The Golden Rules of RPGs 4
The end result of my sweet little date with Han Se-ah was a haul of rapid-freeze grenades, paralysis-toxin sticky scatter bombs, and thermite adhesive bombs — all purchased after comparing prototypes from several workshops.
The rapid-cooling grenades were meant for sealing off body parts of large species, like a wyvern's wings. The paralysis-toxin sticky scatter bombs were for blanketing small swarms like goblin armies. And the thermite adhesive bombs, apparently, were for melting through the thick hides of things like golems or giant worms.
......Am I really supposed to call blasting grenades at workshop dummies a date?
"Man, I was a little worried about having to rely solely on Roland's Holy Sword for the really tanky ones."
"You like them that much?"
"Heck yeah. I heard even a dwarf-alloy wall turns to mush in five minutes. Most monster shells should be toast!"
Whatever else might be going on, her love of bombs was the real deal — I could feel the pure sincerity packed into that beaming face as she grinned at the three kinds of alchemical explosives.
Even thick-skinned, iron-nerved Han Se-ah must have felt the pressure of the 60th Floor boss showing up alongside a mid-boss. Giving her the most charitable read possible: with new gear and extra bombs, she could keep the game rolling without a failed clear, and that was why she was smiling so happily.
......Right? That has to be it?
"Khhh, just yesterday I was watching those Western science streamers dump thermite in a pot and set it on fire, and today a thermite bomb lands right in my hands."
The real problem was that the crooked little smile she wore while stroking the thermite adhesive bomb was every bit as sincere. The way she grinned wickedly, caressing that long, bright-red bomb, looked uncomfortably like some AV actor from a groping video leering at his co-star.
I genuinely wanted to research why she looked at bombs with those eyes — but the rest of the party, who had watched Han Se-ah's bomb date from start to finish and now wore the hollow-eyed stare of the spiritually wounded, were waiting at the far end of the alley. Time to regroup first.
"Welcome back, Roland. Did you get the gear sorted?"
"Ah, uh… yeah."
Whether they had no intention of hiding or had simply given up after Han Se-ah's explosive rampage, the three of them appeared with a blatant we were watching you energy.
They'd been standing right at the mouth of the alley the whole time, so Han Se-ah's camera had caught them ages ago. The peculiar little smiles they wore set the viewers off into another noisy frenzy — after all, the audience would rather look at beautiful women than listen to bomb praise.
And so Han Se-ah's date, which had set both the stream chat and the community boards on fire, came to an end with an inventory stuffed full of bombs.
Han Se-ah goes on a date with Roland.
The world's number-one game-progress streamer — the woman most likely to become the owner of BB Games, a female broadcaster whose Heroes Chronicle audience had blown past a million and into the tens of millions — goes on a date not with a fellow streamer, but with a male NPC inside the game!
Wasn't that how every sentence in the world worked? Slap on enough extra flesh and anything could be made to sound glamorous or grave.
There was even a joke that a guy working the drive-thru at a fast-food joint should describe himself as "a representative of a multinational corporation generating hundreds of billions in revenue, handling operations linked to the automotive industry."
"……Ten of them already?"
"Yeah. The Magic Tower sent a letter yesterday, so technically ten gathered yesterday, and any extras that came in after that got bought up by the Tower's mages."
While the world made a fuss over every little joke from the now-giant Han Se-ah, and the tabloid hacks churned out their garbage internet articles, ten ogres had already piled up at the Magic Tower.
In a mere three days, no less.
"……We never even ran into that many ogres."
"Hmm, according to the notes the clerk left: two that fell through on sales contracts, one that a merchant caravan happened to catch while moving supplies, three yielded to another mage as part of a harpy magic-stone deal, and four brought in off the commission board."
"W-well, better early than late, right?!"
Alice was explaining as she scratched away with a giant quill pen, reading through the documents at a leisurely pace, but Han Se-ah's head had dropped and showed no sign of coming back up.
Grace scurried over to cheer her up at the obvious picture of heartbreak, but Han Se-ah's spirits were not going to recover. She wasn't despondent over her own bad luck — she had placed a bet against her viewers and gotten completely wrecked.
Han Se-ah had claimed ten ogres would take about five days. Some rich chairman had needled her, asking how many adventurers there even were and whether it would really take five whole days. From that, a small but enormous wager had been born.
"Ah, uh…… I really didn't think it'd only take three days."
"Aww, thank you for the donation. Haa…… Then should we fill up the penalty roulette? We can't head for the Tower today anyway."
If Han Se-ah won, the people who'd put money on the bet would buy her channel subscriptions equal to their wager amounts and hand them out at random to chat users.
If Han Se-ah lost, she would pack the old penalty roulette — the one she'd made before she ever started playing Heroes Chronicle — full of penalties equal to the bet total, and spin it.
Simple enough as wagers went, but Han Se-ah's stream had already secured a live audience in the millions. Calling it a major corporation barely covered it, and that was what had her by the ankle.
It had started as a casual joke, laughing and chatting — and in under five minutes the mission total had rocketed past three million won.
Only then, mid-organizing her inventory of bombs, had she grasped how serious things were and hastily closed the mission window she'd opened for the bet. But some rich old man had already slammed down a massive two-hundred without so much as a second thought.
"Holy shit, how much in penalties was on this roulette when I first made it? Back then it was maybe a hundred and twenty thousand won, tops."
A quick look confirmed it: old roulette, five-thousand and ten-thousand-won penalties. Yeah, this was going to take all day. The system was that after spinning the penalty roulette, someone had to pay that penalty amount for her to actually perform it.
In short, if she landed on Act Cute (₩5,000) at a 10% chance, someone would send a ₩5,000 donation and she'd have to do the cute act. But the money was already prepaid at 3.3 million, so whatever came up, she had to do it — no exceptions.
The high-probability ones were cheap and easy. As the price went up and the odds went down, the annoying stuff started. Act Cute, five dumbbell reps, sing a song — then Indie Horror Game Playthrough, or Marathon Stream Until First Place in a Survival Game, and so on.
While she was glancing over the roulette board built from viewer suggestions, Irene and Katie sensed something was off and quietly drifted this way.
"Alright, alright — we head straight for the 60th Floor tomorrow, so take it easy today."
"Yes. It's been a while — how about we, um, have a drink just us girls?"
Even as they said it, the three of them shot me apologetic little eye-smiles while gesturing and nodding in a clear don't you dare join in message.
Hearing talk of drinks from Irene of all people, not even Grace, told me the three of them had conspired to comfort Han Se-ah. Seeing a so-called date that turned into nonstop bomb shopping at alchemy workshops must have been a shock to them as fellow women.
Be that as it may, Han Se-ah — who had already calculated that spinning 3.3 million won of penalty roulette would take not a day but a full week of continuous spins — hadn't even noticed the party closing in from both sides and behind. She was still hard at work negotiating with the camera.
"But wait a second. We need to update this roulette. You guys want to watch me chuck ogres, not watch me suddenly quit Heroes Chronicle and clear the new Poppy Playtime 4, right?"
True enough — with Han Se-ah's luck, how many times out of 3.3 million would she land on the five-thousand-won five-dumbbell-reps or Act Cute? Think of it as ten reps for ten thousand won, and if she got unlucky she could end up with a grotesque torture stream of a thousand dumbbell reps.
Once the chairman with the biggest stake accepted the point, the viewers reluctantly went along — and that was when Grace and Katie gently took Han Se-ah by both arms.
"Uh, uhhh? Why all of a sudden?"
"My, my. You were so out of it you didn't even notice us talking right next to you."
"It's okay, Hanna! Today you can just relax and chat with us girls!"
Only then did Han Se-ah realize she was being surrounded and escorted away by three people who already had suspicions about her relationship with Roland. She thrashed, but a mage stood no chance against the combined strength of an archer and a warrior.