A goddess's blessing was a talent engraved directly into a person's mind, making it feel as though they had always known it.
For example, a swordsmanship class would make someone feel as if they had wielded a blade their whole life.
Depending on their rank, they could even perform unique skills aligned with their class.
It was the same for those with the Streamer Class as well. A faint understanding bloomed within Max, and he instinctively knew the correct spells to link his streaming magic beasts to his mobile device.
Although he had yet to summon them, he didn't want to waste his mana on practice when his first real mission lay ahead. He would rather save it and summon them when the time truly came.
The moment he completed the link, his phone buzzed.
[Choose a Streaming Name….]
He smiled and typed:
The Beast Streamer!
[Error! Username already exists. Try another.]
He frowned and tried again. And again. Every name he came up with failed.
With a sigh, he gave up for now and slipped the phone back into his pocket.
After crossing a few streets, he arrived at the massive iron gate of the city: tall, wide, and imposing.
Liam wasn't there yet. Maybe he really did come too early.
An hour later, the golden rays of the sun crept over the mountains, washing the city in warm light. The magic lamps lining the pavement flickered off, now starting to draw power from the sunlight instead.
That was when Liam appeared along with four others. Three boys and a girl.
"Yo—nerd boy! You're here already!" Liam's obnoxious voice rang out.
Max stood. "Yeah. I've been waiting." He smiled until his gaze dropped to the copper plates hanging from their necks.
"You've… registered? As a… party?" he asked, stuttering.
Liam grinned, tapping his plate. "Oh, this? Yeah. That's why I was late. These are my party members." He gestured at them. "Introduce yourselves."
The girl stepped forward. She wore a large mushroom-shaped hat, a navy vest, gray shorts and long black boots. She had crimson eyes, and long purple hair. She puffed out her chest which in all honesty was kinda flat.
"I am Sharon, eighteen years old, and I possess a C-rank Mage Class. You may refer to me as your senior."
Max frowned. Senior? We're all newbies. And the same age.
The others introduced themselves, but Max barely listened.
"Um… Liam," he cut in. "You said you'd let me join your party. But… you didn't register me."
"Oh, don't worry about that." Liam waved it off. "I'll do it later. I'm a busy guy, man."
His words could've been assuring if he wasn't grinning as wide as he was; that made Max a little skeptical.
But he nodded nonetheless. "O-Okay. If you say so…"
"Good. Now, you don't mind carrying our bags, right?"
Before Max could reply, Liam shoved a bag into his arms and slung another over his shoulder.
Sharon handed him her staff; a gray artifact strung with colorful beads. Then the other boys dumped their luggage on him: water, food, even spare clothes.
"Alright! Off we go!" Liam declared, striding ahead with everyone else, knowing Max would carry their things for them.
The weight was brutal, but Max didn't complain. He just needed to endure this, finish his first mission, and earn his share of income to repay his mother for the eye glasses.
There were natural dungeons close to the city, but Liam ignored those and headed farther out.
"The closer ones are probably packed with newbies already," Liam said. "I want room to go all out and grab rare items."
Everyone agreed of course without waiting for Max's opinion.
Two hours later, Max was drenched in sweat and barely breathing when they finally arrived. The dungeon entrance curved inward like a cave mouth, overgrown with vegetation and thick cobwebs. It looked long abandoned.
No surprise there: adults never bothered with low-level natural dungeons anymore. They preferred dungeon gates with mana crystals and rare drops.
Max dropped the bags and finally tried to sit down to catch his breath. But....
"Clear the webs, four-eyes," Liam ordered, voice cold and demanding. "Now."
There were literally two male sword users in the party and a tank. Couldn't he pick one of them? Surely they'd be more helpful than him. He was tired.
Yet none of them moved.
With a quiet sigh, Max picked up a stick from the ground and began scraping away the webs while they laughed behind him and called him a pushover.
He heard them, but decided to keep quiet.
Then they entered the dungeon.
The walls pulsed faintly with green, vein-like streaks of dungeon mana, casting dim light through the tunnels.
Ant chimeras appeared first.
Liam lifted a hand and blasted one with a fireball. It appeared he was a fire mage user.
The two swordsmen cut down the other ant chimeras with ease.
The other guy summoned a shield in his hands, and blocked two chimers that charged at them, then Sharon, using her staff blasted them with a wind spell.
They were in perfect coordination for newbies.
Max just stood there.
He was supposed to be streaming, but his mana felt nearly empty after carrying all that weight of their bags and stuff for two hours straight. His body trembled with exhaustion.
He couldn't summon his streaming beasts.
But then an ant chimera passed through the others, charging at him.
He screamed and fell backward.
No one even looked back.
Shaking, he swung his stick wildly. The ant squeaked and climbed over him, nearly making his heart burst with fear, but with a desperate punch, he finally crushed it.
It dissolved into pixels, leaving behind a small mana crystal.
"Guys…" Max whispered as he staggered up and chased after them.
They were laughing, chatting, and slaughtering monsters casually.
He clenched his fists. He had stayed silent long enough.
"G-Guys…"
They turned to him, frowning.
"I… I killed an ant monster that attacked me."
"So?" Sharon sneered. "Want your seniors to clap for you?"
Why does she keep insisting she's my senior?
"N-No! According to the rules, party members are supposed to protect their Streamer. But you—"
They burst into laughter before he coukd even finish his complaint.
"This kid really tells great jokes!" one of the boys howled.
"I know," Liam said darkly. "But he's mistaken. We're not breaking any rules. After all, we never officially registered him as a party member."
Sharon giggled and licked her dark lipstick. "Streamer, huh? Where are your streaming beasts?"
"M-My mana… I can't—"
"Oh. Let me guess." She sneered. "You can't summon them because you're a fucking loser!"
His eyes shook, his face twisting into an unbelievable expression as he watched them walk off, still laughing.
He felt as if something was stuck in his throat, too painful to swallow. He had always known how they saw him, but he had foolishly hoped that if he proved his worth, they'd accept him.
That's why he didn't complain when they gave him their bags to carry.
He was wrong. They were absolute scumbags who never saw him as an equal party member to begin with!!
He clenched his fists in anger.
BANG!
A violent explosion echoed through the dungeon.
The walls shook. Dust rained down. The ground trembled like an earthquake.
Then, right in front of them, two stone pillars began erupting from the ground, about two meters apart.
"W-what's going on?!" one of the guys shrieked.
The ground continued to tremble.
"What are those?"
"I've never seen anything like it before!"
The pillars kept rising until they slammed onto the ceiling of the dungeon.
Then suddenly, the air around them whistled. The two pillars began hissing with electric currents, sparks snapping violently between them.
From those currents, the very atmosphere began to crack, revealing a dark, endless void behind it.
The cracks stopped at the pillars, turning the space between them into a dark veil of endlessness.
"Is that… is that a gate?" another guy muttered, his knees already weak.
"No!! Gates don't form like that!" Sharon snapped, gripping her staff tightly. "And a black gate? That's never been heard of!"
A distant growl rolled out of the void.
"I have a bad feeling about this… we should run while we still can!!" Max urged, his pulse quickening.
Liam only grinned. "Nah… let's see what's coming. This could be our chance to make it big. We'd be hailed as heroes for discovering whatever this is! I'll be famous very soon!"
The moment those words left his mouth, something stepped out of the black void, its feet touching the ground.
Everyone froze in fear.
"A… a wolf?" Liam managed to say, already casting a fire spell.
He fired it, but the flames brushed off its skin like nothing.
"No! That's no wolf…" Sharon spoke, her legs shaking like twigs. "Wolves are never that big! It has to be… a demon hound!"
"Demon hound?" someone questioned, stepping backwards. "Aren't those only in children's horror stories?"
Before them stood a wolf-like creature with blazing red eyes, fur black as the deepest night, and a body as large as three ordinary wolves combined.
Liam desperately fired another spell at it, but the creature simply raised its paw.
A violent gust of wind exploded outward, flinging all of them away like paper.
They slammed into the walls and ceiling before crashing hard onto the ground.
But that wasn't the worst part.
Two more wolves of the same size stepped out of the void. Then two more. Then more.
It became an entire horde.
"Holy mother goddess!!" "We can't survive this!" "Run!!"
The boys threw away their swords.
Sharon hurled her staff aside.
Then they took off like springboks.
Max who was already tired to begin with wasn't that fast than the entire crew.
The dungeon shook again, and the entire demon hound horde began running to catch them.
The beasts were too fast, it was only a matter of a few seconds before they coukd catch up to them.
Liam looked back at Max with a cold expression.
"A true comrade sacrifices himself for his party," he gasped. "Time for you to be useful, nerd."
He smashed his elbow into Max's face, breaking his eye glasses once more.
Max lost balance and fell.
The first hound to catch up seized his hand and tore it apart.
His scream echoed through the dungeon.
As the rest caught up to him with pure hunger visible in their eyes, Max realized there was no coming back from this.
This was the end of his miserable life.
And the only thought that rang through his mind was this; there is no such thing as a kind goddess who loves us so much.
Another hound bite onto his shoulder, while the other bite the leg. His blood splattered everywhere, and ge could feel his soul gradually leaving his body.
"You're not dying. Not today. Not until you complete a certain mission." Max heard a female distant voice, but was too weak to see who it belonged to.
Everything then went dark!
TBC