Chapter 63: Chapter 62

[Party Playtime] #1 Going to the Toy Factory Tour with Laura 【Ayanokoji Sora / EYEAI】

[Ugh, what the hell…? Sora and Laura are streaming together?]

EYEAI’s 3rd-generation VTuber, Tanabe Ainatsu, slurred in a drunken voice.

[I’ve always wanted to chat with the 6th-gen kids. Can I call them, senpai?]

“…They’re in the middle of a stream. Try to restrain yourself.”

Rinko sighed as she responded.

Tanabe Ainatsu. She’s notorious for being a heavy drinker at EYEAI.

Every time she streams, she’s almost always drinking. It’s gotten to the point where people joke that she drinks alcohol instead of water.

It’s undoubtedly an unhealthy habit, but Ainatsu has never quit drinking in her three years as a VTuber.

In fact, her drinking habits caught the attention of a beer company, and she even landed a sponsorship deal. Just like Napoleon had no word for “defeat,” there’s certainly no word for “sobriety” in Ainatsu’s vocabulary.

But drinking in the middle of the day, during the Chuseok holiday, felt a bit much.

【Drunken Stream】 No place to go during Chuseok, so I might as well drink~~~~ 【Tanabe Ainatsu / EYEAI】

While many of EYEAI’s VTubers had gone home for the holidays, Ainatsu started streaming.

You could call it professional dedication. After all, there are viewers who want to relax and watch VTuber streams on holidays, so her stream wasn’t without an audience.

…But did it have to be a drunken stream?

[Everyone went home for Chuseok… I’m so lonely… Boohoohoo.]

[How can there be no one to hang out with…? I should’ve gotten a boyfriend beforehand…]

[Is anyone from the company online? I’m going to start calling people…]

About 20 minutes ago, a thoroughly drunk Ainatsu had called Rinko on Discord.

And now, Rinko was half-forced to entertain this intoxicated mess.

“Besides, isn’t there still a collab restriction on the 6th-gen members?”

[The collab restriction is overrr… Now I can call them, hehehe.]

“Still, don’t call them…”

Rinko, feeling uneasy, added another warning.

Then,

[Then can I at least watch their stream with you?]

Party Playtime. It’s a horror game set in an abandoned toy factory, where the goal is to survive.

The game has an interesting gimmick where you use rocket hands, and it’s a nice blend of puzzle-solving and horror. The distinct separation of the puzzle parts from the horror parts makes it a good recommendation for beginners.

(Except for a few moments), the monsters that chase you aren’t too scary, so it’s also quite accessible.

And Sora cleared Chapter 1 in about 40 minutes.

“…Chapter 1 was really short.”

Sora sounded surprised.

“It is.”

I nodded.

Chapter 1 feels more like a tutorial. It’s not long, and the horror sections are relatively brief.

It’s praised for being short but intense, but once you strip away the jump scares, it’s not that hard. It’s mostly about memorizing the layout.

‘If it were Anna, it would’ve taken her much longer.’

Anna is a real scaredy-cat.

Compared to her, Sora isn’t that frightened. She still gets startled by jump scares, but after playing Darkness Deception, she’s gotten used to them quickly.

“It ended too early. Should we continue with Chapter 2?”

Sora glanced at me, asking for my opinion since she was streaming from my house, not hers.

What should we do?

Just doing Chapter 1 feels a bit lacking, so it seems like a good idea to do more.

We could follow up with Chapter 2, as Sora suggested, or go all the way to Chapter 3, or we could even play something else together.

Ding, ding.

While I was mulling over the options, the Discord call notification suddenly rang.

“Oh? Ainatsu-senpai is calling.”

Sora showed me her monitor.

“It seems she’s calling us during our stream.”

A few people in the chat mentioned that Ainatsu was drinking in the afternoon. I opened the iTuber app on my phone, and sure enough, it looked like she was doing a drunken stream.

“What should we do? Should I answer?”

“What a silly question. You can’t ignore a call from a senpai, can you?”

“True… You can actually say something sensible sometimes.”

What does she even think of me?

Anyway, Sora accepted Ainatsu’s call.

[Helloouu~.]

…The smell of alcohol practically oozed from her voice.

“Ah, hello, Ainatsu-senpai.”

[No need to be so tense~.]

“I’m actually streaming with Laura right now, so your voice is being broadcast to the viewers too.”

[I knowww. I was watching your stream just now.]

“What? You were watching?”

[We were watching together~. Sora really feels like a mom. Can I call you mom?]

Someone, please take the drunk away, lol.

Sora was destined to be the mother of the 6th gen.

Hey, we bid on her first.

Why are you trying to steal our mom?

I get why you’d be into Laura’s mom, though.

Mom… don’t abandon me…

[Mom~, pet me. Pet meee!]

Ainatsu slurred, her words barely comprehensible.

[Society is harshhh. I wanna go back to mama’s arms~. Wahh wahh!]

“……”

Is this really our senpai…?

Ranked #1 by Forbes as “The Woman You Most Want to See Sober Up.”

LOL, this is more terrifying than any horror game.

Forget Party Playtime, this is the real horror game.

This is truly scary…

Sora’s face is frozen, lol.

We apologize for our drunk VTuber.

Sora glanced at me, clearly asking, ‘What do we do now?’

I had no choice but to take the microphone.

“Hello, Ainatsu-senpai. I’m Aurora, one of the 6th-gen members.”

[Ah, it’s Aurora, Aurora! Can you be my mom too?]

“It’s an honor to be Ainatsu-senpai’s mother. So now that you’re my daughter, I can drop the formalities, right?”

[Yeah! Mom!]

“Hm.”

A formidable opponent.

This was, without a doubt, the strongest adversary I’d ever faced. Definitely no ordinary senpai.

“So, why did you call us?”

[I wanted to chat with the 6th-gen kids! Mom, I’m lonely. All my fellow members are gone, and I want to crawl back into mom’s belly.]

“I see. But if you go back inside, won’t I become heavily pregnant? I’d better give birth soon.”

[Nooo! I don’t wanna be bornnn! I wanna stay in mama’s belly foreverrr! I’ll live in there for eternity without ever being born!]

“But if you’re born, I can collect a birth allowance, and that’s what being a good daughter is all about.”

LOL, I’m losing it.

These conversations are out of this world.

These two will never have a boyfriend scandal at this rate, lol.

Unicorn: This is a bit much;;

Why watch a disaster movie when this is clearly a disaster?

[...Aurora, don’t push yourself too hard dealing with a drunkard.]

As I was talking with Ainatsu, another voice cut in.

“Oh, Rinko-senpai.”

[Senpai sounds too stiff. Anyway, Ainatsu’s a bit too drunk right now… I’ll apologize on her behalf. I’m sorry.]

“No, it’s actually quite fun.”

[Fun…?]

Rinko’s voice sounded surprised.

‘…She’s just being polite.’

There’s no real difference between your boss calling you “mom” at work and what Laura and Sora are dealing with now. They must be incredibly flustered.

But seeing how gracefully they’re handling it makes me think they’re quite impressive.

…Or are they really handling it gracefully?

Some of the wording was pretty intense, like talking about pregnancy and birth allowances.

Still, the fact that they didn’t openly say they were uncomfortable in front of their seniors is commendable.

There was some controversy surrounding Laura when she debuted, but seeing how she’s pushed through it, I’m sure her mental strength is solid.

Unlike mine.

Mental strength.

That thing Kisaki Rinko lacks but Aurora seems to have.

“Are you going anywhere for Chuseok?”

She was still streaming, but I had to ask. As a senior, I should’ve told them to go back to what they were doing instead of dealing with this drunk.

But before she knew it, Rinko found herself holding onto Laura.

She wanted to talk more. Maybe she wanted to confirm something.

Could she break free from the cycle?

[Neither Sora nor I have any plans, so we’re just streaming.]

“I see… You probably saw the announcement for the Fantasy League recently, right?”

Rinko couldn’t help but ask.@@novelbin@@

[Yes, I saw it.]

“What do you think? Are you planning to join the tournament?”

[Not sure.]

Laura responded in a calm voice.

It seemed like she didn’t have much interest in competing. There was a lack of desire or ambition as a VTuber.

She didn’t seem to have any real drive as a VTuber. Maybe she’s someone who’s successful in the real world too.

‘Come to think of it, wasn’t it Rion who brought Laura in?’

Rion had said that Laura didn’t become a VTuber out of her own desire, but because Rion encouraged her to join the company.

So maybe, for Laura, being a VTuber is more of a hobby. She’s probably doing it casually, so she likely doesn’t have any strong ambitions as a VTuber.

“You probably heard that I participated in the league last year. I got utterly destroyed by a pro gamer called MadMask.”

Rinko blurted out, a bit disjointedly.

At the same time, she was trying to figure out what Laura’s true ambitions were.

Looking back at Laura’s past actions—her pure love for games—Rinko guessed that maybe what Laura desired most was to beat someone in a game.

“MadMask is a pro gamer from Korea who plays for a Chinese team called SVG. They’re a pretty strong team, and MadMask is one of their best players.”

[I see.]

“MadMask is especially known for being good with the Trickster. I could never beat them.”

Last year, Rinko had been assigned the task of countering MadMask.

The strategy was for Rinko to hold MadMask back while the rest of her team dealt with the opponents.

But Rinko couldn’t fulfill her role.

It was a painful memory.

But saying it out loud now, in a cheerful voice, it felt almost like a nostalgic story.

“In the tournament, you could go up against pro gamers. Isn’t that something that interests you, Laura?”

[That’s not fair, senpai.]

Ainatsu slurred her words as she cut in.

[When a senior says something like that, no junior can say no! You’re being a bit of a boomer, you know? Whether or not Laura participates should be her decision, not because you pushed her into it~.]

“…Well, that’s…”

[Don’t bully my mom! No matter how senior you are, bullying my mom is out of line! That’s unacceptable behavior, okay?]

“……”

Rinko thought to herself that she wished Ainatsu would either say something completely right or something completely nonsensical—just pick one.

She was a bit irritated at being scolded by a drunk who called her junior “mom.”

“…Do I really sound like a boomer?”

[No, it was actually a really interesting conversation.]

“That’s a relief…”

Rinko sighed, then deliberately shifted the topic back to Sora.

In the midst of the conversation, Ainatsu occasionally interrupted with drunken nonsense, and after about 20 minutes of chatting, Rinko finally let Laura and Sora get back to their stream.

[Okay, I guess I’ll end the stream too. I’m sleepy, so I’m going to bed now…]

Ainatsu signed off as well.

A lonely silence settled over the room, and Rinko leaned back in her chair.

“I don’t know… maybe I should hurry up and face some rebellion.”

Maybe then she’d feel a little lighter.

It wouldn’t be long now.

She just had to hold out until then.