Oooh! One of the burly guys turned into a bear! Ah'Ming sat back, very excited to watch the show. If only there was popcorn.
The guy ran up, leaped a magnificent leap, and struck down, hard.
The hit didn't hit, and he was swatted away unceremoniously, like a fly or a mozzie.
He hit a shelf, fifty-some feet away.
Ouch.
Okay then.
Ah'Ming didn't even pause. Well, he had earlier. But he wasn't pausing now.
The muscley tanks surged forward, swinging clubs, hammers, and shields, keeping the Librarian occupied. Sparks flew where weapons met shadowed limbs. Meanwhile, the fluffy college kid waved his glowing lollipops frantically, casting tiny bursts of sugar-coated magic that barely scratched the surface of the monster, but they kept him entertained. It was literal eye candy. A lifesaver, since none of the others looked very pleasing to the eyes.
A new player appeared, moving with fluid grace. His body elongated and shimmered. Ah'Ming blinked. The man's arms and legs stretched, claws emerging, his teeth sharpening. Fur sprouted along his spine, muscles knotting into lean power. He howled, voice echoing like a chorus, and Ah'Ming realized: he'd shifted into a wolf mid-battle. Perfect. Fast, precise, and a predator to complement the chaos. Oh, wait, it made sense for animal shifters to join groups together. Weren't wolves and bears like enemies though? As you can tell, Ah'Ming didn't watch Nat Geo much.
The wolf-man leapt at the Librarian, tearing at its limbs, dragging shadows down with him. Ah'Ming followed, spinning through the wreckage of broken shelves, claws flashing. Shadows dissolved under his strike, splintered wood and flying books raining down like confetti. Every movement was devastating, yet precise.
More players arrived, drawn by the roar of the fight. Some floated, casting magical beams; others slammed hammers into collapsing furniture, creating barricades. The library had become a living battlefield; it was chaotic, violent, brilliant. Ah'Ming was in the center, the storm incarnate.
He vaulted onto the Librarian's back, arms wrapping around its towering shoulders. Claws dug deep into shadowed flesh. The monster thrashed violently, knocking shelves sideways, sending books flying like shrapnel. It tried to claw at him, but a well timed spell from a support batted it away. He gritted his teeth, yanking upward, feeling its spine splinter under his hands.
It screamed, hellish, layered, everything wrong in the world, but Ah'Ming didn't hesitate. He leaned close. Teeth met very shadowy neck.
A sharp, sickening tear.
A wet, ragged scream.
And it was over.
The Librarian sunk to its knees, a peasant before the king, and fell forward, collapsing into a heap of twisted shadow and broken shelves. Silence swallowed the library for a brief, staggering moment.
Players began cheering. Laughing. Clapping. High-fiving. Victory was theirs.
Ah'Ming, breathing hard, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Blegh.
He ignored them. His eyes went straight to the Librarian's stomach, the place he had noticed first.
Fingers sliding along jagged edges, he pried open the torso. Shadow and flesh gave way to reveal the blocky, rectangular object he had suspected.
A book.
Thick. Heavy. Ancient. Runes burned faintly along its spine.
He lifted it, feeling its weight, feeling its authority.
Around him, the others were still celebrating. Oblivious. Distracted. Laughing.
It was covered in resentment.
Human skin.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh no, the poor child.
That's why the mission prompt had been a blank, four letter word. Because it could have been either.
"Here, kiddo." He whispered.
He held out the book.
"There ya go."
The room started bleaching once more, a sign of the substory being cleared.
The players around him all disappeared, teleporting away to their little reward rooms.
Only Ah'Ming was left.
He held the book out, not letting it down.
Little footsteps echoed around the room.
A little kid materialized from a little distance away, walking up to him.
It was the child.
He gingerly took the book, and cradled it to his chest.
The book seemed to come alive, and lose some of its resentment. The pressure in the air lightened somewhat.
Ah'Ming nodded at him, prepared to leave. He looked away, a wry smile appearing at all of the debris.
"Wait."
A soft voice echoed.
Ah'Ming didn't get to look back in time.
But, the voice persisted.
"My name… is Yuanyuan."
...
.
|Loading tip: Although broadcasters can't directly interact with viewers, be sure to talk to them from time to time and raise likes!
The tip pulsed cheerfully, as if this were a hobby stream and not the aftermath of a blood-soaked library massacre.
|VIEW EVALUATION?
|☐ YES ☐ NO
He couldn't really focus on the evaluation right now. He was still trying to think about Yuanyuan, the little kid. The little kid who'd ended up turned into a human skin-bound book. But, who had the librarian monster been? Why did they seem connected?
It was too late to try and look for clues now, though.
If only Ah'Ming had tried when he could.
He exhaled through his nose and jabbed the option he already knew he'd pick. "Yes. Yes, you stupid system."
The panel shimmered, reorganized itself, and dropped the verdict just like how his teachers used to, with the exact same grade. A pain.
|EVALUATION: B+
"Again?! But I killed so many monsters! And the boss!" He was outraged. All of that effort, for a B+? He gestured wildly at the empty air. "I killed like, half the shadows in the building! I soloed the boss! I used my teeth! What more do you want, interpretive dance?"
The system, unsurprisingly, did not answer.
Then came the streaming information, which actually improved from last time. Maybe it was because this sub-story had a lot more action. It was more entertaining in Ah'Ming's eyes anyways. The screen popped up. The blue was so bright that it took a lot of effort for Ah'Ming to not try and punch it. His fist would probably go through, without any impact to the screen, but it might make the system dislike him. So, he had self restraint.
The screen, like the smug b— it was, continued to shine.
|TOTAL VIEWS: 49,295
|LIKES: 32,345
He blinked.
"…Huh."
That was… significantly more than last time.
Wow. Nearly fifty-thousand? Fighting must really be considered entertaining then. Ah'Ming stared blankly, past the system screen. The white hurt his eyes far more than the screen did, but he didn't really want to keep reading.
Ah'Ming leaned back slightly, arms crossing as he stared at the numbers. Almost fifty thousand. A ridiculous amount of eyes. Watching him bleed, fight, lose control, win anyway.
So it really had been more entertaining.
"Wow," he muttered, equal parts impressed and unsettled. "You guys really like violence, huh?"
The screen didn't flicker. It didn't respond to his question, but it also didn't deny it.
Barrage comments floated up. They were far more numerous, far more tumultuous than last time. They bubbled up in overlapping layers, jittering and stacking like foam boiling over the surface of his vision. They scrolled too fast to read comfortably, colliding with one another in a riot of fonts and enthusiasm.
|"Dude what the heck!?"
|"Is he an alien or something? A bug?"
|"SICK DUDE, MORE BLOOD!!!!!"
|"He looks really fire when he's covered in blood"
|"Subscribed. I want more carnage."
|"Is that transformation his skill?"
These members of the audience made him want to gag. At least, carnage should be easy to deliver. They were really annoying though. Spilling blood was fine, but it was really boring, and sticky. What was fun was the action, but it wasn't enough to make Ah'Ming overlook the way some of the audience sounded like they were watching fireworks instead of a fight where people almost died.
Ah'Ming stared at them, expression flattening.
"…I hate all of you," he said mildly. Boring. They'd probably be the ones to waste food and hard earned kills, lording it above all else. It had come as a shock originally, when he'd found out the existence of wastage. Culture shock, they called it. Who knew that there were people out there, content to overhunt and yet not overeat, leaving the carcasses out to rot?
|EVALUATION NOTES:
|— Demonstrated strength amidst dangerous combat
|— Provided full internal commentary with moderate entertainment value
|— Provided many thrilling fight scenes
|— Survival maintained; escalation directly rushed into
"…That's still a backhanded compliment" he muttered, put out.
It wasn't much better than last time, but at least it seemed somewhat more positive.
Somewhat.
Thankfully, the main tone of the system was now a little less "you survived by accident," and a little more "you survived loudly." He hoped that the tone was also a bit of "Yay! You survived!". He really couldn't imagine how bad it would be if the system didn't want him to survive.
It was nice to know they still liked his commentary, and he could feel a pretty strong sense of approval from the system. Turns out, it did, in fact, like his fighting and mouth-running.
"Guess I'm an action-comedy channel now." He snorted out.