chapter01 · 005-ep5

Episode 5: Waking Up to a Viral Hit

"I'VE COMPLETELY OVERSLEPT, DESU NOOOOO!"

The morning after she had, for some reason, been bundled off to the hospital with the confused blast-stone man and sent home with a diagnosis of "nothing wrong."

Karin Yamada sprang out of bed and scrambled to get ready.

"Why didn't my alarm go off, desu no!? Wait, my phone's turned off, desu wa!? It's charging, so why... Oh, come to think of it, when I was carrying that confused man, my phone was noisy as hell, so I went, 'This ain't the time, desu wa!' and turned it off... and never turned it back on..."

After pummeling a fellow streamer yesterday, she'd been in a panic; then, for some reason, she'd had to undergo all kinds of tests at the hospital, which left her mentally drained. After dinner and a bath, she'd fallen asleep without so much as touching her phone.

Apparently leaving it switched off was what had led to her oversleeping this morning.

"How careless of me, desu wa... But why was my phone making so much noise yesterday? I suppose it was spam or advertisements for dungeon-exploration gear."

Those promotional messages you can't block once you register as a dungeon explorer are such a nuisance, desu wa. Not that I can afford any of it anyway... With that carefree thought, Karin turned on her phone while getting dressed.

Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep.

"Hm? A call? From Mafuyu, desu no? Why so early in the morning...?"

The ringtone that burst out as soon as the phone powered on made Karin pause.

The screen showed the name of Mafuyu Sasaki, her best friend and classmate since middle school.

Ordinarily, on a morning she'd overslept, she could have ignored the call for now... but this was the close friend who'd given her all sorts of advice about becoming a dungeon streamer. Mafuyu had never called this early before. So Karin put the call on speaker while she got ready.

"Hello, desu wa?"

"Oh, Karin. Finally picked up. Things have gotten pretty crazy for you, huh? I know I'll see you at school in a minute, but I was so surprised I just had to call. Congrats."

"? What are you talking about, desu no?"

Her usually dry best friend sounded unusually excited, and Karin tilted her head.

Mafuyu let out a startled "Huh?" on the other end.

"Wait. I figured your phone was off, but don't tell me you have no idea what's going on with you right now? You haven't checked the internet since yesterday?"

"No, there were a few things. I came home from the dungeon and went straight to sleep, desu no."

"I see... I thought it was weird you hadn't called me with all this going on. So that's why..."

"? What is it, desu no?"

"You won't believe me if I explain, so check your phone's home screen first."

"What in the world is this about, desu no...?"

Setting ojou-sama hair takes time, you know, Karin thought, but she brought up her home screen with the call still connected. And then—

"..................Huh?"

Karin couldn't believe her eyes.

1,024 people, including ○○, started following you

500 people, including △△, liked your post

2,543 people, including □□, started following you

1,589 people, including ●●, started following you

Notifications like these filled the screen—and impossibly enough, they kept multiplying even now.

"Huh? Huh? M-Mafuyu!? Twiitter is broken, desu wa!?"

"It's not broken. Look at your account."

Mafuyu sounded dead serious.

Following her instructions, Karin nervously opened the Twiitter account she used for stream announcements—an account with two followers.

Followers: 302,000

Her follower count had increased a hundred and fifty thousand times over.

"Wh-what IS this, desu nooooooooo!?"

"Well, long story short, your evil-must-be-destroyed heroics yesterday went viral."

"Huh? Huh? Huh?"

Mafuyu calmly explained to the still-bewildered Karin.

The man Karin had beaten to a pulp yesterday wasn't a lost explorer at all, but Kagerou, a nuisance streamer infamous for farming controversy in dungeon-streaming circles. His camera had been broadcasting throughout, and footage of Karin stopping his outrageously dangerous stunt had gone out to the whole world and gone viral amid widespread praise. Worse—or rather, on top of that—Karin's own stream hadn't ended either. People had identified her channel in no time, and she was now the talk of the internet.

It was so much to take in that Karin forgot even to nod along.

"I-is that really true, desu no...?"

"It is. Look at Twiitter. You're number one trending right now."

"N-no way, desu wa. —Pffgh!?"

It was true.

#1 trending: Karin Yamada　100,000 posts

Her own name sat gleaming at the top of the morning's trends beside a ridiculous number.

Related phrases like "Ojou-sama of Poetic Justice," "Kagerou One-Punched," and "Dress in the Lower Layers" were also trending. She couldn't even grasp how many posts about her there were altogether.

And then—

"F-four hundred thousand channel subscribers...!?"

That number was beyond anything Karin could process.

Yesterday her flash-in-the-pan channel had had three subscribers. Now it had leaped straight into the upper-middle ranks of dungeon streamers.

And each time she refreshed, hundreds or thousands more appeared.

It was like searching a desert for water only to be hit by a tsunami. Her brain couldn't keep up.

None of it felt real.

No wonder she suspected a dream or a prank before she could feel happy.

But—

"Well, I thought my brain was broken when I first saw it, so I get how you feel. But for now, take it in and let yourself be happy. All that effort you've put in has finally brought your talent into the spotlight."

"M-Mafuyu..."

Her chest warmed at the gentleness in her best friend's voice.

That's right. It was still a bit much to process, but Mafuyu was right: the streams she'd poured herself into, to no success until now, were finally getting this much attention.

It did feel less like a reward for her own abilities than a lucky break that had come from using that nuisance streamer, so she couldn't celebrate wholeheartedly... Still, surely she was now a great deal closer to becoming 'an ojou-sama streamer who cheers up lots of people with elegant, lovely dungeon conquests,' like the character she'd admired that day.

Maybe she could allow herself a little happiness, as Mafuyu had said.

While she was still turning over that unprecedented turn of events in her head, Karin looked back at the trending page to come to terms with it. There, a troubling phrase caught her eye.

Thug Ojou-sama

"Eh... what is this, desu no...?"

At once, Mafuyu's words—"everything that happened yesterday was streamed"—flashed through her mind.

Driven by a terrible premonition, she tapped the phrase and played the top video, a popular clip with over three million views—

—'THE HELL WERE YOU THINKIN', YOU BASTARD, ORAAAAAAAAA!'

—'Don't you feel bad for the mother who hurt her lady parts bringin' you into this world, desu no!?'

—'Tch, how stingy for an adult explorer, desu wa.'

"OGYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!?"

It was a short video collecting Karin's remarks that were anything but elegant.

All those unladylike words that had slipped out in the emergency were being shared everywhere alongside footage of Kagerou being pounded to a pulp. And every similar clip uploaded alongside it had racked up hundreds of thousands of views overnight. At that nightmarish sight, a scream tore from Karin's throat.

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So, starting tomorrow, I'll be posting one episode a day.

I've written about a volume and a half's worth in advance, so I'll keep it up at least that far.

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