Chapter 38

You Took the Bait, You Bitches

At Lili-chan’s violently blunt remark, Gomtaengi nearly suffered cardiac arrest.

A quick glance at chat showed that her comment had whipped up a storm of dangerously minor-related chaos, while the managers were working hard to get things under control.

A minor guest saying something like that. Is she trying to kill me—.

“W-Wait a second, Lili-chan! Wh-Where did you learn a phrase like that—.”

“Huh? What phrase?”

Lili-chan looked up at Gomtaengi with innocent eyes. Her face genuinely seemed to have no idea what the problem was.

Seeing that expression, Gomtaengi realized something.

This little kid definitely used that phrase without even knowing what it meant. She must have picked it up somewhere on the internet and thought it was just an exclamation you used when something tasted good.

Well, kids these days learn all kinds of things on the internet. She probably used it like a trendy phrase without knowing the meaning. And it was not as if he could explain the meaning to her here.

Gomtaengi found himself wanting to propose a law banning elementary schoolers from using the internet. Not that he was a member of the National Assembly, and this kid was fourteen, so calling her an elementary schooler was a bit much.

In truth, Shin Yua, who had spent ten years mastering the internet, naturally knew exactly what her own words meant, but once you started looking favorably upon someone, everything they did seemed favorable.

Already intoxicated by the sweetness of the massively increased viewers and exploding donations, Gomtaengi decided to just let it go. All’s well that ends well.

-lolololololol

-She’s the only one who doesn’t know, cute

-Look at Gomtaengi’s face, he’s genuinely panicking lololol

-It’s even funnier because she’s so innocent lol

-I shall teach you what sex is

-(This message has been deleted)

-He literally warned you and there are still crazy bastards like this

-Officer, over here!

-FBI OPEN UP!

GomgomManager has forcibly removed ***.

GomgomManager has forcibly removed ***.

“Uh, um... it’s nothing. As long as it tastes good. Yes. Delicious food is the best.”

Fortunately, without understanding why Gomtaengi had reacted that way, Lili-chan turned her attention back to the galbi-jjim.

A guest segment with a minor really was a minefield where you could not let your guard down for even a single moment.

Lili-chan and Gomtaengi finally succeeded in nearly defeating the mountain of galbi-jjim.

Of course, the staff and members of Lili-chan’s team(?) had also been diligently picking at it off-camera.

“Ugh... I’m so full...”

Lili-chan patted her swollen belly and let out a satisfied sigh. Only then did she finally turn her gaze toward Gomtaengi.

Thinking about it, this might have been the first time since the stream started that she had properly looked at him.

“Ah, right. We were supposed to do an interview, weren’t we? Sorry. I got distracted eating. You can ask now.”

Finally.

Gomtaengi brightened and picked up the questionnaire again.

It was not too late yet. If he could draw out a solid interview from this point onward—.

“Lili-chan, then what kind of streams would you like to do going forward...”

“Hmm, I... just... want to keep... having fun... like now...”

Lili-chan’s words gradually slowed.

When Gomtaengi looked up from the questionnaire, Lili-chan’s eyelids were slowly drifting shut. Apparently a full stomach had made her sleepy.

“Lili-chan? Um, if you’re sleepy...”

“Ah, yep! I’m not sleepy. Uh... so... having fun... yaaawn...”

With sauce smeared all over her face, Lili-chan began nodding off.

-Lili-chan is falling asleep lololol

-What is she, a newborn baby?

-Gomtaengi’s interview is never happening lol

In the end, the interview Gomtaengi had spent days preparing ended without producing even a single proper sentence.

Even as he gave a hollow laugh, strangely enough, he was not angry. The sight of Lili-chan eating to her heart’s content and then dozing off looked cute rather than annoying.

“All right, everyone. It looks like Lili-chan was very tired today. I think this would be a good place to wrap things up.”

Gomtaengi gently brought the stream to a close.

“Lili-chan, thank you for coming today. Get home safely.”

“Yes... thank you too... the galbi-jjim was delicious... bye-bye...”

And so the major collaboration came to an end.

After seeing Lili-chan’s group off and returning home, Gomtaengi checked today’s stream metrics with a grin stretching from ear to ear.

Peak concurrent viewers: 6,500.

His usual two thousand viewers, the twelve hundred Lili-chan had brought, plus all the newcomers who came after hearing about the collaboration. Of course, a large portion of those 6,500 left fairly quickly, but this was still more than enough to count as a massive success.

The donations went without saying. The amount was something even Gomtaengi had rarely seen in ten years of streaming.

“Kgh... as expected. My eye for opportunities wasn’t wrong.”

All that special anxiety over hosting a dangerous minor guest had been worth it. With results like this, none of the trouble felt wasted.

Honestly, when he first sent the proposal, he had not expected much. He had only thrown it out there thinking he had nothing to lose, and never imagined it would come back as such a huge jackpot.

Looking back, Lili-chan really was a fascinating kid.

She had failed to properly answer even a single interview question and had spent the entire stream eating galbi-jjim before falling asleep.

Yet a stream where she had seemingly done nothing produced numbers this enormous.

There are occasionally people like that in the world. People who do not even try hard to make things happen, yet the whole situation moves simply because they exist. People for whom every single thing they touch happens to line up perfectly with good fortune. Apparently Lili-chan was exactly that kind of person.

Of course, Gomtaengi had no intention of keeping all of today’s enormous profit for himself.

As agreed, the appearance fee had already been paid in advance, and half of today’s donations were also supposed to be sent to Lili-chan’s side. Since the other party wanted to keep her identity hidden, he had received no bank-account information from her directly, and instead they had agreed to settle the money into an account under the name of an employee designated by Lili-chan’s side.

“Haha... now that I’ve built a relationship with her, maybe if there’s another excuse later, one more time...”

Gomtaengi muttered to himself, then shook his head.

“No. Let’s send sixty percent instead of half.”

Looking at the long term, that would be more advantageous. Lili-chan—no, Lilith—would continue to be a powerful box-office card in the future.

Then since he had already passed that absurdly strict audition(?), would it not be better to leave an especially strong positive impression and perhaps create another opportunity later?

“That’s right. Lili-chan aside, she already has a team made up of adults...”

Maybe those adults were the people who actually made the decisions?

Gomtaengi recalled Lili-chan’s group from earlier that day.

Thinking about it, they were a strange combination. A manager who had arrived looking like a career woman before changing into a maid outfit, a dedicated driver, even a bodyguard. And who was that boy handsome enough to put idols to shame?

“Could there actually be some agency attached to her?”

To mobilize that much manpower for a single streamer, it would have to be an operation of considerable scale. Seeing them put this much effort into one young streamer, perhaps there really was some powerful agency behind her.

Then maybe those fabricators’ suspicions had not been completely baseless—. No.

“Whether there is or not, what do I care.”

Gomtaengi quickly abandoned the thought. Whether she had an agency or not, it would not hurt him. Today’s stream had been a massive success, and that was enough.

Not digging unnecessarily into things like that was Gomtaengi’s way. Ten years of streaming had taught him that nothing good came from probing too deeply into other people’s circumstances.

And thus Gomtaengi successfully avoided the crosshairs of Shinil Group’s legal department sniper rifle.

If only Oh Seira and the Fabrication Girls had been even half as smart as Gomtaengi.

— — —

“Ugh... I’m so full I’m gonna die...”

In the car on the way home, I groaned while clutching my stomach, which felt like it might burst at any moment.

Even so, I ate way too much.

The galbi-jjim really was delicious, but maybe this was a little excessive.

But so what? Today was a day when I was allowed to eat as much as I wanted. When would another day like this ever come?

In gym-bro terminology, this was a cheat day.

Now I would probably have to endure hellish training for a while to flatten this belly again. Sob sob sob.

“You seriously... ate like a pig.”

“What?”

Woojin clicked his tongue beside me.

“I was embarrassed just watching you. What kind of stream was that? You didn’t do any of the interview and just ate the whole time.”

“What am I supposed to do when it was delicious? And the stream went perfectly fine.”

“How was that remotely doing well...”

“But it made money, didn’t it?”

“What?”

“Gomtaengi ahjussi said there were way more viewers than usual today and lots of donations came in. It was all thanks to me.”

“Hah, sure, you’re amazing.”

When I shrugged, Woojin laughed as if dumbfounded.

Hehehehe.

And half of that money—.

I only take half of the money I win!

I had no idea how much it would be, but surely it would at least be enough to buy some games?

Now I could finally escape the horrific shitty games my subjects kept throwing at me and enjoy a paradise of god-tier games—!

“Ah, right. There’s something I haven’t told you yet.”

Ms. Sejin, sitting in the front seat, suddenly turned around.

“Yeah?”

“The appearance fee and donation settlement from today. You know I’m managing all of that, right?”

“...What?”

“There is no money in this world that you’re allowed to spend however you please, Miss. I’ll manage all of it and save it under your name.”

“Th-That’s too much! I earned that money!”

“Those are the Chairman’s orders.”

For a moment, as if possessed by something, I pressed the seatbelt button, released it, and sprang to my feet.

“Th-This is unjust! We shall not become slaves! Fair compensation for labor! Follow me!”

“Miss, sit down!”

“Come on, everyone together! La! Bor! Li! Ber! A! Tion!”

“Hey, sit down. That’s dangerous in a moving car.”

Woojin tried to stop me with a disgusted expression, but I would not stop. This was a struggle for my rightful rights.

“We will not yield! We shall defend our galbi-jjim— urp.”

“...I knew that would happen.”

“I-I’m carsick...”

The flame of revolution died pathetically in the face of oncoming motion sickness.

“Uwaaagh...”

I collapsed limply back into the seat.

“That’s why you don’t jump around inside a car.”

Woojin buckled my seatbelt again, then patted my back.

And so my revolution was suppressed the instant it began.

— — —

And some time later.

One day, when I visited the riding center as usual.

“Instructor, hello!”

Unlike usual, when Ms. Seorin always greeted me brightly, her face looked dark today.

“Oh, Lili-chan. You’re here.”

“Did something happen? You don’t look well.”

Ms. Seorin hesitated briefly, then let out a small sigh.

“Actually... I received some documents from the court recently.”

What!

Those fabrication bitches finally took the bait!