Chapter 34

Galbi-Jjim

“Gomtaengi... huh.”

While I took the tablet and looked over his profile from every angle, Ms. Sejin turned on her phone beside me and played a clip.

On the screen, some big, burly middle-aged guy was grinning away.

“Ugh...”

Honestly, purely in terms of aesthetics, I wanted to deduct at least fifty points. He had stubble all over his chin, and his build was imposing enough that his bear-like nickname fit perfectly... literally Gomtaengi.

There was no real need to confirm it, but I asked out of courtesy anyway.

“This person is Gomtaengi?”

“Yes.”

“His username fits.”

On the screen, Gomtaengi was holding fried chicken in one hand and tapping a gamepad with the other while rambling on about something. Then when he lost in the game, he tore into the chicken as if deeply wronged, and the sight looked unbelievably pitiful.

“Wow. That’s seriously pathetic.”

“Don’t be so harsh. He’s still the best one out of the ten.”

“But this guy’s a middle-aged man with chin stubble everywhere! He even looks like a pig.”

“Even so, he’s been active for ten years with almost no scandals or incidents.”

“L-Look at this. He keeps stuffing his face.”

“Eating isn’t a crime.”

“N-No, when you’re gaming, you should focus on the game. He’s stopping mid-game to eat chicken even now.”

“But he didn’t die. That means he can multitask.”

“Ehh, multitask my ass. I looked at his profile earlier and he’s some old man in his late thirties.”

“This isn’t a matchmaking interview.”

“Guh.”

That was perfectly reasonable. Which made it even more annoying because I had nothing to argue back with.

“Ehh. Still, he’s way too old-school. That ahjussi probably doesn’t even know current memes.”

“He’d know more than you, Miss. He’s been streaming for ten years.”

“I know tons of memes! I’m the meme-crazy bitch of this neighborhood!”

“I told you if you use words like that, I’m banning you from the internet. And thirty-seven isn’t that old. I’m in my late thirties too.”

“Old hag.”

“Internet. Phone confiscated.”

“Teeeeeng—! Mama! Forgive me, desu!”

I immediately tucked my tail between my legs. I knew painfully well that there was nothing to gain from getting on Ms. Sejin’s bad side in this house.

Anyway, Gomtaengi.

Honestly, my first impression was not great. That huge body, rough-looking face, and the sight of him filling the screen with food and wolfing it down. I would believe it if someone told me he was a bandit who had just come down from the mountains.

“But Ms. Sejin. Do I really have to do it with this person?”

“No. You don’t have to.”

Unexpectedly, Ms. Sejin answered immediately.

“Huh. You were defending him pretty hard just now.”

“Because you were being unreasonable.”

“Whoa.”

“The reason I filtered out nine people was that if you absolutely had to choose among them, this person seemed the best. I’m not saying you have to do it.”

“Oh. So I don’t have to.”

“Yes. I recommended him because I judged that doing it wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Really?”

Ms. Sejin nodded.

“This person was one of the only streamers who properly整理ed things and did an apology stream after the exposé incident. He went through point by point what had been true and what had not, and apologized for judging too hastily.”

“Oh. Surprisingly conscientious.”

“The others quietly backed away or acted as though nothing had happened. He was the only one who properly wrapped things up. So there’s a justification for him to collaborate with you. It looks better than you simply attaching yourself to anyone.”

Uh. That is convincing.

“Hmm.”

“And this person easily averages over two thousand viewers. He’s a genuinely long-running major streamer.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“It benefits you.”

“Benefits me?”

“Your stream could grow along with his. When you collaborate with a big streamer, some of their viewers come over to your stream too.”

I tilted my head.

Honestly, I felt like my stream was already big enough. No, excessively big.

After all that chaos, my stream had actually gotten even larger.

Even after filtering out the drama tourists, trolls, and people with something wrong in their heads who had only come to watch the spectacle, I still consistently had around twelve hundred average viewers.

At this point, could I not call myself a major streamer too?

“Huh. Isn’t my stream already huge enough? I’m satisfied.”

“The size isn’t the issue... you can’t keep doing exactly the same thing forever. You should try different things. To be honest, your stream has no content.”

“Hmm...”

Honestly, Ms. Sejin had a point. All I did every night was play games and chat.

My current subjects liked me that way, but even I did not know how long I could keep milking only that.

Though I had no idea what kind of new things I was supposed to do either.

I stared intently at Ms. Sejin.

“I have a reasonable suspicion that you’re more interested in growing my stream than I am.”

“Of course not.”

“You hesitated just now.”

“I did not.”

“You did. About half a second.”

“...You saw wrong, Miss.”

She did. She definitely did.

Ms. Sejin usually kept such a blank expression, but she subtly gave herself away with things like this. Her eyes seemed to sparkle a little whenever my stream came up, even though she had known nothing about streaming until recently.

Well, I did not bother pressing further. I figured there had to be some reason she took care of things this much.

Even if she acted businesslike on the surface, this ‘OurHouseMaid’ was quietly—no, openly—serious about my affairs.

Honestly, it felt good. Having someone care about my work as if it were their own was pretty reassuring when I thought about it.

“Like I said earlier, if you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to. It’s not something you absolutely must do anyway.”

Ms. Sejin said that as she整理ed the tablet.

Honestly, I was not particularly drawn to it either.

Of course, the person called Gomtaengi did not seem like a bad person, but I was not exactly social enough to want to stream with a stranger for no reason.

In the first place, the stream I do now is just because I like playing alone with my subjects at night. I am not doing it to accomplish something grand. Collabs and collaborations honestly fell into the bothersome category.

“Hmm... well, if I do it, I do it, and if not, then whatever. I don’t have to decide right now, right?”

“Then for now, we’ll put it on hold—.”

“But if I did do it, how would it work?”

Since the topic had come up, I asked out of simple curiosity.

“Online would probably be better. Having you go out and meet in person would be burdensome in several ways.”

True. Going outside itself was a schedule for me, and more than anything, there were so many things I had to hide, from my face to my identity.

And the image of a man in his late thirties meeting a fourteen-year-old girl offline was a little awkward too. There were all kinds of things to be careful about.

As the conversation roughly drifted toward doing it online.

“Ah, right.”

Ms. Sejin spoke as though she had remembered something.

“This person even sent a detailed collaboration proposal.”

“A proposal?”

What is this, some business partnership between major corporations? A proposal for a collab?

Ms. Sejin took the tablet back out of her bag and pulled up the proposal.

“...Huh? Why is this so detailed?”

“Honestly, that’s why I left this person on the list. I thought someone this meticulous would probably be trustworthy.”

The proposal was not just one or two pages long.

It separated the online and offline scenarios entirely, laying out in detail what they would do and in what order for each. Expected duration, required materials, even methods for handling unexpected situations.

For example, things like this.

-Considering that Lilith is a minor, we will assign a separate moderator so that any inappropriate chat messages can be filtered immediately during the broadcast.

-If Lilith is concerned about exposing her identity, all staff will be required to sign confidentiality agreements for an offline collaboration.

Each sentence was filled with careful consideration for me.

For someone who looks like a bandit, this Gomtaengi guy is really meticulous.

Honestly, I was a little surprised.

I had thought he was just another streamer trying to ride my publicity. But preparing this much meant he was at least sincere in his own way, did it not?

It was the complete opposite of my first impression, so I scanned down the content list with slight admiration.

The online scenario came first. Greet each other, play a light game together, take viewer questions. It even listed expected reactions for each stage, so I could easily picture how it would go while reading.

Play a game together. Fine, nothing special. Introduce each other’s stream content and styles. Not bad. Take viewer questions. Hmm, what if awkward questions come up?

This guy really does know streaming. He seems to understand exactly what would be fun and what to watch out for. I guess ten years of experience is not for nothing.

After finishing the online scenario, I moved on to the offline section. I was not going to do it anyway, but...

“Whoa, this wall of text is insane.”

As expected, offline required much more preparation. Everything from the location to the movement route was laid out far more densely than the online section. And among it all, there was one category that had clearly received special attention.

Mukbang.

Several menu candidates were written down. Fried chicken, pizza, jokbal, malatang. Maybe because they reflected Gomtaengi’s tastes, they were all hearty, greasy foods.

“Of course. A guy who stuffs his face like a pig every day would choose mukbaaaaang—.”

One word in the middle of the list pushed every other letter out of my vision and slammed into my eyes in giant type.

“G-Galbi-jjim?”

Droooool.