Chapter 182: Crowd Around
———Karra———
<12: 45 pm>
She threw out multiple spells that quickly overwhelmed the giant lanky boss monster, causing its body to bruise and burn as she continued hurling powerful magical attacks.
It soon fell on its back, collapsing from enduring the large barrage of spells coming its way and ultimately dying from exhausting all its defense.
“Haa… Haaa…” She looks reasonably exhausted after spending a lot of mana on that massive wave of attacks. Her legs are shaking and her arms are still extended out, as if she’s afraid of being unable to lift them up again the moment she lets them relax.
“Chill out. The boss monster is already dead.” I said as the rest of us walked over to her. “Don’t be overdramatic, we’re gonna take a rest right now anyway. Fei, pull out the sets.”
“On it, boss.” Edea said before a large ring of light appeared in the middle of this giant floor. “Everyone, get out of the circle, I’m preparing something here.”
People moved out of the area and the circle glows brighter and brighter.
*Shine*
“What in the…” Cry muttered in disbelief as what is essentially a cottage home appeared out of thin air. The chat is going so fast I couldn’t quite discern their reactions.
“Come inside, we got air conditioners and everything.” I said before walking inside first with the drones all coming in as well to show the interior.
Everyone got inside and put their equipment down and sat at the massive table in the living room equipped with TV and everything.
I’m trying to keep my cool here as well. Edea is the one suggesting this, they’re the one with all the details of how this even happens.
“Here’s your Korean cold noodles. Enjoy.” Edea said before placing a bowl of noodles in front of everyone, seven in total.
{Huh?}
{Is this chat slowing down?}
{wtf is this}
{this had to be a bit or prerecord right?}
I look at the TV that is now displaying the stream chat. They are still bewildered and have no idea what is even happening. I just start eating while Cry and Liss look extremely confused while Terry looks at Edea in confusion and then chooses to ignore everything and eat before asking.
“Quite spicy.” Lrem remarked as she ate, the blindfold making it hard to tell what emotions she was showing. She doesn’t grin or frown that often.
{Where the hell did everything come from!?}
{HOW!}
{No please explain}
{someone say something!?}
{am I just to sleepy or smth}
{say something}
{Hey!}
{Hello!?!?!}
{Wtf is going on rn}
The chat is moving extremely fast again as everyone chooses to just eat and worry about the questions later. Liss seems to have a hard time eating it due to the spice, so I signal at Edea to do something about it, and suddenly a bottle of milk appeared out of nowhere in front of her which startled her a bit.
She quietly takes it and drinks it to relieve herself of the spicy pain. For some reason things feel tense despite being a moment of respite, everyone is quiet and focuses on eating the big bowl of food in front of them, the lack of sound is really what makes the vibe kinda intense.
“Fei, a jukebox please. Put on meyume guitar cover, no lyrics, put it on loop.” I said by the time I finished half a bowl.
“Which one?” They said playfully.
“The popular one, you know which one, one with the horses.” I said before I continued eating.
“Alright, music coming up.” They said before making a jukebox appeared out of nowhere and played the nice relaxing song on loop, now the entire place feels a lot more cozy now, doesn’t it? It looks like the chat agrees with the… Actually they aren’t, they keep asking questions over and over and doesn’t look like it’s gonna stop.
“Fei, put the chat in slow mode.” I asked for one more thing before I finished eating.
“Coming right up.” They said before the stream chat slowed down considerably. It’s not like we got over a hundred thousand viewers right now, it’s just that they really want answers even as everyone is relaxing and needing a moment of reprieve.
“Chat, please be patient, it’s basically impossible for anyone to see what is even happening in chat right now.” I said just before the last few bites.
Soon enough everyone finished eating and Edea threw away the bowls with a swipe of their hand, it didn’t crash into anything, it just sorta disappeared after being yeeted off the table.
And then a bowl of ice cream suddenly appeared in front of everyone alongside a tall cup of beverage.
“Alright then. Let’s pick up a few questions from the crowd while we eat. Just so you know, we’re not explaining how this is made. Kind of a trade secret from that one over there.” I said while pointing at Edea. Them lifting their mask up a bit so they can actually eat makes them look a bit silly right now. “Alright, let’s see who is the lucky winner this time around… ‘So who is the strongest among you four?’ Already start with quite an inflammatory question, I see.” I said with the question and the username of the one asking on-screen. “So is anyone here gonna try to answer that? Seems like a question for stirring stuff up.”
“Well, I know I’m at the top out of the four of us already. There’s no need to say anything else. Especially with the monsters I tamed, I’m worth multiple people.” Terry said in a joking manner, taking the piss out of the question.
“There you have it, let’s move to the next question.” I said while the chatters are arguing with each other slowly since slow mode is still in effect. “Hmm… ‘So will those bodyguards do anything?’ Well, it’s up to them. They’re here for emergency situations and making sure we aren’t overwhelmed. Maybe if there is an actual army of monsters coming up they’ll join in, but besides that they won’t be doing too much.”
“I’d be fine with not doing anything, actually.” Wiina playfully said before pulling out a pocket watch. “So, I guess we’re continuing at one in the afternoon?”
“Eh, it depends on how exhausted everyone is. Doesn’t look like anyone needs serious rest outside of maybe Liss, but she only needs a short break. Fei, give her a potion.” I said before asking Edea to do another thing.
“Here you go.” Edea said before sliding the potion across the table to Liss who silently drank it, looking a little worried. If she’s worried about the limited supply, then she shouldn’t be.
“‘So how is this stream gonna go on for?’ Well technically speaking with the setup and people involved, we could go on until the dungeon forcibly kicked us out by midnight, but we do have a limit in place so max the stream goes is at four in the afternoon.” I answered another question while the potion bottle was pulled back to Edea using magic. Some neat magic trick… or just magic, I guess.
“...I assume this place could be pulled out at any time?” Cry suddenly asked.
“Of course. We can come in here whenever we want, though it’s probably for the best that we don't laze around often, we’re here for a dungeon run, not a normal collab stream.” I answered. It’s far from the main content, so let’s try to not linger around here for too long.
“Nice to know.” She said before finishing her dessert. “It’s certainly hard to comprehend how this place came about and where the food came from, but hey, I’m not going to complain.”
After everyone finished eating, snack bowls appeared and suddenly there was a conveyer belt going around in the middle of the table.
“Okay, isn’t this a bit excessive?” Lrem asked with a small frown. “I believe we don’t even have that much time left before continuing.”
“Oh just enjoy it while it lasts. It’s not like they’re gonna go anywhere once we get out, we’ll be in here again eventually.” Edea said with the mask showing a cutesy grin.
“Yeah, just grab one or two before we leave. Fei is not gonna make a fuss if we stole a few baskets for crying out loud.” I said before taking a bag of chips while the others took something else from them. “Only about a minute or so left. We can extend it if the chat wants. Fei, put the poll up.”
“You sure got a lot of things to do,.” Terry remarked to Edea.
“Meh, it’s just clicking buttons and stuff. Nothing actually taxing.” Edea said even though they just make things happen without even moving a finger.
“Let’s see the result here… Five minutes extra, it looks like. Guess we can relax and talk a little bit more.” I said once the poll is closed. Might as well look for another question to answer it.
“Say, Cry. Where did you get a shield like that? I’ve been to a couple dungeons and I’ve never once seen a weapon that well-made or exotic.” Wiina suddenly asked while I looked through the comments.
“The one who made it for me told me to keep it a secret, so I can’t answer.” A rather predictable answer, but there was no harm in asking.
Now let’s see if there are actually any questions worth talking about here. Even in slow mode things are going quite fast. Hate to do it especially to the old chatters, maybe after we get out and do a floor or two we can revert it back to normal… Oh, this one is quite the topic…
“‘Are you worried about stream-sniping?’ Why would we? Even if someone figured out where we are, unless they are extremely strong or close to the area, there’s no way they could even reach where we are, and even if they did, they have to fight our bodyguards and no one is gonna beat those two. In the first place, who in their right mind is gonna come all the way here just for that? There’s a lot of risk involved, not to mention the exposure.” I said before taking a small pause… “I guess exposure is part of it, nevermind. Still, as I said, way too risky to do. I never get people stream-sniping dungeon divers, for other IRL streams it’s bad enough, but here you risk getting yourself and others killed, it’s kinda crazy to even think about it.”
“It really sounds like you’re trying to jinx us.” Lrem pointed out.
“In my defense that would mean more content, and like I said, we got securities, so we’ll be fine.” I said, realizing that it sounds like a jinx only a few words in.
“You do know you are associated with a few people who could come here, right? Are you sure you wanna try saying that?” Wiina suddenly said. Hey, don’t start saying stuff that’ll make others alarmed!
“Shush. Don’t say anything else or else they’ll actually come.” I said while wagging my finger at her. “Oh! Looks like the time is up, grab your snacks and let’s keep moving.”
Everyone got up and walked out of the house and it quickly disappeared. Some of us clearly try to not ask any questions of the hows and whys since they’re not here for that.
“Alright, next floor time. Floor forty-six. Anyone feeling like they haven’t been seeing any action?” I asked and no one was saying anything in response. “Okay then, we’ll just freestyle it and see how it goes.
We all walked to the next floor and saw… An actual army, it looks like. This floor looks more like a giant plain than it does an underground cave or structure.
“Well. I didn’t expect us to find something like this so early, relatively speaking.” Wiina said as she walked forward with her katana unsheathed. “Fei, give us the numbers here.”
“Six-hundred and thirty-seven. A battalion” Edea answered. Damn, and those monsters don’t look weak either. In the first place, such an open space means that they can easily bumrush us and leave us very little breathing room.
I’ve never fought something to this scale before. I know for a fact that these are far from the strongest monsters I’ve ever seen, but such an overwhelming number is not something I’ve ever prepared for.
Looks like we just have to learn this the hard way.
“Tough luck. Looks like we got work to do, unfortunately.” Wiina said as she walked forward and looked at Lrem. Looks like those two have other plans. Well, it is their job to clean up anything that looks like it could be too much trouble.
“Rather unfortunate. Hey, you, keep this safe for me.” Lrem said before throwing a bag of marshmallows at Edea.
“W-Wait, are you two gonna go fight them without us?” Liss asked while Cry also showed a concerned expression.
“I’m sure all of you need a bit of time before you could really exert yourself fully, it’s not like you all just magically go back to a hundred percent in just less than half an hour.” Wiina said as she looked back at the rest of us one more time before walking forward with Lrem. “Now then… Let’s get this done quickly.”
The air feels heavy. The two swordswoman walked forward and stood still in front of this small army.
A wisp of energy leaked out from Lrem’s sword as she held it up to her right. Meanwhile Wiina simply held hers next to her waist, looking rather casual all things considered.
****ROAR****
The horde of monsters cried out together and drowned out all the voices. It would be an effective intimidation tactic, but in front of those two, and especially her, I don’t feel afraid in the slightest.