*Huff* “Ah! Damn!”

  A man dodged just as a goblin stabbed at his waist with a dagger, narrowly avoiding the strike.

  “Ah, not like this! This is why I didn’t want to go off on my own, guys! It’s too dangerous out here!”

  —I’m actually rolling rn this is too funny haha

  —Goblins, the most fearsome enemy

  —Have you sidered attag it?

  —It’s more afraid of you than you are of it (false)

  The goblin chased after the man, while he ran away clumsily. He was faster than the goblin and would have escaped, if not for the fact that he immediately ran into three more.

  “AAAH!!!!”

  —Yes, scream, that won’t attray more lmao

  —Okay but he might actually die here tho

  —Puy lol

  As he attempted to run through the goblins, they sshed out at him with sharp ons, causing his health bar to plummet. Barely breaking through, he quickly ged dire and ran for a while longer before vaulting over an upturree. Catg his breath, he hid behind the tree and uncorked a health potion.

  However, he stopped his a when his eyes caught notice of five mly monsters leering at him a short distance ahead, pletely stopping what they were doing as they stood around a small pond.

  “...Darn.”

  —Okay now that’s just unlucky

  The man decided not to waste his health potion, given his immi death and sat against the tree with a rueful expression.

  Thud. Thu-Thud.

  He heard sounds behind him. Knowing his luck, it robably moblins falling from the trees. Not that he particurly cared, when he was already about to be shanked by the ones in front of him. The way they looked at him was the way an average person would look at Mald's food after being stranded for a year on a remote pacifid. They were even drooling!

  “Oh well guys, we try again tomorrow.” The man soled his chat.

  —F to pay respects

  —rip

  —Nooooo!!!

  —L

  Whoosh!

  An arrow suddenly flew over his head and exploded the eye of the closest goblin. More followed in quick succession and took dowher four, causing them to spsh bato the pond, spraying water in every dire.

  “Hmm, let’s see. They were after... an egg?” The man heard a voice from over the fallen tree behind him. “Should I shoot it?”

  At this moment, the man remembered he was bald and quickly stood up from where he was sitting, “Wait, don’t shoot! I’m a human!”

  A few metres away, a surprisingly handsome archer with crimson hair and red eyes was standing with a bow trained on him. “Eh? Not an egg? Why is your head so shiny?”

  —HAHAHAHA EGG

  —SAVED!

  —lmao he’s an egg now

  —WE’RE SAVED!!!

  —Taken down so quickly???

  “Thanks for killing the goblins, you saved me!”

  “Oh. You’re wele… Lemonade? Is that your username? Why do you have a red dot o your name?”

  “That’s a streaming symbol, it shows I’m live-streaming my gamepy.” Lemonade looked at Max to see his info. “You have ooo-You’re streaming?”

  [ ? Pyer: ‘Gun’, Level: 3 ]

  “I am! Acc to my friend, it will guarantee me endless reserves of money and hot chicks. I am irely vihat’s true, but I have no reason not to try it and find out.”

  —Lol, I wish this man many moneys and hot chick

  —So handsome!

  —Why is his name ‘Gun’ lol, is it because he’s an archer?

  It was at this moment Lemonade realised it: This guy… was great tent!

  “Indeed! How many viewers do you have?”

  Max proudly pumped his chest, “I already have six!”

  *cough* Lemonade used his erength of willpower to avoid ughing; he didn’t want to get PK’ed.

  —Lololol

  —So many viewers. Maybe one day I be popur like him

  —Why does he look so proud haha

  “Th-that’s certainly a start. Then it’s your first time streaming today?”

  “That’s right! How many viewers do you have?” Max asked back.

  Lemonade froze. ‘Um... Should I really tell him? He won’t shoot me, right?’

  Sensing his reluce, Max followed up “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I heard that most people flock to the big streamers and celebrities anyway, so there’s not-”

  “24,857.”

  “...” Max looked at him expressionlessly.

  —Hahahaha oh my god his face I ’t

  —This is the best. Someone clip it XD

  —He looks so lost lmaoo

  “I-uh, I stream games on other ptforms, so I already have a lot of people who watch me...”

  “Right. Of course, that makes sense...” Max paused for a moment, “ I have them?”

  “Uh, hmm, sihey’re living people with egos and personalities, I’m not sure that’s within my trol. Svery was already abolished, too...”

  “That’s unfortunate...”

  —Wait, unfortuhat he ’t have the viewers, or that svery was abolished?

  “I add you as a friend though,” Lemonade offered, “I’m pnning to make a guild of streamers iure, so you’d probably-”

  Thwak!

  Max suddenly shot a goblin to the side, reminding Lemonade of where they were.

  “That sounds great! I’ll try to get more viewers so we stream colboratively.”

  “Y-yeah.” Lemonade agreed. It would be o have a skilled archer in the guild; he’d heard that there weren’t many pyers with the archer css, so running into this guy was good luck. Lemonade sent him a friend request.

  “Do you want to stream together?” Max proposed, “I’m actually doing a missiht now; you’re free to join in if you want.”

  “Oh, a mission! Is it nearby?”

  “I have no idea! I’m just meant to keep going that way until I find something.” He pointed north.

  “That way? Are you sure?”

  “Yep, I’m positive. Why? Do you know what’s over there?”

  “Kind of, actually. I saw some huge monster in a clearing, so I did a 180 ahe opposite way. The map shows that area as level 20+, so I’m pretty sure we’re not meant to go there yet.”

  “Oh.” Max appeared to think for a few seds, “Wanna go there anyways?”

  Lemonade was about to say yes, but then sidered it and shook his head, “Sorry but I think I’d just be a liability. I nearly died to level foblins, after all.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Yeah. By the way, I saw a bunch of blood and tattered clothing around that clearing as well, if that’s what you were looking for.”

  “Nah, that’s not what I’m looking for. I’m looking froup of people who-” Max stopped talking.

  “...”

  “...”

  Lemonade felt some pity for him.

  “Anyways, I think I’m in a bit of a hurry, so I should get going. It was nice meeting you.” Max quickly ehe versation and moved to retrieve his arrows.

  “Likewise. Just a heads-up, before you go: There’s a big PK group wandering around nearby. I think they’re only looking for someone specific, but just thought I’d let you know.”

  “Got it. Thanks for the warning.”

  “No problem.”

  Lemoched him vanish into the undergrowth, before speaking to his viewers, “He seems iing. Some of you guys should find his stream aabs on him for me.”

  —Would you like fries with that?

  —You got it, boss!

  —That guy’s about to get obliterated by orcs lolol

  ...

  ...

  Max thought about his mission as he looked for the clearing.

  The game servers were already open when Max returned from work, so he was able to load ba and accept the mission from the guard captain. It felt quite stra mid-versation. Apparently, Virtek would annouhe reason for that shutdown at their press fereomorrow m. Max was very curious to know what happened.

  For now though, Max brought up his mission description to make sure he hadn’t fotten anything.

  Mission: The Lost Patrol

  Difficulty: Unknown

  Description: Crisis looms over the town of Novus, where numerous members of the local guard have gone radio-silent after a string of unexpined disappearances in the adjat forest. Captain Ken has personally asked you to find his subordinates aher bring them back or return with information on their status.

  Milestone 1: Find the patrol (Pending)

  Milestone 2: Either bring back the patrol or report your findings to Ken (Pending)

  Optional Milestone 1: Return with evideed to the Patrol (Pending)

  Optional Milestone 2: Iigate the source of the disappearances (Pending)

  Optional Milestone 3: Obtain evidence of the source of the disappearances (Pending)

  Reward: 15,000 gold, subject to ges based on mission performance

  ‘Hmm...’ Max pondered. ‘If that streamer’s words are true, there’s a good ce the monster he saw is the culprit for the disappearances.’

  He checked his iory. [Arrow x 100]

  He had 100 arrows. Adding the 20 already in his quiver gave a total of 120 arrows. He’d lost a lot of arrows at the goblin dungeon, and, to his horror, they were really expensive.

  “Twenty gold per arrow is robbery.”

  Max pyed with an arrow in his fingers. He’d started with 200 gold and received 1000 gold from Coby for pleting the starter mission. He also received 1 gold for each goblin he killed, which summed to 320 gold, and sold all the ons he’d sged except a small dagger which he kept for himself, for ara 180 gold. This brought him to a total of 1700 gold, which was only enough to buy 85 arrows if he spent it all.

  For a money-miser like Max, this was a nightmare. He ended up buying 75 arrows and keeping the rest of his gold for emergencies. He also had 50 arrows leftover from his durip, but he’d already lost 5 just in the short time he’d been in this forest, sihey could only take a few hits before breaking.

  Max checked his stream to see if anyone would sole him.

  [ Current Viewers: 521 ]

  “What?! So many people joihe stream?”

  —Hello! We’re the sves Lemonade keeps in his basement!

  —Waiting to see this guy get dunked on by lvl.20 orcs

  —Lol he finally looked

  —Hello Gun-san!!

  “Wele! Wele!” Max leasantly surprised. He didn’t expect this many people to migrate from Lemonade’s stream. “Since you guys just joined, I’ll give you a rundown of what I’m doing.”

  “A group of guards ehis forest against orders from their captain, so I have to track them down and vey the captain’s order to return to the vilge... And, after hearing from Lemonade just now, I’m hoping nothing bad’s happeo them.”

  Max gave a very densed expnation, which was fortunate because he happeo find a rge clearing right at that time.

  Traces of a battle were apparent, with rge patches of grass having been stained red and some broken ons scattered around. There were no enemies here, so Max ehe clearing to get a better look.

  It was a bit discerting that there were no bodies. One of his chatters cimed that orcs were the culprits here and Max did not pin them as the type to hold burials. After searg around for a short while, he finally saw the tattered clothing Lemonade mentioned. It atch of red uniform bearing the guard insignia, clear evidehat the patrol team was ambushed here.

  “Well. This is definitely for my mission. Unfortunately.”

  Max followed the colour red and found several clear strings of blood trailing uphill, heading further north. Gripping his bow tightly, he took the uniform pat his iory.

  “Let’s see how tough orcs are.”