Chapter 56
I realized the café owner was interested in Aseong, but.
‘Ah, um, my little brother will be back soon.’
I didn't go out of my way to bring it up and meddle.
Aseong could handle something like that himself.
Besides, I didn't have the time to worry about someone else's love life.
I mean, we're in the middle of an all-nighter clear of Darkest Dungeon, aren't we?
I'd only stepped out to buy some coffee, but I had a duty to save the domain in this dark fantasy world.
Click.
So I hurried back to my room, and about twenty minutes had passed.
-Me
-Shit!ㅋㅋ
-Fall
-Even the Mad Movie feels overrated after watching it?
-How long is this fucking gap going to last?
As expected, with the streamer gone, the chat had turned into a complete mess.
Honestly… none of you can survive without me.
“Were you all doing okay?”
-You're back??
-Why the fuck are you only here now;;
-What, did you make the coffee yourself??
“Heh, it only took fifteen minutes. It's a little far.”
-? Fifteen minutes?
-Can you not tell time?
-So what did you bring?
“A warm latte. It got a little chilly with the air conditioner on.”
Unlike outside, which was merely cool, the room was a little cold.
That made a warm latte perfect.
-You environmental-destroying bastard, tsk tsk
-Can't you just turn off the AC?
“If I turn it off, it gets hot again in no time.”
Do you know how hot a soundproof booth without air conditioning gets in summer?
I don't. I always live with the AC on.
-Opening up the ozone hole wider is crazyㅋㅋ
-I'm a real polar bear, and it's too hotㅠㅜ
“All the polar bears have migrated south and are doing fine these days. What are you doing alone in the Arctic?”
You know, I saw it on the news.
Haven't all the polar bears migrated south by now?
They're meeting the southern bears and living happily, so that's all that matters.
-Apparently this guy's bullied by the other bears
-For real, what is he doing alone in the Arctic?ㅋㅋ
-But did you only buy coffee?
“Of course. I only bought coffee. Oh, and I did a little Just Chatting with the café owner.”
-?
-??
-Is this a romance subplot?
“The owner is a woman.”
-Ahh
-Phewㅋㅋ
-Tell us the story
A story? Hmm, can I talk about it?
I thought for a moment as I looked at the chat.
I generally don't talk much about things outside the stream….
And I had gone out in the middle of the stream. Surely this much would be fine to talk about, right?
“Ah, well, the thing is….”
My little brother already has a girlfriend, but the café owner seemed interested in him.
I simply stated the plain fact that it wasn't my concern and moved on.
-No, fuck
-Is this fake?
-Prove it, fuck;;;
As expected, the viewers were furious.
“Right? I'm a little jealous too.”
-Why are you jealous?ㅋㅋ
-Has nothing like that ever happened to you??
“Me?”
Something like that happening to me….
A lot of scenes flashed through my mind in an instant, but.
I answered with a faint laugh.
“Do you think I have?”
-ㅋㅋ
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Prove that tooㅇㅇ;;
-This bastard's milking us
“Why am I the one doing the milking?”
Sometimes, I feel like the viewers get worked up over the strangest things.
Is it because I don't actually watch VTubers, so I don't know?
I pride myself on knowing my way around subculture, though.
“And what's so good about a thirty-something like me? I should just stream from home.”
-Gasp
-What
-This bastard just slipped upㅋㅋ
-I'm really sending this to that thirty-something. Good luck
“Whoa, that's forbidden.”
If you really send it to that thirty-something, it'll be a disaster.
Women are especially sensitive about their age, aren't they?
Even if they pretend they aren't.
The moment you call them a thirty-something, an auntie, or whatever, they immediately harbor murderous intent.
A woman's grudge is a frightening thing.
Even more so when that grudge has been aging for over thirty years. Phew.
Honestly, if I were over thirty and heard something like that, wouldn't it shake me too?
No, wait. Maybe it would be fine if I looked young for my age.
In that respect, I hoped I'd take after Mom.
I started the game again.
“Where did we leave off?”
-Right at the fucking beginning
-You went all the way back to the dawn of timeㅋㅋ
“Oh, right.”
Come to think of it, I'd just gone to get a cup of coffee before recruiting mercenaries and heading to the field.
As the viewers said, when I re-entered the game, I saw the party we'd put together right before entering.
“Hmm.”
But maybe it was because I'd gotten some fresh air?
With my mind running at full speed, I didn't like the party.
-?
-??
-What
“It has no philosophy.”
What did it mean to have three warriors in the party? We weren't going out to do manual labor.
One should be a priest, and another a thief, so they could coordinate with the archer.
-???
-What the fuck
-Who is this?
“Who else would it be?”
The genius VTuber Wayo.
Anyway, after setting up and running the party that way, things went incredibly smoothly.
-You should've done this from the start
-Why didn't you do this simple thing earlier?
"Ahem, it was all performance testing."
Wasn't that the reason we'd tried four-priest and four-warrior parties—to test their performance before putting this one together?
-You call that testingㅋㅋㅋ
-It was a test of our patienceㅇㅇ
Anyway.
As I ran my A-team party, I started thinking about the next party.
"How should we put together the B-team?"
-Focus on the game
-Start with curing the priest's poison;
"No, we can clear this part easily."
Honestly, how many times have I done just this early section by now?
I knew the patterns so well that I was confident I could clear it lazily even with only three warriors.
After setting up the party like this, I had room to think about what came next.
“But the ones who show up at the mercenary office are still random, right?”
-Nope, meeting certain conditions does raise their odds
-It's not completely random
“Really?”
-But you're not going to look up a guide
-For you, it's randomㅇㅇ
-Set out some water and pray
“Ah….”
What kind of game was this?
Still, wasn't this also part of the game company's philosophy?
Either slam your head against it until you find the conditions, or, if you don't want to look them up, set out some water and pray.
“I'll set out coffee and pray.”
-Ugh, that's filthy, fuck
-Of all things, with a black liquid;
Unfortunately, the only thing on my desk right now was coffee.
I set the coffee down and prayed for a top-tier unit to appear.
For reference, I didn't even know what a top-tier unit was.
I just figured rare was probably good.
“Oh, oh?”
-?
-??
-It really appeared, fuckㅋㅋ
Could it be because I'd left something out and prayed, even if it was only coffee?
A unit I'd never seen before appeared at the mercenary office.
[Dancer]
“This is totally Wat.”
A medieval version of a VTuber had appeared.
-It's Watㅋㅋ
-???
-You mean that's supposed to be you??
“If you put it in fantasy terms, a VTuber is like a bard.”
You know? Someone who cheers on the allies from the back.
A VTuber might be the true modern-day bard.
-?? A VTuber wears a mask, so they're a jesterㅇㅇ
-The bitch doesn't even singㅋㅋ
-Can you even dance?ㅋㅋ
“Huh?”
A jester?
This is my face, what are you talking about?
Do these people think VTubers are the sort who hide behind a cardboard cutout and stream?
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Can you handle those words??
-Look at the way he talks
-Wayo/controversy
-He's adding another line to the list
“Anyway, I'll recruit Miss Kim.”
Whether she's a VTuber or not, she's a rare unit, so she should be useful, right?
I recruited the Dancer immediately.
The party had been nothing but men, so it was nice to finally have some feminine energy.
As expected, you need a flower in the workplace to air the place out.
-What a choice of words, fuck;;
-Fresh air, my ass
-Wayoforty is a legendㅋㅋ
-If you were a man, you'd have been buried
“I can say that because I'm not a man.”
How could a man say something like that?
For reference, that was a quote from Teacher Han Seonghwa.
If Teacher Han Seonghwa had been a man, they never would have said anything like that either.
“Shall we go?”
Now that I'd recruited someone new, should I put Miss Kim in the next party?
The stress level had built up too much, so it was time to run the B-team.
I'd put Miss Kim in and go to a slightly easier dungeon.
-Did she really get named Miss Kim?ㅋㅋ
-You're taking a dancer into a dungeon? You bastard
-This is absolute garbageㅇㅇ
“No, if we don't stop this now, the domain is going to be fucked. What are you talking about?”
An Abyssal Dungeon has opened beneath the domain, you know?
If we don't stop it, the domain will be ruined, so whether she's a dancer or an ordinary person, we have to bring everyone.
Honestly, I don't even know why the party size is limited to four.
Why can't we just throw everyone in?
If we handed swords to thirty farmers who'd been doing nothing but farming and sent them down in groups, the dungeon monsters would probably be crushed to death.
-This bastard is a lord?
-Wayo's disregard for human life is crazyㅋㅋ
-Then who's going to raise the cows, idiot?
“Tsk, that's true."
Fine. Even if the country is about to collapse, we still have to raise the cows….
We need to eat meat so we'll have the strength to fight, don't we?
Anyway.
In that sense, I sent the Dancer, who did nothing productive, down into the dungeon without mercy.
I put the maniac who did nothing but eat and swing a sword at the very front.
The graverobber went in the second row, the bandit in the third, and Miss Kim was in the back.
-Look at this partyㅋㅋㅋ
-Is this a garbage dump?
-What did Miss Kim ever do to you?ㅋㅋㅋ
“…Somehow, it ended up like this.”
I mean, I'd brought the B-team.
Naturally, the party was bound to have some flaws overall.
“Still, it's fine because we have the Dancer.”
-Dancer-chan, my assㅋㅋㅋ
-Can't you see Miss Kim's face is skewered?ㅋㅋㅋ
-You're taking a group like that into a dungeon?ㅋㅋㅋ
"Ahem, they're all friends who are risking their lives to save the domain."
Their professions were a little vicious, though.
If a person has flaws, you just have to fix them.
Since we'd deliberately entered an easy dungeon, I could level them up by feeding them experience here.
-Still, you're being pretty diligentㅋㅋ
-Are you actually going to clear it this time?
“Of course we are.”
Do they think I just slam my head into things without a plan?
I play boldly enough to risk a game over if things go wrong.
Every time I slam my head into something, I steadily establish a clear plan.
-He really is trying to clear this
-Do you think it's possible?
“Can't you see the stream title?”
More importantly, look at these people.
It plainly says Darkest Dungeon All-Nighter, so why were they only bringing it up now?
-For real, is this an all-nighter?
-Still, looks like you'll have to play past morningㅋㅋ
“I'll clear everything and then just die.”
-Kyaaㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Wayo the streaming addict
-But can your stamina handle it?
“Ahem, we're just playing a game. What's the problem? Streaming is my rest.”
Honestly, whether it's modeling or streaming work,
it's true that each has its own hardships.
But compared to the construction work I'd done in the past, which had grown a little hazy by now, I wasn't so sure.
At least I was playing games under the cool breeze of the AC, so couldn't this count as resting?
-Who the fuck are you
-Bring back thirty-something sharp-tongued Wayoㅠㅜ
-Even this bitch is capable of growth
What do you mean, growth? I'd always had this mindset.
And since this was the tail end of my long, long reign of streaming tyranny, shouldn't I at least do this much?
-?
-??
-The tail end?
Oh, hadn't I mentioned it?
“I have to go to work now.”
My vacation was over.
It was summer, after all. No matter how much I wanted to rest, I had to go to work during this season.
-??
-Fuck, you are working right now
-How long are you going to keep this as a side job?
-At this point, just make it your full-time job
Hey, what are you talking about?
“If everyone streamed, who would raise the cows?”
With so many idle young people here, I had to be the one working hard and going out to earn a living.
Anyway.
The Darkest Dungeon all-nighter finally came to an end when noon was almost upon us.