The next day, Gabe was getting ready to do some exercise in the park. Since he increased his Mana Pool to 400 Mana Units, he felt that his body's metabolism was much faster, so much so that even slightly increasing the amount of food he was eating, his body was losing more and more fat and turning it into lean muscle mass involuntarily just because of the nutrition the Mana was providing for his body. Despite the Mana increase passively improving his body, Gabe realized that it would take a long time before he really had a body adapted for close combat, so since he only used a few hours to develop Chapter 3 a day, Gabe decided to use part of his time to exercise.
Yesterday had been the first time he'd tried to work out after developing Residual Devil and Gabe was amazed that in just one day he was already seeing results. Due to his Mana's nourishment, his body's muscles absorbed a few times more fat than they had statically been absorbing, and that fat was not just absorbed for no reason at all, but definitely being used in strengthening the muscles he was working on.
Although this was not so noticeable for other people, for Gabe who knew his body well, it was clear that while he was sleeping his body underwent changes that would take at least 2 weeks without Mana to normally appear.
'In just 1 day my body changed as if I had exercised for two weeks…' Gabe was shocked as he realized this.
Initially he just intended to exercise to speed up his body's healing process a bit, but seeing how much his body improved with just one day of exercise, the dopamine in his brain started to spike. What he just considered as something to pass the time, changed into something he really wanted to do right now, mainly imagining how the results would be the next day.
As he was getting ready to leave his apartment, a notification arrived on his cell phone. Confused, Gabe looked at this and saw that it was something he had programmed to happen.
[A player is close to facing Dimitrescu.]
'I hope it's a streamer…' Gabe thought as he put the coat he was holding aside and ran to the computer again.
Very easily he opened the livestream site and started looking for which streamer was about to face Dimitrescu.
He had programmed this notification to notify whenever a Player got close to the zone where they would face Dimitrescu, the first major Boss of the game. He did this because he wanted to see how a streamer and their chat would react while the battle was going on, as this was the first real boss battle in the game.
Unlike the Rank E Players from the livestream he watched the day before, who were way behind due to playing in 'Insane' mode, the Player who had arrived at the first boss battle was also a Rank E Player, but he was playing in 'Casual' mode. Since this Player didn't have to worry about dying, or the consequences of death, this Player was many hours of gameplay ahead of other Players who were in 'Insane' mode.
Searching among the Streamers, Gabe quickly found who it was. At the moment, the livestream of this Player only had around 900 people watching. This Player also didn't seem to know he was the most advanced Streamer until just a bit ago.
When Gabe opened his livestream he saw that the Player was playing quite carefree while laughing and joking with the viewers in the chat. From viewers' reactions, only 2 or 3 people noticed that the zone this streamer was currently in had not appeared on other livestreams, which could indicate that he was too advanced, but since no one was paying attention to it, messages from these people disappeared amid the sea of other messages.
"I got so frustrated. Even though those girls were a bit weird, they were still cute… and they got so little time in the game…" The Streamer, named Martian, complained as he moved through the castle.
He had killed Dimitrescu's daughters. The three characters in the original game had appeared for only 10 minutes, but in this version of Residual Devil, Gabe made their participation more impactful, increasing that time to 1 hour. But by the reaction of the players he saw, as well as in the previous world where 10 minutes of participation would yield 10 years of fame for these characters, Gabe noticed that between the two worlds many people from both had acted as if these three characters were the protagonists of the game.
As they weren't true Bosses, just a few Semi-Bossed in the game, Gabe didn't care much for the Players' reaction to them, but he regretted it a little, seeing how these Players were excited about the three ladies.
'What's worse is that it's not just men who typically have this reaction…' Gabe thought as he remembered Annie, a streamer who he noticed died trying to get a kiss from one of Dimitrescu's daughters.
[Don't be silly, Martian, just play the game again and save the game before facing them, that way you can interact with them whenever you want!]
[Woah, you're a genius!]
[Did you see that Annie died yesterday trying to get a kiss from her?]
[I saw it, LMAO!]
"All the bloodlines of House Dimitrescu gone? By the hand of someone like you?!" Suddenly, after Martian improved his weapons a bit with Duke, an angry voice came out.
He soon recognized this voice as the voice of Dimitrescu, the giant and beautiful woman.
"Haha, thanks for the tip in the comments. I'm going to save my game here. Even though Dimitrescu is a giant, she's also very beautiful… I think it's worth having a save here and trying to interact with her for a while. Maybe I'll unlock a story secret?" Martian chuckled as he thanked the comment that gave him that idea.
Gabe, who saw this, couldn't resist and facepalmed.
'If I have money to spare, maybe I'll make an Eroge for these Players. I was used to having those kind of games in my other world, but these Players can't seem to see a beautiful woman in a game at all without thinking they should go about conquering her... No, at first they were afraid because these women were all monsters, but it seems that because they are beautiful, that fear disappeared very quickly… Maybe I can make some alternative Easter Egg endings in the game so Players can stay even longer in game and give me even more Mana with little effort on my part!'
Gabe was excited about this idea, which was why he liked to watch livestream. He can see exactly what the Player was thinking and implement that in the next update, making Players happier and playing even more.
'Maybe I could even sell this as a separate DLC?' Gabe thought with his hand on his chin.
He felt that something like this would not affect the game. This really wasn't something that was planned from the beginning, but one that would likely have a lot of interest from players.
'I'll think about it better with time…' Gabe thought.
Looking at the four white statues in the middle of the hall, Martian was quick to place the last white head on the headless statue and suddenly, Dimitrescu appeared in front of him.
"F**K!" Martian screamed, scared with her jumpscare suddenly appearing. She didn't even do something scary, but just her appearing with a 3 meter tall white body already made him freeze.
Looking around, Martian didn't see any way out, until a noise attracted his attention and he ran to a door that was opening. Dimitrescu was walking slowly towards him, but the clatter of the shoes she was wearing was like hammers hitting his heart. While he was joking and having fun saying that he wanted to save to spend more time with her, seeing this giant woman in front of him startled him so much that he quickly left the small room.
The door he went through took him to a bridge outside the castle. The cold wind was almost cutting into his skin, but knowing that the woman could be behind him, Martian didn't think too much and kept running towards the end of the bridge where there was a church. When he finally reached the small church at the end of the bridge, Martian looked back and saw that the door he went through was closed and Dimitrescu had not followed him.
"Uff…" Martian sighed as he walked slowly into the church, still a little cautious and looking around.
There was nothing of interest in this small church, apart from an obvious coffin in the center of the room. Carefully opening the coffin, Martian saw a beautiful knife in the hands of the corpse lying there.
With the care of a Rank E Player who had already done a few hundred missions, Martian took a good look around to see if there was anything else or any traps, and only when he confirmed that he was safe did he reach for the knife.
Taking the knife out slowly and very carefully…
"YOU RUINED EVERYTHING!" As he was raising the knife, a loud voice startled him as a giant hand gripped his arm.
"F*CK!!!!" Martian screamed in startled horror. The game's security system almost activated, which, of course, would have sent him to a black room to calm down.
Looking back, the giant woman opened five giant claws and plunged them into his belly. In pain and anger, Martian just looked at the knife in his right hand, and, without thinking twice, he returned his own wound to her and plunged the knife into her stomach!
"Arrrgh!!"
"Aarrgh!!"
The two screamed in pain at the same time.
But while Martian was thinking about what to do, Dimitrescu didn't think twice before pushing him through the church window, making Martian almost fall off the precipice that was that church.
The drop was at least 30 meters, and seeing the rocks below, Martian knew that if he fell there he would die.
'My knife…' Martian complained internally as he watched the knife fall out of his reach.
Looking back, he was a little less startled to see that Dimitrescu was writhing in pain.
"At least I hurt her…" he sighed, trying to catch his breath.
"Arrrgghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! Hahahahaha!!!!!" Suddenly, Dimitrescu's scream became louder and quickly changed from a scream of pain to a manic laugh of happiness.
Startled, Martian looked at the writhing woman and tried to pull away. Through the window he saw something that shocked him: Dimitrescu's gigantic body was twitching as if something was coming out of it. In a few seconds a large wing made of white organs came out of her back. Soon another wing came out from the other side and she disappeared from Martian's sight.
Hearing her laughter, Martian tried to get up to flee, but the church suddenly shook.
*BOOOM!*
The church wall practically exploded when a giant monster burst through it and toppled the entire structure as if it were made of paper.
Looking at the more than 5 meter tall monster, Martian froze.
"Flesh, bone, I'll devour you whole!" Dimitrescu, or the true monster she had become, chuckled in a demonic voice as she approached Martian slowly.
Seeing the giant monster coming towards him, the only thing Martian could think was:
"F*CK!!!! THIS IS A MONSTER FROM A RANK F GAME?!!!"
[Bonus Chapter 2/5]