“Why didn’t you accept the offer? Those were easy fragments.”
Serelith asked as she stepped behind Kaelen, tucking a strand of her long platinum hair behind her ear.
She couldn’t quite understand the reason for Kaelen’s sudden refusal to take on the bet. He didn’t strike her as a person who would shy away from such an easy bet. In fact, he was rather famous for his opportunistic personality.
Why did he reject such an easy bet?
Serelith wasn’t the only one who was wondering this. Everyone else was also wondering the same thing as they all stared at Kaelen’s silent figure.
“…Hm?”
Feeling everyone’s gaze, Kaelen paused and turned back.
Eventually, his eyes fell on Serelith.
She once again spoke.
“You may have a lot of fragments, but five is still quite a lot. I don’t take you as a person who can simply dismiss this amount. Why did you reject the bet?”
Kaelen opened his mouth, but soon closed it as he smiled and shook his head.
“Like I said before. I’ve got better things to do.”
“That’s…”
“If you wanted to play the game, there was nothing to stop you from taking the bet in my stead.”
Serelith’s brow furrowed further, but before she could say any other words, Kaelen had already turned around and started moving again.
As he walked, he thought about her words.
Why did he reject the bet?
The answer was rather simple.
’It’s all some clever scheme.’
Kaelen didn’t think for one second that Rowan was the type of person who would simply propose a bet because he was offended by his words. He didn’t strike Kaelen as that stupid.
In the end, there was some sort of scheme at play.
’If my guess is right, this was all just a setup to get me to play the game. They probably planned on planting some sort of item to make me lose the bet.’
Kaelen wasn’t naive enough to fall for such a trick. Why else would anyone try to propose such an obviously stupid bet?
As if a game could scare him.
Without a doubt, this was a trap. A trap designed to humiliate him in front of everyone.
“Haha.”
Laughing to himself, Kaelen shook his head. As if he would fall for something so simple. Despite finding the situation rather amusing, the smile soon disappeared from his face.
’To think that they would resort to such a cheap trick…’
Kaelen’s eyes flashed coldly.
’You want me to play the game, right? Don’t worry. I’ll certainly play it.’
Just that…
It was going to be on his own terms.
’See if that’ll do anything to me.’
***
“Thank you, everyone, for watching today’s stream. I will tune in with you guys tomorrow, and I hope you have a great day. See ya!”
Jamie reached out for the mouse and ended the stream.
Click!
Double-checking to make sure that the stream was indeed over, Jamie slumped back onto his chair as he sighed.
“Haaa…”
He was both mentally and physically tired. Recently, due to a sudden surge in momentum for his account, he had been upping his streaming hours. If before he used to do about six hours of streams a day, he was now putting up double-digit numbers.
The effort was starting to pay off.
Staring at his peak viewer count [13,081], Jamie felt exhilarated.
These were numbers he had only been dreaming of in the past. However, ever since the stream he had with Seth, the number of viewers that checked his channel had increased drastically.
’Who would’ve thought that a simple prank, meant to curry a favor with Zoey, would end up becoming one of the greatest blessings of my career?’
The best part of all of this?
He had yet to be promoted by Zoey.
Jamie knew that the moment Zoey promoted his stream, his numbers would skyrocket even further.
He was just one text message away from potentially breaking into the top 100 streamers of Malovia. The thought tempted him to no end, oftentimes causing him to check out his phone repeatedly.
“But not yet.”
Still, Jamie held himself back. He knew that the time was not ripe yet.
While his numbers had indeed gone up, his streams hadn’t improved much in quality. He knew that if things continued like this, his upward trending momentum was going to fall, and he’d just be back to where he was.
Fortunately, with the added income, he was able to improve the quality of his streams a little bit.
But only a little bit. He still had a lot of work to do.
Trrr—!
“Hm?”
Receiving a sudden notification, Jamie turned his head to look at his phone, where he saw a message suddenly appear. He didn’t pay much attention to the message at first, but the moment he saw the person who contacted him, his expression changed.
He hurriedly sat up straight and picked up the phone.
Before he even had the chance to properly read the message, he saw a call notification, and he quickly answered.
“Yo—”
—I need a favour.
He didn’t even give Jamie the chance to greet him before Seth cut to the chase.
“Favour?”
Jamie blinked his eyes a couple of times before sinking back onto his chair. His mind churned with all sorts of thoughts before realization dawned on him.
“You developed a new game?”
—Yes.
“Ha.”
Jamie wasn’t even surprised by the sudden piece of news. Seth had been rather quiet as of late. He had been wondering what he had been up to. Following the success of the first game, he had been wondering when the next game was going to be released.
’Looks like the game is finally ready.’
“You’re calling me because you need me to help you promote the game?”
—…Yes.
Jamie nodded. He somewhat expected this to happen.
However…
“I can’t help you directly since I specialize in other things, but I can connect you with someone that I know who can promote the game. How is that?”
—That is fine. So long as they can help promote the game.
“Don’t worry. You can leave that to me. I know just the right person.”
Jamie patted his chest confidently.
It was also in that moment that he thought about something, and his expression stiffened slightly.
“Wait, now that I think about it, is your game scarier than your previous one?”
—Yes. Why?
“Oh, that’s a relief.”
Jamie’s face eased a little.
“Actually, I was thinking of introducing you to someone who is not exactly normal. They actually used to be a part of a Guild. Mainly operated in gates, and so their tolerance for scary stuff is quite high. If your game isn’t as scary as your previous one, then—”
—There’s no need for that.
Seth’s voice calmly echoed through the phone.
—The game is definitely scarier than the previous one. It should have no problem scaring most people. Even someone who used to be a part of a Guild.
Jamie raised his brow.
“That confident?”
There didn’t seem to be any ounce of doubt in Seth’s voice as he spoke about his game. This made Jamie smile.
“Alright then. If you’re that confident, then I’ll get in contact with my friend. Let’s see if we can make something work.”
—I will send you the game file over.
“Okay, send it over. I’ll get in contact with him now. I’ll message you when I’m done.”
Pulling the phone away, Jamie scrolled through his contacts before settling his gaze on a certain contact.
He didn’t hesitate to press call a short moment later.
’If he isn’t lying about his game, then this should benefit both of them.’
