Chapter 94: Chapter 94 – Tough Choices

Sitting across from each other, Mr. Taka showed him two screens, which seemed to be the reward option.

"Please choose one between the two of them. I will definitely respect your choice."

Max wondered why the marketing team leader said that but nodded his head again nonetheless. He read the reward choice and was surprised.

"Is this real? I meant... These rewards were too much for a newbie streamer. This isn't a mistake, no?"

Mr. Taka smiled softly.,

"That's how much I appreciate your contribution to this program. And I actually wanted you to choose your own reward but could only offer between these two. Hahaha, one of them is just a contract instead of an actual reward. But I did my best to make the best offer to you. How is it?"

"Hmm, well..." Max felt conflicted.

While it was true that his contribution might be the highest, considering he broke the synchronization test time record, he still didn't think he deserved these rewards.

'The first reward is a monetary reward, valued at $25,000. It's a big amount of money for me.' He thought as he read the description of the first screen. 'But the second one is tempting.'

As Mr. Taka said earlier, it was a contract instead of an actual reward. But... It could also be called a reward for a newbie streamer with less than a month of experience in streaming and less than 10K viewers.

'It's actually an invitation to become Biozone Entertainment's affiliated streamer!'

Screw the quest's reward; Biozone Entertainment was more generous than it!

It was a difficult choice for Max. On the one hand was instant money, while on the other was support from a big game publisher company.

Thinking about the long-term benefit, the second choice was probably the best. But Max made sure to read it carefully.

'The contract said I would be given full support and priority for Biozone Entertainment's released game ads. Of course, the contract for those ads would be different when the time came. I needed to put the Biozone Entertainment logo in my stream and about me. It sounds good.'

The support here was not limited to having his name posted on the affiliated streamer page but also helped if there was a scandal or drama involving him--for example, the last hacker incident.

'They will also help me find editors and a secretary. Their connections are really useful at times like that.'

Max hummed in consideration.

Looking at his state, Mr. Taka huffed and spoke.

The orange-haired streamer forced a bottle into his mouth, and his consciousness ended at that moment.

***

The next morning, Max realized that he was in his hotel room with his upper clothes torn off. There was no recollection of what happened last night.

Furthermore, his head was throbbing hard for some reason, making him feel lethargic and weak in the morning.

"Ugh, fuck. What did Flexy make me drink last night? I remember nothing after talking with Mr. Taka. And why am I half-naked? I didn't do anything strange, right?"

For now, he got off the bed and drank some water from the dispenser. It made him feel a bit better. Still, the headache remained, so he took a cold shower, hoping it would cure him.

"Phew, that was better." He sighed in relief as he got dressed in a simple oversized white shirt and slim black pants.

His current room had a good balcony with a nice view of New Eden City. So he chose to relax there while waiting for his Sky Rail, which would arrive in two hours, at 10 AM.

"The sunlight feels nice." He leaned back on the resting chair and put his legs above. It was relaxing.

'Now, let's see emails and messages. I doubt there is something important, but I need to do this frequently from now on. Who knows if there will be spam or hacker messages again?'

Thinking so, he brought up his screen and checked his email first. There was an email from Biozone Entertainment notifying him that $5,000 had been sent into his bank account. It was his appearance fee from this program.

"Oh, this is nice. I got the maximum amount written in the contract." He laughed merrily.

His bank grew again, having more than 20K dollars in savings. With this, he didn't need to worry about buying nutritional supplements or groceries for his everyday life.

'Maybe I also need to find a better apartment. Preferably, the one that costs under $3,000 to $5,000 a month.'

Not that he complained about his current apartment. But it lacked the security that he wanted. And the place was in a dangerous alley with little to no light at night.

'Well, let's think about that later. I will need to worry about hiring an editor first.'

Continuing where he left off, he opened the private message this time. Surprisingly, there was one message from Lily. He was curious, so he opened it immediately.

[Lily: Take responsibility for what you did last night.]

When he read it, his jaw dropped and his body froze in surprise.