The Great Thief

No one knew what to expect when Water Fairy went to karaoke. Even Lu Li had only heard her sing once, and it was during her live stream. It was hard to describe how well she sang. While it wasn’t of a professional level, Lu Li thought that she sang beautifully. Like the crisp sound of a cascade hitting the rocks beneath it, or a feather that caressed the heart, her voice was indescribably soothing. That was why Lu Li did not object when Water Fairy agreed to go to karaoke; he just preferred if there wasn’t a group of third-wheelers tagging along.

Water Fairy’s live-streaming contract had almost expired. All she really needed to do was to continue playing games to meet her quota; there was no real need to sing songs for her fans since the consequences of such were unfathomable. Lu Li had witnessed the number of people that were bewitched by Water Fairy’s singing that day.

The night they failed to clear the Instance Dungeon, Azure Sea Breeze dragged the whole team to go karaoke with him. Breezy was quite popular amongst the guild club, and there were still a lot of players who had not fallen victim to his singing, so it was no difficult task to round up enough people to ‘get high’ together. Even so, Water Fairy tagged along as well. According to what she said, Lu Li was the one who proposed the punishment of going to karaoke with Azure Sea Breeze if they were the first to go down during the dungeon, so as a member of the team, it was naturally her responsibility to own up to her mistakes. Since she was going, Lu Li had to go as well.

The karaoke venue was a ten-minute walk from Ruling Sword’s headquarters. The team had dinner and headed over there straightaway. Though there was also karaoke in the virtual world, as Azure Sea Breeze had said, even if it was cheaper and the booze wouldn’t damage their bodies, the experience just wasn’t the same. Honestly, he just wanted to put on a show for the team.

Although the team had booked the largest room available, it was still crowded with the twenty or so people all squished onto one couch. Even so, no one dared to push Lu Li or Water Fairy around. Lu Li noticed his teammates’ tense politeness and thought that it was fine if they squished onto him just a bit.

“Ah, aha aha!~”

The terrible wails that screeched out of Azure Sea Breeze’s throat had everyone turn white as a sheet. What the heck was that? Everyone agreed that whatever sound was coming out of his throat was not human. However, since Breezy was indeed quite a popular figure amongst the team, his singing still induced quite a few claps and yells of encouragement from the crowd.

“He actually did so much better this time,” Wandering said with a shrug.

“Brother, you’re the only one who gets me after all.”

Azure Sea Breeze slung one arm over Wandering’s shoulders. Wandering’s reassurance had him realise that the grimaces the rest of the team were making were unimportant. However, Wandering actually meant was that Breeze’s singing was even more terrible than in the past.

After hogging the mic for three songs straight, Azure Sea Breeze finally gave up the spotlight. However, he had no idea that his one-man show had been recorded and uploaded onto the internet. The title was “You Will Faint After Hearing Dawn’s number one Main Tank Sing.”

Since Azure Sea Breeze proudly held the title of number one Main Tank in Dawn as well as having the most First Clears, many players in the game respected him. However, this sort of clickbait title led to millions of views which, upon the next time Breeze logged into the game, had him receive countless dirty looks. He wasn’t the reputable, respectable number one Main Tank anymore, but just a weirdo who had damaged the hearing of everyone that had heard his singing.

That wasn’t all there was to it. Nowadays, the entertainment and gaming industry often overlapped. Therefore, many celebrities and artists would play games to win over the hearts of otakus and shut-ins.

One of the artists who followed gaming blogs watched Breezy’s video, and even though he had sat through all three songs, he had no idea that he was singing his songs at all. With that, the artist went on a reality show and showed the video, and amazingly received an insane number of views. Unfortunately for Lu Li and Azure Sea Breeze, neither of them knew that there were selfie-maniacs in their team, and thus had tonight’s event recorded and uploaded entirely.

Since the commander went to karaoke with the team, Lu Li was naturally forced to sing a song as well. How would he know how to sing? His whole life was one obstacle after another, difficulty after difficulty – there was not a single ounce of joy of which he could sing about, nor did he had the time or desire to sing at all.

“Come on, turning us down like this is just disrespectful,” Fat Monkey said with a smirk.

This guy just wanted to see Lu Li embarrass himself. Lu Li went through the available playlist over and over again but could not find a single song which he knew. The only song that he could briefly hum to was the one that Water Fairy had sung during her live stream.

“I’ll tag in. Let me sing,” Water Fairy suggested.

Although the people that went to karaoke were all in the inner circle of Ruling Sword and might like to push Lu Li around, no one dared to force Water Fairy to do anything. Even as one of her closer friends, Azure Sea Breeze decided not to ask her to sing either. Water Fairy was a very frank person – if she didn’t want to do something, she’d make sure she was clear about it. One straightforward no in front of everyone would just be embarrassing for whoever was dumb enough to ask her to sing. Who knew that she would volunteer to sing for Lu Li instead?

Water Fairy was quite good at singing and more importantly, her voice itself was beautiful. Not to mention, everyone had just gone into a torture chamber listening to the inhumane screeches of Azure Sea Breeze. Water Fairy’s voice was just the healing remedy they needed, and some even shed a tear or two. It was a valuable experience for the team. The entire squad going to karaoke together was an excellent opportunity for bonding, and even the generally-feared Water Fairy now seemed like just another normal, approachable girl.

Water Fairy had never been the most popular person in Ruling Sword – rather, most players saw a wall between themselves and her. Someone as rich and beautiful as she was not exactly approachable. Even when Lu Li built himself up from nothing and never once took advantage of Water Fairy, even when they were together, he was often bitterly talked about as some sort of gigolo. People were also unsatisfied with Water Fairy, seeing her as condescending simply because of her status as a salary-payer. However, her days spent in Ruling Sword clearing Instance Dungeons and living in Jiangnan city had slowly reshaped and impressed her guild members.