Chapter 128: Chapter 127

【Virtual iTuber Gallery】

[Live Commentary] She said it’s her best dish.

(Photo of ham)

How on earth is this supposed to be your best dish????

[Comments]

Apparently, she’s the best at undercooking or overcooking ham.

ㄴ (OP) So basically, she can’t cook at all.

ㄴ At least she didn’t lie, huh?

She’s hilariously bad at cooking LOL.

I had a bad feeling when Rian said he’d handle the housework…

Why grill it for so long???

ㄴ She said it’s for the texture.

ㄴ Doesn’t she know undercooked food can make you sick?

ㄴ It’s not chicken, what are you on about LOL?

ㄴ Processed food? Come on, LOL.

【Anonymous donated 1,000 KRW.】

【Seriously, Rian or Sora should just adopt her…】

Although it was a little early for dinner, I decided to fulfill my duties as a maid and prepared the evening meal.

Today’s dinner?

Completely ruined kimbap.

“Why though?”

Anna stared at the plate in disbelief and asked.

“Well, judging by the viewer chat, it seems I was supposed to brush the kimbap with sesame oil. Spreading rice evenly to the edges would’ve been a good idea too.”

“You didn’t do that?”

“And apparently, there’s specific seaweed for kimbap, but I just used whatever we had at home.”

“......”

“They also mentioned that rice needs to be sticky, or it’ll fall apart. This rice, however, was made earlier today and has already cooled.”

“So, it would’ve been weird if the kimbap hadn’t fallen apart.”

Anna picked up the least destroyed roll and took a bite.

Crunch!

“...What’s in this kimbap?”

“Pickled radish, cucumber, and carrots.”

“Vegetable kimbap...? Why didn’t you add egg or ham or something?”

“What a silly question. If I used ingredients requiring heat control, it would’ve been a disaster, don’t you think?”

That’s why I intentionally selected only ingredients that could be chopped and added directly.

I am a noble lady who has conquered countless dungeons and gates.

Surely, I’ve wielded a blade often enough.

Although, this was my first time using a kitchen knife, and I struggled quite a bit.

【Aurora’s Footstool donated 1,000 KRW.】

【Wow, our Laura is so smart.】

“Laura-chan! You’re awful at cooking!”

Anna exploded.

“Oh my, have you ever seen a noble lady cook for herself? The fact that I’m bad at cooking is evidence of my refined upbringing. You should view it as a compliment.”

“What kind of ridiculous logic is that?! This is beyond bad!”

“If you feel that way, why don’t you cook something yourself?”

“What? A maid making her master cook? Fine! I’ll do better than you!”

With that, Anna stormed out of the room.

A few minutes later, she returned holding two cups of instant noodles.

“You don’t seriously think this counts as cooking, do you, Miss Anna?”

“Well, I realized there’s no point in eating bad food when I don’t have to.”

And so, we quietly ate the instant noodles—a product developed by some of the world’s greatest minds.

Cup noodles are delicious.

We were living under the following rules:

The daily budget for Laura and Anna combined is limited to 30,000 KRW.

Any unused food expenses can roll over to the next day.

For health reasons, all three meals must be eaten.

All purchased or prepared food must be finished without leftovers.

Rian cannot be called for help (the “Rian Chance” has already been used).

You might wonder why we imposed such a strict budget.

It’s not like I’m playing maid to make Anna happy—this is all for the sake of entertaining the stream.

What’s the point of being a maid if we just splurge on delivery food?

A punishment is supposed to cause some discomfort for the person involved—that’s what makes it entertaining for everyone else.

That’s why we agreed to embrace a slightly grueling lifestyle for this week.

“But I’m the one who set the punishment. Why do I have to suffer too?” Anna grumbled.

She didn’t seem to understand that turning a noble lady into a maid comes with responsibilities.

It’s only fair for her to endure the consequences of her chosen punishment.

You made your choice—now stick to it with determination.

Given today’s cost of living, the 30,000 KRW daily limit was very tight.

It meant we could only spend 5,000 KRW per meal per person—a nearly impossible feat for dining out these days.

As a result, at least one of our meals had to be cooked at home.

Or replaced with cup noodles.

“Did you know, everyone? Some convenience stores have their own exclusive products, and they’re super cheap.”

Anna held up a cup of instant noodles to the webcam.

“This one’s exclusive to A-Mart and costs only 990 KRW. I’ll have this for breakfast, so we’ll have 28,000 KRW left! That gives us 7,000 KRW per person for lunch and dinner.”

“7,000 KRW, huh.”

I pondered this while eating my cup noodles.

“I’ve got an idea. Let’s have bread for lunch.”

So I headed out for lunch.

Though I was tempted to send Anna, I was the maid, so it was my responsibility to shop.

Dressed in a tailored suit, I went to a bakery and bought a baguette filled with condensed milk.

“This cost 3,900 KRW. Splitting it in half should suffice for both of us.”

“So, 2,000 KRW per person for this much food… That’s amazing! How much do we have left now?”

“About 24,000 KRW.”

“Let’s spend 20,000 KRW on delivery food and roll over the remaining 4,000 KRW to tomorrow.”

“That sounds reasonable.”@@novelbin@@

And so, we successfully cleared Day 3.

【Black-and-White Nutritionist donated 1,000 KRW.】

【Didn’t you say you’re eating three meals a day for health?】

【Tracksuit Marie Antoinette donated 1,000 KRW.】

【If there’s no rice, let them eat bread.】

【WowRamen donated 1,000 KRW.】

【This is borderline hobo behavior LOL.】

【Marquis Family donated 1,000 KRW.】

【The Duke’s honor has hit rock bottom!】

Well, perhaps we didn’t clear it as successfully as I thought.

How dare they question my honor?

“Let’s add a new rule.”

“A new rule?” Anna asked, confused.

《6. No Instant Noodles》

Looking back, we had eaten instant noodles for two days straight.

It wasn’t that I disliked instant noodles—in fact, I didn’t particularly love them either. Personally, I thought they were best enjoyed occasionally to truly appreciate their taste.

And more importantly, what kind of noble lady would cut corners on meals just to save on food expenses?

“But… if instant noodles are banned, saving money will become incredibly hard. Nothing matches their price-to-volume ratio,” Anna protested.

“That’s why we’ll have to rely on the ingredients we already have and cook proper meals at home.”

“...Who’s ‘we’?”

Anna’s pointed question was clear—she was asking which one of us would do the cooking.

If I cooked, we’d end up with overly crisped ham. If Anna cooked, we’d probably get nothing more than fried eggs.

“I have an idea,” I said with a knowing smile.

Meanwhile, Inagika had woken up unusually early—at 11 a.m.

“Gwonshin Update!”

As soon as she sat up, she shouted. Even introverts have those moments when they just want to yell in the privacy of their home.

Inagika’s sleep schedule was a disaster. Most nights, she went to bed at 4 a.m. and didn’t wake up until around noon. Sometimes she stayed up until 7 a.m. and didn’t stir until well past lunchtime. Day and night were completely reversed for her.

However, there was one thing that could get Inagika to wake up earlier than usual—game update days.

“Ah… it’s not open yet.”

Her heart pounding with excitement, she sat at her desk, only to find that the Gwonshin servers were still down.

This wasn’t one of those games where the full maintenance period was used. The servers would definitely be up before the scheduled maintenance end time of noon.

Whether that meant 11:10, 11:20, or 11:30, only the developers knew.

She was eager to log in, pull from the gacha, and advance the story.

Thinking this, Inagika left her room for a bit.

She stopped by the bathroom.

Then she headed to the fridge in the living room to grab a konjac jelly.

“I really want to move out...” she muttered to herself as she returned to her room.

Among the 6th gen VTubers, Inagika was the only one still living with her parents.

Her reversed sleep schedule earned her constant nagging.

Working from home (i.e., streaming) meant more nagging about going outside and socializing.

And of course, there were reminders to travel and broaden her horizons.

Her parents weren’t exactly wrong, but humans rarely change without a clear reason.

No way was she suddenly going to become proactive. Willpower isn’t something you can just buy at a convenience store…

“…I’m really going to save up and move out,” she resolved, sitting back down in her chair.

When she checked Gwonshin again, the servers were up.

That didn’t mean she could jump right into the game, though. Between resource updates and shader compilations, there was still waiting to be done.

Gwonshin, being a cross-platform game, had updates for both PC and mobile versions running simultaneously.

The mobile update finished first, so she preloaded her in-game currency to prepare for gacha pulls, then waited for the PC update to finish. She only used the mobile version for in-app purchases and similar functions.

‘Now I just have to wait for the update.’

She could’ve done the gacha pulls on her phone, but she decided to wait so she could stream it.

But perhaps because she’d already launched her streaming software, the PC update seemed to be taking longer than usual.

Feeling bored, Inagika opened the iTuber app.

Now that she thought about it, how had Laura handled breakfast with Anna today?

Curious, Inagika checked.

“Huh? Still streaming?”

Anna was still live. Would Laura make an appearance too?

Clicking on the stream, she only saw Anna’s avatar. Laura’s was nowhere to be found.

【Waiting for lunch delivery】

That message was displayed on the stream.

Delivery?

‘Yesterday, they seemed to be scrimping. Are they splurging a bit today?’

She knew instant noodles were banned, so she had assumed they’d resort to baguettes again.

What did Laura eat for breakfast then?

Checking gallery posts and social media, she found out Laura and Anna had ordered budae jjigae (Korean army stew) for breakfast.

‘Army stew for breakfast? And now they’re ordering delivery again?’

‘They’re definitely going to run out of money at this rate…’

While she was pondering this, the Gwonshin update finished.

In the waiting room, a significant number of viewers were already waiting for her.

Hurriedly, Inagika plugged her phone into its charger and hit the “Start Stream” button.

“Ah, um… good morning, everyone. This is EYEAI 6th Gen VTuber, the thousand-year-old elf, Inagika…! Okay, now that I’ve introduced myself, let’s jump right into some gacha pulls—”

Ding-dong!

The doorbell rang just as she opened the gacha screen.

“Uh, hold on… Hold on, everyone… It seems someone’s at the door…”

Flustered, Inagika set down her headset.

What was this about? She wasn’t expecting anyone.

The last thing she’d ordered was a box of konjac jelly, which had already arrived yesterday.

She hadn’t ordered any delivery food either—she usually just ate jelly after waking up. Delivery wasn’t something she did often.

She didn’t recall expecting any mail either.

Thinking this, she checked the intercom.

“What the—?!”

Seeing the face on the screen, she couldn’t help but let out a yell.

Ah… she’d yelled too loudly…

And of course, the person outside happened to have excellent hearing.

Knock, knock, knock.

The knocks were gentle but clearly signaled impatience.

“I-I’ll be right there!”

Though no one was chasing her, Inagika felt as if she were being pursued as she rushed to open the door.

And beyond it stood—

“Been a while.”

Aurora, clad in a sharp suit.

Had she run here? Her hair was slightly disheveled.

In her hands was—of all things—a plastic bag filled with groceries.

“For two servings.”

Thrust!

The bag was shoved into Inagika’s hands.

“I need two portions of food. Can you handle that?”

…Excuse me?