- Nathan POV -

“Okay guys, I think today we've made enough money for the whole week, so we can take these days to rest at home and next Monday we'll meet again to deal with another Dungeon E Rank.” The team captain said with a cute smile on her face as she looked at each of us and nodded.

Thinking about how lucky we were today and how much money we won made the smile on my face even bigger.

After saying goodbye to our group I got on my bike and rode back to my apartment.

As a Player E Rank, Monday, Wednesday and Friday are usually the days my group and I meet up to raid dungeons.

Today was supposed to be just another normal day, we were going to raid a Hobgoblin forest dungeon that we had chosen from the list of available dungeons, we were going to kill all the monsters to destroy the dungeon and prevent them from invading Earth, then we would sell the loot we got and go home.

An E Rank dungeon paid an average of $2,500, which divided into a group of five meant $500 each.

We raided dungeons 3x a week, which earned me around $1,500 a week.

It wasn't enough money to get rich, but it was enough to live a comfortable life.

When I became a D Rank Player I could think about getting rich, since each D Rank dungeon paid $10,000 for the group, or $2,000 for each person in our case.

But today was not a normal day.

While we were killing hobgoblins, our group's scout spotted a hobgoblin running with a large wooden chest on his back.

Shouting to warn us, we all knew what was in that chest, causing us to change our focus to catching that little monster on the run.

It was exhausting, we ran for 40 minutes after that little monster, but it was worth it.

Inside the chest were several gold coins!

No one knew where these gold coins came from, speculation said that they probably came from another world that the hobgoblins had plundered, but we did know one thing, the government bought these gold coins at a high price!

With the chest safe, we killed the rest of the hobgoblins and left the dungeon with the large chest.

Taking the chest to the federation agent, he smiled as he paid us $15,000 after counting how many coins were in there.

After dividing the amount, each member of the group received $3,000!

'That's the equivalent of two weeks' work!'

So to celebrate we decided to take a week off and return to raiding dungeons only next week.

Parking my motorcycle in my parking space, I put my backpack with my combat gear on my back and used the elevator to get home.

“Thank you for letting me come home safe for another day...” It was the phrase I said every time I came back from a dungeon while looking at a cross hanging above the door.

Putting away my equipment and taking a shower, I decided to take advantage of today's loot and ordered a large mozzarella pizza while turning on my computer.

Honestly, considering this week as my rest week, I wasn't planning on practicing, maybe I could train for real on Saturday and Sunday, but for now I just wanted to relax, so the first thing I did was open the video site and look for something interesting to watch.

An hour passed and nothing interesting appeared for me, I had already tried watching more than 10 videos but they all seemed so boring...

So I took another bite of my pizza and decided to text my younger brother.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

He had just turned 18 and decided to pursue a career as a Player like me after he was tested at school and they discovered that he had talent as a Player.

As he was still only an F Rank Player, he lived with my parents and looked for other ways to make money on the side, as F Rank dungeons pay very little.

Seeing as he hadn't even received the message I'd sent him, I was sure he'd turned off his cell phone and was trying to livestream again.

'I don't know what's so funny about watching other people live their lives? Is it so interesting to see a normal person cooking? Or worse, watching a Rank F Player practicing over and over again while trying to get higher points? ' I thought confusedly, but having nothing better to do I decided to support my brother and watch his Livestream.

Just as I'd imagined, when I opened his stream site he was doing a Game Core Rank F Stream.

Surprisingly there were 12 people watching him, considering that normally the number of viewers was only 1 or 2 people, the 12 people watching him could now be considered a crowd.

Not only were these people watching, but they were also chatting a lot.

From the moment I entered the link to his stream, a few messages had already appeared and apparently people were chatting non-stop.

Curious, I started reading the messages.

[Dude, I wish I had the talent to be a Player and could play this game... it looks a lot more fun than watching TV!]

[ikr?! Doesn't the Game Creator who made this game intend to release physical versions of these cards, just like Poker cards?]

[That would be a great idea!]

[Hey, I just got here, wasn't this supposed to be a Game Core stream?]

[lol, that's a Game Core bruh...]

[Yeah, while the streamer was playing I looked up this game and realized that somehow the Rank F Game Creator who made this game is a monster who managed to use False Neurological Feedback, the technology that only high Rank Game Creators could use, and applied it to a Rank F game!]

[WTF?! You're kidding, right?]

[Worse than that, bro, what he said is true...]

[WTF! How did he do that?]

[Nobody knows... actually, I don't think anyone has figured it out yet. I only found out about it because this streamer is a friend of mine in real life and I came to watch his stream to support him, who would have thought that he would find such a gem while searching for games from different colleges?!!]

[Woah...]

Reading these messages I was confused.

'Is what this person said really true?! Wasn't False Neurological Feedback discovered only a few years ago? How did a Game Creator F Rank manage to apply it to such a basic game?!' I was as shocked as that confused Viewer who had just arrived.

Looking at the stream again, my brother was holding a deck with several different cards while staring intently at a board in front of him and thinking hard.

Since I opened the stream my brother hadn't said a word, and the boy in front of him was acting the same way, both of them silent as they thought about which card they should play.

Without realizing it, I was so caught up in the game that 10 minutes passed and the game was over - my brother won!

“Good boy! I knew you were clever!” I celebrated excitedly as I grabbed another piece of pizza.

When the game was over, my brother and the other boy shook hands and the boy disappeared from where they were.

On the screen, my brother finally sighed and began to speak.

“Jeez, guys, with every rank I climb, the game seems to get more complicated. It wasn't enough with those two monstrous girls, the one who talks a lot and the very serious girl, now there's this Player who also plays very well... it's going to be hard to stay in the Top 1...” My brother sighed, but the smile on his face showed that he wasn't feeling bad.

'Did he say top 1?' I asked myself in surprise.

[Hey dude, are you already Top 1 in this game?] A Viewer asked.

Reading the message, my brother smiled and replied a little embarrassed. “I think so, there's no way of confirming this, since there's no points ranking table like the other games, but so far I've only seen two other Silver 2 Players apart from me, or rather three Players, those two girls and that boy I just duelled, and after looking at their profiles after each game I realized that I was the one with the most Ranked Points, so I guess I'm Top 1 in the game?”

Listening to his explanation I was surprised, who would have thought that my brother would be Top 1 in a game? He'd never shown much talent for anything, never won a tournament of anything, now he was Top 1 in this game?

Curious, I started searching for the name of the game and saw that there were more than 200 people online in this game, not counting the people who weren't online right now, being the best of more than 200 people is already something incredible.

What surprised me was that there were only 200 people playing such an interesting game.

Wanting to see more, I quickly went back to my brother's stream and continued watching while eating the last slice of pizza.

After another two hours of playing the stream had received more viewers, rising from 12 people to 25!

Unfortunately, when the stream was at its peak, my brother's mana ran out, so he had to stop playing and do something else, which alienated a large part of the new audience.

As he wanted to play more, instead of just sitting back and letting time pass, my brother wrote down all the cards he had and started studying the best way to play with his deck.

'No wonder he's Top 1 in this game...' I thought proudly.

Finding his planning boring, I also left his stream and looked at the browser tab that had the game page open.

'There's nothing stopping Rank E players from playing Rank F games apart from slower training progress, but since I wasn't even planning on training this week, why not have some fun?