After collecting some items from the forest, Max returned to Novus Village and climbed up the northern wall to look for the guard leader, Ken. However, all he found was an empty desk, with a newly pitched tarp in front of it. ...It was probably a last line of defence for Ken’s documents.
“Are you looking for the captain?” A guard approached him, “He should be in the rec room; I can take you there if you need.”
“That would be a great help, thank you.” Max gratefully accepted the offer. He had no interest in wandering around cluelessly searching for Ken while 20,000 people were watching him. Though, that number had already gone down by a lot since he wasn’t fighting anything now.
“Of course, then follow me.” The guard lead him down the wall to a break room nearby.
“Gun, good to see you back in one piece.” Ken greeted him as he entered, “You’ve done amazing work out there, great job!”
The rescued guards stood to his side and nodded vigorously in agreement.
“Thank you, Gun!”
“You have our gratitude, hero.”
“You saved our lives!” Parker was the most enthusiastic, “Please let us know if you need anything, we owe you a great debt.”
“Haha, no need, it was my pleasure.” Max flashed a smile before turning to face the captain. “I assume you already know the situation, so what comes next?”
“Yes, quite. Orcs...” The captain sipped from a mug he’d been holding. “Building a stronghold in the mountains, no less... By any chance, do you have evidence with you? Something like a body part or a weapon we can show the army; these guys forgot to bring any back.” Ken blatantly criticised his subordinates as they stood to the side with some embarrassment.
“I do, actually.” Max casually pulled a mutilated orc finger out of his pocket. “I took this off their leader, a high orc captain named Azrog.”
After taking care of the players who killed Lemonade, Max had checked under the base of the waterfall for any loot from the high orc. To his surprise, the orc captain’s corpse was there, impaled on a sharp underwater rock, and hadn’t yet disappeared. He guessed this was because of the mission, so he sawed off one of the orc’s fingers to take with him.
“High- you killed a high orc?” Ken was stunned. “How do you know its name? Can you understand their language?”
“Yes, I can actually. I think it’s a hero thing. The orc told me that they had claimed land in the north forest under the orders of a ‘Viscount Torga’. That’s about all I know.”
“Damn, a noble!” Ken swore. That meant the situation was quite serious.
“I also retrieved this, if it’s of any interest to you.” Max took a set of black metal pauldrons out of his inventory. A number of sharp spikes jutted out from it, though some had broken off, likely due to its recent swimming session in the local river.
“Darksteel?! How did you get your hands on- is this from the high orc?”
“Yes, it was from that guy. I also obtained the communication beads he used.” Max jangled the red jewels in his hand, quite satisfied with his haul.
“This is a premium metal.” Ken turned the armour piece around in his hands while trying not to injure himself. It was like watching someone try to analyse a pufferfish.
He handed it back to Max. “You should keep this for yourself. It’s too big for a human to use, but the metal can be smelted down so it’s quite valuable.”
“I see...”
Max now regretted not going back up the waterfall for the axe. That blade of that thing had also been black metal.
“Anyways, you asked what’s next. Parker here claims she can organise a meeting with the crown prince to get this sorted.” He turned to look at her. “I doubt that’s true, but considering that the alternative is waiting here patiently while the army twiddles their thumbs, I’m open to giving her a shot.” Ken nodded at his vice-captain, who smiled in return, before involuntarily squealing when Ken suddenly threw an orc finger at her.
‘C-crown prince?’ ...This suddenly turned into a large ordeal. ‘Surely there’s no way I just-’
Parker glowered at Ken before addressing Max. “Gun, you should join us in the capital!” she said enthusiastically, “I’m sure the prince would love to meet you; he’s always looking for new talents.”
‘...’
“S-sure. I’d be honoured.”
“Great! Then meet us in the royal barracks, two days from now. We’ll probably hold a meeting there.”
“Uh, okay.”
Max was unsure how, but he’d apparently just scored a meeting with the kingdom’s royalty during his first day of playtime.
Ba-Ding!
“Max! Come out of the coffin and celebrate with us already; we’re waiting for you!” Max suddenly heard his sister’s voice in his head. She was talking to him through the capsule’s voice transmission function.
“Ah.” Max turned to Ken and the others, “Apologies, I have some things to attend to. It was nice meeting you all.”
“Sure, just remember to come back later to collect your reward.”
“Bye Gun!”
Max walked out of the rec room and addressed his viewers, “Thanks for watching the stream everyone; I have some things to do in real life, so I’ll be logging off now.”
—Wait! At least show us how to install the hacks before you go!
—Comes, annihilates everyone, leaves
—Nooooooo!!
...
...
Max ended the stream and climbed out of the capsule to where Lina was waiting for him.
“Happy birthdayyyy~!” Lina greeted him. “Did you like the cake? It was good, right?”
“It was great.” Max smiled. “Why don’t you just make me one every day, instead?”
“No way, you’d become fat and diabetic.” She ruthlessly refused. “Rone! Come out, your boyfriend’s here.”
“Eh, Rone’s here?”
“Yes, he’s hiding behind the couch.”
A hand appeared on top of the living room couch as Rone came out from behind it. “Snitch.”
Lina ignored him and shook Max’s arm. “Hurry, what pizza do you want? I’m starving!”
Max checked his phone. Oops, it was already dinnertime. He’d lost track of the time while playing.
“Pizzaaaaaghhhh!!”
Max decided to quickly choose a pizza before his sister turned into a pizza goblin. “I’ll have an Aussie.” He decided to go with his favourite. (A/N: Aussie pizza is a type which is only sold in Australia, because the other countries all suck, apparently)
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Kay!” Lina spun around. “What about the couch monster?”
“...Pepperoni.” Rone replied.
Lina pressed some buttons on her phone and left to order the pizza.
“Hey Max, come check this out.” Rone ushered him over to the TV.
The smart TV was showing a channel on VidTube, the popular video-sharing platform. The channel name read ‘The Armoury’.
“What’s this, then?” Max was curious. The channel had only two videos, both uploaded within the past hour.
“Ta-da~! Rone made an exaggerated hand gesture. “I made you a channel! Do you like it?”
‘What? It’s me?!”
Max checked the video titles.
[ Deadshot | Archer Class Test Full Completion ]
[ Gun’s Starter Dungeon Speedrun - 2:47 (Current World Record) ]
“Get it? I called it the armoury, cuz, you know, an armoury is where you keep guns n stuff.”
The channel picture was an image of Max suavely tipping his hat.
“Haha, I love it!” Max responded excitedly. “This is awesome; did you do all of this just now?”
“Yeah, more or less. The first video’s hidden right now, so people will only see the second one. I thought you might want to keep your class secret for now.”
“Thanks. But why is the second title so clickbait-y? ...I’m not a world record holder.”
Rone turned to face him. “It’s not clickbait, though.”
“...?”
“Check this out.” Rone tapped a button on the remote, switching to another screen he’d pre-prepared. “This is the forum tag for starter dungeon speedruns.”
Rone scrolled down through the posts, showing times of 5+ minutes. Max tried to remember how long he took when he cleared the dungeon himself.
‘It was only a few minutes from what I recall... 2:47 should be right.’
The screen stopped moving as Rone hovered over a post.
[ Starter Dungeon World Record in 4m 43s ]
“Th-that’s also clickbait.”
“Oh so everything is clickbait, huh? How mightily convenient!” Rone scoffed.
“Dude, there’s no way I got the world record from just running in there and shooting normally. I didn’t even try that hard.”
“Sure, whatever you wanna tell yourself, man. Just know that you’ll be proven wrong later.”
“Sure, sure.”
Rone switched the tab. Now he was showing a social media profile.
“You made me an account on here too?!”
It was a social media platform known as InstaPic, famously used by every influencer and most regular people too. Rone had uploaded a picture of Max pulling a bow at full draw.
“Heh, sure did. Oh, right, I forgot to set descriptions.”
Rone used the TV remote to set a description for both accounts. Typing with a remote control was arduously slow, so he decided to be lazy and just put ‘Howdy.’
“Well, we can change it later.” Rone gave an excuse as he refreshed the pages. “Uh?”
“Hm? What?”
“Either this is bugged, or you just gained 1,462 subscribers on VidTube in the past few minutes.”
“Oh, nice!”
“What do you mean nice, it’s obviously a mistake, dude.”
“Did you connect it to my DiveLive account?”
“Yes, a few minutes ago.”
“Well, that’s why then.”
Rone stared at Max blankly. It was apparent that he’d been busy making profiles and hadn’t looked at Max’s stream.
“Have you ever watched the streamer ‘Lemonade’?” Max asked him.
“Hm? Yeah, I watch him all the time.” Rone still didn’t understand.
“I ran into that guy while playing.”
A light seemed to slowly flicker in Rone’s eyes, before fully igniting. “You met Lemonade?!” He shook Max’s shoulders roughly. “Woahh!! Was he bald?!”
“Th-that’s your first question?”
“This is awesome- So you shared some of his viewers, then? That’s really lucky!”
“No, actually he died, and I got all of his viewers.”
“...”
“...”
“DID YOU KILL LEMONADE?!” Rone took a pillow from the couch and started clobbering Max in the face with it.
“N-no!” Max raised his arms to protect himself. “We made friends! I avenged him! Avenged!”
“Oh, okay.” Rone ceased his attack. “But you got all his viewers, right? That means he raided you.”
“Raided?” Oh no, that sounded pretty bad.
“It’s what streamers do to send their viewers to a particular channel when they end their stream. Otherwise, the viewers just disperse and look for different streams to watch on their own. Basically, he gave you the attention of everyone who’d been watching him.”
“Oh. Well that sounds actually really nice of him...”
...Max was basically the reason that guy died, so he felt even worse now. Come to think of it... he never even thanked him for the viewers.
“Anyways, give me the rundown, I want to hear what happened.”
Rone pestered him for the full story, so Max obliged. After Max had given him the full version of events, there was a knock at the door.
Zoom!
Lina bounded past them and opened the door, cash in hand. “Thank you, have a good night!”
Zoom!
“Pizza’s here!” she announced.
After slightly lifting the lids of each pizza box for inspection, she closed them and started throwing them at people like frisbees. “There’s yours... and yours....”
“Hey, hey, hey! Gentle with the pizzas!” Rone caught his box anxiously and cradled it to his chest like a precious treasure. Max, on the other hand, dexterously caught his with one hand.
“Uncle!”
“I’m here.” Raymond walked through the doorway of the hall with his hands held open, and a pizza box instantly appeared within them. “What are we watching?”
“Dunno.” Lina responded. “Max, what’re we watching?”
Max’s family generally liked to eat meals while watching TV. It had become somewhat of a tradition by this point.
“We could watch Max’s game stream?” Rone suggested. “He recorded his footage from playing today.”
“Nah, that feels too narcissistic.” Max responded as he scrolled through his VidTube subscriptions. He didn’t follow many channels, so he was quick to notice a new video from one of his favourites. “Ah! Ares uploaded!!”
“Ares? Who’s that?” The others exchanged looks.
“My favourite channel! Ares is a Hero of Liberation player; I used to watch his battle footage all the time! His swordsmanship tutorials are also really good.”
“Huh? But you’re an archer, you don’t use a sword.”
“Says who?” Max smiled while giving Rone a sidelong glance. “Some bosses in that game weren’t beatable with only bow and arrow; I still needed to learn basic swordsmanship.” He returned his eyes to the screen. “Anyways, this guy is really good, just watch.”
‘I guess that makes sense.’ Rone thought to himself, casting his attention back to the screen. ‘Though, the name does sound familiar... Have I watched this guy before?’
Max pressed play, and the video opened with a man standing alone in a forest. It was recorded in first-person perspective and showed the man carrying a sword in one hand, while holding a peculiar horn in the other.
Lifting the horn up to his face, he blew into it, and a loud sound emanated out into the surroundings. The forest instantly turned pin-drop silent, as even the birds stopped chirping.
A few seconds later, a goblin came running out of a bush screeching. It was not alone, as more started bursting out from trees and shrubs in every direction, quickly homing in on the swordsman’s position.
Moments before the first goblin reached him, the swordsman put his horn away and span the sword around in his fingers, before gripping tightly and slicing outward with a smooth horizontal sweep. The goblin’s head was cut cleanly off and sent flying out of frame.
“Woah.” Raymond exclaimed. “That was cool.”
“Keep watching.” Max said simply.
After decapitating one goblin, the player’s sword did not stop moving as it rapidly flitted between enemies. Thin spurts of blood followed its path, as every goblin that came into contact with it became exanimated, exploding into fine red particles shortly thereafter.
It was quite bizarre, as the scene appeared less like a fight for survival, and more like a theatrical performance. Each movement seemed as though it were carefully planned to conserve the sword’s momentum, with the result coming out in the form of a perennial dance, where every strike led into the next in the shape of a delicately flowing wave.
As the swordsman’s motions grew in speed, his vision moved around with increasing rapidity and the footage quickly became a blurry haze in the eyes of onlookers. It was as though the player was caught in a tornado dyed with a sporadic reddish hue.
Max marvelled at the footage, “Woah! Did you see that? He just got three with the same swing! Hahaha!”
Raymond and Lina felt dizzy and looked at him with confusion. Was he actually able to make out what was happening here?
Rone, however, kept watching the screen. ‘Aha! I do know this guy!’
He remembered that he had once come across a video from this channel, but it was too fast and disorderly to watch without getting a headache, so he didn’t watch any further. It was already amazing that Max could actually watch this kind of content, as it was almost completely unintelligible in his eyes.
‘Well, as long as he’s happy.’ Rone looked across at Max, who was thoroughly enjoying his birthday pizza while watching the video with sparkling eyes.
‘I should work on my editing skills so I can make something even better than this...’
Rone decided to try his best from now on.