The Rice-Eating Hero’s Capitalist Streaming - Chapter 62

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Capitalist Streaming of a Freeloading Hero

 

Episode 62

 

Constellation’s Game [Lyka]

 

The situation inside the store was more serious than I had thought.

 

It wasn’t simply a matter of the air being stale.

 

Hissss—

 

So honestly, I was a bit flustered.

 

The metal shelves behind the display cases, around the health supplement corner… were melting like candle wax.

 

‘What the hell is this? A monster?’

 

I was confused.

 

In the [Iron Grave] I knew, there definitely weren’t any monsters that threatened players like this…

 

Did they completely change the monster pool itself?

 

‘This is obviously poison.’

 

My mind raced quickly.

 

Whatever was inside there was still an unknown entity whose identity was difficult to determine.

 

“Hmm.”

 

But I couldn’t stop entering.

 

There was one item I absolutely had to get from inside, and if I couldn’t farm it here, I’d waste a lot of time.

 

‘At minimum I’d have to find a drug store at another station… That would waste at least 20 minutes.’

 

And there was one more thing.

 

There was something I wanted to confirm.

 

‘If this poison zone was created by a player…’

 

If my guess was correct, I had a rough idea of what class that player (he or she) might have.

 

Moreover, the class that came to mind was one I had never successfully changed to even during that eons-long beta testing period.

 

In other words, it was worth checking out who it was.

 

Swoosh—

 

Carefully avoiding the purple-stained floor, I slowly moved toward the source of this disaster.

 

And the next moment.

 

‘Hmm…!’

 

Among the tiles that had turned an intense purple reminiscent of a pool of blood…

 

I could see a woman sitting there weakly.

 

My eyes naturally turned to the participant’s name tag.

 

‘Chloe Kang?’

 

But there was one problem.

 

The position where this player named Chloe Kang was sitting happened to be next to the cashier.

 

So if I couldn’t move that woman, I couldn’t get ‘that item.’

 

It was quite a troublesome situation.

 

‘First I need to assess the situation.’

 

She seemed to be in poor condition, as she still hadn’t noticed my presence.

 

So I was able to observe her carefully.

 

Hair wet with cold sweat.

 

Blood vessels standing out darkly on her neck.

 

And…

 

Empty medicine bottles scattered messily on the floor.

 

‘This is…’

 

Thanks to this, I realized that my prediction had been correct.

 

So ‘Chloe Kang’s’ class was probably… ‘Venom Blood.’

 

Among the first-tier classes I knew, it was one of the rarest.

 

Perhaps at a similar level to my class, Seraphist.

 

“…”

 

But how do I know this?

 

I know one crazy NPC who has this class.

 

So I knew very well why this player was suffering like this right now.

 

‘It’s because of [Mana Reflux]. That… must be hard to endure.’

 

Basically, Venom Blood is a mage-type class.

 

A special hidden class where all the mana in the body becomes powerful ‘extreme poison.’

 

So the fact that this insane level of deadly poison was spewing out around this woman meant that the mana in her body was uncontrolled and flowing backward.

 

And mana reflux is accompanied by unbearably intense pain.

 

The reason this woman was curled up chewing and swallowing painkillers like candy was… probably for that reason.

 

But it would be useless.

 

The pain from mana reflux isn’t the kind that can be dealt with using painkillers.

 

‘With this level of poison… an ordinary person would melt the moment they touch it, right?’

 

Having finished assessing the situation, I decided to carefully approach her vicinity.

 

In this state anyway, this woman couldn’t be a threat to me.

 

Of course, moving her away from the cashier might not be easy.

 

Step—

 

And around this point, Chloe Kang seemed to sense my presence too.

 

She flinched and raised her head.

 

A face contorted with pain.

 

Her focus was a bit blurry, but her eyes were sharply alive.

 

“…Don’t come closer.”

 

Her cracked voice stopped my steps.

 

She looked at me while struggling to back away.

 

“If you come closer… you’ll melt.”

 

Her voice was sharp, but this wasn’t a threat.

 

It was a desperate warning to keep distance, worried that I might get caught up in her uncontrolled poison.

 

I was quite grateful for that attitude.

 

At the same time, I was a bit puzzled.

 

‘If a competitor drops out… wouldn’t that actually be good? This is a dungeon where PK is allowed.’

 

Her tone was quite cold, but she didn’t seem to be a bad person.

 

The crazy NPC I met during beta was quite a sensitive psychopath, as I recall…

 

It was fortunate that she didn’t inherit the personality too.

 

‘But how do I move her?’

 

Honestly, at first… I had somewhat considered personally sending this woman out of the dungeon myself.

 

Since the rules of this entrance ceremony mission clearly stated that PK was possible, there wouldn’t be any problem.

 

But if I executed that in this situation, wouldn’t that make me an unsocialized psychopath?

 

It’s not even time for [Heat Orb] farming yet, so there’s no significant benefit from PKing…

 

I just need to get inside that cashier area.

 

Hmm.

 

But as my thoughts continued like this.

 

One completely unexpected aspect came to mind.

 

‘Wait. Mana… reflux?’

 

I suddenly thought that maybe this woman could be a hidden card, at least for this mission.

 

‘Come to think of it… in an environment where body temperature keeps dropping, wouldn’t mana reflux actually be advantageous?’

 

My mind spun rapidly.

 

If I utilized the knowledge I had just a little…

 

I came up with a way to reverse-utilize this participant Chloe Kang’s special situation.

 

Tap—

 

Having made my decision, I immediately took action.

 

After lightly kicking a Tylenol box that had fallen on the floor, I opened my mouth toward her in a low voice.

 

“No matter how much you chew painkillers, it won’t help. That’s mana backflow.”

 

Chloe Kang’s eyes widened at my words.

 

“…How did you?”

 

Hmm….

 

Now I suddenly have nothing to say….

 

I guess I can just make something up.

 

“It’s obvious at a glance. Your whole body is overheated and full of heat, so there’s no way those general medicines would help.”

 

Instead of backing away, I reached for the medicine shelf next to me.

 

Fortunately, this was a drug store disguised as a convenience store.

 

There were plenty of useful materials available.

 

‘Burn gauze, and lidocaine spray.’

 

What I picked up were medicines with exactly the same names as Earth’s pharmaceuticals.

 

Of course, these weren’t actually those real medicines.

 

They were just medicinal materials circulated inside the Gate with similar effects, disguised as Earth’s pharmaceuticals….

 

‘Good.’

 

That’s why it was actually fortunate.

 

If these were really those medicines, I wouldn’t have been able to try what I was about to attempt.

 

Clank-

 

After gathering all the necessary items, I pulled out the [Mana Coolant Pipe] that was hanging from my waist.

 

Then Chloe Kang looked at me with suspicious eyes and asked.

 

But perhaps what I was doing didn’t look particularly threatening.

 

Her voice seemed to have slightly less wariness.

 

“What are you… doing?”

 

“Wait a moment. I’m making a prescription.”

 

The principle of mana backflow is simple.

 

Overheating due to overload of the mana organ (heart).

 

To fix this, you don’t need painkillers that numb the nerves, but a coolant that physically lowers the temperature.

 

‘Of course, if you just pour it directly, that area would freeze solid.’

 

What’s inside this pipe is high-performance chemical coolant developed to cool the engines of mechanical monsters.

 

So it’s definitely more effective than any other coolant.

 

But because of that, it could cause skin necrosis if it touches bare skin.

 

That’s why a buffer was needed.

 

Hissss―!

 

I rolled up thick burn gauze and opened the pipe cap to pour in the coolant.

 

White steam rose as the gauze instantly froze cold like thin ice.

 

Now if I spray plenty of lidocaine spray with anesthetic properties on this… it’s roughly finished.

 

“Here.”

 

I tossed the completed rapid cooling patch(?) at her feet.

 

Getting any closer was impossible due to the poison aura.

 

“Put it on your heart. We need to cool the engine first.”

 

Chloe Kang stared blankly down at the patch that fell on the floor.

 

She had reason to be suspicious.

 

A man who suddenly appeared mixed this and that with some liquid (coolant) and sprayed it on gauze, then threw it saying it was medicine.

 

But she had no choice.

 

“Ugh….”

 

She clutched her chest as the pain returned again.

 

Eventually she picked up the patch with trembling hands.

 

Then she slightly unbuttoned one shirt button… and brought the cold gauze to her left chest.

 

But at that very moment.

 

“…!”

 

Chloe Kang’s pupils dilated greatly.

 

She was probably startled.

 

There’s no prescription that shows such immediate effects.

 

Hissss-!

 

The flames blazing through her blood vessels would have calmed down like a lie.

 

Just like pouring cold water on a heated frying pan, very rapidly.

 

Was it really this easy to get better just by applying something cold?

 

No way.

 

The patch I gave her was makeshift, but it contained components that directly respond to mana.

 

So the cold energy follows the flow of mana and directly affects the body….

 

That’s why you can see such dynamic effects immediately.

 

It was a method I learned thanks to a crazy NPC, and one I used a lot when playing mage classes.

 

“How on earth did this….”

 

Even so, it wasn’t a fundamental cure of course….

 

But at least I succeeded in forcibly freezing the wildly rampaging mana circuits.

 

“Haa… haa….”

 

Chloe Kang, who had been breathing heavily, slowly raised her head.

 

As she swept back her hair wet with cold sweat, her face had much more life than before.

 

But somehow… her recovery speed seemed much faster than I expected?

 

“….”

 

She straightened her clothes and stood up with an awkward expression.

 

Now that she had regained her senses, she seemed embarrassed.

 

It was a natural reaction since she had exposed her weakness in front of a stranger.

 

After hesitating for a moment, she spoke in a small voice as if crawling in.

 

“…Thank you.”

 

Her gaze alternated between the pipe stuck in my waist and my face.

 

A complex expression with various emotions mixed together.

 

“But what exactly do you do?”

 

“Since I healed someone, maybe I’m a healer.”

 

“Your methods are pretty rough for a healer.”

 

“Maybe I’m just a passing engineering student?”

 

I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly.

 

Even during this, my gaze was fixed on the cashier, but I tried not to make it obvious.

 

I haven’t succeeded in recruiting her yet….

 

It would be troublesome if this woman started getting interested in ‘that item’.

 

But while I was having these thoughts, Chloe Kang, who had been silent for a moment, slowly spoke again.

 

Surprisingly, it was exactly the kind of line I really liked.

 

“Anyway.”

 

Chloe Kang’s voice became calm again.

 

“It won’t be free. What do you want?”

 

What?

 

That’s a very desirable mindset, isn’t it?

 

This would raise her favorability quite a bit, wouldn’t it?

 

“Hmm. Well. What I want is….”

 

Do you happen to have some LP?

 

Wait, that’s not it.

 

‘Phew.’

 

The Rice Eater mindset suddenly popped out for a moment, but I managed to suppress it.

 

And I slowly voiced my real purpose.

 

“Want to party with us?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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