#058 – I’m a double criminal now

#058 – I’m a double criminal now

Feature complete - Donations given to you by your viewers grant you Donation Points (DP). You can use DP along with a bit of Tempor to activate voice calls, video calls, and background stream music. You can also run ads to gain DP manually, but doing so temporarily disables all of your skills and titles.

Action hero cameraman - Increases maximum range of the cameraman to one kilometer away from you and allows instant movement of it. Also allows switching the camera to Intra-sensitive lens to allow viewing of Intra-based attacks, draining a moderate amount of Intra while in use.

Stream overseer - Reserve half of your Intra to become capable of reading and processing everything happening in the stream’s chat.

“Hold on, what the heck?! When did this happen?” I said out loud. “Wait, this will finally let me use donations! It will let me call people! And this will power up John! And this–”

I stopped and stared at the last upgrade.

“...And the third one will make me into a supercomputer. Umm, I don’t know about this.” I shook my head. “No, but seriously! Where did this come from?”

Jeofffff: yooo the camera sounds awesome

Jeofffff: the ultimate scout

GonguuH: I guess those are tier two upgrades?

GonguuH: streamer is still a human skill

“You think that… getting all upgrades for Streamer unlocked its own tier two upgrades…? That’s kinda weird, but I guess it sort of makes sense…?”

The skills that combined other skills treated them as just upgrades, so it wasn’t that big of a stretch to say that new skills and skill upgrades were the same thing in essence.

“Okay! I have… seven skill points right now because of the quest. And one of the upgrades costs five… Hmm, should I get one of them right away?” I mumbled.

I was specifically eyeing Feature Complete, mainly because… well, it had been days since I’d heard another person’s voice. Chat was cool and all, but…

trelipideliberitation: stream overseer is funny

trelipideliberitation: people were complaining about favoritism lol

I grunted in acknowledgement.

“I mean… I guess so. I couldn’t help the favoritism since I couldn’t read the entire chat all at once, but… if I get Stream Overseer, then I could.” I frowned. “But it sounds disturbing, guys! As cool as it would be, I feel like I’ll become even less human with that.”

HellEnna: does that actually work?

HellEnna: that sounds insane

“Probably. So far, everything else worked just like advertised and there were crazier things.”

Jeofffff: or you can get other upgrades with those points

Jeofffff: like dual wield

“True…” I mumbled.

The optimal play would probably be to get Dual Wield and start merging all my weapons together just like what I’d done with my clothes.

But existing partially as clothes was already really weird and I couldn’t imagine being half-sword as well. Not to mention… I really just wanted to hear someone else’s voice.

“...But I think I’ll get that later. Let me get Feature Complete now!”

Purchase the [Streamer] skill upgrade [Feature Complete] for 5 skill points?

Y/N

‘Feature Complete’ skill upgrade unlocked!n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

I immediately prodded the shiny new thing with my mind and found what I was looking for.

Initiate voice call with user: KaiEbikoOfficial?

Y/N (5321 DP available)

Huh, I already had some donation points. Was this upgrade retroactive as well? Nice!

Call with KaiEbikoOfficial

Requesting voice call. Please wait…

There was a very old school-style phone ringing sound for a moment before the ‘requesting’ text turned into a still audio wave. The audio wave then moved as someone spoke.

“Umm… Hellooo…?”

“Ebiiiii, hellooooo!” I cheered. I couldn’t help but tear up. I hadn’t thought what a relief it would be just to hear another person’s voice again. “I can call people now! I can talk to people again!”

“Nana! Oh, that’s great! I was wondering what was happening!”

“What was happening…?”

“Yeah, I’m not at my computer right now. A floating box just appeared in front of me and asked me if I wanted to accept the call.”

I blinked.

“Huh… Seriously?”

To be fair, it wasn’t that surprising that the system could do that considering everything else, but still…

“Wait, are you just talking into empty air then?”

“Basically, yeah. I probably look like a crazy person – Actually, I’m just gonna hold up my phone to my ear so people don’t think that, hehe.”

“Stealth master.” I nodded sagely before realizing something. “Wait, hold on. Does this mean that you have access to the system now?!”

“Uhhhh, I don’t know? I don’t think so. Err, how do you access it? Do you just…”

“You just concentrate on it. Basically will it into existence… There should be some kind of innate mental switch.”

“Mmmm… Nope. Don’t think I can. Sad…”

“Aww…”

“This is still awesome! We can finally do proper collabs again!” She giggled.

“Yeah!” I smiled. “Well, not quite, but–”

“But my fairy powers have been upgraded!”

“True! Now you can actually shout at me in real life! Not just over text!”

“Yea– Ah, sorry, sorry…”

“Hmm?”

“Never mind! I just bumped into someone while getting out of a bus.”

“You’re on a bus?” I raised an eyebrow.

“I was on my way to the city when you called me. Gotta take care of some paperwork.”

“Ah, right… I guess that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about anymore.” I smiled wryly.

“Hah! Yeah. But I doubt having to fight for your life is worth the absence of paperwork.”

“Eh, debatable…”

Ebi giggled in response.

“Anyway, sorry Nana, but I need to get going. We can chat later!”

“Sure! See you later, Ebi!”

I mentally ended the connection and the little screen in front of me disappeared.

I sat there in silence for a moment grinning from ear to ear. I’d missed this so much. Pure text just didn’t do it justice.

Then I noticed the conversation going on in the group chat.

Jeofffff: yeah but maybe tier3 will let her summon people

My eyes widened at the idea.

“You’re right, Jeoff… If there’s tier two upgrades, then there’s probably tier three and beyond.” Then I cringed. “But for that, I’m gonna need to do the Limit Break…”

At this point, I kind of accepted that I would be doing it at some point. Just not anytime soon.

“Anyway, uh… How many donation points do I have left?”

5794 DP available

I blinked.

“Wait, isn’t that more

than before? The heck? Why did– Did someone donate while I was on the phone?”

trelipideliberitation: yeah I did

“Ah, okay! Thanks a lot for the donation, Trelip! But why didn’t I see it…? Hmm…”

GonguuH: probably because being distracted by donation popups can be deadly

“Good point… But there has to be a way to view – Oh, there we go!”

Another system window appeared in front of me, listing all the people who had donated, the amount they donated, the time they did, and the amount of DP I’d gotten as a result.

“Nice! Thank you, everyone who has donated so far! I’ll take the time to thank you all properly in just a second!”

I turned back to the upgrade I’d just gotten to try the other aspects of it.

“So… background music,” I slowly began, before smirking. “Well, since the Snitch admins already hate my guts, apparently, but can’t do anything about it, I guess I’m free to play copyrighted music on my stream.”

I immediately remembered a random anime’s opening and tried to get the system to play it. Just like with the voice call, a system window with an audio wave appeared in front of me, except it was labeled with the song’s name.

trelipideliberitation: snitch admins seething rn lol

Jeofffff: nana finally reached rebellious age

HellEnna: is that really wise?

I shrugged and then started bopping to the song’s beat.

“It’s fine. I’m already an evil hacker in the police’s eyes even though I didn’t do anything. And anyway, I wanna listen to music! It’s not my fault that I’m constantly streaming!”

Although it would be kind of dumb if I finally made it back to Earth only to be thrown into jail for playing copyrighted music on stream. Maybe I should be more careful, after all…?

“Well, that’s enough trolling for now,” I said as I turned off the music. “I wanted to try the other thing I unlocked…” I mentally eyed the option. “You got over a week straight of no ads, chat! It’s about time! I’ll see you after these messages!”

I briefly wondered what kind of ads they would even get before I flipped the mental switch to start the ad break and–

Everything suddenly felt wrong.

The part of me that was clothes was… not me anymore? No, it still was me, but it felt numb, somehow. Like it had gotten anesthetized, even though I’d never actually had a sense of touch in those parts.

“What the fuck…” I murmured to myself, hoping chat couldn’t hear now that ads were supposed to be playing.

I rubbed my sleeve and it once again felt like touching random fabric rather than my own body part. Which felt wrong now that I’d finally kind of gotten used to the feeling.

God dammit.

At least I could sort of tell that it was still soulbound to me. I hadn’t even thought of the possibility of it breaking when my skills got disabled. God, that had been so dumb of me.

“Wait…”

I opened my main status window and took a look at the skills. The entire section was grayed out. That wouldn’t be that big of a deal if it wasn’t for the Phoenix Blessing skill. That thing was time limited, after all. And it was what actually let me physically grow up so that I wouldn’t be stuck as a tiny child forever.

I opened up the skill itself and looked at the remaining time, worried that the time limit was ticking away while it was disabled. To my relief, a few seconds passed by and the ‘time left’ section hadn’t changed at all.

Good. That meant I wouldn’t accidentally relegate myself to being a pipsqueak for years until I properly grew up. Although, to be fair, I probably wouldn’t be using the ad breaks that often.

How much DP was this even getting me…?

I eyed the number and saw it rapidly ticking up. If I let it run for a few minutes, it would probably double my DP.

“Is it based on how many people are watching…?” I mumbled before finally flicking my eyes back to chat.

Then I blinked as I read the messages.

trelipideliberitation: I wonder what she’s saying

Irid123: it’s definitely the same spaceship

Irid123: it can’t just be a coincidence

Jeofffff: probably generic advert crap

HellEnna: why is there even an ad for this?

What kind of ad was playing…?

I tried opening stream history, rewinding it back a few minutes and watching the ad myself.

I was stunned to see that it wasn’t a regular ad for this or that product. It was… something completely alien.

There was a smiling woman on the screen with her arms spread out. She was completely red. Her short curly hair, her skin, her eyes, her… giant wings, even her clothes. Everything was the same shade of red. It actually looked kind of weird. Like someone had put an intense color filter over her entire silhouette.

She was standing inside what looked to be some kind of control center where humanoids of all kinds scuttled around, pressing buttons and glancing at screens. Also, she was speaking, but I couldn’t understand a word. I had no idea what language it was, either. I didn’t recognize the big splash of symbols on the screen either.

Luckily, I had a solution for this.

I quickly went to the menu and enabled subtitles again. Then I suddenly felt things shift again and the part of me that was shaped like clothes no longer felt dulled.

I tried to quickly recover from the whiplash as I realized what that probably meant.

“Hey, chat! I, uh… I noticed that you were watching an interesting ad there. But you probably had no idea what it was about, so… Let’s watch it again together with subtitles this time!”

I rewound the ad to its start, found a nearby tree to sit against, and then watched.

‘Welcome on board the Slimeship Enterprise!’ said the red woman. The subtitles helpfully informed me that the big splash of text on screen also meant ‘Slimeship Enterprise’.

Which was curious that the translation worked, even though ‘Slimeship’ wasn’t a real word in English.

‘The Slimeship Enterprise is the first of its kind, fully furnished and fully functional spaceship megahotel! Ever wanted to visit the other side of the planet but didn’t want to leave behind your daily comforts? Well, wait no more!’ she cheerily exclaimed as she began walking through what must have been the spaceship and the camera followed her. ‘The Slimeship Enterprise contains over two thousand hotel rooms ranging from simple cubicles to luxurious rooms you could only dream of!’

The screen cut and now the red woman was standing inside a completely overdecorated shining room.

‘The entire hotel was built with a specialized Tempor-powered suspension system, so forget about the ride being too bouncy! Feel free to go about your daily life just like you would on the ground!’

Another cut and now she was standing in front of a giant gate.

‘Our hotel has many utilities! Anything you could dream of, from swimming pools, to bars, to even our very own artificial dungeon!’ she exclaimed as she gestured at the gate behind her.

Wait, what? An artificial dungeon?

The screen cut back to her walking in the control room.

‘Our staff works tirelessly day and night to anticipate any potential problems on our journey and quickly squash them! Our security is top notch as well! We have dozens of third-tier individuals and several fourth-tier individuals among our staff, including the captain! Hmm, what is that? Who’s the captain? Well, that would be me, of course!’ She materialized a red pirate hat out of nowhere in her hand and then plopped it on her head.

I kept staring, not sure what I was even watching.

‘So, come with me for a ride, my dear passenger!’ she said as she finally reached her destination in her walk through the control room, and sat on the giant elevated sci-fi chair as the camera zoomed in on her face. ‘Whether it’s the Joroun republic, or the Asthela continent, our Slimeship Enterprise is the perfect vehicle for you to get anywhere your heart desires!’

With one last charming smile at the camera, she turned in her chair to face the sci-fi-looking button board behind her. The camera then zoomed back out as more text appeared on screen that the subtitles informed me meant ‘Slimeship Enterprise’.

Then it all faded to black and I was staring at trees and the river.

I blinked, closed the stream history, opened my mouth, closed it, and then sighed.

“Okaaay… That’s a lot to take in, chat…”

For starters, the woman herself. Why the heck had she been so red? Who was she? What was she? Was it a racial thing? What did she mean by third- and fourth-tier individuals?

Actually, that last one probably had something to do with the tier of skills or achievements. Maybe a fourth-tier individual meant someone who could use fourth-tier skills? Or was there something more to it…?

trelipideliberitation: it was an ad for a fucking mobile hotel lmao

Jeofffff: I wonder how you make a dungeon

“I know, right? That sounds absurd… Eh, I doubt making entire dungeons is easy, Jeoff. Otherwise they would be everywhere! Well, at least unless artificial dungeons disappear after a while or something.”

Irid123: do you think that was the spaceship dungeon?

“That’s… You know, it’s possible… She basically said that there’s no way the ship can crash, but… the Titanic also wasn’t supposed to ever sink, right?”

I should try to figure out if that was the case, somehow. Probably by going back to the spaceship dungeon, exploring it, and trying to spot things I could recognize from that ad.

Well, I would do that later. I didn’t feel like going for another twenty-four hour trek back when there was another point of interest right there on the other side of the river.

“Well, still! It’s finally something! Finally a hint of what this world used to be like! I have no idea how the heck I caught the frequency or whatever of this ad, or how it could have even survived when everything else apparently died, but this is good! Great, even!”

Then I remembered one of my quests and briefly opened it to look whether something had changed.

I smiled when I saw that it had.

‘Secrets of the world’ Side quest

Time left: 91d,22h,22m

Main objective:

Figure out what happened to this world

Side objectives:

Figure out the true nature of this world

Figure out what civilizations used to live in this world [PARTIALLY COMPLETE]

Rewards - 5SP

Pentalty for failure- 7SP debt