Chapter 3: priceless

The broadcast ended, and the screen reflected in the monitor was silent.

Even after turning off the microphone, dimming the lights, and saving the recording file, Ari remained frozen in place for a while.

As the tension eased, her stiff shoulders slowly relaxed.

But her heart was still pounding, and her fingertips were numb and tingling.

“…Is it really over?”

Her voice was hoarse. It wasn’t a long broadcast, just over two hours, but so much had happened.

“Everything that just happened… it wasn’t all a dream, was it?”

Meanwhile, word had spread, and the number of viewers had quickly surpassed 500.

It was unbelievable. It was a number she couldn’t even dream of when she was active as Minari.

And the donations that kept pouring in.

How many outfits were prepared that her clothes changed every time a 100,000 won donation came in?

“I couldn’t even thank them properly…”

Ari suddenly wondered how many donations she had received today.

Of course, she didn’t want to just chase money, but… this was a matter of livelihood.

With trembling fingers, Ari opened the platform dashboard and checked the total amount of donations received today.

“…Huh? H-how much is this?”

Her eyes widened in an instant.

“No… way…”

She was at a loss for breath. The total revenue she had earned from broadcasting for over three years had been overturned in just a few minutes.

Of course, the amount she would receive after deducting fees would be smaller, but even that was similar to her monthly income from her part-time job. She knew that donations wouldn’t pour in like this every day.

But even so.

“I can… make broadcasting my job.”

Without realizing it, Ari sank to the floor.

Something welled up in her chest, about to burst.

“Ah, ahh…”

The day she first started broadcasting, the time she spent talking to herself with a messed-up avatar, flashed through her mind.

She also remembered the days she sat alone in front of the microphone every dawn, and the times she hollowly shouted ‘I’ll do my best today’ to an empty chat room.

Her dream, which had been slowly fading without being noticed by anyone, came to mind.

“Hic, sob… Waaaaah!!”

Overwhelmed with emotion, Ari burst into tears. The loneliness and pain of the past poured out as tears. She wiped her eyes with her forearm, but they kept flowing endlessly.

“Th-thank you… Sob! Thank you… Thank you so, so much…”

This was all thanks to that person.

A long-time fan. Namuldan.

No, the one who made Hana, who brought Ari back to life.

Mama.

“Hic… I, I received such an incredible gift… How, how can I ever repay you? How…”

Crying on the floor, Ari opened her email.

Wiping the tears that fell on the keyboard, she carefully typed.

She wanted to express her gratitude, which she couldn’t fully convey in text, in person. She wanted to meet Mama, not as Han Ari, but as Min Ari.

With overwhelming gratitude and a bit of greed, she sent the email.

The reply came quickly. As if they were waiting. As if they were watching from somewhere.

With trembling fingertips, Ari opened the email.

[I enjoyed your first broadcast too. My judgment was correct, as expected.]

[Meeting in person… will be difficult for now. We can meet someday when the circumstances are better.]

[Think of the model, ‘Hana’, as a donation for the past three years.]

[I look forward to your future broadcasts. Don’t ever post a graduation announcement again. Okay?]

As soon as she read the email, tears welled up again.

“I, I’ll work harder… Sob… So… please, please keep watching over me, Mama…”

Han Ari covered her mouth with both hands and cried silently for a long time.

Even if she continues to broadcast and becomes a big-time streamer someday.

There will never be a day when she receives a donation as valuable as ‘Hana’.

“As expected of Hana. As expected of my daughter.”

With the broadcast end screen in front of him, Jinha slowly clapped his hands.

It was an expected success. He poured a third of his life into it, so it would be a problem if it failed.

Of course, the broadcast did much better than Jinha expected… but that’s thanks to Minari, no, Han Ari’s ability.

“But… she seems to really like it.”

You can tell just by reading the email. There are invisible tear stains between the lines.

A VTuber, whose life depends on hiding their real identity, even wrote that she wanted to meet in person. That says it all.

‘This is it.’

Leaning back in his chair, Jinha exhaled a long breath as if blowing out cigarette smoke.

In the past few days, so much had happened.

His gender suddenly changed.

He quit graduate school and neatly 정리ed his life in the lab.

Words like dream and future felt so hollow…

But now, he could gradually see a path.

‘A 3D modeling freelancer…’

What he can do.

What he must do.

It was right in front of him.

‘It might not be so bad?’

He didn’t have the name value to join major game companies or big corporate projects, but this was the age of VTubers.

There are studios that specialize in creating avatars by receiving orders from MCNs, but there are also many cases where small and medium-sized VTubers or indie developers individually outsource work.

Things like creating basic avatars or minor rigging work.

Jinha decided to target that market.

He didn’t have any other options.

He needed money urgently. He couldn’t just be writing resumes.

He had to find the fastest way to make money. He had to pay next month’s rent and cover living expenses.

“Should I have just sold it for money…”

For a brief moment, he regretted giving Hana away for free, but he soon shook his head.

Hana is Jinha’s precious daughter, whose value cannot be measured in money.

What parent would sell their child for money?

Hana is free to fly on her own.

Slapping his cheeks, Jinha logged into a freelance platform.

He signed up for ‘Crepe’, a site where low-profile freelancers mainly get jobs, and started writing his portfolio.

His fingers moved quickly on the keyboard.

It was difficult to fill even a single line of work experience when writing his resume, but it was incredibly easy to showcase his skills as a ‘3D avatar specialist freelancer’.

There was no need to conform to a rigid format or worry about what others thought.

Instead of a formal ID photo, he uploaded a magical girl image for his profile picture.

In other words, it was an otaku profile picture.

It was a strong declaration that he would only accept subculture-related outsourcing.

For his tech stack, he listed ‘image compositing’, ‘model rigging’, ‘facial expression creation’, ‘hair and clothing modeling’, and so on.

He boldly omitted his lab experience. It was a time of atonement for the sins he committed in his past life. He didn’t want to brag about it anywhere.

After quickly organizing his portfolio, he searched the request board.

As befitting the largest freelance marketplace in the industry, there were many outsourcing requests.

[Requesting facial rigging for an indie game NPC / Price negotiable per model]

[Request to change the hairstyle of a broadcast avatar / Existing VRM file provided, no external distribution allowed]

[Request for 3D model optimization for VR Chat / Polygon reduction]

This is the blue ocean. All Blue wasn’t just in Jinha’s stock account and crypto wallet.

Jinha selected a few requests that he liked and sent messages.

Replies came quickly. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry.

While briefly conversing with the clients, Jinha emphasized his abilities.

[My strength is my fast work speed. Cheap, fast, high volume. That’s my style.]

[The hair is going inside the forehead? I’m good at fixing that. Style improvement is a service.]

He responded positively to the client’s clumsy requests, saying he could do it, he could meet the deadline.

It might be premature confidence, but it was important to get as many jobs as possible.

These requests were nothing compared to the professor’s harassment. Jinha, who escaped from the hell of graduate school, was invincible.

Luckily, a contract was signed that evening.

Coincidentally, this client was also a VTuber.

To be precise, it was a VTuber hopeful preparing for a new broadcast.

The request was to fix the awkward bangs of an existing avatar model.

When he opened the file, the modeling quality was surprisingly good.

A cute puppy-like face with twin braids. Her mischievous appearance made it seem like she would call him ‘oppa’ any moment. …Ah, right. Not oppa, but unnie?

Anyway, after seeing Minari’s clumsy and bizarre model for so long, this one seemed like an angel.

Maybe not a major corporation, but at least a solid mid-sized company?

However, there was a serious clipping issue where the loose bangs went through the face.

Also, the eyebrows disappeared behind the hair when the expression changed.

“This is easy.”

It was a simple task, but he felt strangely excited. It felt like creating another daughter.

Forgoing dinner, Jinha immediately started working.

He fitted the VRM file received from the client with an AI body model that had learned the parameters.

He entered prompts into the pre-trained AI model and continued tuning.

The requested work was completed before midnight, but Jinha continued working. It was a special service for his first customer.

He used the modeling tool to adjust the hair settings. He carefully tweaked it so that it wouldn’t look unnatural even when the head was shaken vigorously.

After slightly modifying the hair cards along the eyebrow line, the movement looked decent.

After the final check, Jinha sent the work result to the client via a market message.

The reply came sooner than expected. As expected of a VTuber hopeful, they were awake even at this late hour.

[Wow!!! It’s so amazing!!! So, so, so pretty!!! You didn’t make it from scratch, right?!?! Your work speed is so fast! I’ll write a really good review! Thank you so much!!!!!!]

The message was quite intense. He thought this person matched the avatar well. He had one more broadcast to look forward to.

The payment arrived quickly. There was a little extra added to the agreed amount. It was a great start.

Of course, even with the extra, the amount wasn’t very large.

But it was enough for Jinha to take his first step.

He could quickly adapt to his new life.

“Hwaaam~”

Jinha yawned widely and got up. Today was a really long day.

He decided to wash up quickly and go to sleep, heading to the bathroom.

He took off his clothes and went into the bathroom…

“Aaaah! A, a pervert… Ah, f*ck! It’s me!”

It seems it will be difficult to quickly get used to being a woman.