After colleg some items from the forest, Max returo Novus Vilge and climbed up the northern wall to look for the guard leader, Ken. However, all he found was ay desk, with a newly pitched tarp in front of it. ...It robably a st line of defence for Ken’s dots.
“Are you looking for the captain?” A guard approached him, “He should be in the re; I take you there if you need.”
“That would be a great help, thank you.” Max gratefully accepted the offer. He had no i in wandering around cluelessly searg for Ken while 20,000 people were watg 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 ba one piece.” Keed 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 ratitude, 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 fshed a smile before turning to face the captain. “I assume you already know the situation, so what es ?”
“Yes, quite. Orcs...” The captain sipped from a mug he’d been holding. “Building a stronghold in the mountains, no less... By any ce, do you have evideh you? Something like a body part or a on we show the army; these guys fot t any back.” Ken btantly criticised his subordinates as they stood to the side with some embarrassment.
“I do, actually.” Max casually pulled a mutited orger out of his pocket. “I took this off their leader, a high orc captain named Azrog.”
After taking care of the pyers who killed Lemonade, Max had checked uhe 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 uer rock, and hadn’t yet disappeared. He guessed this was because of the mission, so he sawed off one of the orc’s fio take with him.
“High- you killed a high orc?” Ken was stunned. “How do you know its name? you uand their nguage?”
“Yes, I actually. I think it’s a hero thing. The ore that they had cimed nd in the north forest uhe orders of a ‘Vist Ta’. 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 io you.” Max took a set of bck metal pauldrons out of his iory. A number of sharp spikes jutted out from it, though some had broken off, likely due to its ret 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 obtaihe unication beads he used.” Max jahe red jewels in his hand, quite satisfied with his haul.
“This is a premium metal.” Ken turhe armour piece around in his hands while trying not to injure himself. It was like watg someory to analyse a pufferfish.
He ha baax. “You should keep this for yourself. It’s too big for a human to use, but the metal be smelted down so it’s quite valuable.”
“I see...”
Max nretted not going back up the waterfall for the axe. That bde of that thing had also been bck metal.
“Anyways, you asked what’s . Parker here cims she anise a meeting with the prio get this sorted.” He turo look at her. “I doubt that’s true, but sidering that the alternative is waiting here patiently while the army twiddles their thumbs, I’m open to giving her a shot.” Ken his vice-captain, who smiled iurn, before involuntarily squealing when Ken suddenly threw an orger at her.
‘C- prince?’ ...This suddenly turned inte 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 alents.”
‘...’
“S-sure. I’d be honoured.”
“Great! The 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 pytime.
Ba-Ding!
“Max! e out of the coffin and celebrate with us already; we’re waiting for you!” Max suddenly heard his sister’s voi his head. She was talking to him through the capsule’s voice transmission fun.
“Ah.” Max turo Ken and the others, “Apologies, I have some things to attend to. It was nice meeting you all.”
“Sure, just remember to e back ter to collect your reward.”
“Bye Gun!”
Max walked out of the re and addressed his viewers, “Thanks for watg 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!
—es, annihites everyone, leaves
—Nooooooo!!
...
...
Max ehe 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 goht?”
“It was great.” Max smiled. “Why don’t you just make me one every day, instead?”
“No way, you’d bee fat and diabetic.” She ruthlessly refused. “Rone! e 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, izza do you want? I’m starving!”
Max checked his phone. Oops, it was already diime. He’d lost track of the time while pying.
“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 tries all suck, apparently)
“Kay!” Lina spun around. “What about the couch monster?”
“...Pepperoni.” Rone replied.
Lina pressed some buttons on her phone ao order the pizza.
“Hey Max, e check this out.” Rone ushered him over to the TV.
The smart TV was showing a el on VidTube, the popur video-sharing ptform. The el name read ‘The Armoury’.
“What’s this, then?” Max was curious. The el had only two videos, both uploaded within the past hour.
“Ta-da~! Rone made an exaggerated haure. “I made you a el! Do you like it?”
‘What? It’s me?!”
Max checked the video titles.
[ Deadshot | Archer Css Test Full pletion ]
[ 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 el 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 sed one. I thought you might want to keep your css secret for now.”
“Thanks. But why is the sed title so clickbait-y? ...I’m not a world record holder.”
Rouro face him. “It’s not clickbait, though.”
“...?”
“Check this out.” Roapped a button on the remote, switg to another s 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 loook when he cleared the dungeon himself.
‘It was only a few minutes from what I recall... 2:47 should be right.’
The s 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 ve!” 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 ter.”
“Sure, sure.”
Rone switched the tab. Now he was showing a social media profile.
“You made me an at ooo?!”
It was a social media ptform known as InstaPic, famously used by every influencer and mur people too. Rone had uploaded a picture of Max pulling a bow at full draw.
“Heh, sure did. ht, I fot to set descriptions.”
Rone used the TV remote to set a description for both ats. Typing with a remote trol was arduously slow, so he decided to be zy and just put ‘Howdy.’
“Well, we ge it ter.” 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 ’s obviously a mistake, dude.”
“Did you ect it to my DiveLive at?”
“Yes, a few minutes ago.”
“Well, that’s why then.”
Roared at Max bnkly. It arent 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.” Roill didn’t uand.
“I ran into that guy while pying.”
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?!” Roook a pillow from the coud started cl 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 particur el when they end their stream. Otherwise, the viewers just disperse and look for different streams to wat their own. Basically, he gave you the attention of everyone who’d been watg him.”
“Oh. Well that sounds actually really nice of him...”
...Max was basically the reason that guy died, so he felt even worse now. e to think of it... he never even thanked him for the viewers.
“Anyways, give me the rundown, I want to hear what happened.”
Roered 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 opehe 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 iion, she closed them and started throwing them at people like frisbees. “There’s yours... and yours....”
“Hey, hey, hey! Geh the pizzas!” Rone caught his box anxiously and cradled it to his chest like a precious treasure. Max, oher 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 watg?”
“Dunno.” Lina responded. “Max, what’re we watg?”
Max’s family generally liked to eat meals while watg TV. It had bee somewhat of a tradition by this point.
“We could watch Max’s game stream?” Rone suggested. “He recorded his footage from pying today.”
“Nah, that feels too narcissistic.” Max responded as he scrolled through his VidTube subscriptions. He didn’t follow many els, so he was quick to notice a new video from one of his favourites. “Ah! Ares uploaded!!”
“Ares? Who’s that?” The others exged looks.
“My favourite el! Ares is a Hero of Liberation pyer; 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 gnce. “Some bosses in that game weren’t beatable with only bow and arrow; I still o learn basianship.” He returned his eyes to the s. “Anyways, this guy is really good, just watch.”
‘I guess that makes sense.’ Rohought to himself, casting his attention back to the s. ‘Though, the name does sound familiar... Have I watched this guy before?’
Max pressed py, 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 iher.
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 seds ter, a goblin came running out of a bush screeg. It was not alone, as more started bursting out from trees and shrubs in every dire, 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, befripping tightly and slig outward with a smooth horizontal sweep. The goblin’s head was cut ly off a flying out of frame.
“Woah.” Raymond excimed. “That was cool.”
“Keep watg.” Max said simply.
After decapitating one goblin, the pyer’s sword did not stop moving as it rapidly flitted between ehin spurts of blood followed its path, as every goblin that came into tact with it became exanimated, exploding into fine red particles shortly thereafter.
It was quite bizarre, as the se appeared less like a fight for survival, and more like a theatrical performance. Eaent seemed as though it were carefully po serve the sword’s momentum, with the result ing out in the form of a perennial dance, where every strike led into the 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 pyer 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 Li dizzy and looked at him with fusion. Was he actually able to make out what was happening here?
Rone, however, kept watg the s. ‘Aha! I do know this guy!’
He remembered that he had one across a video from this el, but it was too fast and disorderly to watch without getting a headache, so he didn’t waty further. It was already amazing that Max could actually watch this kind of tent, as it was almost pletely unintelligible in his eyes.
‘Well, as long as he’s happy.’ Rone looked across at Max, who was thhly enjoying his birthday pizza while watg the video with sparkling eyes.
‘I should work on my editing skills so I make something eveer than this...’
Rone decided to try his best from now on.
Lasz
