Streamer Hanna, Part 2

I opened my eyes before dawn, to the crowing of a rooster.

The sound of that bird echoing through the dim streets always set a slow irritation simmering under my skin, but there was nothing to be done about it. That rooster belonged to the innkeeper who'd fed me free meals by the armful back when I was a Novice Adventurer. Tally up the eggs I'd freeloaded off her and I was the one who ought to be crowing in its place.

A body this well-built shook the sleep off the moment my bare feet hit the floor. My mind snapped into focus before I'd even dry-washed my face with my palms — still hard to get used to.

I was rubbing my eyes when the hallucination floated up again.

Hold on — what did she even do to learn basic magic already? The rooster was still crowing. The sun wasn't up. What kind of schedule was this? I headed for the bathroom, twisted the mana-stone faucet, and stepped under a stream of hot water, drifting into the streamer station's forum as naturally as breathing.

Never thought I'd be wasting time web-surfing in a hot shower in this world, too.

The posts had multiplied dramatically since I'd fallen asleep the night before. Skimming the flooded board, I pieced the situation together well enough. The chat had gone quiet, so I'd assumed she'd ended the stream — turns out she'd taken a short break and come back for a Part Two night broadcast.

Adventurer mages had to pay the Magic Tower to learn spells, but players could apparently pick them up through a skill window. She'd spent the whole night theorycrafting a skill tree out of the common skills with her viewers. The quest had specified exactly five spells, so the skill window's limit was probably five.

And on top of that, a mage's talent is random too… Being built on a gacha game at its core really is no joke.

There was also some guy — cuckoo, pigeon, I could never remember which — who did nothing but ferry news about other streamers. Everything from some girl streamer bursting into tears because she couldn't become a mage, to a middle-aged streamer pitching a fit demanding they teach him magic, only to get fried by a receptionist girl's spicy Shock spell and thrown out on his ear.

The board kept buzzing even while I washed my hair. Chat wasn't open, so she'd probably finished picking her basic ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spells overnight and gone to bed. Afternoon stream, night stream, then sleep through the morning? In that case, Hanna would show up at the Adventurer's Guild around the afternoon.

Back when I was a Novice Adventurer living hand to mouth, I'd sprinted to the guild the second the sun rose to snag the best cost-effective quests — but that was ancient history. I'd chosen a stable life over climbing the Tower, and my bank account was padded thick with gold. I could afford to take my time.

I had more than enough gold to raise one Hanna into an Advanced Adventurer.

After soaking up every convenience of magitech civilization — hot shower, hair dryer and all — I stepped out of my lodgings and headed for my usual inn. A little too run-down to live in, but the food was excellent, and I owed the proprietress a debt of gratitude.

Coming out for breakfast at an hour when I was normally still sprawled drunk in bed, I gave the bustling innkeeper a proper start.

"My goodness, what brings you in for breakfast?"

"I've got a junior to train, so I'll be showing my face in the mornings for a while."

The short, round-cheeked auntie — her face as generous as her hospitality — bellowed a welcome loud enough to match. Standing there with a tray far too big for her frame and a voice that carried beautifully, she naturally dragged every half-asleep guest's eyes straight onto me.

A few people glanced over and looked away, but most of them just stared at my face, mouths hanging open, as if they couldn't believe the jokes the innkeeper was cracking. The loose-lipped auntie had probably been running her mouth to the regulars about me being an Advanced Adventurer.

Stories about how that Roland freeloaded meals as a Novice Adventurer, or how even after making Intermediate he still came back craving her cooking — the whole catalog. She was the big-handed type who piled food high out of pure generosity, so penniless Novice Adventurers flocked here on word of mouth. An Advanced Adventurer anecdote would have been excellent bait for keeping customers around.

"A junior? Time sure flies. A Novice who didn't even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠know where the guild was, and now you're raising a junior of your own…"

"Hey now, that was ages ago."

I'd come to this very inn on a senior adventurer's recommendation back when I was a Novice myself. It was the only lodging-and-eatery where a few coins could fill your stomach. And compared to the watered-down beer and scrap-meat stews at other inns, the food here was actually decent quality — of course people crowded in.

So I sat in a corner seat under the full weight of every would-be Novice Adventurer's stare and warmed my insides with a bowl of hot stew for a while.

A hologram materialized in midair on its own and snagged my attention.

So this is the Alert privilege.

Same as the smartphone notifications I used to get when my favorite streamers uploaded a video, back before I got dragged into this game world — a hologram pinging me the moment Hanna went live. That was the reward from the last quest. I wanted to complain about what kind of garbage reward this was supposed to be, but unfortunately, it was actually a pretty good one.

After all, I was stuck trailing after Hanna like a stalker.

The fact that she was streaming live meant outside time and game time ran at a one-to-one ratio. She'd logged out after theorycrafting magic until dawn, then logged back in right on the dot at eight — so maybe logging out and back in always dropped you into morning, regardless of outside time?

Surely she wasn't running some insane three-hours-of-sleep, twenty-one-hours-of-streaming schedule.

"Leaving already? The meat's almost done."

"Give that to the hungry kids over there."

"Good grief… who throws a gold coin at a single bowl of stew?!"

I pressed a gold coin into the auntie's hand as she waved me off — part image management, part repaying kindness — and hurried out of the inn. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠It might have looked a little mercenary, but leaving a good impression in small places like this was how the fat private commissions rolled in.

In a world with no ID cards or CCTV, where commissions rested entirely on personal reputation, living kindly enough to generate word of mouth paid dividends. Even more so when it was people in the same line of work.

It wasn't as if I were some world-conquering hero who never had to deal with the little people. Take enough commissions and you ended up in temporary parties with Intermediate Adventurers and seasoned Novices all the time.

"Ah — Roland!"

I was ambling down the street with those thoughts when a voice called my name from far ahead. Standing in front of the Adventurer's Guild, staff gripped in one hand, the other waving vigorously overhead — Hanna.

Unlike the Novice Adventurers who looked exhausted, sleep-deprived, and ground down by life, she was a lively beauty drawing every Novice eye in the vicinity. Once you hit Intermediate, income jumped and private commissions started coming in, so there was no reason to be hammering on the guild doors at sunrise.

"I learned magic!"

"Let's go inside and talk first."

Spotlessly clean, fully geared in secondhand equipment, and already packing magic — a beauty like that. I could see a few people's gazes, especially the women among the Novice Adventurers, turn sharp. In a world with no human rights and no welfare to speak of, plenty of women became Novice Adventurers just to eat, and most without talent either died or ended up as prostitutes. Hanna, who looked like she'd landed a golden ticket, was bound to draw envy.

Soaking up every stare in the street, we stepped into the guild.

The woman at the counter wasn't Alice but another receptionist. I glanced at her sleepily tapping documents into order, then headed for a reasonably empty table. The quest board was swarming with Novice Adventurers whose pockets held nothing but dust, so I passed on taking any jobs. Watching someone with money swipe a few coins off the desperate never sat right with me.

"You already learned magic?"

"After we split up yesterday, I wanted to train a bit more, so I picked some up."

I sat down and casually scanned the room while she settled across from me, smiling brightly. She looked plenty confident in the five magic skills she'd brainstormed with her viewers until dawn. Smiling like she couldn't wait to show them off.

"First things first, I learned a Shield spell."

"Hmm, good. Honestly, I was worried you'd come back with something completely random."

"Random magic?"

I'd already confirmed what spells she'd learned from the streamer station board, but I played dumb so I could spin adventurer stories on her stream. As the frontrunner of the open beta, a six-star NPC's war stories were bound to be popular with the viewers.

In ten years of grinding through a world with no elementary-school-level basic education, I'd seen more absurd nonsense than I could count.

The guy who died because of a cloak was on the mild end of the scale.