Beyond M-Eclipse: Easy Mode LIVE

———Karra———

“Yesterday was so tiresome…” I mumbled to myself as I set up the stream.

“Well what did you expect? It’s hard to put on the same kind of act over and over again.” Wiina remarked. I hope she doesn’t chime in during the stream. That’d give too much away.

“Alright. The stream is about to start, need you to be quiet for a while.” I said and looked at her, seeing her turning away and rolling on the bed. Don’t think the camera would pick up on that.

Looks very disarming since she’s only wearing a black shirt and shorts, unless the somewhat gaudy clothes she has whenever she puts up that persona of hers.

But that’s an entirely different matter. Now then. Let’s check the camera… titling my stream… there we go… And then here we go…

“We’re live! Hello, chat. Did some stuff yesterday and slept for a long while. Sorry for the late stream.” I said, explaining a little bit about what’s going on.

{Welcome back}

{Yeah whatever could that be}

{Don’t think you posted anything about it yesterday}

{Spill the tea what is going on back then}

“Heard there’s been a lot of buzz about me online. Feels like it has been happening more frequently, but whatever.” I said to set the scene, and not make it seem like it was all planned. If I were to address it too quickly it’ll look very opportunistic. It’ll look too intentional. Need to sound a little bit dismissive, but too much and it’ll also make me seem suspicious. Need to strike a balance, as some may say. “So obviously, I was exploring dungeons, multiple of them yesterday, just to get a feel of how different they are. And just run into people also dungeon diving. Some are struggling, some aren’t, those sorts of things.”

{So why was Wiina with you?}

“Why was… Oh. That’s easy to answer. I asked her to bring me to various dungeons to see how different they are from the one near me. A bit of a practice run for all of them.” Of course, that’s not the main reason. “Kinda sucks that there are people weighing us down, but what can you do, it’d leave a bad taste to leave them there.”

{How did she even bring you all across states?}

{Are there even any reasons you go to so many different places?}

“I mean. Honestly. I just told her to bring me wherever. I didn’t pay that much attention to where we ended up.” I answered, and you can hardly call that as false. It’s hard to pay attention as you get teleported to a bunch of unfamiliar places. “I’m pretty confident that I’d be fine with her around, so I didn’t say anything. Wasn’t gonna stream it anyway, so who gives a shit.”

{Well I do!}

{Looks like plans have changed}

“So. Now I know that many of you already heard of my exploits from some of the streamers that we rescued along the way. In case some of you don’t know, because they have cameras on them, and are streaming their dungeon run, both of us get caught on camera exploring the place and rescuing them. I think one of them fainted, so thankfully we didn’t have to explain jack to her, but the rest were demanding answers or being really annoying, or both.” I recounted our experience, and some of them were being unnecessarily annoying. We just save their lives by crying out loud. “It’s definitely ruining my mood a bit, but what can you do? At least I got some publicity out of that.”

Wiina didn’t just take me to those in crisis, of course, that would be way too suspicious. It’s just that we’re doing more rescuing than making small cameos. If we’re going to make them believe none of this is premeditated, then we need to act that part, cover our bases. There will be a lot of eyes on our activity, so anything to disrupt scrutiny is needed, even if it can be tiresome.

{That’s one good thing about this}

{Well gotta get that bag and stream}

{Viewership still going up!}

Now what should I say next to get them to keep my stream up… Ah right. There’s this thing Wiina said I should do. “So. I guess I should talk about what I learned, going through multiple dungeons in a row. Lemme just…”

I then pulled out a few images that I took in many dungeons, grouping them up for a presentation. This one goes… here… And then… I don’t have a lot of images for this particular dungeon. Whatever, we only need a few good pictures.

“So. Here are pictures I took from different dungeons, from each floor we’ve explored. As you can see, while some share similarities, some have completely different themes from one another.” I said while zooming in on two pictures from different dungeons. “The first one looks like an old antique ruin, and the other is more like a giant glowing cave with a lot of room to move through. It’s a bit of an extreme comparison.”

{Place looks pretty}

{So are the monsters different? What else is different?}

“Now you have to take it from me, but the difficulty of monsters are also different with each one, but the difference doesn’t become apparent until later floors, all of you should be fine tackling the first few regardless of where you are.” It’s mostly from Wiina’s account and not something I experienced firsthand, but I trust her words enough to say it. “As for other things that are different… The drops are as well. At least from what I’ve seen, the rewards are different, and with the monsters being different, so do materials. Each dungeon has its own natural resources, some more plentiful than others.”

{So did anyone know what those things are actually useful for?}

{Guess some place might have better loot than others in that case}

“Let’s be clear here, everyone is in the dark in regards to what those materials can be used for, but there are few who do. I know the content of the books in my school has been leaked by some, so the idea of ancient folks or secret society with knowledge on these things are out there.” Of course, since they are mere texts, they don’t hold that much sway. However, there are already people who have inklings or suspicion on such a thing, regardless of how valid their logic is. At this point and time conspiracy theories are at an all time high in terms of prominence and quantity.

{Where are we even gonna find those folks}

{how much do they even sell for?}

“Well. We’re severely unpaid considering all the risk, but that mainly has to do with people having no idea how valuable something is. Like I said, people don’t know what they could be used for, but from what Wiina told me, there’s quite a bit, and it’s part of the lost arts related to… was it alchemy?” I said while taking a glance at Wiina, who rolled around and simply shrugged. “No idea, could just be blacksmithing with extra steps for all we know.”

{So will we ever know?}

{Government gonna be pissed if they can’t figure something out}

“It’s just how it is. We’ll just have to wait. Maybe we’ll get local blacksmith and craftsmen some more commissions?” I said, more as a joke than anything. I do think it would be nice if those passionate people get rewarded for their dedication. Always have a soft spot for those. “Now what else… Do I even need to tell anyone how I got in contact with Wiina? I have her number, of course I know to contact her for something like this.”

{Such a weird thing to casually mention}

{Oh I got a superhero’s number in my pocket. No big deal}

Would anyone even unironically consider her a hero of any kind? I mean I can sorta see why, but I wouldn’t die on that hill. Let’s just not address that one point.

“I guess I should go over the stream I accidentally appeared in. I think you guys might want more insight on that.” I said before pulling up the VODs. Since they are shared everywhere it is not weird for me to know about it and where it comes from.

“So for this one. We arrived at the fifth floor to see this woman almost got crushed by a giant stone sword, so Wiina quickly destroyed it before it could hit her, though she had already fainted by then.” I think this one doesn’t need that much explanation, but as well talk about it anyway. With the others I might need to come up with something elaborate to defend myself. I mean, it was mostly Wiina talking shit since she’s going to be fine, none of these guys could even leave a scratch on her.

I’m surprised some of them were so ungrateful, even though they could easily get killed when they were so distracted with entertaining their chat. How do they have so many fans when they have outbursts akin to undeveloped children?

“And with this guy… Well. I didn’t even rescue him or anything, so he can bitch a bit, but still.” He wasn’t in any real danger when we saw his stream, but we came over just to check and add plausible deniability. Far from the rudest one we encountered, but anyway… “And this guy. Shouts a lot when we found him running from a giant gargoyle that’s way faster than he is. If we didn’t step in he would’ve gotten skewered. He should be grateful to be alive, not complaining.”

{Yeah sounds like a bad time}

Now let’s see the numbers here… Quite high. Four digits is good enough for me. Could be more, but this is fine right now.

{Did you get in trouble with the guards?}

“Oh. When it comes to people guarding the entrance. I didn’t run into any trouble. I still have my card, so they don’t really care. I don’t think they even know I’m from a different state entirely. I mean, it’s not like we’re confined to exploring one place, that’d be stupid.” I answered that one particular question while I showed more pictures to give them something to look at. “It’s been less than a week, so I don’t think they expected any licensed adventurer to explore multiple dungeons already, and like I said, why would they care as long as they do their job?”

{Not wrong on that I guess}

{It’s been like four days right?}

All things considered this is happening in a very short amount of time. Maybe a bit too quick, but I don’t think we’re getting a better opportunity than this.

Since the amount of people going into the dungeon is low, the amount of people spotting us and figuring out our charade is small, and the number of streams to look through to see who is in trouble is also greatly reduced than if we were to do it even a week later.

Then again… No. Let’s not think about all the what-ifs. Still have a stream going on and I need to entertain these folks.

“Now is there anything else you guys wanna talk about?” I asked, not wanting to go on a tangent they’re not interested in hearing.

{What’s your power level?}

{So how hard is your dungeon compared to others?}

{How does going into dungeon even works?}

{All this feels a bit illegal}

A bunch of unrelated questions flooded in. I would like there to be some coherence so I can tackle them all at once, but I guess it can’t be that convenient.

Guess I need to tackle them one at a time, need to be patient and make sure to come up with a good answer for each of them…

———Kenni———

*Dim* *Launch* *Pierce*

“Agh!” I groaned out in pain as my body flew through the wyvern’s chest. Smearing me with its insides and quickly losing balance.

*Thud*

I fell onto the ground alongside its lifeless corpse. So much pain… I really shouldn’t do that again. My body feels like it’s about to crumble. I managed to actually kill it by myself, but… Ugh…

“How did you… Nevermind.” A silhouette came into view. Oh, it’s her.

“Hey there. Thought you died.” I casually said, still buried in the snow. Probably gonna be frostbitten to death if I did nothing.

“Get up. Don’t want you dead on me now.” She said and unceremoniously picked me up back to wherever she lives.

“Why do you even live in a well?” Just have to ask. It’s pretty spacious, but still. Why is there a well on a snowy mountain in the first place?

“Best place to shield myself from the snow. The other option is a cave full of magma not far from here, and it’s already occupied.” She answered.

“...Occupied by what?” I asked, wondering what could make her so cautious.

“Something dangerous. I’d rather you not go there if you could afford it.” She said, not actually giving me any details. “Anyway. Why did you even come back here? I thought you only care about stating your curiosity.”

“Well. Let’s just say that I want to know if you’re still alive or not, and ended up encountering one of them on my search.” I gave my answer. Of course, the most reasonable thing to do is to run and hide before continuing my search, but I was quite curious as to how strong these things are.

Have to say, they’re real tough. If I didn’t use such a powerful attack, it would’ve won the war of attrition in the end.

“I am plenty confident in my own skill, but I suppose for a stranger like you, you don’t have a good gauge on it.” She remarked, and that’s basically the reasoning. I know she was confident and composed, but that alone can’t reassure someone. “I have been here for a long time, so I know how to navigate it and where every hiding place is, if I need to run from some strong monsters, of which there are many.”

“Guess I was worried for nothing then. You even bail me out.” I remarked. I still don’t know what her deal is, but if she’s not going to say anything, then I won’t.

“Hmm… Feels like I have missed out on something. I’ve been away from society for too long.” She muttered to herself. Is she a hermit or something?

“How long have you lived here for? Place looks plenty decorated, so it must’ve been a while.” I asked, thinking that such a question is not intrusive in the slightest.

“Indeed.” She said while looking through her stuff. “Say. Can you even go back home in this state?”

“I’ll be fine.” I said before standing back up, my legs still feel wobbly.

“Wait. At least drink this.” She said before giving me a vial of… something. Is this a potion? “I’m not proficient in healing magic, so I focused on making potions and such. Those technically need different talents.”

“Bottoms up then!” If she insists, then there’s no need to hesitate.

*Gulp*

Urgh! It’s bitter and slimy. The dungeon potions were tasteless and clean in comparison. Was it because this is man-made? At least it simply tastes like medicine and not anything rotten or disgusting.