Just as Max managed to get past the barbarians and arrived at the tight rope in the southern wall, a message suddenly appeared in front of him.
[Flexy has been killed by Gargantua! The Fort Siege ended in failure!]
Max stopped his advance and stood on one foot on a path narrower than 5cm. It was an amazing feat that needed a really good balance, and the viewers made a fuss about it.
— Another clip of the day!
— Breeze should upload his edited video to Punchtube… For real…
— Inhuman
— He's a breeze, what do you expect? I won't be surprised if he suddenly flies.
— That's just impossible… right?
Their reactions were amusing. However, Max didn't read them and only clicked his tongue in disappointment as his vision distorted and changed back to the waiting room. He was transported back.
Upon arriving, he saw Flexy approach him with a stupid smile while laughing stupidly.
"Hahaha, that was totally my fault. My chat is angry at me and says that I am a burden!"
"I can't say I disagree with your chat," Max replied playfully, shrugging his shoulders.
Hearing him, Flexy's smile froze as he looked disappointed and slumped down.
"T-That was harsh… Ugh… I can't deny it as I was the one who got killed by the boss. But hearing that from someone who hasn't played Knight's Journey for more than 10 hours is humiliating!"
"Get better." Max chuckled evilly, crossing his arms. The axes he had inside the game had disappeared when he got transported.
— How dare he be a burden to Breeze!
— This Flexy need to learn from the master
— By the way, how did he die?
Indeed, that was the most important question. Max was also curious, and as someone had pointed it out, there was nothing wrong with asking.
"I will ask him." He replied to his viewer and poked Flexy's shoulder, getting his attention.
"What? You want to mock me again?!" Flexy reacted exaggeratedly, wiping an imaginary tear with his gloved hand.
"It's not that. My viewers are curious about how you die against the boss. It's easier than the boss in the main story, right?"
To make the speedrun possible, the boss in the co-op stage was made to be weaker than the original one in the story with a different name to avoid spoilers for new players.
"Yeah, that should be the case," Flexy answered with a nod, putting up a serious expression to appear smarter. "The truth is…"
"The truth is…?"
Both paused for a while. Tension grew in the room and the chat, waiting for Flexy to disclose it.
— Ba dump
— Dum dum
— Badadum!
— Tss!
As if on cue with Max's chat, Flexy scratched the back of his head and said, "I tried wall run and slipped, then the boss kicked me hard. Hehehe!"
At that moment, Max had a desire to punch someone in the face without caring whether he was a big streamer or not. He facepalmed as Flexy kept laughing, with his viewers mocking him.
He held his desire to let out a long sigh and tried to keep calm by controlling his breathing.
— Breathe in!
— Breathe out!
— Breeze, notice me!
— Shut up, let him breathe!
Still, Max understood where Flexy was coming from. The run was not terrible, but it had no interesting element besides him massacring the group of barbarians at the start. They just did something similar to other streamers, thus ruining the goal of making energetic but unexpected things.
Even now, Flexy was winking at Max secretly, waiting for him to say something and change the topic. The big streamer was used to toxic comments, so saying something to look down on him after his failure would add more spice to the content.
"You got killed because you failed to run on a wall?" Max asked, lowering his hand and looking at Flexy in disbelief.
"Hahaha, yeah," Flexy answered nonchalantly, dropping his discouraged look. "It was so hard! When I watched your clip, you did it so effortlessly. Do you really have no trick to do that wall run?"
This was Flexy's real goal of having himself killed by the boss. As a veteran streamer invited to the program by Taka, his skill was already confirmed. The chance of him making such a mistake and getting killed by the boss was slim.
Of course, Max still didn't know about that and only guessed that Flexy actually had a plan in mind. And it seemed like they would skip the second run and go straight to the next content they agreed on.
'He's really a good streamer.' Max praised Flexy in his mind.
'He understands that if we continue like before, people will just leave. I also can't show my strategy yet because I don't know who will join the program, so our run looks like a normal one, boring and tedious. Well, I did my best to entertain them.'
— Wall run tutorial, finally?!
— I retract my words! This guy, Flexy, is the best!
— Do it Breeze! Teach that noob how to wall run!
— That one person you called noob can whoop your 4$$ easily!
— Why censor your words? Just use *** directly!
— Hahaha! Wall run tutorial!
Ding!
[FreakingNoob has donated 200 diamonds!]
[While I am curious about the clip of your new path, wall run takes priority! Also, dirty words are censored *****!]
"FreakingNoob, thank you for the donation. Should I do it? I don't know how to teach other people. Also, LovelyOtter thank you for the 300. Thanks for calming the chat!" Max used the donation to relay to Flexy that he didn't mind moving to the next content.
Noticing that, Flexy smoothly followed suit.
"Hey, your viewers want you to teach me, right? Just do it! Or should I donate first to make you agree? I heard you can be moved by money."
Flexy grinned and put his thumb and index finger together. He moved them up and down as if trying to bait Max to accept it.
Max grinned back in response and said jokingly, "That might not be bad. Every lesson that can't be searched on the internet is premium, no? I think 50,000 diamonds will suffice for my secret skill."
Naturally, he wasn't serious and thought Flexy was also only joking about that. That was why he blurted out 50,000 diamonds, as that was the milestone he tried to pass to finish his quest. But…
"Great! Teach me then!"
Ding!
[Flexy has donated 50,000 diamonds!]
[Lesson fee!]
…Max underestimated the person named Flexy and his monetary value. He looked at his new friend in disbelief.