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

The festival was the grand finale in every sense of the word.

Everyone who had applied to perform got their moment on stage, keeping the energy sky-high throughout.
Surprisingly, the biggest crowd reaction came from Regon, the official VTuber of KG Dragons’ Battle Colosseum team.
Despite spending most of her time managing livestock—milking cows, making cheese, processing beef, and supplying a huge chunk of Olympus Food’s ingredients—she’d remained under the radar due to her long work hours at the ranch.

But then she walked on stage in a cow cosplay (well, just the ears and a bell, really) and unleashed her full femme fatale allure—and the entire audience was shook.
No one had any idea Regon could sing a sultry ballad like that.
Some even said she should’ve been in an unofficial idol unit, and the CEO of Lightning Metropolis’s talent agency publicly expressed regret that they hadn’t scouted her sooner.

Elsewhere, other VTuber agencies and independents also showed off impressive vocals and stage charisma, sparking another round of “Why is the VTuber talent bar so freaking high?”
Taro, Haroko, and Luna from Bachubachu formed a unit and put on a spectacular show to promote their upcoming release.
And of course, the final stage was reserved for the ones who had poured the most time and money into the server: Parallel’s 1st and 2nd gens.

Everyone had been overwhelmed just playing and keeping up with the server, but even so, they’d gone through grueling practice sessions to prepare for the server’s theme song performance.
This time, though, it wasn’t as nerve-wracking as before.
The 1st-gen talents had grown stronger, no longer needing to be constantly worried about. And thanks to CAT Entertainment, they even got real-world stage experience.
So the seven idols were able to wrap things up perfectly—without even needing Magia to step in.

Compared to earlier performances, which always had at least one or two regrets, this one stood nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with Bachubachu’s flawless production.
And when the final performance ended?
It was just a flood of tears.

The Mafia—between Red Hood, the other crime syndicates, and the police—had built an intense sense of camaraderie. So their goodbyes were some of the most emotional.
Same with the police and hospital staff, who had spent three full weeks working side-by-side nonstop.
Even the regular citizens had formed deep bonds in their jobs and social circles, and many couldn’t help but recall the Red Hood Raid from the night before the festival, which had united the entire city.

Even male streamers—who were usually more stoic—ended up tearing up from the sudden goodbyes. As for the women? Practically everyone was crying; you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone dry-eyed.
And for the record? I was one of the few who didn’t cry.
Maybe that’s why, at some point, streamers started gathering around me… and doing weird stuff.

I found out later—they were all trying to make me cry.
It was like some coordinated mission: create a touching scene, set the mood, pull the emotions out naturally until I broke down.
But here’s the thing.

I was way too busy managing the other members to focus on any of that.
Everyone was just so sweet—and such crybabies—that they were already a mess and couldn’t hold it together. Even Rain and Komari, who rarely showed tears, had red eyes that day.
So I had all their streams open, watching like a hawk to make sure no one slipped up or said anything dumb on camera.

Meanwhile, people were pulling out every emotional trick in the book to try and get me to cry—but I barely even noticed.
After the server ended, I actually sent out apologies on TalkCord, saying sorry for not reacting more during the big moment.
But by then… apparently, my image had already solidified among the other streamers as “the stone.”
They’d assumed that someone who played Tia so convincingly must be bursting with emotions… Only to find out I was an unfeeling lump of cold scrap metal—and that caught them off guard.

As a result, a ton of streamers left clips on my channel.
Normally, when someone clips a moment from a streamer’s own broadcast, the creator can delete it.
But if they clip it from my stream, it’s only removed if I take it down—and unless they ask me personally, those clips are staying right where they are.

***
After Thunderbolt Metropolis ended, my channel on Pazijik exploded in growth.
The biggest reason, of course, was the consistently high viewer count throughout the series.

The fact that I was the last surviving member of the criminal organization that had stuck with the massive server from beginning to end as it hurtled toward its conclusion.
That I had led Red Hood without a single major slip-up and managed to mess with both the police and the mafia.
And that the person who finally ended her was none other than the reincarnation RP of Mugeon—the one who had suffered the most at Magia’s hands during Thunderbolt Metropolis.

All of that added up to something massive.
In the final week, I managed to hold nearly 60,000 viewers simultaneously on my stream.
[(🔴Live) Thunderbolt Metropolis – Week 3, Day 4] 👪 62,004 viewers

That number even surpassed the peak viewer count for Taro’s content broadcasts—he’s not only active but has the highest average viewership in Korea right now.
Most major corporations on Pazijik have around 300k to 400k followers.
I reached half of that—200,000—in just three weeks.

Alongside Darami, who went from a nobody to a major figure overnight, this became one of the most legendary growth stories in Pazijik’s history.
[⚡Pazijik]
[Manager Magia]
@magia_parallel | 212,000 followers
Manager Magia from VTuber group Parallel
Week 3 of Thunderbolt Metropolis—during the Red Hood extermination arc and the final day festival—viewer numbers peaked again, hitting 450,000 in total.

Tia’s character was absolutely central to the main storyline, so that likely played a big part.
And the donation revenue over those three weeks? Astronomical.
After discussing it with the CEO, I ultimately decided to keep running my personal channel.

“Anyway, if we get sponsorships in the future, I’ll just use it for those.”
“Yeah. Honestly, it’d be a waste to let 200,000 subs just sit there.”
“Mm.”

But maybe because ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) I made the decision so willingly, the CEO stood in front of me with this weird uncomfortable look on her face—like she thought I’d been possessed or something.
Feeling a bit mischievous, I said to her:
“By the way… now that it’s all over, I gotta say I’m kind of disappointed in you, Boss.”

“Wh-What?”
“When Tia nearly died, you showed up late, remember?”
“…”

“I thought someone like you would’ve seen it coming.”
Looking uncharacteristically flustered, the CEO actually tried to explain herself.
“I was going to rush over, I swear. But I’m the director, and there were too many injured around me. I couldn’t just leave… you know?”

“I get it. But still, Taro got there before you.”
Her eyes and brows flattened out into a deadpan expression.
Then she snapped back with a sharp tone.

“You know I don’t fall for that anymore, right? You keep bringing up Taro even though you have no plans to join Bachubachu. Are you trying to throw me off or what?”
“Ah, you caught me. Hehehe.”
Hearing my smug little laugh, the CEO burst into laughter herself.

“You know, after playing Tia for three weeks, you’ve gotten kind of cuter.”
“I have not.”
I shot her a cold glare, but she just chuckled and teased me more.

“So what now? All those clips of your Tia performance are going to get clipped, uploaded, and spread all over YouTube by every streamer who was in Thunderbolt Metropolis. Can you handle that? Should I put a ‘no clippings’ ban in place to help?”
The CEO had her own share of RP-related trauma from the past—old situations where her improvisation went out of control and turned into “cringe history.”
These days, she’s known as a master of roleplay. But that was all born from trial, error, and a ton of past mistakes.

Maybe she wanted to help me avoid the same path.
Too bad—I’m not embarrassed at all.
“It’s fine. Leave them up.”

“…Leave them? You know that’s going to haunt you forever, right? Everyone you meet will be like, ‘Oh my god, it’s Tia—the genius and devilish girl herself!’”
“Tia-yam~! I wuv you so much~!”
“Hey!!”

I mimicked her voice and antics for the first time in a while, and it hit twice as hard as usual.
She huffed and pulled my cheeks to both sides with all her strength.
“Ngghhheegh…”

“I was gonna help you, and this is how you repay me? Fine. Do it your way. I’m not helping anymore.”
“It really doesn’t bother me. The more people see those videos, the more new viewers we can bring to Parallel.”
I rubbed my sore cheeks and looked at her seriously.

“You saw the news, right?”

Gaming, streaming, and culture editorial teams across the press were falling over each other to cover Thunderbolt Metropolis.

More and more people are going to be drawn into the streaming world because of this event—and the endless content being generated from it.
And for those newcomers, Tia will be a mandatory gateway.
I put my whole heart into playing her so that it wouldn’t feel awkward or cringey, but immersive and captivating.

If they watch Tia and end up on my channel, and from there get funneled into Parallel—that’s an opportunity I won’t waste.
Plus, Pazijik is very eager to launch Thunderbolt Metropolis Season 2.
They’ve already hinted at even more investment and larger participation, based on what we heard from their rep after the server shutdown yesterday.

And I already teased in a conversation with Pino that Tia—or someone related to her—might show up in Season 2, didn’t I?
Someone’s bound to get curious.
What happened to Tia? What’s the relationship between Manager Magia and Tia?

So the more Tia videos circulating online, the better.
Embarrassment?
What’s the point of that?

Sure, VTubers sometimes pretend to be embarrassed on stream to appeal to viewers.
But I’m not a VTuber. I don’t need to fake that.
I wasn’t embarrassed at all.

In fact, I loved seeing the Slugs coughing up blood over it.
“If I ever run out of ideas for sponsored streams, I might just stream like Tia.”
“Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah. Watching the Slugs go feral is pretty entertaining. And in the right setting, it could work really well.”
“Honestly, yeah.”
She seemed to have an idea then, sending me a message as she spoke.

“Glad you brought that up.”
There was a sponsorship offer that just came in, and she wanted me, Darami, and Pino to do it together.
Pino would definitely say yes.

But Darami was still uncertain, so she asked:
“Do you have direct contact with Darami?”
“Nope. But we’re both in the same Discord hub. I’m sure if I message her, she’ll respond?”

“Then go ahead and reach out. Say we got a joint sponsorship offer and want to do it together.”
Now that I think about it, I’ve never actually talked to the real-life Darami.
Will that be okay?

She’s a female streamer, sure, but she always creates male characters and flexes constantly—it doesn’t exactly scream “normal.”
“Alright. I’ll message her.”