangerously minor-coded

-Officer, over here!

By the time I came back to my senses, the viewer count looked seriously strange.

Three times normal. No, four times.

The viewer count had already passed 1,500 the moment I turned on the stream and was still rising in real time. Recently, my usual viewer count had been around 400 to 700, so everyone else had clearly flooded in after seeing the community posts.

All right, Shin Yua. Think.

Deny it? When Ms. Sejin’s voice has been preserved as evidence? Not a chance. The more I try to squirm out of it, the more cornered I will become.

Then do I simply admit it?

That is impossible too. If I did that, this princess’s dignity would hit the floor. It would not fit the character.

Then only one path remains.

A frontal breakthrough.

“It cannot be helped. Since you have discovered that much... I suppose I have no choice but to tell you.”

-What, are you really Lili-chan?

-Holy shit, was our sis actually a loli?

-Loli lol loli lol loli lol loli lol loli lol loli lol

-The loli faction wins, kekekeke

“Hmph. This body is a vampire who has lived for hundreds of years. The great magic of this body lies in a realm that mere lowly subjects such as you cannot comprehend. That child called Lili-chan is precisely such an existence.”

-????

-What is she saying lol

-Is that even Korean?

-What does that mean, are you admitting you’re Lili-chan?

“Ahem. You remain as foolish as ever, my subjects. Truly pitiful. Taking pity upon you, I shall show you at least one fragment of the truth.”

-Damn damn damn damn fragment of truth

-First time seeing this sis, does she always talk this weird?

-She’s not a sis, she’s actually a loli

-That post looks completely true to me

-Is the loli faction winning?

-But does a middle schooler really have vocabulary this good?

-She probably reads a lot of web novels lol

-Let’s hear what she says first

Kgh. They have already decided it is basically confirmed.

Sweating buckets and desperately denying it in this situation would be amateurish.

“Listen well. In order to study the human world, this body has long since dispatched clones throughout the world.”

-???

-Another weird setting is coming out lol

-Is this sis always like this?

-Yep, she’s obsessed with RP

-A middle schooler obsessed with RP, now that’s rare

-Middle-school syndrome lol, clones instead of a black flame dragon

-I heard she’s in seventh grade?

-Who cares, dumbass

“That child called Lili-chan is also one of the many clones created by this body. She is the youngest clone, created most recently.”

-lololololol

-Clone lololololol lolololol

-The lore is insane

“You say you heard the maid’s voice? Naturally. Since a newly made clone said she was doing some kind of broadcast with another person, this body grew concerned and personally assigned the maid to care for her.”

How is that? Perfect, is it not?

It explains why our voices are the same, and it explains why the maid was there. There is not the slightest gap in the logic.

“Do you understand now? This body and that child are the same, yet different existences. That is the truth.”

After finishing, I proudly checked the chat.

-Yes, next clone user

-What are you, Narudo?

-Ah lol I see, she’s a clone

-If the Princess says so, then I guess that’s how it is

-But why does the clone draw like absolute shit? Does the original suck too?

“What?! Insolent! This body is the greatest painter in the vampire world. However, a clone cannot fully inherit the abilities of the original.”

-Yep~ heard you

-So this is a vampire elementary-schooler stream that uses clone techniques, right?

-Not elementary school, apparently middle school

-Wow, a vampire goes to middle school, that’s amazing

-She probably doesn’t go, the clone does

-Oh, right lol lore understood

...These bastards really do not believe a single word.

Of course not. I never thought this would actually work either. Anyone who believed this should immediately go see a psychiatrist.

But just because it did not work did not mean the situation was bad for me.

I had consistently played the vampire role from the very beginning. Most of my viewers were already people who accepted that setting and played along with it.

Of course, as the stream unintentionally went viral, the number of outsiders(?) suddenly increased, but they seemed to be getting swept up in the mood of the existing viewers and joining in.

Just look. Based on what I just said, they are already talking among themselves about clones and originals and adding lore however they please.

Anyone watching would think they were the writers in charge of my setting.

“Y-Yes. At last, you have accepted the truth. For foolish subjects, you are rather impressive.”

-Yes yes, Princess

-Princess (14)

-Hey, don’t mention her age, respect the lore

-Ah, sorry, Princess (hundreds of years old)

-The loli faction wins big lololol, booba faction get out lololol

-This is correct lol

Until now, the people watching my stream would arbitrarily split into the booba faction and loli faction and argue over whether my real age was adult or not.

With today’s declaration, the loli faction had annihilated the booba faction, so normally the viewer count should have been cut in half—

And yet.

The stream ended with the highest viewer count in its history. 2,578.

Of course, considering that more than half—no, two thirds—of them had flooded in because of today’s incident, they would not all keep watching.

Still, the overall scale of the stream would probably increase.

Should I be happy about this?

After ending the stream, I slumped in my chair.

“...Haa. I’m exhausted.”

Let us整理 the situation.

For now, the entire internet knows that Lili-chan and Lilith are the same person. The fact that I am fourteen, in other words middle-school age, has also essentially been exposed. No one is going to genuinely believe the whole clone thing.

But.

That is exactly as far as they found out.

Nobody knows who Lili-chan is, meaning nobody knows who this Shin Yua is. The cat mask protected my face, and neither my name, school, home, nor anything else had leaked.

Very, very fortunately, Lili-chan, who appeared on Paint Addiction’s stream, had not said a single thing about her private life.

The real red pill—that I am the granddaughter of Shinil Group’s chairman—was still completely safe, with even the bottle cap unopened.

“...Then isn’t this fine?”

If anything, I had only gained viewers. A lot of them.

If that counts as a gain. It feels silly to talk about gains on a stream that does not make money.

The problem was somewhere else.

I thought of the two managers who had quietly remained in the corner of the chat.

FamiliarStoneGolem. OurHouseMaid.

Woojin and Ms. Sejin.

Neither of them posted a single line in chat during all that chaos today. They only worked hard deleting messages that crossed the line.

Then only near the end of the stream did each of them send me a single private message.

-For today, just get some sleep and let’s talk tomorrow.

-You heard from Ms. Sejin, right? I’ll come to your house tomorrow

...What am I supposed to say to Ms. Sejin tomorrow?

What about Woojin? Will he take my side? No, is there even anything here to take sides and fight over in the first place?

What exactly are they planning to talk about?

“Just tell me noooooow!”

I clutched my head and buried my face in the bed.

Even a vampire princess hundreds of years old sometimes finds the night frightening.