Let's Do a Debut Stream! (2)
"Go, Dansomon!"
"Do not call This Venerable One Dansomon!"
She absolutely could not stand to watch me play cute in this body. Dandanso, who had sunk for a moment beneath the consciousness, rose to the surface, and ownership of the body passed from me to her. The instant she took it, the aura pouring off us changed.
The viewers seemed to feel the shift in my presence as well.
"Kerek!"
"Kerrrk!"
The goblins reacted to the changed aura too. Fear struck them before Dandanso's presence, and they charged me as if some instinct screamed that if they did not rush in this very instant, they would be the ones devoured instead. Three of them carried clubs. Two carried axes.
"Hmph! Five green monsters of that sort are not even a warm-up for This Venerable One."
"Hsssssssp!"
Dandanso drew a breath until her lungs were full to bursting.
"Huuuuuu!"
Then she let it out, slow—and something was wrong. From the mouth exhaling that breath, blood-red smoke billowed up in thick coils.
What is this?!
Why was this coming out of my body? It was terrifying. Had Dandanso slipped because the body was new? Or—don't tell me the body couldn't withstand the stats that had shot up from all that attention-chasing? Qi deviation?! No. No, absolutely not. In every murim novel, anyone who fell into qi deviation either died or went mad.
"Dandanso, this is right, isn't it? This isn't qi deviation or anything, is it?"
"Worry not. Thou need only place thy trust in This Venerable One."
A glance at the chat showed the mood had flipped from worry to expectation.
"Watch closely. This is the power of This Venerable One."
The form's name left her lips, and the sword tore free of its sheath.
A blood-red line scored the empty air. The five goblins still mid-charge were cleaved in two at the waist.
The Heavenly Demon's slash had not stopped at cutting the goblins in two. The mountain behind them was severed from the mid-slope, and the entire upper mass was falling, whole, toward the ground below.
These were the same viewers who, only moments ago, had been losing their minds telling me to run.
Whoa!
I had seen Dandanso's memories, so I knew she was strong. Even so, her real power was more tremendous than I had imagined.
"Heh. How is it? This is precisely the power of This Venerable One."
Wait. It was astonishing that Dandanso had shown such overwhelming strength, but this was no time to sit there marveling at it.
"Dansomon, nice work! Come back!"
I felt bad for Dansomon, who was thoroughly worked up—but I called her in and took the body back.
The viewers had been shouting that this was impossible to clear, and now it was cleared. Before their heat cooled, I had to jump in and milk every second of it.
"You all saw that, right? Anyone miss it? If you did, I'll just show you again!"
"Aigoo... This Venerable One says aigoo. Aigoo."
Korea's Hunter Rank 1, and Director of the Tower Climbing Bureau—Kang Mujin had a great many worries. Hunter Kang Chaemin had recently succeeded in clearing Floor 25, and still the worry had not lifted. By rights he would have cleared Floor 25 himself and let Kang Chaemin follow behind, but the floor was a poor match for him, so she had stepped forward and carried the clear. What mattered was not who had taken Floor 25. It was what came next.
"Haa..."
Just thinking of the late twenties they still had to conquer drew a sigh out of him.
I should never have made that choice that day...
It was the decision he had regretted, over and over, ever since. The day he awakened and first entered the Tower.
Will you sign up for Tower Streaming?
"No."
He had been pushing fifty. What broadcast? That was all he had thought. Back then, Partner Streamers did not even exist yet. Signing up for Tower Streaming meant you could broadcast, and nothing more—not a single other benefit. It was also an age when no one yet knew you could join Tower Streaming only on the day you first entered the Tower. And Hunter Kang Chaemin had made the very same choice. The result: the only two S-rank hunters in the Republic of Korea had both become Half-S-Ranks, forever unsigned to Tower Streaming.
Half.
That was the word the internet used to mock any S-rank or A-rank who had failed to earn Partner Streamer.
"Half-S-Rank, is it."
Even he had to admit it wasn't wrong. One hundred Partner Streamers, chosen every month by the Tower system—and the events only they could enter, and the rewards those events paid out, opened a gap just that wide. Look at China and Japan. Because they had S-ranks who wore the Partner Streamer title, they were already eyeing the late thirties. And unlike Korea, they hadn't piled up many Stacks either.
"Can we even clear Floor 26?"
The Tower's difficulty climbed exponentially every five floors. Floor 26 would be far harder than Floor 25, that much was certain. Worse, Floor 26 was effectively the ceiling for an ordinary S-rank who was not a Partner. Search every clear record in the world and you would not find a single ordinary S-rank who had succeeded on Floor 26. They had barely managed Floor 25. Floor 26? It would probably be impossible. And from the twenties onward, the Stacks that accumulated when a floor went uncleared within the time limit were no small thing...
The news of China's Floor 38 clear, arriving at just that moment, unsettled him even further.
"Haa... If only we had an S-rank who had earned Partner Streamer."
No. Not if only. They had to have one. Without an S-rank Partner Streamer, annihilation could not be avoided. Even if heaven's own luck let him and Kang Chaemin somehow clear Floor 26, they could not keep clearing floors by leaning on luck forever.
Boom!
At that instant the door of the Director's office flew open, and a Bureau staffer rushed inside.
"What is it? What's going on?"
There aren't many matters that would send someone to me in this much of a hurry.
Don't tell me those Black Moon bastards—
"Director, you need to see this."
His subordinate said it as he held out a video.
At last, hope had appeared for their country as well.
For that entire day, Hunter Gallery burned with the rookie hunter Dandanso.
Kang Mujin sat at his desk with an anxious look on his face. Why was this taking so long? They had the name, and they had the face. Judging by the fact that she had climbed Korea's Tower, her nationality ought to be Korean as well. A simple query of the administration's records should have identified her in no time.
Boom!
Just as his unease was about to climb higher, the door opened and his subordinate came in again.
"Director! This person Dandanso's identity cannot be confirmed!"
"What!"
Damn it. Identity unconfirmed—what the hell did that mean?