You Don't Have to Refund It
‘Just like yesterday—why is she so good at this?’
Yena, busily moderating the chat, couldn't hide her admiration as she watched Lily work the stream.
Anyone looking in from the outside would have believed she'd been streaming for years. She handled the flow of the broadcast that smoothly.
Even when viewers pushed past the line with their comments and antics, she brushed right by them without a hitch. Most rookie streamers get their feelings hurt by those kinds of remarks, or take them far too seriously.
She looked completely comfortable communicating with a crowd of people. How many times had she actually streamed before?
And yet she knew almost nothing about the streaming system or the ecosystem around it.
Yena had helped her get the basic setup done, but plenty of things were still off, so it had taken another twenty minutes of tinkering before Lily's setup reached roughly Yena's level. Watching that process, it became certain: this was someone who had never streamed before in her life.
‘A total newbie who doesn't act like a newbie at all... never streamed a day, but somehow a natural at it...’
What on earth was she?
Yena had her doubts, but for now she decided to let it go. Real or not, Lily was an extremely important person to her.
If she's Lily, then she's Lily. What more is there to say?
And so, right at the moment when she was already carving her way through dozens of viewers, a BGM she hadn't heard in ages rang out around them.
"...? Insane."
Ten million won.
And not just a casual donation—one made with guild recruitment in mind.
In that instant, Yena, guildmaster of the 52nd-ranked -Ye- Guild, broke out in a cold sweat.
This... this has 'she's about to be poached' written all over it, doesn't it?
The chat flooded in all at once over the colossal donation. And the arrival of Raphael—one of the seven elites of the Angel Guild and a former professional player—was more than enough to set fire to a chat window that was already in chaos.
"L-Lily? Um...?"
Shocked as well, apparently, Lily had frozen mid-motion with nothing but a hollow "...huh?"
A chill ran down Yena's spine. She kicked off her sword-dance and lunged at the screen.
"Th-that's not happening, right?! You can't throw me away! We've been so close!"
Gulp.
The lump in her throat went down hard.
Lily still hadn't answered. She seemed to be deliberating for a moment—then, with one last glance at Yena and the chat window, she opened her mouth.
"...Hmm. It must be a very good offer, then. Everyone's reacting so positively."
"Raphael, are you there?"
A clear, lovely voice flowed through the stream's microphone. After only the briefest delay, Raphael's username appeared across the flood of chat.
It was over.
No—had she simply been too full of herself from the start? Acting like the girl already belonged to her over a bit of content and some basic help with her stream setup.
With a bitter taste in her mouth, Yena reflected on her own arrogance. Lily's going to leave now, isn't she. Still, they'd exchanged numbers, and she just hoped they could stay on friendly terms.
Streaming stuff aside—the content, the business of it—Lily herself was genuinely a good person, so they'd at least keep in touch going forwa—
"You gave ten million won without a second thought, and judging by the chat you're a pro player. I think it'd be fun to do some kind of duel or match sometime."
...?
"But I'm not really thinking about joining a guild right now. I still have content lined up with Yena here. I'm grateful for the gesture, but I'll be returning the money."
Above all else...
‘I just don't like the name "Angel."’
Heaven-Scented Human, Lily Elbrit. There were two races she hated most in all the world. One was the Demons, her race's polar opposite.
The other was the Angels—the very thing her own body was made of.
Ten million won was a lot of money.
Between the donations and content revenue rolling in lately, my sense of what money was worth had gotten a little numb. But a single person—giving ten million won out of their own pocket, not a sum pooled by a crowd? That carried a very different weight.
I had no idea whether this Raphael person had come as a representative of his guild or as an individual, but either way, he'd just hurled ten million won at me at a stage where I hadn't even decided whether I'd join or not.
It reminded me of the day I'd first met Yena, and I paused for a moment. Then I looked at the guild's name.
Hmm. Yeah, I don't like it.
"L-Lilyyyyyyy..."
Yena stared at me with huge, glistening eyes. Don't look at me like that, it's awkward.
I pushed away the Yena closing in on me and shook my head.
"I didn't refuse because of you, Yena. A guild is something I'll think about in due time—it's just that I've still got content left to do with Yena, that's all."
Yena nodded along with a series of eager little "mm-hm"s before vanishing off-screen again. Felt like a typhoon had just blown through.
I let out a breath, turned to the camera, and brought it up once more.
"If the chance comes up, I'd love to connect in some other way besides guild membership. And thank you again for the ten million won. I'll process the refund right aw—"
"...I'm sorry, what?"
Really? All ten million?
When I asked back in bewilderment, amid the rolling waves of chat, a verified-badged username glittered with unmistakable prominence.
"...Well. All right, then."
Can't exactly refuse when someone insists on giving. At this point, refusing would make the whole scene even stranger.
"Then I'll move on to the next donation. Thank you once again, Raphael."
Beyond that, more guild invitations and saccharine-sweet donations kept coming in, and then came the combat questions. How had I leapt clean through the clouds? How did one handle a spear properly? How do you take down a will-o'-wisp with pure physical damage?
The donations poured in, but the one that dominated by sheer volume was, of course, Spear's Roar.
"Hmm... it is technically a utility skill, I suppose."
The questions were flooding in. It wasn't exactly a Q&A segment, but with this many donation-questions piling up, I figured I owed them at least a little walkthrough.
I rose from my seat, summoned the green spear, and gave it a smooth whooosh around my body. The shaft spun with perfect fluidity.
Glancing to the side, I noticed Yena, who'd been handling the chat, watching me with obvious curiosity as well.
I flashed her a small smile, then twisted the spear in my grip.
"Nine out of ten people trying this for the first time won't be able to use it. Because frankly, a normal human being can't."
Spear's Roar was a technique of the angels. I could only manage it because I was a Heaven-Scented Human—for an ordinary person to ever use it, no matter what tricks they tried, their mana and physique would need to be at Sword Master level or beyond.
It was something close to an authority. Even I had only ever pushed it to seventy percent at most, and in this weakened body, I could draw out no more than ten percent of its performance.
"Don't think of it as thrusting the spear—think of it as firing it. Hold it, while not holding it."
I twisted the spear. Mana on the level of a water bottle seeped into the contorted shaft, which began to spin violently, as if to shred everything along the trajectory it was about to fly.
And then—release.
Chwajajajak! The tree in front of me was ground apart by several overlapping slashes and crumbled to dust.
I'd braced myself for it, but my body was holding up better than I'd expected. As I thought—three percent is no strain at all. Looks like I seriously overdid it last time, when the chat got under my skin.
"I've toned it down quite a lot from back then, but at this level you should all be able to copy it."