Vroooooooommm.
“Oniiii-channn. Can we put on some music?”
“No. And stop calling me that.”
“Whyyyyyy?”
“We can’t have a conversation if there’s loud music pying. Don’t you want to have a nice conversation with your big bro?”
“No.”
“…”
“Not anymore; big bro is mean, so I don’t want to talk to him.”
Max toggled the turning indicator. “You know, I don’t practice my U-turns very often.”
“W-wait! I’ll do it – I’ll talk with big bro Max!”
Max fshed a satisfied smile and flipped the indicator back to its resting position.
“...” Lina pouted. “You know, bckmail is a crime in this country. Once I graduate and become a wyer, I’ll have you arrested for that.”
“Oh? Weren’t you going to specialise in civil w though?”
“I’ll make an exception for you.”
“I see... This is the level of pettiness I expect from the student of a prestigious university.”
“How can you call me petty when you were about to turn the car around for me wanting music.”
Max shrugged. “My car, my rules.”
“Tyrant.”
“Child.”
“Anyways, what clubs do you think I should join?” Lina fidgeted with her seatbelt. “Unlike my misanthrope brother, I actually want to have a social life and talk to people.”
“You could join an archery club.”
…Lina facepalmed. “Seriously, what is your obsession with archery? Do you even think about anything else now? I bet you see that steering wheel as the ring of an archery target.”
Max ran his hand down the wheel, caressing it gently. “How did you know?”
“Hmph, forget it.”
Just as Lina was watching the wheel, she noticed the subtle change of a light fading out on the dash.
“Hey, we just dropped to one bar of fuel. Do you wanna stop to refill?”
Max’s grip on the wheel tightened slightly.
“...Nah, no need. One bar sts ages.”
“Oh... Okay then.”
Seemingly out of nowhere, Lina’s expression darkened.
After a brief silence, she spoke again, “Hey, you do actually like archery, right? You’re not just doing it because you think it’s something Dad would have wanted?”
Max gnced at her, slightly taken aback by the question. “...It’s true that I only started because Dad pressured me, but I came to like it over time and now it’s actually my favourite thing to do.”
“But weren’t you a lot more passionate about mathsy stuff back then? I remember, you were even pnning to do a degree in mathematics. I get why you cancelled your enrolment at the time, but why haven’t you gone back to it? Do you not like that sort of stuff anymore?”
“...It’s not that I don’t like it. I think you’re misunderstanding something here; I didn’t cancel my enrolment back then because I was grieving. Rather, it was because of money.”
“Huh? Money?”
“You remember how Raymond had his own apartment before moving in with us? He had a mortgage on that dingy box, so he was stuck paying the repayments for both that and our house. Pile food, utilities, transport, school fees and other expenses on top, and his wage wasn’t enough to cover everything. I needed to get a job to pitch in, and working all those hours while studying seemed like too much pressure for me at the time, so I backed out of the degree.”
“Wait, then you dropped out for my sake?” Lina’s eyes became watery.
“Wha–? No, it just made financial sense at the time. Don’t jump to strange conclusions.”
“Moh~, baka.”
“I wasn’t very g– Wait, doesn't that mean ‘idiot’ in Japanese?”
“No comment.”
Max shot her a sidelong gre. “Anyways, I’m good at arithmetic, but advanced mathematics was always a struggle for me, so I wouldn't have been a good fit for that sort of course in the first pce.”
“Oh, shut up. You’re good at literally everything.”
“That’s rich coming from the freshman w student.”
Lina poked her tongue out. “By the way, are you going to park the car, or are you going to just keep driving around aimlessly? I wanted to go on foot so we can see inside the buildings.”
“…?” Max looked at her with confusion. “What do you mean? GPS says we’re still half a kilometre out; we need to get there first.”
“That marker points to the centre of campus; as for the facilities themselves, we’ve already reached them. Look, there’s the science building.” Lina pointed out the window.
“??!!”
In fact, Max had thought the university campus would be simir in size to a typical high school. He had never seen any other campuses before, since he missed the timing to attend open days, so witnessing the reality came as a great shock to him.
“A-all this?!” Max was dumbfounded. “This is like an entire region! There’s no way all of this can be part of a single campus."
“Yeah, it’s fairly big. It has its own pharmacy, gym, barbershop, some restaurants…”
Max choked on air.
“…Swimming pool, art gallery, a museum… I think there are a few tennis courts, too. Oh, and–”
“KKGH, is that–?!” Max’s eyes widened like saucers when he noticed a rge structure in the distance. “Is that a f*cking SHOPPING MALL????”
“Oh yeah, that’s where the food court is.” Lina nodded. “Wait, but why are you calling it a mall? Are you secretly an American, or are you just stupid?”
“…”
Max was frozen in stupor, so Lina tugged his sleeve to revive him. “Hey, stop daydreaming, you need to take a left here to get to the parking facility. Hup-hup!”
“Okay, okay. Hey, but could you stop treating me so horribly? I’ve already been insulted by a few thousand people today; I don’t need my sister doing it too.”
“Don’t be hyperbolic; you’re not important enough for a thousand people to insult you. Here, take a right at the next street. No, not this one, the next.”
“…” Max felt wronged.
…
…
[BREAKING: Archer streamer ‘Gun’ gets suspended for cheats! The first hacker?!]
—I bet Gun is crying somewhere right now hahaha
—DESERVED
—Hahahahahshahahahah
— Serves him right lmao rekt
—This is what you get for being a cheating f*ck
—Is there any proof that he actually cheated? What were the grounds for his suspension?
└ ‘Is there any proof that a human being can’t use their arms to fly like an airpne?’
└ It is SO obvious lol
└ No, Virtek haven’t made any announcements yet. I think they will try to cover things up, since hacking their products shouldn’t be possible.
—BAN! BAN! BAN! BAN!
└ Imagine wanting someone banned just because you’re trash in comparison
└ Previous commenter: Imagine defending a literal hacker. Get a life dude XD
—What a POS LOL
—Eat sh*t Gun haha
—Why hasn’t he been perma-banned yet? So slow
—If he doesn’t get banned I’m refunding the game and the capsule
—Anyone else finding this thread unnaturally hostile, or is it just me? Hmm…
└ Stfu troll
Rone scratched his head as he read through the comments reted to Max on the forums.
‘It does seem unnaturally hostile, doesn’t it?’
It was odd. Not long had passed since Max had been suspended, yet there was already a rge volume of antagonistic comments. Although there was nothing strange about encountering toxicity on the internet, receiving bombardments of hateful comments like this was only the norm for established public figures.
Max was not an established figure. He was just a guy who liked shooting arrows, with a streaming career spanning 2 days. No, it had only been 24 hours since his first livestream... Surely that wasn’t enough time for people to generate animosity of this extent?
‘…Does he have some secret cabal of enemies that I don’t know about? Or a celebrity? A rival?’
Rone entertained some ideas but couldn’t come to any definitive conclusion.
‘Maybe the pyers are just feeling frustrated…’
Most of the pyerbase was still stuck trying to clear the beginner-level goblin dungeon. Even with the death penalty removed for pyers under level ten, which would ordinarily lock a person out of the game for hours upon death, pyers kept dying over and over again to the mere ‘starter dungeon’. It had gotten to the point that funny death compition videos had already started appearing on the forums.
‘Well, if that’s the reason, they only have themselves to bme.’
Rone decided it was their fault for living their lives as sedentary lifeforms.
Rising from the couch, he shook his arms and legs, which had become stiff from a long editing session. As he did so, a few leaves fell to the floor from his clothing.
“I suppose I should upload while the iron’s hot. But first…”
He picked up his phone to browse social media, immediately opting to procrastinate. Opening Instagram, his feed was instantly filled with posts from a variety of meme pages, as well as some friends and celebrities. He scrolled down.
“Heh. Heheh.”
Liking the memes, and ignoring the posts of acquaintances who seemed to be living extravagant, more fulfilling lives as always, he browsed until finding a post from a streamer he liked.
Dear Virtek,
Our great friend and comrade, Gun, has been unjustly holstered away, triggering many people, myself included, who are now up in arms. We will not recoil from this matter, as we are certain this is a complete shot in the dark by a handful of staff members of your company. A misfire, with Gun serving as a target in the crosshairs of jealous and unsubstantiated, BLANK accusations. We believe that Virtek is not a company of such low caliber that it would allow people to be banned over ammunitionless reports. If you load the clips and rifle through the footage, you will find that Gun has a BULLETPROOF defense, and unloading his account at this time is sure to only backfire on you.
Sincerely, The Lemon Squad
#FreeGun
Rone grinned broadly while double-tapping to like the post. ‘As expected of one of my favourite streamers – he stands up for the little guy.’
Of course, in this case, the little guy was a terrifying ranged warrior who seemed capable of fighting an entire orc army on his own, but that was only a minor detail.
‘The clips… People will be suspicious of how he got the Deadshot css, should I upload the rest of the footage?’
Simir to other streaming ptforms, viewers on DiveLive were not only able to watch a streamer’s livestreams, but also their VODs (Videos On Demand) to view completed livestreams. However, DiveLive also allowed users to upload recorded DIVE footage to their channel, not requiring the footage to be livestreamed. In that respect, it also functioned as a video-sharing ptform, much like YouTube.
Max had been recording while completing his css test but not livestreaming. It would be possible to upload his footage to DiveLive and YouTube to show viewers how he legitimately obtained his unique css, partially clearing his name of the accusations.
‘Although, I should probably ask his opinion before doing something like that.’
Ding!
As if sensing his thoughts, DiveLive chimed with a notification.
…
…
Whizz!
*Huff* *Huff*
Zoom!
*Puff* *Puff*
Onlookers watched with arm as a man chased a small girl around a series of buildings.
“Why– Hah, how– How do you have this much stamina?”
“Dunno, must be good genes.”
“We have the same– Hah, dammit. She ran off again.”
It was actually quite a comedic sight. A rge, retively buff young adult man, struggling to keep up with a petite teenage girl as she weaved through parts of a university campus.
“Hey, do you really need to see every room in the university? I feel like you could just limit it to the ones you have csses in.”
“Captain Cook would be disappointed in you,” Lina responded simply before fleeing.
“Hey, you can’t just name-drop a random explorer and then run off.” Max pursued, parkouring over a handrail to cut her off. “For one, we’re not trying to colonise this campus.”
“Tch, boring.”
“Second, you don’t need to– Hey!” Max protested as Lina ducked under another rail to escape meeting him at the bottom of the accessibility ramp. Feeling like he had no other option, Max resorted to his final pn. “Food!”
Immediately, Lina’s body drew to a halt. She turned to face Max, observing him warily. “Go on.”
“The food court was just over this way.” Max pointed. “We could get dinner out for once.”
“…Okay~!”
Suddenly Lina was all smiles. Max sighed in relie–
‘Wait.’ Max looked at her in fear. ‘Was this her goal all along?’
Question marks appeared above Lina’s head as Max intensely scrutinised her.
‘I underestimated her.’
…
“Yum.” Lina took a bite out of a big burger, which nearly exceeded her head’s circumference. “We should do this more often.”
“We should.” Max smiled.
Due to it being a Saturday evening, the campus was almost deserted, with only a few people around. The pair found a park bench in a pretty garden across from a bus stop, where the atmosphere was calm and peaceful.
“We could go out more like this if you weren’t so glued to your game capsule,” she added brutally.
“Or maybe… if you were more glued to my game capsule.”
Lina stared at him bnkly.
“My old capsule. You could py the game with me if you want; it’s open-world too, so you can do lots of exploring – I know you like exploring.”
“Ey, don’t attack me with my weaknesses.”
“Haha~”
Right at that moment, a bus pulled into the bus stop, showing an advertisement for World of Heroes on its side.
“Wow.” Max blinked. “See, that’s fate. You have to py the game now.”
“Whaaat? I don’t even get a choice anymore?”
“Nope! That’s how fate works.”
“Dammit, fine.” Lina took a sip of her drink. “I’ll try it… eventually… probably… maybe.”
Max silently pumped his fist in victory.
...Rrrring! Ring-ring!
“Ah, dammit. Tranquillity ruined.” Max picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Max!” Rone’s voice came through the speaker. “Your suspension was just lifted!”
“Oh? Already? That was quick.”
“Super quick! It didn’t come with any special message or anything. It just said: ‘An investigation found that your account is unlikely to be using cheats, thus we have lifted the suspension. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.’”
“Hm, did they give any compensation?”
“No compensation.”
“Is that so… Well, at least we probably won’t be SWAT raided now.”
Lina perked up next to him. “I’m sorry, won’t be what now?”
“Ahem, nothing. Rone, did they make any other announcement on their socials or anything?”
“Nope, nothing.”
“Interesting… By the way, viewers can’t see that I was unbanned, can they?”
“No… why?”
“If my understanding of these sorts of things is accurate, the story of ‘first hacker’ probably took off on the forums and social media, right?”
“Right. Don’t worry, it’s an easy problem to solve. You can just do a real-life archery stream to show them it’s your real abilities.”
Max tilted his head. “Why would I do that?”
“…Pardon?”
“The controversy is probably bringing a lot of people to the channel, right? I’d imagine the identity of ‘first and only hacker’ is a lot more appealing to viewers than ‘slightly talented archer’. Since that’s the case, isn’t this misunderstanding in my favour?”
“Y-you…”
“Well, aside from the hate comments, I guess. Anyways, don’t release anything on social media about me being unbanned until tomorrow morning. That way, the story can keep gaining traction until I py again tomorrow.”
“Max… You’re a little bit scary when you use your brain.”
“Thank you.”
