Chapter 22: I’m wearing a skirt…

To understand why the moderators of the Belus Gallery don’t work, one must first understand the background of the gallery’s creation.

The initial leadership that created the Belus Gallery consisted, unsurprisingly, of CEO Kim Kanghyun’s long-time fans, members of the now-defunct Kim Kanghyun personal fan gallery.

Their inclination was actually closer to being anti-Belus.

The reason stemmed from Kim Kanghyun, a major streamer who was doing perfectly fine, suddenly quitting streaming and declaring he would create virtual idols, the epitome of hardcore otaku culture.

He wasn’t just creating an MCN to manage streamers.

No, it was virtual idols, dwelling in the deepest shadows of the internet.

Upon hearing this news, like a bolt from the blue, their reaction naturally followed the famous five stages of human grief.

Stage 1: Denial.

[– He’s retiring just like that?]
[– Was the gallery owner interested in VTubers?]
[– No, if there had been even a hint, I would have prepared myself or just stopped watching, but what is this lol]

Stage 2: Anger.

[– VTubers? lololololol Don’t make me laugh]
[– I’ll never watch, Kim Kanghyun, you fcking bastard]
[– Didn’t even know he was a disgusting hardcore otaku, and I stanned him for 10 years, fck]

Stage 3: Depression.

[– Fck, my head’s a mess, so I drank… Seriously, what is happening all of a sudden…]
[– Haa.. Suddenly feeling empty.. Still, there was no one who made content as good as the gallery owner]
[– Was about to leave the gallery, but drank and thought of it, so I stopped by.. Should I still watch a little?]
[– You bad bastard, I even congratulated you on your wedding with 1 million won donations, you son of a btch]

Stage 4: Bargaining.

[– Even if he’s a piece of sh*t, I love him…]
[– Even if it’s VTubers, since the gallery owner is doing it, maybe it’s right to watch]

Stage 5: Acceptance.

[– Fine, f*ck it lololol Let’s give it a watch]
[– Anyway, VTubers have taken over the streaming scene these days, so who cares lololol]
[– I was originally interested too lol]
[– Losers watching streams or hardcore otakus watching VTubers, what’s the difference lolololol]
[– Let’s secure the gallery first ㅇㅇ So what’s the group name?]

Thus, the initial Belus Gallery moderators were entirely composed of Kim Kanghyun’s personal fans.

But naturally, connecting fandom for Kim Kanghyun to fandom for Belus wasn’t easy.

At first, the mods tried to manage the gallery diligently by recruiting talented new gallery members as temporary mods or by becoming fully assimilated Belus fans themselves.

However, that too came to an end.

[– I can’t handle this otaku sht ㅇㅇ]
[– I’m going back to my real life too]
[– GG]
[– The whole world is full of tryhards]
[– Ugh, managing these VTuber otaku tryhards is so fcking tough]

Like this, most mods went inactive or abandoned their tags and left, leaving only a few hardcore fans and the talented newbie temp mods.

Moreover, even those few hardcore fans experienced various incidents, got metaphorically lynched and disappeared, or left for individual member fan galleries.

Now, the only remaining mods were essentially the newbie temp mods.

Inevitably, even the Belus fan gallery, despite the massive name value of Belus, ended up like the hollowed-out headquarters, lacking substance internally.

However, besides this, the gallery and the company shared another common trait: they were both uncannily good at recruiting one hardworking s*ave.

「Unnie, I think that temp mod bastard is back?」

“Yeah, I saw, Heeyeon.”

「What do we do now? Trolling and spamming aren’t working anymore…」

“Hang up for a bit. Unnie is thinking.”

「Ottoke, ottoke… We were so close…」

“Ha… Heeyeon, stop it and hang up. I need to call Minsu oppa right now.”

「Even if I post troll threads… that bastard offers chicken, so only beggars line up, and the topic doesn’t even catch on… Seriously, ottoke.」

“Ah, f*ck! Stop whining and hang up!”

A 37-year-old woman, 168cm tall and weighing a hefty 82kg, sucked a thin mint-flavored cigarette down to the filter before throwing her phone down irritably.

She has no job.

Because she’s unemployed.

She has no house.

Because she’s been living at her parents’ home for 37 years.

She does have friends… sort of.

Online, if you’re female, you’ll make friends eventually.

Some suckers even give her pocket money.

Anyway, her grand plan to sink the Belus Gallery by gathering these friends had been temporarily halted right before her eyes with the return of the temp mod guardian angel protecting the Belus Gallery.

“Ha… I thought he finally left the gallery since he hadn’t shown up for months.”

Her reason for trying to sink the Belus Gallery isn’t complicated.

Simply, ‘because it’s annoying.’

That’s all.

Everything about Belus just rubbed her the wrong way.

“Stupid b*tches who can’t do anything but be jobless if they don’t do VTubing.”

Annoyed that these uneducated b*tches were making money as VTubers just because their voices were slightly pretty, she spread malicious rumors that their voices sounded like they had fat on their necks.
…This was one of the malicious comments she herself had seen when she tried VTubing.

“Their faces too, sht. Without makeup and filters, they’re just fat btches… What? Their red pills are pretty? If they were pretty, they’d stream with their faces revealed.”

She had heard the news that Belus specifically picked members with decent looks in case their real identities were revealed, but she didn’t believe it, so she spread photoshopped pictures and trolled.

Separately, there’s the sort-of-truth that nowadays, streaming behind an avatar earns more money and guarantees anonymity, which is why everyone is jumping into VTubing.

But that wasn’t her concern.

She realized it was all lies when she tried streaming herself.
…At least, from her perspective.

“What? Idols? Btches who don’t even dance, what kind of idols? They can’t sing for sht either.”

The fact that there were members in Belus who were genuinely idol-like, singing incredibly well and even dancing, was also no longer her concern.

Haruka, for some reason, wasn’t singing anymore, and naturally, if she didn’t sing, there would be no concerts.

Belus is nothing without Haruka. Or so she thought.
…This too was her standard.

“What’s so good about these middle-aged women behind avatars that people fawn over them? I wish all these disgusting otaku pig bastards would just die.”

It had been a long time since the ‘red pills’ dropped and the real ages of the people behind the avatars were revealed.

But she conveniently thought it must be fabricated.

Since fabrication was part of her daily life, how could she be sure the other side wasn’t fabricating too?

Anyway, having sublimated her inferiority complex into hatred, she gathered fellow inferiority-complex-ridden individuals to somehow tarnish Belus.

If they took over the fan gallery, they could use it to troll and create enemies, or directly damage the members’ live streams and MyTube channels.

Or they could indoctrinate newcomers according to their whims and release them into the wild.

Essentially, they could just sit back and play territory capture, or terraform the community.

She already had a history of taking over several fan galleries like this and destroying small-time indie VTubers or small groups.

‘Unnie… Still, Belus might be a bit much.’

‘Hmm- Speaking of which, didn’t you say you did something on your private Twitter account last time? The screenshots I took are on my hard drive right now……’

‘…I’m sorry. Unnie.’

Some friends tried to dissuade her, saying those were mostly small, unpopular galleries and thus relatively easy targets.

However, she saw potential in the Belus Gallery too, so she ignored the voices of her loyalists.

The reason she was so confident was, of course, because she had gained more allies than before.

Popularity naturally breeds enemies in droves.

A tiny minority of mentally unstable Utaite fans whose talents were poached by the VTuber scene,
Some small-time VTubers lurking in unpopular VTuber galleries, running viral campaigns but failing to get popular, thus hating established groups,
Old-fashioned trolls from the general streaming scene, infamous for their otaku-on-otaku hate, who inherently dislike otaku culture,
And even a tiny minority of malicious fans from Belus’s rival VTuber groups.

Thus, gathered according to their respective agendas, the heroes of the self-proclaimed ‘Anti-Belus Alliance’ emerged.

They invade and troll not only the official Belus MyTube and Fan Cafe but also the members’ personal channels.

Sometimes they send hate mentions via private messages on Twitter, and even show up in live streams to troll.

“Right… Let’s start over from the beginning. The main goal was the fan gallery anyway.”

However, this alliance, closer to the Akatsuki than the Anti-Dong Zhuo Coalition, had as its primary goal something similar to that ninja organization from the manga: ‘Destroy the Belus Gallery.’

After all, aside from the main attack, the rest were just diversionary tactics or auxiliary battlefields.

So, they simply repeat the same actions today.

Tap, tap…

[[Haruka definitely got a boyfriend, I’m telling you?]]

“Idiots… You think a vibrant woman in her 20s can resist dating? What’s the point of turning a blind eye, morons. Now, let me just run the upvote bot Minsu oppa gave me…”

[Deleted Post]

“Oh- Go ahead and delete it~ I’ll just use the thread bumper~”

[Deleted Post]
[Deleted Post]
[Deleted Post]
[Deleted Post]
[Deleted Post]
[Deleted Post]

“You fcking son of a btchhhhh!!!”

Bang! Bang!

– Minji! Please- just go outside for once!

“Ah! Mom! I’m doing something important!”

Meaningless trolling.

My days are really busy lately.

First, I wake up perfectly synced with Haruka’s streaming schedule, work on illustrations while watching her stream, and after it ends, I watch VODs, MyTube videos, and clips of other members.

Just doing this brings me close to bedtime again, and in between, I also have to manage the gallery sporadically.

It’s truly a murderous schedule.

It’s a good thing Wooseo Woo’s brain can handle this insane multitasking…

By the way, am I going to get dementia early doing this?
The gallery said multitasking a lot causes dementia.

“Even if I end up smearing sh*t on the walls, I have to watch Haruka’s streams…”

Haruka said she’d stay with Belus until she grows old and dies.

Even if I get dementia, as long as Haruka is active, I have to keep being a fan. Yes.

Anyway, while managing this busy schedule lately, a concern has arisen: what should I do about this Belus Gallery?

Once I debut, I won’t be able to manage the gallery forever.

If only the current head mod would just run away, I could take over the position and recruit a bunch of slaves from my list to run the place, but I have no idea where this damn bastard went off to screw around.

I’ve heard rumors of a moderator group chat.

If something like that really exists, I could at least try to contact them.

But whether it exists or not, the fact is I’m not in it, so reaching them is a distant prospect.

Anyway, setting aside these worries for a moment, I have to go out today.

I got a message from the group chat.

Not the ghost group chat, one of the Belus Gallery urban legends, but the group chat for the Belus 2nd Gen debut members.

Sumire Mamang (Ina Yeon) – [Hey everyone!]
[(Photo)]
[The CEO gave us a card!]
[Let’s go to the amusement park ]

Menhera Les (Lee Hyemi) – [I’m coming..!]

Sumire Mamang (Ina Yeon) – [?]

Menhera Les (Lee Hyemi) – [Sorry..]

Sumire Mamang (Ina Yeon) – [ It’s okay]
[By the way, we all agreed to speak informally]

Menhera Les (Lee Hyemi) – [Okay! I’ll speak informally!]
[(Emoticon of a blushing webtoon heroine)]

Azusa’s crush is currently ongoing, I see.

Anyway, Sumire Mamang delivered the divine revelation.
Kim Kanghyun apparently sent a card through Ari-nim, telling us to use it to go to an amusement park or somewhere to foster camaraderie.

Because of this, the four of us—excluding Mao (Rika), who returned to Japan temporarily to look for a place after the training camp ended, and Miyuki (Eun Jihye), who couldn’t participate for some personal reason—decided to go to the amusement park today.

They even booked accommodation, seemingly planning to hang out overnight.

“Heave-ho.”

After packing a suitcase almost as big as myself, similar to the training camp days, I checked my phone and saw a message from Mamang.

Sumire Mamang (Ina Yeon) – [You’re still home, right? Can you give me your address?]

“Eh.”

That’s too fast… I haven’t even told Haruka my address yet.

However, as a socially awkward, virgin, hardcore VTuber otaku, I couldn’t possibly ignore the request of Mamang, who radiates not sacred special milk, but an overwhelming aura of acceptance.

I had no choice but to dutifully send my address.

By the way, why is she asking for my address?

Sumire Mamang (Ina Yeon) – [I live in Daegu too]
[Seo Woo, during the training camp]
[It seemed like you didn’t have many clothes..]
[Let’s go shopping together and then hang out ]
[I have a car, so I’ll pick you up]
[Come out when I call!]

“Whoa.”

I was genuinely touched.

Taking care of me like this even though we haven’t known each other for long.
Is this what friends are usually like?

But separate from my touched feelings, there was a slight problem.

“…Women’s clothes are a bit…”

At home, I wear things like dolphin shorts because I don’t have other clothes and they’re comfortable, but wearing women’s clothes outside is too much.

Even during the training camp, I always wore a plain t-shirt and dolphin shorts.

And when going back and forth to the headquarters, I wore that cheap-looking suit I had on when I first entered Wooseo Woo’s body.
At least that didn’t scream ‘women’s clothing’.

But if I go shopping with Sumire, it’s guaranteed to be feminine clothes.

She dresses like the epitome of a spring maiden, as if she’s the personification of virginity itself.

Me – [I’m okay..!]

Sumire (Ina Yeon) – [I told you to speak informally ]
[Is it uncomfortable for you..?]

“Huk.”

Me – [NONONONONONONO]
[It’s fine!]
[Totally fine!]

Sumire (Ina Yeon) – [lolololol]
[So you’ll go shopping with me, right?]

Me – [Yeah..]

“Is this the power of Mamang.”

Her skill in charming people is no joke.

Thus, I was mercilessly kidnapped by Sumire, and after about three hours of playing dress-up with her, I had been transformed into a very feminine TS pretty girl.

“Ta-da! How is it? Isn’t our Seo Woo pretty?”
“Kyaa- So cute! Come here! Let me give you a hug!”
“Fufufu… It was tough finding clothes that fit Seo Woo, you know.”

After arriving at the meeting spot with Sumire, I was immediately hugged by Azusa and petted thoroughly, gazing with melancholic eyes at Wooseo Woo’s reflection in a nearby shop window.

My long hair, which I was now used to managing, fluttered slightly in the breeze, revealing a neat checkered blouse underneath, adorned with an elegant black ribbon tied neatly at the neck.

The lattice pattern on the light gray blouse created a simple yet feminine atmosphere, and the long, thin sleeves fell delicately, covering my dainty fingers and adding a cute touch.

The blouse was tucked neatly into the waistband, and below it spread a dark-colored, pleated miniskirt.

The skirt naturally accentuated the waistline, adding an effect that made my legs, already long for my short frame, look even longer and prettier.

This outfit styled by Sumire looked neat and tidy on the outside.

But peeking through was Wooseo Woo’s cute charm and subtle sexiness; it seemed Sumire had a real knack for coordination.

…That’s right. Wooseo Woo, wearing these clothes, had become a perfect, pitifully beautiful girl who invoked a desire to protect her.

“……”

I looked up at Wooseo Woo beyond the glass window.

She was blushing, held in Azusa’s arms, anxiously pulling down her skirt with small hands.

I sighed, having been hiding my perpetually hot face with my hair since earlier.

“Me, wearing a skirt…”
“Whyyy! It looks great on you!”
“Since Seo Woo’s skin is so fair, the black skirt really suits her.”
“Yeah! The color contrast makes it really sexy! Hehehehe.”
“Wha…?”

I snorted sharply and hastily escaped from Azusa, who was fidgeting with her fingers.

It was the end of summer.