Faust’s apparent awkwardness made them awkward, so he coughed and changed the topic to where they were going. The fourth wave was going very neutral. A lot of players were going to die, but they had second lives anyway.

This once again made Faust remember Fix and Annihilation. The way Kye explained how the effect worked, it didn’t stop you from having extra lives, but its damage extended to those extra lives.

So if Fix killed someone with enough force to kill them two times then they would lose two lives.

"Those projectiles could erase three people in a line easily," Nirvana said, shaking her head. "Even with four lives I doubt anyone would survive."

Thalia nodded grimly. "I am interested in how the system will deal with this. Annihilation is part of its rules, but it sets those lives for us purposely. It’ll be helpful for gauging its actions in other scenarios." She saw the grim look on Greg’s and quickly added, "I also hope the people that died are alright."

"The system’s not a thinking thing. Bringing all the human hating psychos in here first isn’t very smart." Spider muttered from the side.

Nirvana shrugged. "Kye is okay."

"So we got human haters and a marketer?" Zen asked, realisation flickering in his eyes. "And they have to pay to be here? Those guys really paid to come here and hate."

"What better to spend your money on?" Thalia said like it was a fact. "But the fact you were called on this show sounds good. I saw that tentacle patron talking to other people. I hope they meet us too."

"I wouldn’t mind extra rewards, but I don’t know about interviews," Spider said, looking uncomfortable. "In front of billions of people. Or things."

Zen nodded. "Either way, we should get out there and fight. The stream is all over Gamebreaker and Diego. We have to show up."

They all collectively checked the Livestream to see if they had appeared in the last hour and clicked their tongues.

Faust nodded slowly. Getting an interview from the Hierophyt Company didn’t sound so bad now. But if they wanted to get more offers from Patrons for things like interviews then doing hidden quests would be smart.

The system was setting up a story, if they played into it then they would get attention and interest.

"Rather than fighting random monsters, I think we should hunt the Puppet Knights," Faust said immediately. "They drop these special memory fragments. We can use them to find whatever hidden quest the system is setting up."

Zen had been pretty chill this whole time; the anger he held before had seemingly disappeared beneath the surface of his calm.

But his eyes narrowed when Faust spoke.

"Why are you telling us this?"

Faust tilted his head. "Well... you wanted more attention from Patrons." He paused to sell his confusion. "You don’t want my help."

Nirvana side eyed Zen. It wasn’t anger Faust saw in her eyes, but rather worry. Zen turned to her slightly and said nothing, raising his bow to adjust the string.

I wonder how Nirvana explained the Amelia thing to them?

It was one of the reasons he let Nirvana get to the safe zone first. He didn’t want anything to do with that awkward conversation.

"Okay," Faust smiled. "Let’s get hunting then."

◇◇◇

Out in the burnt, fiery hellscape that used to be the Novice Village, Faust brought his axe down and killed his tenth Puppet Knight.

He remembered thinking the Novice Village was more like a city when he had first come. Now it looked more like a village.

Fires had spread quickly burning through most of the wooden houses. The town hall and square had been levelled and burnt. And Fix had drawn lines of destruction across the business district.

The entire night was an apocalyptic mess.

Their stream numbers were doing amazing though. The number of viewers had long surpassed ten billion, meaning the entire humanity was watching right now.

Considering the number of races that might be out there, it was a small number. But it still incredible.

Especially when Faust was on screen.

Before the camera switched back to the southern safe zone, they had given him an epic shot of him standing over the Puppet Knight with his white cloak and red hair billowing in the wind.

The system is finally treating me well.

He had barely gotten any coverage during the third wave.

Faust, Nirvana and the rest of the party had gone west through the teleportation within the safe zones. Thalia complimented Faust about the design of the safe zones so many times that Zen just snapped at her to stop.

Everyone was mostly quiet after that.

The western safe zones had come under attack as the monsters spread out, realising the south was too hard to break. Players were sent in, but the process was slow and the ones here had been getting overwhelmed.

Until the new players came in with literal fire.

Faust cast fireballs eviscerating groups of monsters, then cut down anything that got close to him faster than most players could follow.

Nirvana created more and more skeletons every minute. Thanks to the armor she got from Sponsors, for every two skeletons she summoned, a third was added. And her crown summoned a ghost soldier for every monster she killed. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

When the fight began, the party’s strategy was basically weakening monsters for her to kill. Now she just had a small squad of ghosts and skeletons helping her overwhelm monsters. Fifteen ghosts was the crown’s limit, but each of them were skilled with their weapons and fought well together.

Faust watched Nirvana for a moment and wondered aimlessly how he would beat her. But he had to cut off the thought. The more he thought about it, the more he’d want it to happen.

A large bang drew his attention. Spider was as terrifying as usual. Her newest adaptations combine animal parts, like a Mantis shrimp striking with four extra insect limbs sprouting from her back.

Things just turned to bloody paste around her. Each strike simply flashed and then the air boomed.

Faust sighed. Things are getting ridiculous. He turned down to the Puppet knight he had split in half from head to groin.

He had been specifically hunting these guys. They had a strange control over monsters though. Each one moves with a small horde of Goblins and Kobolds.

This one had a Troll.