Key talked to the troublemakers until it was way past five, she took a bath and prepared herself after she ended the call.
When she arrived downstairs, she headed to the gaming area and started live-streaming alongside the other JLNC members who have already started streaming.
She chose her favorite shinigami, Foschia, and the viewers can't help but notice just how different Key used Foschia's skills, attacks, and attributes.
Sure enough, ever since Key entered the professional league and exhibited just how Foschia can be used in professional games, a lot of streamers and gamers alike tried to mimic her gameplay, but none ever came close to executing moves the way she does.
"You've developed quite the habit of streaming with an empty stomach, Key," El remarked after he noticed Key seated next to him as he finished his streamed match
"Old habits die hard, El," Key replied with a sweet smile, glancing at him for a moment before turning her attention back to her computer screen
[Ellover: How dare she smile that way to my baby El?!]
[ForeverEl: I knew it, you have hidden motives!]
[El4me: El is mine!]
Other series of accusations from the member of El Amore, or El's fans club composed of women who admire El for his beauty and gaming, started filling Key's live comment section.
It wasn't really filled with just the members of El's fans club but after that short exchange between them was broadcasted, and probably shared among the group of fans, a lot of El Amore members joined her room and started expressing their opinions.
"People, take a chill pill. El is literally like a brother to me, I'm no threat." Key chuckled after she noticed the commotion in her live comment section as she replied
"Then who do you like?" Alexei read one of the comments over her shoulder and Key shook her head
"I have no time for love life right now," Key replied with a sweet smile
"And that, people, is an example of a scam," Alexei said and leaned in while chuckling
"It's not," Key shook her head while still playing
"Oh, it is!" Alexei replied and stood up
"Hey, Quant, didn't you hear her call someone Babe over the phone too?" Alexei asked as he turned to look at Quant who had just finished his streamed match
"That was just an endearment," Key shook her head while replying but her eyes remained on the screen
Her shinigami's attacks dealt enough damage to the Hydra to claim it for her team.
This is already her third match and she's been playing the same play style in the past three games, and she is doing that deliberately, some viewers who have been present in her live stream since she started streaming had pointed it out and it's going along her plan.
"I'm just practicing out this gameplay since I haven't used it in a while," Key said while pushing the battle lines into the enemy team's base
"Why is Foschia my favorite?" Key read a question that popped on the side of her screen then returned her eyes to her shinigami that is currently facing the opponent's Chasseur.
"Because she took my attention during the first time I played the game," Key said while smiling and most of the viewers of her live felt like they were struck by lightning because of how enticing her smile is
"Funny trivia to all of you, I don't know if I've told you this before but I'll tell you this again, I first played the game because I found Foschia interesting while I was watching a cousin play." Key said, her eyes glistening but still on the screen of the game she was playing and not on the comments.
"Playing became our bonding, though they used to tease me about it since I wasn't exactly inclined with games." Key added and her Foschia stunned the remaining opponents on the screen just as her in-game teammates dealt the finishing blow to the Hydra and took out their opponents.
As Key's in-game team heads to their opponent's base, Key complacently read the pop-up comments and a question from a viewer of her stream took her attention.
She displayed a sweet smile but it was only to mask the expression in her eyes.
[Daze@School: What are your plans after retiring?]
"It's too early to be thinking about retirement," Key said, maintaining the sweet façade
"I mean, I still have a couple of years to play or so," she added and focused back on the game
It was one of Key's innate attributes, she could put her attention on something and then put it back to another thing without getting distracted by the first thing she had placed her attention to.
With a few minutes more of playing, and answering questions from her live-stream viewers from time to time, Key's in-game team won the match and her win rate increased to 85% from the recent 84%, a rate she received after she lost a practice match against the captain and Alexei with El.
[NoFilter: Now that you've finished playing, are you ending the live?]
"Well, let me count my remaining airtime for that," Key replied with her enticing smile
Key's smile stunned and made everyone who was watching her stream want to take care of her.
She appeared so fragile and sweet that some women who are in their late twenties and early thirties wanted to take care of her.
Unconsciously, her expression while recalling and mentally computing her remaining airtime stabilized and added more foundation to her image of being a sweet little sister.
"I only have three hours and thirty minutes left to cover," Key said
"And you should eat now, Key," Rio chimed in
"Yeah, Quant's going to take your food if you don't," Opal said and just then, Quant arrived while holding the paper bag that has a sticky note with Key's name
"What? I was just bringing Key her food!" Quant defended and Key chuckled
A chuckle that, for some reason, sounded like a siren's song to the viewers of her live and enticed them into a trance.
"Well, I guess that's all for today's live. See you next time!" Key said and waved her hands while smiling and then she ended the stream
"Why do I feel like you really weren't going to eat if we didn't remind you of it?" El asked and Key chuckled while shaking her head
"You've developed a bad habit, Key, that's unhealthy," Dewy said as he and Bright joined their conversation
For some reason, Dewy, Bright, El, and Alexei's faces distorted in Key's eyes and changed into different faces.
This made her stone to the spot, they seemed a bit blurry but she can recognize the faces that replaced the faces of those who she was just talking to earlier.
It made her blink several times as if both trying to blink away what's blurring her sight and trying to check if she's seeing things clearly before their faces reverted to what they originally were.
"What's wrong, Key?" Bright asked and Key just slowly shook her head as she stood up
"I'll just eat in the dining area," Key excused herself with a sweet smile on her lips but there was an obvious slight change in her tone
"Your food…" Quant said, taken aback because Key seem to have forgotten that he's holding her food
"Ah, right, thanks," Key said and took the food from Quant's hands before smiling
They watched her and Key was too lost in thought to mind the stares she's feeling from them.
"What the heck is happening?"
Key's in turmoil, her mind is in a mess and it was evident in how her hand gripped the paper bag.
The faces that replaced Dewy, Bright, El, and Alexei's faces earlier weren't just any random faces, they belonged to the men who were executed alongside her parents and Mykola for protecting her.
"The Kirk… Aberdeen…"
Key thought and she wanted to cry when she recalled how the witch trial had her and everyone in her town kept in the "The Kirk", or what historians now call the prison with iron rings where they were convicted before some of them were hanged at the stake and the unlucky ones, burned alive.
The whole time Key was eating, she was in deep thought, her whole body was moving as if it was programmed to move and function even though her mind is drifting off back to 1597, the time when Witch Trials were rampant in her home country.
According to the history that she studied in Angliae, there twenty-two women and a man were executed and burned at the stake, but Key knew there had to be some unrecorded deaths at the hand of the trial.
Four of the men who were like brothers to her while growing up had been burned before her very eyes, and three of them were killed when they tried to protect her and her parents alongside Mykola, Mykola who was executed for treason because he defended that she was no witch.
After eating she sat in the living room where they are talking.
"N?" She looked at Quant who's looking over her shoulder and had seen her phone lock pattern
"Hmm, what about it?" she asked and looked at him
N… the first letter of Nicneven, the witch queen from the country's folklore, the constant reminder that Key had made to remind herself of the life she used to have before Kitten manipulated the threads of time to manipulate her appearance and give her a new chance in life.