Chapter 29

I’m Quitting

That day was no different from any other for Lee Seorin, who worked at Shinil Valley Riding Center.

No, it should have been.

Rine.

The name Seorin used on stream.

For her, who had already spent more than two years as a VTuber alongside her day job, her main occupation was always her actual job.

Rather than being a choice, it was because there was simply no way she could make a living off a stream that did not even average fifty viewers.

A lesson for a new member had been scheduled that afternoon.

The manager had started fussing the moment he got the call, saying the client was an ultra-VIP and telling her to take especially good care of them, so she wondered what kind of difficult guest it would be—.

But the person she actually met was a girl who looked like she had only just entered middle school.

Of course, she was far from ordinary.

It was not just her appearance, which reminded Seorin of childhood photos of famous celebrities, but also the people she had brought along, who obviously did not look like her parents.

A woman neatly dressed in a women’s suit, and a large young man who looked capable at a glance.

Just what kind of kid was she...?

And if she was here on a weekday morning, that meant she was not going to school either. She definitely did not seem like a child from an ordinary family.

“Welcome. We’ve been expecting you.”

“Hello. Please take care of me.”

Seorin had quietly worried about what kind of attitude the girl might have, but the child greeted her clearly and bowed politely.

At least her upbringing passed.

“Hello, I’m Lee Seorin, and I’ll be helping with your lesson today. Nice to meet you.”

“Yup. Nice to meet you.”

“All right, then today we’ll start by getting familiar with the horse. You don’t have to be afraid.”

“But this one is really big. It won’t bite?”

“Haha, it won’t. This one is very gentle. Would you like to pet it?”

The girl seemed timid and a little afraid of the horse, but the way she carefully approached with curious eyes was unbearably cute.

I worried for nothing.

Thinking that, Seorin comfortably led the lesson.

Then came the moment when the child climbed onto the horse for the first time and tried to find her balance.

“Whoa. M-Ms. Sejin. This is higher than I thought.”

“It’s okay. The instructor is here with you.”

“Yup...”

The moment Seorin heard the girl speak to the woman who seemed to be her guardian, the hand she had reached out to steady the child froze in midair.

...Huh?

That voice just now.

Where had she heard it?

No, she knew exactly where she had heard it.

A voice she had heard too many times, too recently.

Lili-chan from Paint Addiction’s stream.

In other words, Lilith, the VTuber who had been the talk of the internet streaming scene lately—.

—supposedly her clone, though of course there was no such thing, so really just the person herself.

The girl had been wearing a mask then, so it was hard to compare faces, but the tone of her voice, the way she slightly dragged out the ends of her words. It was almost exactly the same as the child in front of her now.

“Waaah!”

“Hahaha!”

“Let’s go slowly!”

“Sunic, stop for a second.”

Once she began hearing it that way, there was no way she could deny it anymore.

I—.

No matter how much I had been pressured—.

Had been attacking a child like this?

“...Are you okay, Instructor? Are you sick?”

Perhaps the way Seorin had lowered her head looked strange, because the child looked down at her from atop the horse and asked.

In that clear, youthful voice.

“Ah, yes. Sorry. I was just thinking about something for a moment.”

Seorin hurriedly smiled as she answered, but cold sweat was running down her back.

The child followed instructions well enough, and after making several laps around the riding ground with Super Sunic, she smiled brightly with a proud look on her face.

Even so, the lesson somehow ended without incident.

“Come again. Next time will be even more fun.”

“...I’ll think about it.”

Even as she said that, the anticipation for next time was already obvious on the girl’s face.

That particular expression children had when they were enjoying something purely, without calculation.

The entire time Seorin looked at that expression, it felt as though one corner of her chest was being crushed.

“Seorin! What are you standing around spacing out for? We need to clean up!”

“Ah. Yes.”

Even after the lesson ended and the child left with her attendants, Seorin stood in the riding ground for a long time. Until another employee noticed something was off and came to call her.

Seorin had originally chosen this job because she liked animals. She liked animals, and she liked the people who came to meet them too.

And yet someone like her—.

What had she been doing behind a screen?

No matter how pressured she had been, if she had been in her right mind, she should never have done something like that.

She had first met Seira several years ago, when both of them had just started streaming.

They had debuted around the same time, so they naturally grew close and collaborated a few times.

They had endured the long-running curse of double-digit viewers by comforting each other.

That was why, when Seira first brought up Lilith, Seorin thought it was just complaining.

The kind of jealous badmouthing everyone indulged in at least once. There were countless people in the world doing better than you, so it was simply an expression of inferiority that anyone might feel.

But it kept growing larger, until before she knew it, it had turned into something organized.

“I’m... a coward.”

Yes. If she did not want to do it, she could have refused.

No matter what they called it, a group chat or an organization or whatever, all she had to do was say she was leaving.

What were they going to do if she quit? What could they possibly do?!

But in this narrow and harsh industry, turning her back on the few peers she had, especially the people she had been with since debut, and becoming completely alone was more frightening than she had expected.

It meant truly being alone from then on, with no collaborations and no mutual support.

So she stayed. Even though she knew it was wrong.

And—.

The target Seorin and her companions had swarmed and torn into without mercy—.

Was that little kid who had whined about being scared on the horse, then laughed when she got excited.

Just a polite child who had been fascinated by riding a horse for the first time.

Seorin’s head remained a mess throughout the entire trip home after work.

Should she tell Seira? That the girl called Lilith was a good kid, that she had seen her herself, so they should stop now.

“No, no.”

That would not work. Then Seorin would have to explain where she worked, what she did, and how she had met the girl.

But she could not pretend nothing had happened and remain in that group chat, continuing to help tear the girl apart either.

After entering the home where she lived alone, Seorin sat at her desk for a long time without even turning on the lights.

Then—.

Around eleven o’clock, she made up her mind and turned on the computer.

Her fan café, with barely any people in it. A quiet place where she wondered if even twenty people were actually active.

Seorin hesitated again for a long time, then posted one short message.

Thank you for everything. Due to personal circumstances, I will be quitting streaming. Please stay healthy, everyone.

She did not write some grand reason. She could not.

If she wrote the real reason, she would have to say that she had done something terrible, and that she could no longer bear having done it. Those were words she could not possibly write.

“Ah...”

Her hand hovering over the post button trembled a little. No, it shook violently.

It did not feel real that she was giving up something she had clung to for a period that was short if you called it short and long if you called it long.

The time she had spent believing that if she worked hard, someday someone would notice her. She had never imagined it would end like this.

The next thing she had to deal with was, of course, the group chat.

Are you sure you want to leave the group chat?

Leave.

Seorin left no message behind. No farewell, no reason. She simply disappeared quietly. Whatever she said would have sounded like an excuse in the end.

Lastly, she found Seira’s number and blocked it.

She had been a peer Seorin relied on when she first started streaming, someone who had endured hard times together with her.

Which was exactly why—.

Seorin felt that if she saw her face or heard her voice, her resolve would weaken.

She knew herself that right now, she was simply running away.

But she could not help it. She still did not have the courage to confront reality, or the truth.

Even after turning off the computer, Seorin sat in the darkness for a long time.

“That... is enough.”

At least Seorin herself was no longer among the beasts tearing into that child.

— — —

“Horseback riding was seriously fun today.”

“I told you. I said you’d enjoy it.”

“Huh? Since when are you some kind of prophet, Ms. Sejin?”

“Most people enjoy it.”

“Ah, then does that mean I’m a normal kid?”

“Well, do you want not to be normal?”

“N-No... I just...”

Horses turned out to be cuter creatures than I expected. I had been a little afraid at first, but once I actually rode one, it was not bad. The instructor lady was kind too.

When I told Ms. Sejin I wanted to go regularly starting next week, she readily agreed to add it to my schedule.

After washing up, eating, and returning to my room, I happily turned on the stream.

“Have you been well, my subjects? This body has descended once again today.”

Of course, after yesterday’s complete shitshow, there was no way everything would already be normal.

It is not like I have only been on the internet for a day or two. I was not even hoping for a clean chatroom.

Have you never heard Master Jirubo’s famous saying?

If there are as many as five humans gathered together, one of them will inevitably be trash?

You could prove that fact in one second by looking at an internet stream chatroom.

-The slave-contract vampire is here

-When are you releasing the contract?

-Aren’t you quitting? Aren’t you quitting? Aren’t you quitting? Aren’t you quitting? Aren’t you quitting? Aren’t you quitting? Aren’t you quitting? Aren’t you quitting? Aren’t you quitting? Aren’t you quitting? Aren’t you quitting? Aren’t you quitting? Aren’t you quitting? Aren’t you quitting? Aren’t you quitting? Aren’t you quitting?

-You crazy bastards, just fuck off

-OurHouseMaid has forcibly removed ***.

-OurHouseMaid has forcibly removed ***.

-OurHouseMaid has forcibly removed ***.

But at this point, it did not even feel new anymore.

Anyway, all their supposed evidence was just fiction someone made up, so why bother taking them seriously? Giving them a reaction would only be a bigger loss.

-She’s not reacting today

-Princess class lol

-Don’t feed the trolls

The strange part was that despite all the chaos, the viewer count had not really gone down. If anything, it seemed to have gone up because people came to watch the spectacle.

The workings of the world really are mysterious. The more I get attacked, the more people gather. For me, I guess it counts as a gain.

Thinking about it carefully, the reason none of that could really hurt me was simple. I had nothing to lose in the first place.

I was not making money, and my livelihood did not depend on the stream. They had not even exposed my real identity. That ‘backing’ they were so desperate to dig up did not exist. How can you find something that is not there?

Eventually, they would just wear themselves out chasing nothing and give up.

“Now then, enough meaningless chatter. What shall we play today?”

And so I continued my stream as usual, happily trading pointless jokes with my subjects.

Kgh... this is the sex!

This is the rich unemployed life.

Enjoying luxury hobbies, eating luxury meals, then having free-free hobby time with no pressure to be good at anything.

I grinned as I pulled the blanket over myself and was about to close my eyes—.

Knock knock knock.

“Miss.”

“Yup. What is it?”

Ms. Sejin opened the door and poked her head inside.

“I just want to confirm one thing before you sleep. I was worried you might have forgotten.”

“Forgot what?”

“You do know your test is tomorrow, right?”

“...”

Test?

Tomorrow?

Tumoro?

Ashita?

“...Kyaaaaaagh!”

I sprang out of bed as though there were springs attached to my back.