The day had arrived.
On the morning of May 15th, Max stretched his body in the living room, warming himself up without doing any strenuous activity. He wanted to be in top shape in the tournament.
While stretching, he looked at his message. Unexpectedly, many people contacted him this morning, especially those who knew he would enter the Midnight Heist's tournament.
[Flexy: Yo, buddy. Good luck with the tournament. If you win, we will celebrate it with a tomahawk steak, hahaha!]
[Lily: Max... Good luck. I prepared a surprise if you win.]
[StoneSword: May luck be with you. Lily pestered me to send a message. But I genuinely thought you would do fine even without it. Win this tournament.]
[MadLad: Dude, you must win. I am unable to participate because my Tier dropped yesterday, thanks to trolls. Win, for my sake! I need to boast to others that I have bested you in basketball twice!]
[Amelia: Good morning. I've heard about your participation in the tournament from MadLad. I hope you win this one. And I am looking forward to our next meeting.]
[Nina: Max! I am watching, so do your best!]
[Mr. Taka: I am unable to openly give you our full support in the tournament, but I am allowed to wish you luck. May the lady of luck be with you.]
[BloodSucker: I am late because I fell asleep before sending it, but don't cut my pay. Here is the video [video.mp4]. I assure you this will get many likes, so upload it. I beg you, please don't cut my pay! You were the one who told me to sleep! It was your fault.]
Max read them one by one and replied to them all. A small smile formed on his face. He had made good friends along the way. Even Mr. Taka gave him encouragement.
BloodSucker also delivered the video he needed on time. Fortunately, the deadline hadn't moved yet because NoFeet hadn't released their ads yet. He planned only to upload his video 12 hours after NoFeet, just to respect the other party for staring him in their ads and giving him money.
<Deadline: 0/30 days (Counting after the ad is released)>
He still had time to upload it, so he decided to focus on his tournament first.
Looking at the clock on his screen, he saw 9:31. The tournament would start in less than 30 minutes.
'Let's do this.'
In case something happened, he could at least have an upper hand if he didn't come out as an arrogant streamer. His fans would support him, blaming the rude streamers who surrounded him.
Until now, Max hadn't given his consent to appear in their stream.
"Now, I need to excuse myself to prepare for the tournament. Can the crowd step away a little, please?" Max requested them with a cold smile.
If someone had a little bit of sensitivity and wasn't so dense, they would realize that this smile meant, 'Get the fuck out of my face.'
Thankfully, that intention was relayed to some streamers.
"A-Ah, yeah. Sorry to bother you." The first streamer scratched his cheek and stepped away from Max, followed by the others.
Now, he could get out of their encirclement.
"Thank you."
With a bright smile, he casually walked past the other people and the bar. As soon as he exited, he broke into a run and disappeared behind the building.
Why would he do that? Because Max had a bad feeling about it.
After hiding, he secretly looked at the bar where he came out from and, just as he had expected, the streamers from before followed suit. They hadn't given up on finding him and getting more content.
"Sigh... They are so persistent." He grumbled in exasperation. "Can't they just be normal? Like, giving space to a person who clearly wants to concentrate on the tournament."
Those guys were probably streamers who were desperate to get viewers. Just by looking at how they answered all their viewers' questions, Max knew they probably only had 50 to 100 viewers maximum. It wasn't bad at all.
In fact, if Max hadn't been lucky or had a unique way of playing Knight's Journey back then, he would also be in their position, scrapping over hundreds of viewers everyday.
That was why he wasn't mad at their effort to grow their fan base. He was just a little bit mad that they were wrong and had no respect for him.
If they asked quietly whether he was willing to be in their stream or not, he wouldn't mind entertaining their viewers. No, he would be happy to help them.
'Well, what happened had happened. I better suit myself and escape their sight for a while.' He thought as he prepared his disguise.