I May Be a Virtual Youtuber, but I Still Go to Work

Lightning Metropolitan Server, Week 1: Complete.

At 6 AM, the server shut down and Monday’s regular maintenance began. With broadcasts on pause, viewers who had been glued to streams poured into the community forums to talk about everything Lightning Metropolitan.
Unsurprisingly, the hottest topic was the same old problem that plagues every major server.
Those damn cuckoos—people who drop spoilers or mention other streamers unprompted, ruining the fun for everyone else.

… ─ — Pazijik Gallery ─ ─ — …
[Always wanted to f***ing strangle those cuckoo bastards]
The server-wide shared ban feature during Lightning Metro really cleaned up the place

Server admins are doing good work, fr fr
Apparently they're coordinating the bans through Discord announcements too
Honestly,
not knowing it’s Magia is what makes it fun 😂
When they crawl in going, “It’s obviously Magia behind Darai,” I legit wanted to rip them in half 😂
[Comments]
— pazijik801: Looks like Magia’s just copy-pasting what she did over in Parallel
ㄴ pazijik117 (OP): Parallel was involved in making the server this time, so they probably took it seriously
ㄴ pazijik117 (OP): Still, it’s f***ing everywhere
ㄴ pazijik117 (OP): I hope they all die
ㄴ pazijik990: If you block ‘em with the 8-panel mute for 3 months, you barely even see ‘em 😂
… ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ …

Still, the moderation was decent enough that the server was gaining a good reputation and setting a solid precedent.
No major issues had broken out yet in the mid-to-large streamer hubs that were crucial to the server’s narrative.
So yeah, cuckoo talk was one of the big threads this week.

The rest was mostly about Magia and Darai.
… ─ — Pazijik Gallery ─ ─ — …
[Don’t you think the streamers are starting to catch on?]

Honestly, I haven’t seen anyone mess with people that well except Magia
Pretty sure even the Lightning Metro streamers have figured out Magia’s behind Darai by now
They’re probably all just pretending not to know

Getting blindsided makes for better viewer numbers anyway, fr fr
[Comments]
— pazijik828: Honestly true
— pazijik009: No joke, it’s way funnier when they get caught off guard 😂
— pazijik772: But Darai might genuinely have no clue
ㄴ pazijik772: Like, when the server ends and people leave, she’ll find out it was Magia and totally freak
ㄴ pazijik024: Ah f***, just imagining that is hilarious 😂😂😂
ㄴ pazijik109: Damn 😂 I have to catch that stream
ㄴ pazijik557: If you miss that stream you’re basically throwing your entire life away 😂
ㄴ pazijik118: Y’all are being way too logical 😂
ㄴ pazijik118: What if she hears the name Magia and just doesn’t get it? 😂😂😂
ㄴ pazijik024: Huh?
ㄴ pazijik109: Wait…? 😂😂😂😂😂
ㄴ pazijik772: That’d be f***ing horrifying 😂😂
ㄴ pazijik880: Nah, come on 😂 There’s no way a VTuber streaming on Pazijik doesn’t know Parallel or Magia, that’s insane
ㄴ pazijik118: I’m saying it’s actually possible with Darai 😂😂😂
… ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ …

Now throw the emerging mafia groups into the mix.
The server was so fun, people were saying they couldn’t even imagine a day without Lightning Metropolitan.
… ─ — Pazijik Gallery ─ ─ — …

[Today’s gonna suck, fr]
F***, the server’s running fine
Why the hell do they even need maintenance

Give me my dopamine back, you fing b**dsㄹㄹㄹㄹㄹㄹㄹㄹㄹㄹ
[Comments]
— pazijik081: 😂
— pazijik102: Same f***ing here 😂
— pazijik771: What kinda drama is gonna hit in week 2, I wonder 😂😂😂
— pazijik612: One thing’s for sure—mafia’s gonna get spicy 😂
… ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ …
Anyway, there were green lights all around showing that the server was running smoothly.
Later that afternoon, on the day of server maintenance, Pazijik sent internal server metrics to the four of us who were basically holding up the server’s spine—Mugeon, Lupko, the Boss, and me.

No specific requests on how to support operations moving forward—just raw numbers showing how well the server was doing.
There had been a few incidents in week 1, but since they were all resolved within RP, no additional meetings were deemed necessary.
So now, with one of the three planned weeks behind us…

How well did it actually perform?
“Three-fifty thousand. Around the same viewer count as when Red Cup was hosted in Korea.”
For Knight of Legend’s international tournament, viewership during the knockout rounds from the top 8 averages between 300,000 and 400,000 domestic viewers.

The most recent finals had pulled in 450,000. So, 350,000 in just the first week? That was a massive number.
“But this only accounts for Pazijik’s numbers. The four from Bachubachu who also stream on YouTube pull in another 50,000 or so combined. So if you add that up, it’s 400,000. Insane numbers.”
Apparently, the most popular among them were the three tied to Darai.

My stream alone, ever since I started RPing as Tia, hadn’t dropped below 15,000 average viewers.
I clapped and asked the Boss.
“Glad it’s paying off. All that money, manpower, and time we sunk in—it’s worth it.”

“Right? What’s especially exciting is that this is just week 1. Next week, the mafia factions are gonna really kick off, and depending on how good that faction war gets, we’ll see if the numbers spike, hold, or dip.”
“But the citizens are enjoying it, right?”
“Most of them have jobs and seem to be having a good time with their roles. Not all 400 have jobs, though. Some folks came to Lightning Metro just to avoid working, so they’ve found other ways to make money.”

The most notable example?
TCB, Lightning Metro’s very own news agency.
TCB runs purely on viewer donations.

Miho had basically taken over Thunder—the city’s version of Twitter—so financially they seemed rock solid.
We also had food streamers, meme creators, dance shorts, and more cropping up.
People who bought motorcycles as their first vehicles ended up signing with Olympus Food to start food delivery gigs.

Others offered guided tours of hidden gems and local attractions around the server.
Real estate agents introducing decent housing.
Stylists and cosmetic surgeons helping people with custom looks.

Even a zoo and a maid café.
These businesses weren’t part of the initial plan, but the admins adapted fast and approved each one on the fly.
On top of that, the number of social clubs kept rising—not really economic groups, more like hobby guilds where people just hung out.

Shockingly, the club with the highest membership?
DaraiBoso.
You’d think, “Why would the fan club for the server’s most wanted criminal have the most members?”

Well, the game Neo California is built around minor crimes. But the moment you realize the other person is a streamer behind the RP, setting up crime scenes gets complicated.
Darai, though—she teased the cops and the gun clubs, but never actually triggered a UFC-tier incident. Even with tons of citizens chasing her, she always slipped away clean.
People loved her stories so much they wanted to talk about them outside the server—but that’d break RP and spoil the magic.

So they all gathered inside the server to talk instead. Word spread. Membership grew. It became the biggest club.
And when people gather, new connections form.
And with new connections, messy stories—love triangles, betrayal arcs—start to grow.

One way or another, it was a great sign that narratives were developing naturally, even beyond Darai, the current mainline plot.
The Boss tossed me an energy drink from the fridge and asked,
“So, how long are you planning to keep playing the villain?”

I caught the spinning can and set it down beside me on the sofa.
“Until the RP dies?”
“Killing RP ain’t that easy, you know?”

“Well, if I keep stirring up sh** like I have been, it’ll probably happen eventually.”
“What about balancing the server while you’re moonlighting as a taxi driver?”
“I’m handling that fine through Tia. It’s not like balance is completely shot yet, so there’s no need for deep intervention.”

Technically, we weren’t supposed to be talking about RP stuff this openly.
But the hospital folks were basically neutral.
Total third-party observers. So talking from an outside perspective was fine.

“More importantly, there’s no one better suited for the villain role than me. Sure, every streamer tries their hand at being Red Hood-type antagonists, but it always turns into drama.”
“…That’s true.”
The Boss ruffled my hair and said,

“Cool, but if you ever feel like a UFC-level explosion is coming, even half-ass a WWE exit. If you try to clean it up the wrong way, you might blow things up even worse.”
“I know. That’ll be the real moment to kill off my RP.”
The Boss seemed a little too focused on worrying about me, so I changed the subject—bringing up the hospital stuff.

Honestly, he had to be the one feeling most awkward there, constantly running into Taro unless he was on dispatch.
“By the way, is the hospital still on thin ice? I’ve been too busy to check in, but I heard y’all split into east and west wings?”
“…”

“If someone overheard you, they’d think you and Taro actually had a real fight. You’re half acting on purpose, aren’t you?”
The moment I said that, the Boss flicked his finger straight at my forehead.
Smack!

A clean snap rang out as it hit.
It stung like hell.
“Mind your own business. I’ll handle it myself. Don’t go trying to see Taro or anything.”

“It might just happen naturally if we run into each other during RP.”
“Still. Avoid it as much as you can.”
“Well, I’m heading west the moment the server opens tomorrow.”

“…Why?”
“What do you mean, why? To do bad things, obviously.”
The Boss looked at me with a mix of emotions before replying.

“So you have to cause trouble? Don’t come crying to the deputy director if you get knocked out.”
“Then I just won’t call the deputy director.”
“Darai’s entire group is a red-flag unit right now. If anything happens, a higher-up from the hospital will be dispatched immediately. And you’re not the kind of person who just gets knocked out. You’ll probably take down ten people minimum. That means the whole hospital crew will be mobilized.”

In short: continuing as Red Hood was fine, just don’t rack up too many casualties.
I’d already been playing it that way though. What’s with this overkill?
I shrugged and muttered.

“Even if other people go down, I just have to stay standing, right? Our boss is the public face anyway—if someone gets caught, it’ll be her.”
Even Darami, our boss, was starting to enjoy her role. Odds were low she’d actually rat me or Pino out if she got caught by the police.
If she’s that immersed in her boss role, she’d probably keep her mouth shut even if she got dragged through hell.

“Besides, the mafia factions are about to start going at each other. They won’t have the bandwidth to keep hounding us.”
Week 1 was all about the mafia groups building themselves up, and by mid-Week 2, we expected them to start using the strength they’d amassed.
Attacking and defending zones, stealing or losing business districts—it was the start of a full-blown East vs. West turf war.

But the mafias were gearing up faster than expected, and now the actual war was projected to kick off tomorrow.
Day one of Week 2.
Since regular citizens could sign on as mercenaries, unlike exclusive weapons smuggling, this was shaping up to be the server’s biggest combat content.

And more than anything else, it paid.
Half of all profits from businesses within a captured district were siphoned off as special tax. (The business owners didn’t pay it directly—it was automatically collected like a value-added tax and redirected to the mafia’s profit pool.)
The number was hefty enough that, even after splitting it with mercenaries, it was well worth it.

Mafias mostly spent the money at gun dealers on ammo.
Civilians blew theirs on cosmetics or vehicle gacha.
And of course, using services like maid cafés, zoos, vehicle repair—all of that took money too.

There was literally no reason to skip an event this big.
“Anyway, I gotta crash if I want to survive tomorrow. Aren’t you sleeping?”
“I’ve got work to do. If I don’t do it now, I never will.”

“I’ll help.”
“Nope. You just sleep and handle the streaming team stuff when you wake up, then get back in the server.”
Then a thought hit me.

“…But is it okay for me to be enjoying the server this much?”
The Boss chuckled dryly.
“Enjoying it? Isn’t it half and half? Half management, half fun. Might as well go all in while you can. Things are gonna get busy after it ends.”

“That’s true. We’ve got to start talking about ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) the third gen soon.”
“And if keeping the Tia RP going starts getting hard, tell me first. I’ll help you stage a proper RP death. That way you can go back to being Manager Ma, driving cabs and chilling.”
I rubbed my chin and glanced at the Boss.

“It’s fine. I’m just letting off steam by doing stuff I’d never dare normally.”
“…Yeah, I kinda got that vibe.”
The Boss opened his laptop on the sofa and started digging through his inbox, when suddenly he stopped and called out just as I was heading into my room.

“Oh hey—are you interested in doing voice work?”
“Voice acting?”
“Yeah. I just got a proposal dumped on me. For you and four of our talents.”

Even if it looks like I’m buried in Lightning Metro, I’m still dabbling in the utaite scene.
I’m more of a recording assistant now—I go in, record for two hours, and head home. I even hit the studio last week.
But more voice work on top of that?

Absolutely no way I could handle it right now.
Still, if the girls were getting a shot at dubbing, that was tempting as hell.
If the condition was I had to tag along too? I could live with that.

“Can we talk about it again after Lightning Metro ends?”
“That was my plan anyway.”
“Okay. Then I’m off to bed.”

***
I waved back to the Boss and closed the door. Next thing I knew, I blinked and it was 2 PM.
After catching up on some overdue streaming team work before the server reopened at 6 PM, I locked myself in my personal studio on the ninth floor and started prepping for Week 2 of Lightning Metropolitan.

I’d had the chance to check out Darami and Pino’s streams, and got a vague sense of what they were thinking.
But in the end, RP from Lightning Metro should stay in Lightning Metro.
So I didn’t let curiosity take over—I didn’t go digging through forums.

I was honestly more excited to see what kind of state Darami would be in when I met her again.
On the last day of Week 1, she’d shown a hint of growth.
Maybe taking a day off gave her time to double down and level up her Red Hood play…

“Hey, Tia! You’re here! Did you hear? The turf war’s starting. Wanna sneak in as mercs?”
…Yeah, no.
She seemed like a solid boss during the gun club RP, but one day off and all her screws came loose.

…Is she the type who only levels up when you keep throwing her into intense drama?
“Are you an idiot? You’re a wanted criminal. You’ll get caught the moment you show up.”
“Oh.”

“Oh~? Seriously, this is my boss? Ugh.”
“But you and Pin0 can go, right? Go make us some money. We need funds.”
“We’ll handle that. That’s not the point. Have you thought of a plan to break trust between the West Mafia and the businesses?”

If she hadn’t even completed the assignment I gave her, I was going to scare the hell out of her until she woke up and started acting like a proper boss.
Surprisingly, though, she was actually doing a great job with the one task she’d been given.
“Of course I thought of something.”

“What is it? Tell me.”
“We hijack an Olympus Food truck.”
“We do?”

“Yeah. We take the goods and then park the truck near the West Mafia’s hideout.”
“Hmmm. So we’re making it look like the West Mafia secretly stole goods and gave them to Red Hood?”
“Exactly! Genius, right?”

She clearly hadn’t thought ahead to the part where taking the goods would make us the enemy and actually tighten the bond between the mafia and the businesses.
But the idea itself? Not bad.
It’d need some heavy tweaking, but the fact that Darami came up with something on her own was encouraging.

I grinned and said,
“When Pino gets here, let’s jack that truck first! Hehe!” 😈