BXBX NOVEL Chapter 25: Emilia (1)
Chapter 25: Emilia (1)
Sang-Hyeon nodded as he recalled his time working.
“Your annual pay will be 25 million won as a base salary with 40% profits from YouTube as an incentive. There’s the option of just taking 50% and no base salary…”
“No, I prefer a base salary. It’s more stable…”
“Alright.”
Seo Ji-Ah chose to receive a base salary and finished signing the papers. She stood up from her seat and shook hands with Ju-Hyeok.
“But what should I do with the videos uploaded to my channel?”
“It’ll probably be best to upload it to the official channel now.”
“Hmm… Let me know once you finalize things.”
“Of course!”
Ju-Hyeok and Sang-Hyeon walked her out of the cafe and faced each other.
Ju-Hyeok wore a satisfied expression that seemed to say, ‘How did I do?’
However, Sang-Hyeon had a doubtful look.
“Is that real?”
“What?”
“The partner streamer.”
“What the fuck? Do you think I’m a con artist or something? Why would I lie about something like that?”
Sang-Hyeon truly felt surprised now.
‘Punk wants to partner with me?’
Sang-Hyeon knew the distributor company Punk even when he didn’t play video games. They owned hugely popular platforms.
“Not the developers, but the distributors?”
“Yes! I saw it this morning and felt surprised too. What do you think? You’re going to do it, right?”
“Of course, the conditions are perfect.”
Rustle rustle.?
Ju-Hyeok smiled and tossed his documents into his backpack. He glanced towards the door where Seo Ji-Ah left and said to Sang-Hyeon, “Anyways, Seo Ji-Ah is pretty cool. She’s pretty thorough at the same time. I thought this would be easy since she asked you for an autograph.”
“You trying to freeload or something? Being a fan is different from business.”
“Still, if she was willing to donate that much money… She must really like Almond, no? But she seemed pretty serious. She barely even smiled.”
“I don’t think she smiled even once.”
They talked more about Seo Ji-Ah and concluded their conversation.
“Whatever, it’s better to work with her in the future if she’s professional like that.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
***
Thud.
Seo Ji-Ah arrived home and caught her breath. She threw herself onto her bed and covered herself in a blanket.
“Sigh.”
She took multiple deep breaths to calm her thumping heart. Seo Ji-Ah couldn’t believe it. To suddenly see him in person and even sign a contract like this.
Flap.
She spread out the contracts she brought from earlier.
‘I’ve been recognized…’
It was the first time in her life that someone recognized her for something and these papers proved it. It was just a contract for now, but it would be official once Punk approved it. She would be Almond’s official editor and didn’t have to go back to her company.
A few faces she wasn’t fond of popped up in her head.
‘What’s a college student going to do… Sigh…’
‘What are you going to do if you leave here? You think you can leave?’
‘Do you think anywhere else will accept you and pay you like we do?’
‘Can you pull your weight here, please? Why are you so stupid?’
Unpleasant voices brushed past her.
“Did I finally escape?”
It seemed like she did. She finally escaped her hellhole after an unexpected chain of events.
Did enslaved people feel like this when they finally became free? It felt somewhat strange. She thought she would stay in that hellhole forever just to stay alive.
“Sigh…”
She checked the montage she made while lying in bed. It had countless comments now.
— 56th trending on #game category
The ranking went up too from 78th to 56th.
A rare smile appeared on Ji-Ah’s face.
***
Sang-Hyeon changed into something casual when he returned home.
‘I’m going to have to stream early today.’
Almond’s stream schedule was up to how he felt. He never intended to be that way, but it just turned out like that. It was convenient for him, so he stuck with it for now.
He still streamed daily without any breaks, so his viewers didn’t complain.
Chul-cuk.?
Sang-Hyeon entered the capsule and turned on the screen.
Beep.
[Ji-Ah: It’s an intro video with music.]
Seo Ji-Ah sent him a video file. It also came with text that explained how to set it up.
Popular streamers all played an intro video as they waited on standby. It seemed like she made something similar.
Sang-Hyeon watched the video and became shocked.
‘Wow…’
The video’s quality went beyond his expectations. They just saw each other and parted ways. How did she make this so fast?
[Sang-Hyeon: Did you just make this?]
[Ji-Ah: I worked on it bit by bit.]
It seemed like she had already been working on it for fun.
‘It’s this good just as a hobby…’
Sang-Hyeon became curious about what she would make when she put all her effort into it. He felt excited about her future.
[Sang-Hyeon: I’ll make good use of this.]
He sent a thank you to Ji-Ah and began streaming.
[Stream is starting.]
***
Beep! Beep!
A notification popped up to all of Almond’s fans and notified them that his stream had started.
— Oh! He turned it on early today!
— AlHa!
— Today I’m… not first?
— LOL there are a lot of interesting people today.
Some viewers had already been waiting before Almond’s old capsule even booted. It felt more like an invasion than a start.
[Current viewers: 214]
Du dun! Du dun!
The intro video he received from Seo Ji-Ah began playing.
— Woah, what’s this?
— He has an intro now?
— Kya.
Seo Ji-Ah’s intro video highlighted Almond’s gameplay skills. It captured his impressive achievements in stills and cycled through them with music.
The music perfectly synchronized with the video like her previous ones.
— Even the intro is like a movie.
— And his life is like a photoshoot.
— Kya.
— Huh? Didn’t Seo Ji-Ah make this?
— Yeah, it feels like her.
— No way, did they get her?
A few recognized it as Seo Ji-Ah’s video.
[Current viewers: 1208]
The intro stopped when enough viewers gathered.
“Hi, Treevy!”
Almond’s face appeared on a small screen in the corner and he cheerfully greeted them.
— Oppa!!!
— AlHa!
— Hi Almond!
— Hihihihi
Countless comments went by along with donations.
[RubySword has donated 1,000 won.]
[Do we finally get to see Emilia’s shocked face today?]
[EggPlant has donated 1,000 won.]
[Hi Almond!]
Almond gave them a light greeting and booted up the game right away.
He would play Kingdom Age?today as well.
***
The sight of a destroyed castle greeted him when he returned to the game.
The castle lord wearing black armor lay in front of him. To be exact, it was the castle lord’s corpse. The three guards’ corpses were also there. Nothing else remained in the castle other than them.
— LOL the man who destroyed the castle alone…
— For real, he destroyed everything.
— This is what you call an assassination.
— I think he got confused with assassination and annihilation.
— It’s an assassination since there were no witnesses LOL
Almond glanced in a different direction after reading the excited reactions in the chat.
No one remained in the castle, but some other things did like treasures.
“I did everything alone, so I can have some fun, right?”
He rummaged through the castle.
— For real LOL
— Honestly, you can take everything and no one would say a thing.
— What did Emilia do? I did everything!
— I’d just take over if it was me LOL
Kingdom Age?gave the players quite a bit of freedom. He didn’t have to just settle for the quest rewards. Almond rewarded himself for the troubles he went through.
Chuck.
He found a leather armor and a bow that seemed expensive.
“This looks alright.”
— Ooooh.
— That looks dope.
— Can’t you take more?
— The weight limit…
He would’ve taken everything in a normal game. However, he could only take a limited amount because of the game’s realism. He even had to physically carry gold. The extra weight of armors made them impossible to carry.
“I’m satisfied with this. I’ll probably survive most situations now. Time to report back to Emilia.”
As soon as Almond said that…
Du dum.
[Report your success to Emilia.]
A large text appeared in front of him.
— Emilia noona!
— Noona, I didn’t die!
— LOL
— Emilia, that girl… probably didn’t expect Almond to succeed LOL
— She told him to assassinate the lord, but probably never expected him to conquer the castle haha.
Almond took one of the horses in the castle and headed to Emilia.
Clippity clop.
He instantly teleported to the castle where Emilia stayed after passing a certain checkpoint.
“Almond?”
Emilia also coincidentally returned on a carriage while wearing a grand dress and recognized him.
“My lady, I came to update you on the mission.”
“Already? Did you have a change of heart?”
Emilia couldn’t fathom that he succeeded already.
— What is she saying LOL
— No, I came to change your heart!
— /O\\ Unexpectedly fast!
— I wonder what kind of face she’ll make once she finds out he ransacked the castle.
Almond cautiously pointed out her servants, indicating that he couldn’t discuss it here.
“I want to speak with him alone. Give us some space.”
“Sorry? But, my lady…”
“Now.”
The servants look worried. They weren’t fond of leaving her with a violent mercenary, but followed her firm command.
“Did I not say to give us space?”
“Ah, yes ma’am.”
Emilia signaled for the two of them to walk together after the servants left.
“No one will be around if we walk this way.”
They walked with an awkward distance between them and passed by trees as tall as the castle walls before talking.
“You didn’t complete the mission already, did you?” Emilia turned around and asked.
Almond obviously responded with, “Yes.”
“I can’t believe this. It wasn’t even that long ago.”
“It’s been two days. Going there took one day, half a day to get ready, and half a day to infiltrate.”
— He’s basically saying it took one day LOL
— It’s like half a day haha.
— He took a nice nap and just swatted a fly in the castle LOL
“Infiltrate? You didn’t assassinate?”
“He was heavily guarded, so I just…”
“You just?”
“Killed them all.”
“!?”
Emilia had never made such a face before.