chapter04 · 092-ep92
Episode 89: The Return of Everyday Life and the Usual Problem
Several days passed after the outrageous weekend deep-layer stream that had shaken the world, and what Karin had done had thoroughly permeated society.
The many shocking images had been clipped and spread more times than anyone could count, and the portion of Karin's strength that she had never revealed before was now known far and wide, discussed wherever one went.
And yet—despite the existence of an individual with the power of a natural disaster becoming common knowledge, at least on the surface, it hadn't caused that enormous a commotion.
For most people, Karin's power was simply too vast to comprehend its true enormity. It was obviously abnormal. But domains like the deep and abyssal layers were so far removed from ordinary experience that the general public couldn't grasp the specific danger as well as national leaders or the explorer crowd on message boards. Even explorers belonging to top clans didn't believe they could accurately gauge Karin's strength.
Thus, although the explorer crowd online was in an uproar on the scale of a natural catastrophe, society at large saw Karin Yamada as no more than "some insane explorer with ridiculous power." Outlandish concerns such as "Could Karin Yamada overthrow a nation single-handedly if she tried?" were not being openly discussed.
Instead—
"Oh! Morning, Genocide Ojou-sama!"
"Move it, move it! Genocide Ojou-sama is coming to school! Clear the road if you don't want your face plowed!"
"We have to prepare offerings so Karin-chan doesn't go berserk! I'll sacrifice a sausage from my lunch."
"We're not hypnotized, so spare us the 'lifesaving,' all right?"
"I heard a weird noise this morning, so I might be hypnotized!"
"S-shut uuuuuuuuuuuup, desu waaaaaaaaa!"
When Karin came to school, she screamed at the endless wisecracks her classmates hurled at her.
Yes.
Karin's public image was not currently that of an explorer capable of overthrowing a nation alone. It was dangerous in an entirely different direction: Genocide Ojou-sama.
Of Karin's exploits, her solo conquest of abyssal floor 1 was, of course, a major topic in its own right. Online discussions were widespread over whether Karin might be a walking Elegant disaster whom the nation's combined forces could not defeat.
On the other hand... compared with her solo charge into the abyss, her subsequent counterattack against Black Tiger was much easier for ordinary people to understand as a sensational display of power and abnormality, so it was on everyone's lips. (It also helped that information about the abyss was so untouchable that official news outlets such as television and online news had not mentioned it at all.)
And so, rather than an uncontrollable monster who could subjugate an entire nation alone, the overwhelmingly dominant image of Karin was that of the righteous Genocide Ojou-sama who had turned the tables on a corrupt clan.
Naturally, that unwanted treatment didn't come only from her classmates.
【Thug Thug Ojou-sama! Strongest Massacre Ojou-sama!】
【I can't wait for Genocide Ojou-sama's next massacre (stream), desu wa~】
【"Genocide Ojou-sama" has completely stuck, LMAO】
【Come to think of it, she's been onesidedly massacring monsters forever, so this name might actually be more accurate】
【That "endurance MAD of Karin ojou-sama endlessly annihilating Black Tiger, except Black Tiger's endurance is so low that each loop is too short" is on the trending chart】
【Someone made an impossible game where you have to escape Karin ojou-sama chasing you through the lower layers, LMAO】
And so on. The way the internet treated her spoke for itself.
To defend them a little, thanks in part to her reflection stream the day after the deep-layer conquest, calling her Genocide Ojou-sama was not done with fear or criticism. Black Tiger's annihilation had been a massive hit everywhere, so the tone was more one of affectionate teasing... but either way, there wasn't a shred of Elegance in the title.
"M-Mafuyu! Mafuyuuuuuuuuu!"
Turning her back on her strong-hearted classmates, who teased her without the slightest fear despite her solo conquest of abyssal floor 1, Karin fled crying to her best friend as usual.
"Yes, it is true I beat the absolute stuffing out of Black Tiger! But even if it turned out I was wrong somehow, I genuinely meant it as lifesaving! My Elegant image has moved even farther away, desu no!"
Karin shouted while chewing on the sausage her classmate had offered her.
"What am I supposed to do about this, Mafuyuuuu!?"
"You say that every single time."
"Because this happens every single time for some reason!"
In contrast to Mafuyu's exasperated reply in her usual low-energy manner, Karin was desperate.
She had worried about this for a long time, but if the elements viewers wanted diverged from the channel concept, it could lead to nothing good in the future.
Especially now that her subscriber count had reached a number that defied belief. Any discord created by that divergence would presumably grow in proportion. Having personally learned from Black Tiger's information operation how deeply fan arguments and flame wars could cast a shadow over a stream, Karin could now envision that sort of anxiety as a concrete risk.
Rather than proof of her popularity, the figure "over twenty million subscribers" looked like the firepower waiting for the next controversy, which was bad for her heart.
Against that backdrop, the fact that Karin's image had grown so distant from "Elegant" was rather frightening to her. Of course, the most important thing was for her viewers to enjoy themselves, so she wanted to be flexible to some degree... but everything had its limits.
"I am always mindful of Elegance, yet every major stream brings some unfortunate event that gives people the wrong idea about me... Perhaps I am cursed, desu wa..."
"If someone tried to curse a lump of life-force like you, the curse would rebound instantly and kill them."
Honestly, Mafuyu believed that as long as Karin remained mindful of being "Elegant," no discrepancy between the viewers' perception and Karin's streams would ever arise. But some things were better left unsaid.
That said...
(The government side—including us—did push things a little so the Black Tiger annihilation would stand out and dilute the impression from her solo conquest of abyssal floor 1...)
The decision had been made because it would keep Karin's surroundings (relatively) peaceful. But it was also undeniably one factor encouraging people to tease her as Genocide Ojou-sama. Even without that, when Karin came crying to her, there was only one thing to do. Mafuyu let out a small breath and offered her usual advice.
"Well, as always, the best way to clear away a strange image is to keep doing Elegant streams. This time, you might want to make a point of doing some more relaxed ones."
"Relaxed streams?"
"Yeah. The 'genocide' image is partly tied to the way you defeat monsters in the first place. If you increase the frequency of relaxed streams like chatting broadcasts, it'll be easier to soften the dangerous image too. And in streaming or any other popularity-based business, contrast is important. If you constantly offer nothing but extreme stimulation, your audience gets tired. And having twenty million subscribers has to be stressing you out without you even noticing. To diversify your streams and keep viewers from getting bored, you should take this opportunity to explore some more laid-back directions."
That would also reduce foreign powers' opportunities to analyze Karin's hand and discourage rash action, Mafuyu continued inwardly.
Karin was now, as a precaution, always wearing and improving magic items that strengthened her detection abilities and fortifying her house to the extent possible. Even so, they wanted to reduce the probability of an attack by any amount they could.
Now that so much of Karin's ability had been disclosed, there was probably no need to be overly nervous; almost nobody would take the risk of attacking her. But if she revealed less of her hand in dungeon streams, foreign powers already wary of her strength would grow even more cautious and find it harder to approach. And doing more relaxed streams would soften the general public's impression of her too. For all those reasons, Mafuyu made her proposal.
"I see..."
"And there's that other thing. Unlike when your <Internal Storage> skill was exposed during the dungeon collapse, there isn't any reason to turn down sponsorships this time, right? You should probably accept those properly too. If you appeared in a tea commercial, for example, wouldn't that help restore your 'Elegant' image?"
"Oh, sponsorships...!"
At that word, Karin remembered the innumerable offers she had received and started trembling for an entirely different reason.
Over the past few days, messages had been pouring in from names so famous that it felt like a joke. She could barely tell whether they were authentic and had been completely terrified. There were incomparably more than even after she resolved the dungeon collapse, to the point that she suspected a new form of psychological attack.
After consulting Mafuyu, she had decided to prioritize offers from companies that had supported her rather than distancing themselves while she was under suspicion—such as Dungeon Alive's publisher—but accepting corporate sponsorships herself still felt too dreamlike to be real. And besides—
"Setsuna-sama collaborated with all sorts of places when the anime aired, so in that sense, I am happy enough to leap for joy that receiving sponsorships means I have drawn even a little closer to her... But merely imagining working with a major corporation makes me so nervous I could puke everywhere, desu wa..."
She had experienced the absurdity of a collaboration with the Metropolitan Police commissioner-general, but honestly, she had been so nervous that she remembered almost nothing of the broadcast. Her effective experience level was zero. Mafuyu was undoubtedly right that she should accept offers to clear away her genocidal image, but Karin was so intimidated that she didn't even notice her language had lost its Elegance.
I'd be way more relaxed charging into the abyss... Karin thought, whereupon Mafuyu smiled a little teasingly.
"But corporate sponsorships are nothing to get nervous about compared with what's coming."
"Eh?"
"Ah... I happened to overhear this while you were being questioned by the Anti-Dungeon Division... You'll probably get official contact sometime today or tomorrow."
Mafuyu brushed it off evasively.
Even when Karin asked, "Eh? Eh? What is it, desu no?" she played innocent. But the following day—
"Ah... hello, Karin ojou-sama? The thing is... I think you'll receive official contact again later, but... they said you probably wouldn't believe them, so they wanted someone you knew to explain it first..."
The call that proved Mafuyu's words came from Honoka. Even Honoka herself sounded somewhat unsure as she said—
"They're considering awarding Karin ojou-sama the People's Honor Award... and they'd like to know if you'll accept it."
"........................................................................Hah?"
Pop went Karin's darling little brain as it stopped processing.
As though karma had come around for all the times she had forced viewers' minds to shut down, Karin's thoughts remained stopped for a very long time.
―――――――――――――――――――
Incidentally, when the allegations fell upon Karin, her classmates believed her because "There's no way Yamada could pull off anything that clever," so Karin can't come down too hard on them right now. That said, her classmates have nerves of steel to tease Karin without hesitation. (Though knowing her ordinary personality so well plays a part.)
※One more supplement to last time: the big reason Kagerou-sama escaped without being traumatized by the ojou-sama was that he was never chased through a dungeon while certain she would kill him; he was crushed before he had time to feel fear. Between that and leaving Black Tiger at exactly the right moment, it wouldn't be strange if he had a unique for absurd luck (or strange luck?), desu wa.