Chapter 37 - Local Paladin Hacked Vtuber’s Single-Player Game, Cited Accidental Encounter. Neutrophils stood on an observation deck. Before him stretched a field encircled by a moat and guarded by barbed wire. The sand field featured a sealed metal hole and unknown substances resembling green blood. Before Neutrophils could admire the zoo-like enclosure area, the General gave him an instruction. A drawer in front of the paladin was opened, revealing a gun and a magazine. "Pick up your weapon and shoot at the target!" Neutrophils gazed at a bulky object in front of him. The weapon was, in fact, a standard rifle. He flipped it around and peeked into its muzzle, pointing the barrel at his face. He accidentally pulled the trigger. Fortunately, the rifle was empty. The general suppressed his laughter and guided Neutrophils. "Well, have you been to a buckshot casino lately? Too bad you cannot earn your cape by shooting yourself in the face here! Grab the magazine and reload your weapon!" Neutrophils noticed a flat container on the machine’s drawer in front of him. He picked it up and flipped it around like a monkey examining a stolen smartphone. Spotting the opening on the firearm, he understood how it worked and loaded the magazine. He pulled the trigger while pointing the muzzle toward the sky. Once more, the weapon’s switch pointed at SAFE, and the chamber was empty. It fired nothing. Neutrophils examined the weapon for an additional 10 minutes. The paladin accidentally ejected the magazine while he fumbled around. He picked the magazine up and inserted it back. After five minutes, Neutrophils found a lever and cocked the rifle. The first round entered the chamber, but the safety was still on. "The safety is on, you crackhead monkey!" The general finally instructed him. "Look at the weapon and READ! Who in the Hellmire passed this guy?! He doesn’t even know how to shoot!" Neutrophils rotated the weapon and noticed a switch labeled "SAFE" and "FIRE." He understood the instructions and flipped it to "FIRE" mode. As soon as he flipped it on, his fingers had been holding the trigger. It unleashed a live round into the sky, and the weapon fell out of his hands. Neutrophils broke a cold sweat. From the feedback alone, he could tell that something nasty had come out of the muzzle. He understood that if he had pointed the gun at himself as he had done previously, the strange object inside the weapon would have killed him. Mustering his courage, Neutrophils picked up the rifle and held it with two hands. His stance was still awkward, but he figured out 60% of the rifle’s functions. Pointing the muzzle at the distant target, he pulled the trigger. Bullets exited the barrel, and the rifle almost slipped out of his hands again. Neutrophils gritted his teeth and suppressed the recoil with his strength. After emptying the magazine, he managed to graze the target. The general laughed. "Well done, hxlldiver! I hope you’re ready for the real shooting." The cover of the sealed hole was opened, and a loud hissing noise of an unknown creature boomed. A 2-meter-tall insect monster emerged from a hole. Its four barbed spider legs supported its cockroach-like physique. The brown shell husk looked bumpy and harder than iron. "...What in the tarnation?" Neutrophils was astonished. He had never seen giant bugs before. Fortunately, he had been desensitized by the previous Hunger War. The sight of the monster didn’t terrify him. Adjusting his posture, Neutrophils aimed at the monster and pulled the trigger. He was out of bullets. "Well, aren’t you helpless?" The general mocked him. "Look at the signboard and read it carefully, hxlldiver! Grab the grenades and kill those insects!" His struggling continued, so did the other poor souls who had joined the membership. Meanwhile, Parita completed the tutorial speedrun without issues since it was not her first time playing this game. The game prompted her to name her spaceship. However, there were changes. Parita noticed it too. The last time she played, the game forced her to create a ship’s name by choosing a combination of preset names. However, in this system version, it allowed her to name the ship freely. Parita cackled as she had a few ideas. She reached for the keyboard to type in her desired ship name. Unfortunately, the mocap suit acted up and controlled her finger. She input a cursed name. Parita resisted, but her fingers had already pressed the confirm button. The name was set, and the mocap suit released its control. She facepalmed. The system trolled her again. ’It doesn’t matter. I can change the ship name later.’ Parita glanced at the chat. As she had expected, many viewers laughed at the name. "What did the toilet do to you?" "Did you have a grudge against toilets or something?" "As expected of the toilet goddess!" Parita rolled her eyes and ignored them. She moved her character and checked her game progress. As she had expected, her character was brand new. She had lost all items and game currency. "I guess I have to grind everything from the start. Oh, well. How is the war going?" Parita rushed to the bridge and checked the globe, where she could designate her next battlefield. The hologram of the universe emerged. There were only two warfronts. On the left side of the universe map, red districts indicated the territory of killing bots. In the top right corner of the map, a few yellowish zones were available. Those were the homes of bugs. "Where is the Illuminate?" Parita glanced at the left side of her screen. Normally, it should have shown the casualties of all Hxlldivers. In this case, there was only one number. Parita crossed her arms and leaned back. She pursed her lips, and her avatar copied her expression. "Hmm? Since when has the game updated the single-player mode?" Although skeptical, she shrugged and chose one of the bugs’ planets. She turned to the camera and explained. "Oh, hey. I forgot to explain the game. In this game, we’re playing a brainwashed soldier from a human empire called ’Supreme Earth’. Their technological advancement is superior to ours, and they are traveling across the void to spread... freedom." "Freedom? What freedom?" "What’s teg-no-lo-gie?" "Where is this?" The source of thɪs content is 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹✶𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲✶𝗻𝗲𝘁 People were confused. Parita chuckled dryly as she also couldn’t come up with a proper explanation to these medieval locals. She sighed. "Just turn off your brain and pretend that the character is someone from another country who’s fighting monsters on another continent, okay?" Parita sighed. The first gaming stream seemed to be a failure. Instead of explaining everything, she concentrated on the game. She chose a mission and selected the lowest difficulty to get her feeling back. Then, she chose the mission. The cinematic cut-in started. The spaceship traveled through space using a warp drive and emerged in orbit around the destination star, Mxlevelon Creek. The character walked toward the deployment pod, and the platform sank. A cinematic loading scene started as the camera zoomed out, highlighting the spacecraft. It launched a capsule pod toward the jungle planet. "Wait a second. The black suit guy is from the void in the sky?" Parita laughed at their reaction and flexed her knowledge. "That’s right. The game character is from outer space. For those who don’t know, if you keep flying up, you will leave the atmosphere and reach space, aka the void. When you look back, you will find your planet, a giant orb that everybody has been living ON." "An orb? Does that mean they’re tiny?" Parita facepalmed at the comment. She elaborated. "No. The game characters are not tiny. They are as tall and as big as we are. But if one day, you manage to fly higher than the clouds and go further up, you will understand everything." While explaining, the capsule descended and arrived at the battlefield. The soldier emerged from the pod and shouted like a lunatic. "HXLLDIVER HAS ARRIVED!" Coincidentally, 50 meters near the landed soldier, a squad of humanoid robots had been patrolling the area. They turned around in unison and raised their guns at the soldier. "NO, NO, NO, NO, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT! I THOUGHT THIS WAS THE TRIVIAL DIFFICULTY!" It was indeed the trivial difficulty. She simply landed her game character next to the enemies. Parita squealed and controlled her game character to escape. Yellow bullets flew over her game character’s head and hit trees, bushes, and boulders around her. 10 minutes later, Parita wiped the sweat droplets on her forehead. She completed the mission with difficulty because the robots never stopped calling in reinforcements. Even though they were all footmen, their accuracy was deadly. She almost died several times, but she managed to complete the mission and sidequests without dying once. "Woo. I’ve still got it!" Parita let out a long sigh and checked the chat. It was disappointing. About 100ish viewers remained, and the chat was full of questions about the game’s background, the lore, and the weapons that the robots were using. Nobody commented on her skills or gameplay. Parita rubbed her forehead. This was worse than when she livestreamed as a freshtuber. She couldn’t get the reactions she wanted, and she didn’t know how to interact with the chats. ’What should I do?’ She questioned herself. While Parita was at a loss, the in-game voice warned her. ’A new Hxlldiver has joined the squadron.’ Parita thought that the system had given her a single-player version of the game. She controlled her game character to the entrance pod and found a new player, looking lost in the destroyer. The name tag above the person gave him away. The retired paladin in the hxlldiver’s suit dragged his feet and looked around in shock. He muttered through his helmet. "Where am I? What is this place?!" He turned to Parita’s character and saw her name. Neutrophils was overjoyed. "Miss Kestrel! You’re here too?! How did you get here?" Parita spoke through her game mic. "That’s my question. How did you get into my game?" Unfortunately, Neutrophils was not the only one joining. ’A new Hxlldiver has joined the squadron.’ ’A new Hxlldiver has joined the squadron.’ Two new soldiers entered the destroyer. Parita checked their names. Parita smiled and nodded in approval. Finally, she found someone she was familiar with. But the other person had a strange aura.