Chapter 6. You Have to Draw Aggro With a Pretty Person
Chapter 6. You Have to Draw Aggro With a Pretty Person
"So there was a reason you were so confident."
"Of course."
My mother's eyes narrowed as she spread her arms wide.
A blizzard began to rage through the guild's sparring hall.
A storm powerful enough to tear through steel easily howled to life.
"Is this still a sparring match?"
"I didn't expect you to break through and step forward."
Our mother—who exactly did you take after to be that fierce?
I didn't think my maternal grandmother was like that.
I put strength into my calves and took a step forward, then another.
"Haaah..."
When I lowered my hand, the blizzard vanished and everything grew calm.
"What, are you giving me permission now?"
"No..."
As she said that, my mother gathered both hands toward her chest.
At that gesture, my father and the Association President flinched.
"Princess."
The moment she uttered that word, the whole area grew chilly.
A chilling, sharp aura spread outward—even colder and more piercing than the ice my mother had been using.
And then, my mother's hair and eyes began to turn the icy, cold color of the sky.
— Grrrrrind...!
The blizzard coalesced, hardening like ice, and a golem's form appeared behind my mother's back.
'A spirit? No... that's something a little different.'
When my mother gestured, giant ice spears formed just like before.
But their sheer size was overwhelming, and they were so numerous they covered the entire ceiling of the sparring hall, which was as large as a sports field.
"I could forgive you even now, if you beg and say you won't go."
I chuckled and shook my head.
"...I won't get hurt."
My mother pointed her finger at me.
Then, the ice spears began to rain down on me from all directions.
To be precise, they tried to rain down.
— Crack!
I brought both hands together and clapped.
The sound of my hands clapping together instantly turned into a shockwave and pulverized every ice spear into dust.
"H-How... to nullify the Hanul Guild Master's attack so effortlessly..."
The Association President watched our spar with bulging eyes, and my father looked entranced.
"Lord Hero, you can do it!"
And in the midst of all that, Laila caught my eye and raised a clenched fist, cheering me on.
I fiddled with my earlobe.
And there, I felt the long, golden earring.
The hand that was fiddling stopped.
'No. I didn’t need to use this.'
— Kwang!
I closed the distance in an instant, and my mother, startled, tried to step back.
'I needed an overwhelming performance that could persuade Mom.'
With my fist clenched, I shot it out in a straight line toward my mother's face.
And my fist stopped precisely in front of her face.
— Fwoooosh!!!
A powerful wind pressure erupted from my fist, and the golem floating behind my mother scattered in an instant.
At the same time, her hair whipped back and returned to its original color, as if the ice covering it had shattered and fallen away.
"Huh..."
I unclenched my fist and took hold of my mother's wrist.
"How's that? Seem a bit more trustworthy now?"
"..."
As the spar ended, people approached us.
"Our son is strong... as expected."
My father admired me like that, and as usual, he went to look after my mother.
And the Association President, unable to decide how to act, kept sneaking glances at me.
"To think the Master of the Hanul Guild could be so powerless... Unbelievable."
"Well, she was just letting her son look good."
The Association President's expression was puzzled, but he just accepted it.
---
Inside the car on the way home, my mother, perhaps in a sulk, didn't say a single word.
"Mom, why do you hate the idea of sending me off so much? Of course, I know that place is dangerous too, but..."
I felt my mother's gaze through the car's rearview mirror.
"I... thought that I might lose you one more time."
"..."
"What if I sent you there and something happened... Mom might end up blaming herself."
I couldn't say anything.
After I went missing, my parents must have endured those painful days.
And if something happened again to the son they'd thought was dead, who returned alive after five years, they probably wouldn't be able to bear it.
"Son, just promise Mom one thing."
"What is it?"
"If anything happens, run away and don't look back. And... contact us regularly."
I shrugged my shoulders.
If just that much could put my parents' minds at ease, I could do it a hundred times over.
As soon as we arrived home, we quickly got the equipment ready.
Maybe because the world had become more convenient, people came and set everything up in my room right after we ordered it.
In just a few hours, it transformed into a studio like the ones streamers introduce in their vlogs.
"So, what do we do now?"
"..."
"Laila, any good ideas?"
"Well? I don't really know. Wouldn't you know better than me, Lord Hero?"
I'd only ever watched streams; I'd never thought about doing one myself.
As for starting, all I had to do was click a button once, but I didn't know how to grow a channel or what kind of content to do.
Actually, I had thought about broadcasting a gate raid, but regular gates weren't very popular.
They all featured gates of similar rank and similar methods of clearing them.
They couldn't satisfy the needed of viewers who were completely and utterly steeped in dopamine.
"Should we just jump into a high-rank gate?"
"Hm... The Association President said we couldn't do that, remember?"
Laila was right.
The Association President used his authority to issue me a hunter license of a suitable rank.
But he told me absolutely not to enter a high-rank gate until I built up a track record.
Not that I could use a high-rank gate to build a track record—I needed to build one first and use that to gain entry rights to a high-rank gate.
"It'd be easier to just go in, clear it quickly, and get a high-rank license..."
"Lord Hero, sometimes you think about work far too easily. You should also think about the other people who have to handle those matters."
Don't we pay taxes for those people to handle that kind of thing?
"You don't work a regular job, and you don't pay taxes..."
"..."
I suddenly looked at Laila.
A beautiful and mysterious face, with a figure that would put professional models to shame.
Wouldn't Laila be more popular than a gloomy man like me?
"Laila, would you like to stream?"
"Hm... Me?"
"Yeah, I feel like someone as pretty as you would get really popular."
"Do you think so?"
Laila's eyes sparkled when I called her pretty.
Calling a woman pretty definitely had a reliable effect.
"But what should I do?"
I couldn't make Laila play games, and I'd never even seen her play a game before anyway.
But if I had her do a mukbang...
Laila isn't the type who eats heartily.
Rather, she's the type who eats very modestly and gracefully.
"Hmm..."
"Then shall I just read a book?"
I wondered who would watch a stream like that.
But there wasn't exactly any other suitable content.
Doing anything was better than doing nothing, right?
---
"Haaah... There's nothing to watch..."
Today, as usual, he clocked out of work and wandered around the platform with a can of beer.
In a daily life where he was pushed around by a mid-sized guild, streams were the content that soothed his exhausted mind and body.
"Everything's the same... all the same content..."
He was about to just click on a big corporate streamer he always watched.
But then, a peculiar stream title caught his eye.
[ Ex-Returned Hero: Saintess Reads a Book ]
"...?"
A nickname reeking strongly of boomer energy, and a title that didn't match the platform.
"Isn't this kind of stream supposed to be on Nutube?"
While there were three major streaming platforms, healing streams like this weren't usually done on this platform.
Especially calm, quiet streams often aimed at kids were mostly done on Nutube.
"Hmm... A stream like this on Pajijik is unusual."
When he clicked on the stream, the man was startled.
A mysterious appearance, enchanting long eyelashes, and clothing befitting a Saintess, just as written in the title.
And above all, an incredible holy power pouch...
The man watched the stream as if mesmerized.
And while he occasionally sent chat messages, the streamer seemed focused on reading her book and wasn't checking the chat.
Normally, a low-tier streamer like this would treasure each and every chat and interact, but this streamer didn't do that.
"Hmm..."
When the man clicked his mouse a few times, a cute sound, like a spark of electricity, flowed out.
[ Resignation Letter Always in My Pocket has donated 1,000 Watts! ]
- What kind of stream is this?
The streamer who was reading a book flinched at the sudden sound, her eyelashes trembling slightly.
"Oh my, I didn't even realize anyone was here. Um... I was just reading a book."
The man was momentarily stunned.
Even her voice was beautiful, so much so you could believe it was the voice of an angel.
And oddly, behind the woman, he could almost see an aura that embraced everything.
"Whoa, thought my ears were gonna melt..."
The man immediately pulled up a community forum on his computer.
[ Author: Throwing My Resignation Letter ]
[ Title: Seems like a total low-tier, but she's crazy gorgeous... ]
[ Content: (Picture of her reading a book) She's doing some kind of Saintess concept stream, and her voice and face are absolutely insane. And on top of that, her holy power pouch is f***ing... ]
One by one, comments started appearing on the man's post.
↳ : Stop trying to go viral;;
↳ : It's not like there were only a few people cosplaying on streams, lol
↳ : Whoa... but her holy power pouch was crazy insane, what the hell?
↳ : But wait, why isn't this person reading the chat?
Aggro was beginning to gather around the man's post.
And out of curiosity to see what this person looked like, people started trickling in one or two at a time.