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

The place where Darai first made a fool of Mugeon and vanished—
North Dock Warehouse No. 1.
It was here, in the birthplace of Lightning Metropolis’s most notorious criminal, that Mugeon finally came face-to-face with him again after a long time.
“Been a while.”

“It really has.”
Just moments ago, they'd been at each other's throats over the phone.
But now, standing in front of Darai in person, Mugeon felt a chill grip his chest.
After all, aside from the two figures aiming laser pointers at him and Darai herself, there were no other signs of life in the warehouse—
and that, more than anything, was what shook Mugeon.

“…I didn’t expect it to just be the three of you.”
“Why assume there’s only three? You never know—maybe there’s something much bigger we just haven’t shown you yet.”
“No. If you had that kind of manpower, there’s no way we wouldn’t have caught a trace by now.
If anything, I’m now convinced you’ve stayed hidden because there are so few of you.”

“Whew~ See? That’s our Chief. Sharp as ever.
If you’d used that sharp brain from the start, maybe none of this would’ve gone sideways. Don’t you think?”
“…”
“So? Are we officially working together now? Can I get a handshake?”

“Let my guys go first. That was the deal—me in exchange for them.”
“Can’t do that. They’ve seen our faces.
You might be smart enough not to slip up, but those two morons?
We’ll have to keep them around.”
“…This wasn’t part of the agreement.”

“Too bad.
Unless, of course, you wanna try persuading me. Want a shot?”
Mugeon sighed and gave a reluctant nod.
“Damn, Chief. You really love your subordinates, huh?”

But when Mugeon stepped forward—
Clack, clack, clack.
All he found were two empty sacks lying on the floor.
“…? What is this? Where are my officers—”

And then, the familiar whiny voices of the trash-tier duo echoed out—
from the small girl who still had her sights trained on Mugeon.
“Chief, please help us!!”
“I’m so sorry…!!”
“…”

Only then did Mugeon fully realize what was going on.
This whole kidnapping… had been an act.
He ran a hand down his face, exasperated.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me. You tricked me like this?”
They’d never been kidnapped in the first place.
And now, skipping toward him in a frilly dress with fluttering ribbons, came a young girl with a grin far too smug for her size.
Before Mugeon could even react to her appearance, Tia spoke up.

“Well? Fell for it completely, didn’t you? Heeheehee.”
A familiar voice—yet completely different in tone.

Mugeon responded calmly.
“How did you neutralize the radios?”
“Simple. I told them to switch frequencies.”

Radios can’t transmit or receive if they’re not set to the same frequency.
In other words, during the entire Wide-Area Faction War, the Trash-tier Duo had been stranded—cut off from all communication, like an isolated island.
“You told them to switch frequencies? Even they aren’t dumb enough to fall for that…”

“I convinced them~ with some sweet talk about ‘finally catching Darai.’”
“…And they actually fell for that?”
“Those two were always desperate for results! They know perfectly well that they’re useless in major operations. So they jumped at the chance to actually contribute.”

If they were going to be useless anyway, they might as well gamble on a shot at doing something meaningful. That was the logic behind the Trash-tier Duo’s decision.
Thanks to them being isolated from the main channel, Magia had all the room in the world to pull her tricks.
And with her absurdly accurate voice impersonation, Mugeon finally realized the truth behind the entire elaborate criminal farce.

He muted his RP mic and screamed at the top of his lungs:
“MAGIA, YOU CRAZY—!!”
— LMAOOOOOOOOOO
— HE FINALLY GOT IT
— Come, child, enter the Magia Gallery
— Welcome to the Slug Squad
— This flavor! Delicious!
— Slugification complete 💀
— Yessssssss this is what we live for

Honestly, it would’ve made sense if he were furious beyond belief.
All that hell because of Darai, and now to find out it was Magia pulling the strings?
He thought she’d settled into a quiet life as a taxi driver. Who could’ve guessed she’d snag an RP Expansion Permit and start doing stuff like this?

Of course, it wasn’t that Mugeon had never suspected her.
He had—but kept convincing himself: No way. Magia wouldn’t risk everything to pull off a WWE-level plot like this.
And that was the fatal error.

Parallel was basically the biggest stakeholder in this Lightning Metropolis arc. He assumed that as an employee, Magia would restrain herself.
Mugeon turned his RP mic back on.
“So, now that you’ve taken me hostage, what’s the plan? Gonna turn the whole city into your puppet and run it through the police?”

“That’s right! We’ll use the police as our frontline while we slowly crush the mafia!”
“You’ll use us to pressure them from the front, while you sneak in from the back and steal all their resources.”
“Wow, sharp guy, aren’t you? No wonder you’re the chief. Want to be our new boss instead of this dumb one?”

Darai shrieked.
“What did you just say?! You trying to replace me now?!”
Magia shrugged, clearly unimpressed.

“I wish our boss didn’t react to every little thing.”
“What, is this another joke? If you don’t want me to react, maybe don’t mess with me!”
“Too late for that. You’re just a whiny baby at this point.”

As the two bickered, Mugeon stepped in, his tone mockingly sweet, like he was protecting Magia.
“Sorry, but I’ve got zero interest in being Red Hood’s boss. I’m only thinking about how to cleanly end this mess between us.”
Darai laughed wildly.

“End this? You think that’s possible?”
He stepped up and grabbed Mugeon by the collar, grinning.
“Wake up, Chief. The moment you walked in here, you were done. You’re not the respected cop who had the city’s trust anymore. You’re the one who sided with us. With criminals.”

He was right.
There was no going back to being the clean-cut police chief.
The moment he proposed working with Red Hood to control the mafia—and that recorded call still existed—it was over.

“You think we’ll just use you for easy errands? Hell no.”
From now on, he’d be forced to operate in the shadows, suppressing the mafia while sweating over whether his dirty deal would be exposed.
“Hah… can’t skip a smoke on a day like this. I’m going out for a bit. Girls, keep an eye on him.”

“Okay, dumb boss~!”
“HEY! I told you not to call me that!!”
And just like that, Darai strolled out, leaving behind the most familial group of criminals Mugeon had ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) ever seen.

The moment Darai left, Mugeon—who’d been quietly holding it together—turned to Magia, exasperated.
“I never expected someone like you to be Red Hood’s strategist.”
“Why? You regret not catching me back when I came to ‘warn you about the incident~’ with Olympus Food?”

“More like I want to knock you out right now.”
“Eek~ So scary. All rage and no looks~”
“Want me to smack her for you?”

“Yes, do it!”
“Oops, my hand slipped!”
“Ugh.”

As Mugeon collapsed from Pino’s slap, Slug Squad exploded in chat:
— YEEEEEESSSSS
— This is it!!!
— HIT HIM AGAIN
— Pino, you absolute legend
— Chair or not, all alpha males must be purged from Magia’s orbit
:: Anonymous Donor has sent 1,000 Clouds! ::
:: Doesn’t matter if he’s the chat boss. Anyone near Magia with alpha energy has to go ::

— TRUEEEE
— SICK HIM, PINO
— This is therapy
But even if Mugeon looked like a joke now…
Bringing in the Chief of Police meant Red Hood was also nearing its endgame.

Sure, they had the city dancing in the palm of their hand.
But with that came full responsibility.
Until now, the mafia or police had let things slide for the sake of popularity, engagement, and good content.
But if the police chief’s collusion with Red Hood was ever revealed?
It would be chaos.

The server had passed its midpoint. Now, it wasn’t about gaining more, but preserving what you had.
The chief using Red Hood to secretly control assets?
There’d be no saving face.
Both the chief and Red Hood would be wiped from Lightning Metropolis.

The police would oust their chief.
The East and West mafia would unite.
Even Red Hood, who’d always found a way to slip through the cracks,
was nearing the dazzling conclusion of her legacy.
Mugeon, now dusting himself off, stood up and asked Magia:

“So, what is it you’re really trying to achieve with all this?”
“What I want?”
Magia grinned.

Then, without quite breaking the fourth wall, she laid out her view of the server.
“By the end of this week, the winner of the faction war will be decided. Everyone knows who it’ll be—East Mafia.”
“In the last Wide-Area Faction War, the West lost nearly all their zones. That gap won’t close in three days. The final war? Same result.”

“So?”
“If it ends in a total blowout, the West Mafia will be left with nothing. They’ll probably bail from the city. Gone.”
“They could just find something new.”

“Could they? At this point? The bonds are already set. There’s no room to squeeze back in. They’ll leave, maybe show up again for the final festival.”
In short:
The East has all but won.
If no one helps the West or checks the East’s power, dozens of West Mafia members will leave at once.
And those people aren’t small players.

Rain and Ena from Parallel.
Eona from Lapits.
Even Wanggu—Magia’s Soul Clash coach.
Some say you can convince them to stay and enjoy the third week.
But doing what?

Give them server funds to play around with? Feels ridiculous.
Tell them to merge with the other mafia? Doesn’t work either.
Maybe drop the price of RP Expansion Permits to re-enter the game?
Sure. But then they’re back to square one.

Some people might play.
Others will just leave.
Mugeon understood that—but he still didn’t like hearing it from her.
“This is all your fault.”

“My fault?”
“Yes. While you were making the police a joke and wasting our resources, the East Mafia surged ahead. The balance broke then. Still don’t get it?!”
“Maybe.”

“‘Maybe?!’ You pretended to help the West, then backstabbed them. They lost Olympus Food, and now this. I was trying to keep the balance and protect the city—you ruined that!”
Mugeon looked like he was ready to punch something.
He still couldn’t understand how someone who once roleplayed as a taxi driver—saying she wanted to maintain balance—ended up doing all this.

Magia let out a short laugh.
“Does balance really need to be kept? Heehee.”
“…What?”

“There will always be the strong and the weak. This city belongs to the strong.”
It sounded like nonsense.
But Mugeon stayed quiet. He listened.

Because whatever insanity had brought her this far—
she clearly had a plan.
Magia continued:
“Power balance is impossible to maintain. Even if I hadn’t interfered, things would’ve ended up the same. All I did was speed things up.”

No game dev is ever safe from balance debates.
Some classes are OP. Some are weak.
Adjust one, and another becomes dominant.
Magia knew this better than anyone.

So instead of trying to fix the balance, she aimed for something else entirely.
By accelerating the server’s schedule,
By putting unbearable pressure on a central figure like Mugeon,
She gave players a dopamine high and unforgettable moments.
“And besides, there’s a way to eliminate all the noise without fixing the balance.”

“What?”
“Ohhh, that justice-blinded Chief would never think of this, huh?”
She tilted her head back, laughing, and raised her hands to the sky.

“If there’s one overwhelming, unbeatable top dog—who cares about the rest of the pecking order?”
It might have sounded like a flex about Red Hood’s rise—backed by the police chief no less.
But now that Mugeon knew she was Magia, the meaning shifted entirely.

The inevitable fate of the one everyone fears most…
And finally, the server’s endgame began to take shape.
And at the center of that finale—was Red Hood.

Watching the dawning realization on Mugeon’s face, Magia giggled.
“Heeheehee… a genius is always alone, you know~”