Max walked around Novus while scrolling through a holographic dispy with i. The game developers had released an update while he was sleeping, ging all sorts of things.

  Patotes:

  ? Pyer death penalty is reduced from 24hrs to 12hrs and is no longer incurred by pyers under level 10. Ongoiies have been revoked for all pyers meeting this criterion.

  ? Fast travel to the capital city is now unlocked by default for all pyers in their home kingdom.

  ? ‘Threat Level’ has been added to description tags.

  ? Burning pyers and NPCs by holding a fireball hem is now sidered a hostile a.

  ? High-fives and fist-bumps are no longer sidered a hostile a.

  ? Barrig doorways will now lower your standing with affected NPd all NPCs will now be more profit at removing the barricades.

  ? Attempting to remove pants from yourself or others will now render a weak electric shock.

  ? NPCs will no longer mistake people of short stature for dwarves.

  ? NPCs will no longer accuse identical twins of dark sorcery.

  ? ...

  ? ...

  Other: An additional patch will be released ter today with further ges. We thank you for your patiend ask that you treat our support team with kindness and respect.

  Max smirked while reading through the dot-points; some of the fixes were quite amusing.

  It was good that the death penalty hased out finner pyers. Cheg his friend list, he found that Lemonade had already e baline. Rone oher hand, stayed up te after going back to his house and was still asleep. Though, it would be strange if he was awake, because it was currently only 5am in the m.

  *Yawn*

  As for Max, there were two possible expnations for why he woke up this early: the first was that his sleep schedule could have already been ruined from waking at 3am yesterday, and the sed was that his own ay woke him up, as he had been worried that oversleeping might cause him to miss out on the meeting that Parker would supposedly arrah the prioday.

  He suspected the tter, as he believed he’d dohat sort of thing previously... the actally waking himself up part, not the prince part; he hadn’t met any princes previously.

  Rone shared a ing piece of information with him st night, which was that time passed faster in the game world than in the real world. A full day cycle here was only 12 hours long, so when Parker had told him to meet her at the royal barracks in 2 days’ time, she really meant in 24 hours’ time.

  This meant that he would only have around 12hrs to reach the kingdom’s capital after he woke up in the m and would o rush to arrive in time, as the kingdom’s size was extremely vast. However, fast travel to the capital city had retly been unlocked for everyone, as per the new patotes... In other words, he could now literally just teleport there.

  This was why Max was currently wandering around the streets like a lost tourist. Acc to Rohere should be a tall stone somewhere around here called a ‘monolith’, which effectively funed as a fast travel point. Fast travel would only be possible when toug the stone.

  ‘Hm... Still no sign of it.’

  Despite not yet finding his magic rock, Max admired a tall ivory clock tower to the side of the throughfare. It looked unnaturally elegant pared to the other buildings in the area, which might expin why a rge body of pyers were gathered near it.

  ‘Actually, they look like they’re here for the park.’

  ‘...Mm? But why would they be here for just a park?’ Max did a double take.

  The adjat parknd was occupied by an inordinate number of pyers. ...After thinking for a moment, Max cluded there was no way it was just a regur public park. Grass and gazebos were nice, but not enough to warrant this level of attention.

  Approag from the street, Max pulled himself up a tree branch to see over the crowds. Following the dense areas of the crowd, his eyes rested on a tall stone prism a short distance away. One pyer happeo touch the stht at that moment, and abruptly vanished into air without any special effects.

  ‘Monolith! Luckyy~’

  Max dropped down from the tree and made his way over, nimbly weaving through the bystanders. A few seds ter, he was already there and prodded the monolith with his finger, not g about the intricate engravings carved into the stone’s surface.

  [ Please select your fast travel location: ]

  A map popped up in front of Max, which was quite fortunate for him because he actually didn’t know the name of the capital city. He selected the only avaible option.

  [ Location firmed. After firming, fast travel will be locked for (8) hours. firm? Y/N ]

  ‘Dang, there’s a cooldown. Oh well, whatever. At least it looks like it’s free.’

  Since Max had already sorted out everything he o do in Novus, he pressed ‘yes’.

  With a fsh of light, he immediately found himself transported to a gigantic pza.

  ‘Woah.’

  Or at least, he thought it za. It was a bit hard to tell when you couldn’t see the ground. Tens of thousands of pyers filled the area, rendering seeing or hearing anythiremely difficult.

  Not wasting any time, Max opened his map and looked for a market. Before meeting with the prince, he o do some shopping. There were a few things he needed, such as arrows, potions and some formal clothes to wear to the meeting. Finding the dire, he did a spin and started traversing the masses.

  After pleting that missioerday, Max received a whopping 50,000 gold as a reward from the guard captain, Ken. With such a massive amount, it was time to splurge!

  Well... Max was too miserly to actually ‘splurge’ money per se, but he was still going to buy a lot of things. He also po buy a better bow since he was still using his beginner one. His strength had increase by a det amount after levelling up a few times, so he would now be able to use something with a bit more of a kick to it.

  [ Received a message from ‘Lemonade’ ]

  ‘Hm?’

  A message from Lemonade?

  ‘ht.’

  He probably wahe reward money from helping him out yesterday. Max opehe message ahrough it.

  [ Gun! Do you want to do a dungeon with me and some other streamers in the capital? We’re doerson and could use the help of an expert ]

  ‘Expert? Aw, he’s so nice.’

  Caught off-guard by the ued yearly pliment, Max quickly replied: [ I’d love to! Where should I meet you? ]

  ‘Wait.’ Max froze after sending the response. ‘I’ve already received help from him at the mission, and then again when he raided my stream... now he’s invitio a streaming colboration?!’

  This was uable! Max would end up way too far in his debt.

  [ ‘Lemonade’ has invited you to their party. Accept? Y/N ]

  ‘Ahhhhh!! Dammit!’ Max pressed accept and started sprinting to the mert. He would need a lot more arrows for this.

  ...

  ...

  Max arrived at the dungeon and found Lemoanding with two people he hadn’t met before.

  “The on of mass destru has arrived!” Lemonade called out cheerily.

  “Dunno about that; maybe a on of minor destru. Who are these guys?” Max replied with i.

  The twers stared back, sharing the same curiosity. Both of them looked to be of simir age to Max, in their early-to-mid-twehe first etite girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, while the sed was a fident-looking dude with blue hair and e eyes.

  “These are my viewer-mags! On your left is Jasmine, a romance game streamer who acts as our healer. On yht is-”

  “Hey, I don’t py romance games, I py ‘Otome’ games. There’s a difference,” Jasmine corrected him. “Also, you ’t just repce Ruby with another model. He’s not even the right gender.”

  “... Jasmine, for f*ck’s sake you not wait 5 seds before flirting with the newer; I haven’t even introduced him yet.” Lemonade rebuked her before resuming, “On yht is Rafael, a renowned Esports streamer who pys FPS and fighting games. He chose the rogue css and is very profit with it.”

  “How e you say renowned when you introduce him, but not with me?” Jasmine pined.

  “Because you’re not as renowned.” Lemonade responded simply, “He has double your subscribers.”

  Jasmiared at him open-mouthed in feigned offence.

  “Who’s he, then?” Rafael asked.

  “This is Gun, an archer-css streamer I met yesterday. He’s extremely-”

  “Archer?” Rafael grimaced. “...Welp, we’re screwed.”

  “Okay, is there some reason you guys feel pelled to keep interrupting me? Seriously.” Lemoook a breath before tinuing, “As I was saying, Gun is extremely good with the bow. He took out aire ptoon of orcs yesterday, so I personally attest to his skill.”

  “Orcs... Are those strong in this game?” Rafael hadn’t entered a.

  “Far strohan goblins; they’re level 20 monsters. And what’s your problem with archers? We have 2 melee users and a healer, sing a ranged DPS should be on sense.”

  “Dude, archers are weak, haven’t you seen the forums? They o be within 10 metres to hit anything, and even if they do, they don’t insta-kill unless it’s a headshot.”

  “That’s not true at all. In fact, Gun could probably take on 5 of you at the same time.”

  “What?”

  ...

  Max iently tuned out from the versation while starting his stream. He was debating whether to set his default camera perspective to first-person or third-person. Remembering Lina’s pint about the video he watched with her st night, he decided to choose third-person. That way, the viewers wouldn’t bee as dizzy if he ended up moving around a lot.

  “...Alright, you’re on. I’m going to order the most expeeak there, so cry while you still afford tissues.” Rafael smirked.

  “When I win, I’m going to just have my regur order because ynorance is too pitiful to take advantage of,” Lemoorted. “You’ll be embarrassed enough by that point already.”

  “Hoho, alright. You hear that, archer? This guy’s going bankrupt because of-”

  “Hm, what? Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

  “...” Rafael stared at him.

  “Pfft, hahaha.” Jasmine burst out ughing.

  “My bad.” Max smiled amiably. “I was setting up my stream. Are you guys ready to go?”

  “...Archer,” Rafael walked up and pressed a finger against Max’s chest, “Let’s have a duel in this dungeon; whoever kills the most enemies wins.”

  “Uh, I’m not sure that’s-”

  “Or are you too chi?” Rafael grinned provocatively.

  ...After a moment of silence, Max’s lips curved up slightly. “If that’s what you want. Fine, I guess I indulge you.”

  “Good. The’s go.” Rafael forcibly held back a ugh.

  ‘Oh, this puy.’ At the same time, he felt a bit bad for the archer. ‘He has no idea that I’m a clearer. Lil bro’s boutta get steamrolled.’