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

10 Rolls Later...
:: Pino has donated 1,000,000 Clouds! ::
:: 10 ::

[KYAAAAAAAAAAAH!!]
[SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT]
Maru loves the sky, but she has no wings!
After being launched into the stratosphere ten times in a row, Maru finally landed back on solid ground.

A 10 million won donation right at the start of the server had everyone talking.
[SERVER] Serena: ㅊㅊㅊㅊㅊㅊㅊㅊㅊㅊㅊㅊㅊ
[SERVER] Kamik: Maru, thanks in advance for the trickle-down economy. Hehehe.
[SERVER] Merisha: Holy crap.
Most reactions were the usual business-friendly congratulations, but some people stood out due to their personal connection.

[SERVER] Movgun: Parallel’s spending power is insane.
[SERVER] Ronze: Maru, what kind of special occasion is today?!
Meanwhile, the chat was losing it.
— Just casually depositing the special invitation fee, lol.
— Sir, a credit card is not an infinite money machine.
— Absolute mad lad.
— Someone has to go into debt eventually…
— So, does this make you an official member of the High Rollers now?

Maru, after pausing the donation flood, quickly switched on Echo Mode to prepare her reaction.
In API-synced collab streams like this, the unspoken rule was to delay big donation reactions until right before ending the stream.
But… Pino wasn’t an insider—he was an external figure.

Pushing the reaction to later might be seen as disrespectful in this case.
Just as Maru hesitated, Pino sent another message.
— Pino: Hurry up and roll the coin gacha for the special invitation. GO GO GO GO GO GO.
— Pino: Double the reaction time before you log off.

His unshakable conviction in that message made Maru shut off Echo Mode immediately.
[Ah, understood! If you're okay with that, I'll do it that way, Pino. Thank you so, so much for your donation!]
— Even making sure to include a reaction? Peak Pino. LOL.
— Thank you, Pino-senpai.
— I am now one with Pino.

The viewers didn’t object either.
A top donor who respected streaming etiquette and let the VTuber enjoy the game?
There was no reason to hate him.
Right now, Pino was the hero of Maru’s stream.

Since Maru was a starting member, she had to invite more members herself.
Plus, the audience was highly anticipating Magia’s participation, making the burden of securing a special invitation heavier than ever.
If viewer donations alone hadn’t been enough, things could have gotten ugly.
Some die-hard fans might have even maxed out their credit cards to make up for it.

The CEO threatened to crack my skull open when I mentioned breaking my savings for this.
But apparently, I wasn’t the only one with that mindset.
When a VTuber wants to invite someone, fans will chip in to see them interact.
And when someone is about to be invited, fans will do whatever it takes to secure their spot.
… Though, in Pino’s case, the invitee wasn’t even a VTuber, so things were a bit different.

But today’s priority was Maru, so no one was going to argue the details.
Maru, having converted all the coins into gacha boxes, spoke with nervous excitement.
[Alright, let’s start rolling the coin gacha!]

— LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOO!
— PLEASE LET A SPECIAL INVITE DROP!
Since she had received 10 million won, she had 1,000 coins to spend.
And since one special invitation had a 0.1% chance of dropping, every roll was high stakes.

Everyone held their breath as Maru started rolling in batches of ten.
200 boxes in.
— We’re already 200 deep?!
— Please, please, please!

500 boxes in.
— AAAAAAHHHH!
— COME ONNNNNNN!
900 boxes in.

— NOOOOOOOOOOO!
— CRITICAL FAILURE!
And then…
970 boxes.

Maru’s voice began to falter.
[Holy crap. This is a disaster…]
— This is a nightmare.
— Rigged. This gacha is RIGGED!

But Maru refused to give up.
[No. It’s not over yet. I still have 30 left.]
Pino and the viewers refused to give up too.

— Pino: If it doesn’t drop now, I’ll just take on more commissions. LET’S GO!
— Sir, that will kill you.
— Chill out, man. You still have pending donations.
— Bro, what the hell.
— WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.
— Pino, are you okay?
— You have lost your mind.
And I refused to give up too.
I still had 10 million won in savings, ready to be deployed.

If this batch of 1,000 didn’t work, I’d just fund another 1,000 myself.
Come on, special invitation!
[SYSTEM] Opened 10 Wicker Boxes.
…
…
…
…
…
…

[SPECIAL INVITATION x1]
[SPECIAL INVITATION x1]
The moment Maru saw the last two items in the list, she shrieked.
[KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!]

— AAAAAAAAAAA MY EARS.
— HOLY CRAP.
— TWO?!?!?!
— I’M GONNA EXPLODE.
— PURE DOPAMINE.
— TWO INVITES WTF.
— THIS IS INSANE.
I didn’t even catch what Maru said next.
Because the volume spike had me ripping off my headset for dear life.

*
At the same time, Momo was also rolling the coin gacha.
In fact, she had logged in 30 minutes earlier than Maru and was already on her 2,000th roll.

But the result?
"………."
She had rolled 2,000 times—worth 20 million won—and hadn’t pulled a single special invitation.

— Momo, PLEASE.
— HOW are your hands this cursed?!
— Our CEO has the worst gacha luck in history.
— This is PAINFUL to watch.
This was exactly why I had prepared an emergency 10 million won.
After six years of watching Momo fail at gacha, I knew better.

Her chat wasn’t explicitly comparing her to Maru since calling out bad luck was prohibited, but…
The vibe in her chat was basically a funeral.
Meanwhile, over in Maru’s chat, the room was literally exploding.

And at that exact moment, Maru—completely unaware—approached Momo in the tutorial area.
[Boss! I pulled two invites!!]
Momo pulled herself together immediately, but…

"What? Two? How many coins did you use?"
[Just 1,000! Crazy, right?! Pino donated it too!]
The moment Momo heard that, her mood plummeted.

But being a seasoned pro, she smoothly played it off.
"Damn. My special invite must’ve gone to you, huh?"
— ???
— That’s NOT how it works, boss.
— Maru won that fair and square.
— LMAO.

But then Momo paused.
… Something was off.
"Wait… Pino? Pino donated for this?"

[Yeah, he gave me 1,000 Wicker Coins, and I got two invites with them!]
"1,000?! He didn’t leave any message?"
[Nope. Just told me to roll the gacha immediately.]

Momo froze.
Pino only ever donated for one reason.
Magia.

And the viewers knew it too.
— Is Magia joining now?
— HOLY CRAP.
— PINO STRIKES AGAIN.
Momo sighed, then smiled.

"Alright. One invite goes to Gia. The other… we’ll check who’s online and bring them in."
[Got it!]
At this point, Momo wasn't feeling particularly upset or overjoyed—just somewhere slightly on the happy side of neutral.

After all, Maru had nearly tripped herself up with the leaks, and Momo had been worried about how to handle the situation.
Then, to make matters worse, her own gacha rolls had been a complete disaster.
But with Maru pulling two special invitations, that frustration evaporated.

Of course, that happiness didn’t last long.
— So does this mean Maru is Gia’s mom now?
— Oh crap, you’re right.
— Wait a minute.
— She stole an employee! LOL.
— ???: Boss? You?
Since this was a special invitation-only server, there was a common RP tradition:

The person who invited you was considered your "parent."
In other words, Magia—who had always followed Momo around like a baby chick—was now expected to cling to Maru instead.
"She’s not ‘stealing’ anyone. I’m just lending Gia out temporarily."

— Honestly, after being exploited by Momo for so long, Gia’s gonna lose her mind over Maru’s kindness.
— LMAO, true.
— If I were Gia, I’d choose Maru as my mom too.
— Momo is cold-hearted…
Momo frowned, then yelled at the chat.
"What the hell are you guys talking about?! Maybe you should’ve PRAYED when donating, so I could’ve actually pulled an invite!"

— ???
— Did she just blame us?
— HEY HEY HEY.
And so began the daily WWE showdown.
"I’m In."

Thanks to Pino’s absurd donation and Maru’s god-tier luck, I had been preparing to join the server the whole time.
Less than ten minutes after the invites dropped, I was in Wicker Town.
And I immediately started streaming.

(🔴 Live) Wicker Town Season 2 - Parallel Monitoring Room, Day 1
👪 Viewers: 2,110
#64Cubics #Parallel
— I can’t believe we get to watch Magia stream for two full weeks.
— Parallel’s monitoring room is literally genius.
— After three years, Momo is finally useful.
— Jaha!!!!
— Jaha~

To be honest, I wasn’t doing anything exciting.
Just grinding and promoting the members.
This translation is the intellectual property of .

It felt a little weird to run this through the official channel, but I had specific orders from the CEO.
This wasn’t just any stream.
It was the Parallel Monitoring Room.

During Season 1, the members had sacrificed sleep to keep playing off-stream.
The CEO had struggled to catch them, forcing them to log off and rest.
So this time, she came up with a countermeasure:

Even if the 1st Gen members turned off their streams, I would remain logged in to monitor their activity.
My job was simple:
Check if members were actually sleeping.
Stay online before they logged in and after they logged out.
Redirect idle viewers to active members when they came online.
It sounded complicated, but the server showed a live player list, so all I had to do was exist.

Did I have to interact with viewers or entertain them?
「No need to force yourself to entertain the chat. Just do your job. That’s the whole point of a monitoring room.」
Nope.

As long as I was following orders, I could just focus on my own tasks—whether it was grinding or promo work.
After spawning in the tutorial zone, I started looking for Maru—my "parent."
Before I could, though, someone approached me first.

[Magia! Welcome!]
A figure with a disco-ball head and a white "ADMIN" title floated nearby.
It was Wicker.

I quickly adjusted my mic settings before responding.
"Testing, testing. Can you hear me?"
[Whoa. You already set up your audio? A lot of players struggle with that—I was helping users troubleshoot just a second ago.]

"Ah, well. I’m usually the one troubleshooting for the members."
Even back when Parallel had its own 64 Cubics server, I had handled every member’s audio setup.
Hell, I even went to someone’s house once because they couldn’t figure it out.

— That manager experience coming in clutch.
— Finally, someone who isn’t completely lost in the tutorial.
— So relaxing to watch.
Chat and Wicker were impressed, but I was used to it.
… Though, I noticed a few viewers were straight-up comparing me to the members.

I immediately messaged Seung-yeon and told her to ban them for ten minutes.
After that, I temporarily enabled donations on the official channel.
Normally, the official streams kept donations disabled to maintain a professional vibe, but the CEO had made an exception for the monitoring room.

After all, those donations could go toward more gacha rolls.
While the API sync was processing, Wicker sent me a DM with an image attachment.
[This is a breakdown of donation rewards. You can display it on-screen, but feel free to customize it.]

Essentially, certain donation amounts triggered in-game rewards.
This was how Maru and the CEO had gotten their Wicker Coins for the special invitation rolls.
10,000 won = 10 Wicker Breads (server-exclusive food) + 1 Coin
20,000 won = Full hunger/thirst restore + 2 Coins
30,000 won = Full HP restore + 3 Coins
50,000 won = Random buffs + 5 Coins
Higher donations triggered boss spawns that dropped rare loot.

And 100,000 won?
As Maru had demonstrated earlier…
It blasted the recipient into the sky with no chance of survival.

Unless you had an inventory protection pass, you would drop everything upon death.
[Whisper] Wicker: API sync complete! Enjoy the server! ^^b
"Thanks. See you around."

— Wicker bye~
— Wicker bye!
I left Wicker behind and descended a flight of stairs, entering an area lined with giant billboards.
This was the server tutorial.

Professions
Earning Money
Leveling Up
Basically, a guide to surviving Wicker Town’s two-week runtime.
Then, a loud voice interrupted my reading.
[WAAAAH! GIAAAAA!! MAGIA! MAGIA! MAGIAAAAAA!!]

Maru came charging at me, bouncing in circles.
"You’re giving me a headache."
[Ehehe. Sorry!]

A small crowd had gathered—players waiting in the tutorial zone for their friends.
Thanks to Maru’s excited yelling, a few of them started drifting toward us.
I recognized them immediately.

Movgun was the first to speak.
[Hello, Manager. Long time no see.]
"Ah, yes. Good to see you, Movgun."

[So… when are you hitting Master Tier?]
"I’m working on it, but the matchmaking is full of lunatics. I need two more ranks."
Next was Ronze.

[Gia! I saw your travel teaser. When’s the full video dropping?]
"Hey, Ronze. The teaser came out 1-2 weeks early, so probably next week. I don’t have an exact date yet."
Finally, Serena was about to speak when—

[Whisper] Wicker: API sync complete! Enjoy the server! ^^b
A firework exploded.
I was launched into the sky.

[SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT]
Magia has received 1,000,000 Clouds and has ASCENDED!
I pierced through the clouds, falling back down.
Someone had just dropped 1 million won on the official channel.

:: Pino has donated 1,000,000 Clouds! ::
:: I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS DAY, MAGIA. ::
"...Again, Pino?"