Chapter 131: Cross-Dressing Girl 1
TL/Editor: Raei
Schedule: 5/Week Wed-Sun
Illustrations: Posted in discord.
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Something seems to be going wrong.
That's probably what Han Se-ah was thinking.
The influx of foreign viewers had lagged the stream to a crawl, and the chat was filled with various languages, untranslated.
Tens of thousands had suddenly joined, bringing the live viewer count over a hundred thousand.
Han Se-ah must have been overwhelmed, even if she was used to managing millions of subscribers and tens of thousands of live viewers.
Some Koreans were shouting out patriotic cheers, while some Westerners, somehow only knowing profanities, responded in kind.
Then there were the fans obsessed with Japanese pop culture, spammers using translation tools to spew out insults, and viewers simply commenting on the situation.
Even if half of those hundred thousand-plus viewers were causing chaos, it would still mean dealing with fifty thousand rowdy individuals.
No wonder Han Se-ah was flustered.
Doesnt this broken thing look like it can be fixed?
This golem is holding a bow, not a sword?
While all this was going on, I led my party back to examine the damaged golem.
Han Se-ah must be wondering what's going on.
Although she was gesturing at thin air, trying to manage the chaotic viewers, and not even sparing a glance our way, the rest of our party entered the hangar.
While Kaiden continued to swing her sword.
Seems our stoic adventurer harbors some robot fantasies deep within her heart.
Trusting in the piles of mana stones, Kaiden eagerly displayed her sword skills.
Leaving Kaiden behind, Han Se-ah approached me with a question.
"Roland, what are you doing?"
"I feel like we missed something, so I'm checking again."
"Missed what?"
"As I mentioned to Grace and Irene, that worm usually attacks merchants and nomads deep in the southern desert."
"Why does that matter?"
"It's inconsistent with what we know of the Demon King. The Full Moon Wolf, an evolved version of the Horned Wolf, the Orc Chieftain who can command Orc Hunters and Orc Shamans. In both instances, the Demon King's ability was related to duplicating outside monsters."
"Right... The 30th floor is a cave, and the golden golem claimed to be the guardian of a labyrinth. It doesnt make sense for a desert creature to suddenly appear."
-So, what about my points?
-This boss wasn't on the list, right?
-The answer between the cave and the maze was the desert.
-Well, since it's a bug, can we say the cave... sort of won?The roots of this story extend from novell bìn origin.
-Damn these foreigners! My memories are fading, and now this mech nonsense.
[Chat deleted by mod]
Only then did the viewers, focused on the robot, remember about the points.
The chat became noisy once more.
It seemed they were lamenting the anticlimactic end to the long-awaited points gambling.
Has a cave monster mutated, or has a monster from the labyrinth become the boss?
Everyone had expected it to be like the 10th and 20th floors and offered two possibilities in the points gambling.
Then, out of the blue, a giant worm from the desert appeared.
Perhaps because the point betting system had just opened, everyone eagerly bet all the viewing points they had accumulated from watching the stream.
Screeeeech
"Whoa, what... what's that? Is it making its last stand?"
Was the opening of the door some kind of trigger?
The sound of the creature writhing and roaring in response, coupled with Kaiden's startled shout, echoed through the area.
It seems the knight-type golem might have a speaker of sorts, possibly for communication with troops on foot.
Irene seemed worried about the noise and looked towards Kaiden, but the three of us were busy examining the equipment in the maintenance room.
If a 4 swordsman like Kaiden, riding a knight-type golem, were to be defeated as soon as the maintenance room door opened, it would be a issue in game balance.
"Phew, did he take it down?"
"Ah, Kyaaaa!"
While marveling at the golem speaker's ability to pick up and amplify even muttered words, sudden hurried footsteps approached.
Kaiden seemed alright, but something seemed off.
I quickly headed outside to check.
What first caught my eye was the giant worm's corpse sprawled out on the cold ground.
For some reason, it didn't turn into a mana stone and just remained as a corpse.
I thought maybe Irene screamed because of that, but...
"The golem turned Kaiden into a woman! What if this is an ancient relic with a curse?"
"Hold on a moment, Irene!"
"Quickly, purify it!"
Beside the knight-type golem stood Kaiden, but there was a problem.
To be precise, Irene was shocked to see Kaiden, now looking like Katie Wesley.
She was so surprised that she began to release divine energy, even brighter than the dim lighting of the hangar.
"...Is this a real curse?"
Grace murmurs beside me, leaving me uncertain of how to reply.
Just what's happening?
The corpse of the Giant Worm, facilities that seemed capable of repairing the enormous golem, and viewers suspiciously sensitive to color nuances.
All these trivial facts were instantly pushed out of our minds due to Kaiden's true identity.
Kaiden, or rather, the 'Sword Princess', Katie Wesley.
She's the daughter of the Northern Duke, Arthur Wesley.
To pass the title of the Duke to her older sister and more precisely, to avoid getting involved in politics, she disguised herself as a man using a family artifact and ran away.
While the curves of her figure, concealed beneath a man's shirt, might be less prominent compared to some, there was no denying her beauty.
A slender beauty, sculpted by swordsmanship, looking like a model with sleek silver hair.
"Oh, so Kaiden, I mean Katie, isnt under a curse?"
"Yes, I've always been a woman..."
Her radiant glow, the result of an excessive divine energy baptism, was bound to send the viewers into a frenzy.
Naturally, the chat went wild, but Katie herself looked deeply troubled.
"There were reasons I changed my appearance and continued life as a male adventurer, but why now..."
Her expression was like that of a teenage girl who had made a mistake and was anxiously awaiting her parents' return.
The fact that her male disguise unraveled the moment she descended from the golem suggests something had gone awry with the magical artifact, her family's treasure.
It must have either malfunctioned, run out of mana, or something similarly troubling happened.
The artifact wouldn't just spontaneously upgrade and disrupt its own magic.
Due to the heat of the battle or perhaps her anxiety, a bead of sweat trickled down Katie's pale forehead.
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