Caught in the Act at Crocodile Farm 2
Crocodile Farm 2 was a server with systems far more advanced than the original. The tiers for all kinds of items had expanded dramatically, along with enhancements, fusion, and more, while class-specific abilities and exclusive gear had also been added in abundance. The more the streamers played, the more absorbed they became, until it was common to see them getting hopelessly invested in the place.
And on one side of the village in this server that so many people were enjoying, an absurd historical feat was being achieved on the fourth day after launch.
“Ahem~. Slave~. Over there, that patch of ground is sunk way down, isn’t it?”
“No, master. You blew that up a moment ago!”
“Huh? Are you talking back to your master right now?”
“Ah... n-no. I’ll fill it in...………(Motherf—....)”
That was Kuronyang and Rusty.
Kuronyang, who relentlessly picked on Rusty, and Rusty, who grumbled all the while but obeyed her without a single act of rebellion. There was a story behind how their relationship had come to this.
Three days ago, on opening day.
This went back to the moment Kuronyang had just taken Rusty in as her new pet(?).
It began with Kuronyang casually gaslighting him by saying they might as well shove a mountain over a little, and Rusty, horrified, went into a full grand bow. Kuronyang, deeply moved by his grand bow(?), then said:
“Hmm... Then you choose, oppa.”
“Huh? Wha...what do I choose?”
Rusty was suddenly tense. Kuronyang found that terribly amusing.
“You did show sincerity, but I don’t want to forgive you without getting anything out of it. So pick one. You want to flatten a mountain? Fill in the sea? Or build an underground base for me?”
“...”
Rusty couldn’t bring himself to answer in the face of Kuronyang, who was forcing him to choose from the three paths to death.
“If you hate all of those, you can flatten the mountain, fill in the sea, and build a theme park on top of it. Whatever’s easiest for you, oppa.”
Rusty fell into agonized thought, and the people watching were nearly dying laughing at the sight of it. (Kuronyang + Jipsadan + Sanyangdan)
-lolololol
-Wooooow. So generous. Sooooo generous.
-Option 4. Option 4. Option 4. Option 4. Option 4.
-No matter what he chooses, it’s death lol
-Isn’t the least awful one probably number 2? He just has to lay down the ground, right?
-Yeah, but who knows how much area that’ll be. If she means the entire sea within sight?
-Ah. lol
-Commander Kuronyang has spoken. “That mountain is annoying me?” lol
-What about option 3?
-Option 3 means he has to dig up all the land first and then build something on top of it, doesn’t it?
-Ah.....
Glancing sideways at the chat as if to copy from it, Rusty asked cautiously, “Master? Um... how far does filling in the sea go?”
Kuronyang answered brightly.
“It’d be lame if you just filled it in, wouldn’t it? I’ve always wanted to go see the Taj Mahal~”
“......”
-lol. Fill it in and build the Taj Mahal lol
-Exactly lol. If you’re just filling it in, it’s got no flavor lol
-Then if she has him carve down a mountain, what would she make him build?
“Um... master? If I carve down a mountain, what should I build?”
“Hmm... over there... our slave is the very incarnation of desire, isn’t he? How about Babel Tower?”
“......”
-lolololololol
-A landmark in a week, just like that~
-Building landmarks~!!
-How many landmarks will there be by the time the server ends? lol
-Is she recreating the world’s seven wonders in Minecraft?
-lolololololol
-The ancient wonders were seven, then four more were added in the Middle Ages, and seven more in modern times. That’s eighteen total.
-Hey lol she’s making him build all of those lol
“I’ll... fill in the sea.....”
Rusty chose the sea, his voice sounding half-dead.
But then...
Response time has expired, so option 1 was automatically selected.
Kuronyang forced choice number 1 by disguising her voice.
“........”
Beep~ Response time expired, so in addition to option 1, option 3 was selected as well...
“I’ll do it~~! I’ll take option 1!!! I definitely want to do it!”
-lololololol
-Answer faster, damn it lol
-If it’s “desire,” then it’s Babel Tower lol
-Poor guy, he’s about to end up building his own symbol.
-Well, who told you to name him Rusty? lol
Rusty swallowed tears at the mockery from the viewers.
If I’d known this would happen, I never would’ve gone with that name... sob sob.
Watching him wallow in despair, she began to feel a little guilty.
“Still, I’ll help too. It’d be hard if you had to do everything alone.”
“Kuryang...”
He was moved by her coaxing words, telling him they’d do it together.
Did you forget that Kuronyang was the one making him do it?
******
The two of them arrived at the foot of the mountain so they could flatten it together.
“......”
“......”
-Wow....
-Seeing it up close, it’s freaking huge.
-Can they really flatten all of this before the server ends?
-Dunno?
From a distance it hadn’t looked that big, but up close it was no joke. The peak was so high she had to crane her neck all the way back just to see it, and it was even hidden by the clouds now and then.
Click. Clack.
Rusty turned his head with jerky, broken movements and looked at Kuronyang, while she quietly avoided his eyes.
His expression seemed to say, You want me to flatten all of this? Me? and hers looked back with averted eyes, as if to say, I didn’t realize it would be this big either...
A heavy silence settled over them both.
Unable to endure it any longer, Rusty finally spoke.
“Should we go fill in the sea now?”
Kuronyang stared off into the distance, unable to meet his eyes, apparently too ashamed to look at him.
“I’d like that too, but... the others...”
“Ah...”
He understood when he saw Kuronyang’s broadcast screen.
After Rusty suggested changing to filling in the sea, the chat had been overrun with “ruin” and “this is so doomed.”
“Haah......”
“Oppa... sorry. I didn’t think it’d be this big...”
“No helping it. Let’s just knock it all down.”
“O-oh? Oppa?”
-lolololol
-This is actually salvageable! Salvageable!
-Yayyy~ 24-hour broadcast!
Her eyes widened, and the viewers cheered at his words. Then Rusty’s voice cut through to them all.
“Watch closely, Kuryang. Once two hours pass, they’ll be begging us to please go somewhere else.”
“Huh?”
Kuronyang tilted her head, but Rusty used her confusion to remind the viewers of the reality they’d forgotten.
“From now on, those guys have to watch us dig dirt for twenty-four straight hours. While everyone else gets to go have fun exploring.”
“Ah.....”
-Ah.
-Ah....
-Guh...
He drove the final nail into the coffin for the viewers who had belatedly grasped the situation.
“This is the content you forced on us. Bite down and endure it. Kekekeke.”
“......hehe.”
-Couldn’t we call it a draw? Couldn’t we call it a draw? Couldn’t we call it a draw?
-Should we go explore?
-Someone over there found a sky island too. Let’s go there.
-I think acting on emotion is bad.
-Let’s settle this like civilized people and talk it out. Could you put that stone shovel down for a second?
Now the situation had reversed, and the viewers were the ones begging.
Just as Rusty said, they’d have to sit there and watch those two grind away at that giant mountain for hours. Those two, at least, were doing something, teasing each other while they worked. Only now did the viewers realize that they themselves would be doing nothing but watching.
At that moment, every single viewer had the same thought flash through their head.
We’re screwed.
“Kekekekekeke.”
“Hehehehehehe.”
For a while, only the two of them’s laughter rang out.
*****
In the end, through negotiations with the viewers, they agreed to dig out only a reasonable width and level the ground before starting construction. Even so, because of the sheer size of the Babel Tower they were planning to build, it would still mean carving out a fairly large area, but that was still better than shaving down the whole mountain range.
After the agreement, they worked out additional details: Rusty, using operator privileges, would take out a diamond pickaxe and the materials needed for enchanting, while Kuronyang would level up, enchant the tools, and come back with mag tools.
With that, the two of them began their separate tasks.
If they pulled out experience bottles, things would be even easier, but the viewers objected so fiercely that they decided to head to the Nether to level up instead. In compensation, Rusty was permitted to pull out efficiency, fortune, and durability enchantment books, since gathering those would take a long time.
As Kuronyang headed off to the Nether, Rusty floated into the air with operator privileges.
“All right... let’s die.”
-Ah.....
-Bro. Sorry. I’m going to go check on Kuronyang-nim for a bit.
-lol They made him do it, but they can’t handle being bored lol
“Hey. If you call us beasts too, what are we supposed to do? I even went and named you the Sanyangdan.”
-It’s not that cute.
-No style.
-Just kind of whatever.
And so Rusty started tearing the mountain down while trading banter with the Sanyangdan. At least with the operator’s power, blocks vanished under his bare hands with a satisfying thud-thud, so the work was moving along fairly quickly.
.
.
.
And there was someone watching him from afar...
After separating from Rusty, Kuronyang was leveling up in the Nether by mining quartz.
After a bit of leveling, she first put Efficiency on her pickaxe to improve her work speed.
“I wonder if oppa’s doing okay carving the mountain. It must be boring.”
-He’s flying around silently, carving it down.
-We were nearly about to spend days watching that.
-That was the broadcast you chose. Endure it by force of evil and sheer stubbornness.
-Seriously, you guys are the ones who made him do it lol
Kuronyang kept mining quartz hard while the Sanyangdan, having fled from the Jipsadan and from boredom, updated her on Rusty’s situation.
Since she’d been given all the enchantment books from the start, the moment she leveled up her gear got better, so it was actually kind of fun. Repeating leveling and gear enchanting like that, Kuronyang eventually grabbed two mag tools—pickaxes with all the enchantments she needed—and dashed back to Rusty in high spirits.
“Doneee~. Now I should go to oppa~ heehee~♪”
Unlike the cheerful Kuronyang running off, the Sanyangdan’s reaction was strange.
-Ah. Aaaah...
-If you go now...
-Maybe stay a little longer ;;;
Meanwhile, the Jipsadan was urging her on.
-Run!
-lol Rusty is 30 seconds from being screwed
-Let’s go~
With the two chats mixed together like that, Kuronyang only tilted her head in confusion.
Skipping along with a series of little jumps, she was suddenly caught by the sight of Rusty chatting and laughing with a female streamer.
She stopped.
Kuronyang, who had been bouncing along, quietly pressed shift and crouched, then began creeping closer.
Soon enough, voices reached her ears.
“Hahaha. No, not at all. It’s not hard work or anything~ This is all part of the fun, isn’t it? Hahaha!”
Rusty let out a hearty laugh, and the female streamer wearing a nametag that read Marvel leaned in warmly, acting cute as she said, “Oh my, saying it like that makes you sound sooo cool.”
Kuronyang stood there in silence, staring at them, while the Jipsadan and the Sanyangdan traitors slowly suffocated.
-I can’t breathe.....
-What do we even do about this atmosphere?
-Kuronyang is scary....
-May the deceased rest in peace....
-Action beam! No, why do you want to do that right now ;;
-Leave her be. I think she’s gone mentally numb from fear.
-Ah..... PTSD is...
Still unaware of any of that, Rusty and Marvel chatted comfortably.
“Rusty-nim, there’s something I don’t really understand. Could you come with me for just a moment and teach me?”
“Ahaha. Of course I should help as an operator. Right this way.”
Just as Rusty turned to leave with Marvel after speaking, Kuronyang was standing in front of them, wrapped in an unnervingly dark aura.
“Gah.”
Rusty jumped in alarm, and Marvel quickly took one look at the situation before hurrying off. Crocodile followed after her as she fled.
“Oppa...”
“A-ah, no, Kuryang. This is a misunderstanding.”
Rusty, flustered and scrambling for excuses, was met with a mag tool driven straight into him.
Crunch!
“Die!!”