Goblin Head Soup, Part 3
The term "annihilation stream" sounds grand, but the concept is simple.
The main content consists of invading a dungeon alone to hunt every single monster, or defeating the boss monster single-handedly.
As I mentioned earlier, holding a B-grade Hunter license or higher is the bare minimum requirement to stream a dungeon annihilation, but simply having the license isn't enough.
The broadcasting stations and the Hunter Association conduct multiple rounds of screening and interviews to comprehensively judge whether "this person has the skill to stream inside a dungeon without dying." Only then is permission barely granted. The screening process became so strict due to various accidents that occurred in the early days.
Once the society stabilized after the Great Rift—the event where gates and dungeons first opened—a new order was established.
However, in the beginning, they handed out dungeon streaming permits to just about anyone. Apparently, many incompetent hunters ended up wiped out in a bloody mess within ten minutes of entering a dungeon.
Naturally, without strict regulations, there were people willing to do anything for attention, so it was a predictable outcome... I even heard of a crazy broadcast where civilians hired hunters to stream live beside them, only to be discovered by a monster the hunters missed, resulting in the streamer's death being broadcast live without any filtering.
In other words, in recent times, a dungeon annihilation stream was close to a guarantee that said, "I can clear this dungeon like I'm taking a walk, all while chatting with viewers and trying to be entertaining, and even if I get ambushed off-guard, I will make it back alive."
Of course, highly skilled hunters aren't strapped for cash, so they don't bother going through the hassle of streaming.
No matter how popular and mainstream hunter streamers have become today, S-grade and A-grade hunters can rake in fortunes just by participating in a few raids without ever becoming streamers. The basic salary provided by the state is also substantial. Unless a hunter simply enjoys broadcasting or is desperate for money to sweep up donations and sponsorships, it is very difficult to find annihilation streams by high-ranking hunters.
Since the permits themselves are so hard to get in the first place, annihilation streams have become quite rare nowadays.
Recently, even if someone does an annihilation stream, it usually amounts to A or B-grade hunters who are short on cash smurfing in C or D-grade dungeons to draw attention.
Of course, even that is appealing enough to viewers since they get to watch a hunter's exhilarating action, raw blood, and the thrill of conquering a dungeon with overwhelming power live. However, it is practically unheard of for actual S-grade hunters or top-tier powerhouses to do annihilation streams.
For the record, just because a dungeon is ranked A-grade doesn't mean an A-grade hunter can go in alone, traverse the harsh terrain, bypass all the monsters, and defeat the boss by themselves.
Maybe it would be possible if the dungeon had no gimmicks or mobs and only featured the boss monster alone...
But in an A-grade dungeon, every single monster is rated as A-grade. The average difficulty of the terrain, mechanics, monster distribution, and numbers is what makes it A-grade.
Unless one is an S-grade or a powerhouse with the overwhelming talent to reach S-grade, the recommended party size to clear an A-grade dungeon is at least three A-grade hunters.
"I don't know either."
"I only came here because an acquaintance recommended it. The Association hasn't scheduled a raid for it yet, and the external erosion rate is low, around C-grade."
"Yes, just as the viewer said, the erosion rate and the actual danger level inside the dungeon don't always match. It's been years since the Great Rift, but they say there's still very little we fully understand, right?"
Crack!
As I spoke, I reached out and grabbed the head of a goblin that was trying to ambush me from behind a tree.
Perhaps it hadn't expected its head to be grabbed right through the tree trunk, because the goblin began to thrash and scream. But before its cry could echo through the forest, my hand squeezed and crushed its skull.
Splat!
"But seeing how there are only goblins... it does seem to be C-grade. Maybe even D-grade."
For the record, the viewers watching the stream don't see raw blood and guts.
The smart AI drone camera automatically filters out scenes it deems too violent.
For example, blood is colored white like milk, and if bones or organs are crushed, that specific area is subtly blurred or replaced with something else.
I spent a good while slicing through goblins after that.
For about an hour, the flesh tentacles on my back secretly devoured every goblin I killed the moment I found them.
But at some point, they got full, so they stopped eating to avoid the viewers' eyes.
Rather than an annihilation stream, it had turned into a Just Chatting stream.
"Since the goblin head soup failed, what am I going to eat next? Goblin head soup, obviously."
"Think about it. Just a second..."
Crack!
Before replying to the chat, I dashed forward and wiped out a small goblin ambush party that was trying to shoot arrows from a distance.
My soup was ruined because of that jerk shooting arrows from afar!
"Enemy of my soup!"
Screeech?!
Gurgle!
I was already strong, but putting my grudge into a punch made the goblin explode into pieces as if it had been hit by a bomb.
"Oh, I wasn't planning on banning him, but the moderator couldn't stand it. You guys better suck up to the mod rather than me, okay?"
"Anyway, to continue... there is no failure in my cooking. I will eat it no matter what."
"For the record, normal goblins taste terrible. I will never cook them. The one I tried to make soup with earlier was a rare subspecies, a hobgoblin."
Ah, these sharp bastards.
"No comment."
"Fine, I ate it..."
"Not today. In the past, I did a test run to practice before making soup with a hobgoblin."
But normal goblins weren't just tasteless; they were literally bundles of filth and disease.
"To put it simply, it felt like eating raw, uncooked cockroaches. No, at least cockroaches taste somewhat like shrimp if you keep eating them, but normal goblins felt like eating a lump of plague no matter how much I purified them. It was extremely bitter, and above all, the texture was garbage. The fine hair on their bodies wouldn't come off, and the sensation of that hairy goblin scalp touching the roof of my mouth made me want to throw up. I usually try not to throw up what I eat, but..."
"If I told you about the hardships I went through in that other world, you guys would be crying your eyes out..."
"Hey, you guys..."
A sob story! The hardships I went through before returning here were filled with the grand epic of a hero and a witch...
Well, what's the point of talking about it now?
As the viewers said, to the people of this world, it might just sound like a cheap sob story.
There was even a returnee who got caught fabricating his story like a novel.
I don't know if that guy was just an attention seeker or doing it for money, but either way, people stopped blindly believing returnees' stories after that.
I heard the immigration office managing returnees even brings along lie detectors and hunters with truth-detection abilities...
"Ahem, anyway, only normal goblins taste that bad. A rare subspecies like a hobgoblin actually tastes really good."
How dare they tease me with food?
"Mod, ban the viewer who just said the ground slurped my soup!"
Well, the ban request was a joke anyway.
As I chatted with the viewers and beat up the ambushing goblins, I realized I had walked a full circle around the forest.
But something was off.
Usually, whether it was a C-grade or D-grade dungeon, a boss monster guarding the dungeon always existed.
The dungeon boss has a distinct presence and is essentially the master of the dungeon, the one keeping it sustained.
Yet, no matter how much I roamed this forest dungeon, I couldn't find any anomalies.
Aside from being a dense forest suitable for goblins to inhabit and ambush from, and the temperature being slightly cool, this place was no different from a normal forest outside.
"Strange. The dungeon isn't ending."
"The erosion rate is only C-grade, but looking at the danger level where only goblins appear, it's D-grade at best. The goblins were only armed with clubs, rusty swords, and arrows..."
If a typical low-tier boss of a C or D-grade dungeon existed, I would have just brushed it off.
But the hobgoblin I caught earlier for soup ingredients was just a rare subspecies, not the boss. The fact that the boss monster wasn't showing up despite me roaming around as if to tear the dungeon apart was definitely an anomaly.
"If you're annoyed, just blow it up."
At that moment, the moderator sent me a whisper.
Since she has better insight than me, she might have noticed something.
"Everyone, I just got advice from the moderator."
I controlled the tentacles on my back to wrap around my hand.
At the same time, holy power began to gather at the tips of my hand and tentacles.
The tentacles held my hand steady to prevent it from shaking, and the massive holy power gathering there soon possessed enough physical force to be visible to the viewers.
"It's fine. I've confirmed there are no people here."
Besides, I was the only one permitted to enter this dungeon anyway.
As the pure white holy power gained enough physical force to distort the surrounding space, I felt an immense weight in my hand.
"Since the boss won't come out, well, I'll just sweep it all away. If it still doesn't show up after I detonate this, then it's hiding underground."
"Thanks for the donation. I'm setting it off now. Adjust your volume, everyone. It's going to be quite loud."
Giving the viewers one last warning, I clenched my hand.
Miracle: Holy Body Ruin
Boom!
Clenching the compressed holy power, I unleashed the miracle.
They say that gathering, compressing, and detonating a hunter's mana can wipe out an entire town. What I gathered was holy power, an energy crystal of even higher density than mana.
Since I detonated compressed holy power that had gathered enough to exert physical force, a massive, destructive sound echoed as if a nuclear bomb had gone off around me, beginning to blow away everything in the vicinity.
"...Hmm, my ears... Ah, can you hear me?"
Of course, I had cast a protective barrier of holy power over the drone cameras filming me.
Actually, I had blown up all the expensive cameras once before while using this skill.
The price of the cameras wasn't the issue, but considering the time it took to manufacture and deliver them, not being able to stream was a pretty big loss.
After checking the viewers' reactions briefly, I looked around.
The dense forest and the pits where goblins could hide had all been blown away.
There was nothing visible in the surroundings...
"Wait, there is something."
Once the trees of the forest were completely destroyed and the obstacles blocking my view disappeared, I realized why the boss of this dungeon hadn't appeared.
A small crevice where I thought goblins would hide had been deeply gouged by the miracle I just detonated.
And the erosion power slowly leaking from there was so dense that it made my skin prickle.
Stepping closer, I could see the spatial distortion unique to a gate.
This shouldn't be the exit, right?
"What's a mimic dungeon? Do you guys know?"
"Ah, so the dungeon tricked humans?"
To put it simply, whether the dungeon master intended to invade the human world or just wanted to hide, it had intentionally disguised the dungeon's erosion rate to create a dungeon within a dungeon.
If it really was a mimic dungeon as the viewers said, the rank of this dungeon would skyrocket. And if I crossed that gate, it was highly likely that it wouldn't end with just a few goblins appearing.
Wait... if that's the case...
"That means... there might be elite goblins or goblin subspecies inside, right?"
Too late.
My decision was swift and precise.
Before the viewers could even react, I dived into the mimic dungeon.
I mean, they said there might be goblin subspecies!
How could I resist when I had a chance to retry making my goblin head soup?!
"Truly unhinged."
The moderator's whisper tickled my ear, but I did my best to ignore it.