Chapter 164

“So… you’re really going to let things happen like this, Hiro?” Spyro patted Hiro’s back with its paw after Liberty had left the two of them in the garden. The girl didn’t even look back once.

Hiro sighed. He didn’t give Spyro an answer. After what he had done so far, after what Anonymous discovered recently, his hatred for Liberty’s father grew. And he was furious whenever Dr. Jeff Johnson used Liberty as a virtual guest of honour who always managed to amaze people around the world with his father’s inventions.

Even a few investors from all over the world had increased the amount of money they invested to help the Brain Download and Brain Upload projects developed by Dr. Jeff Johnson.

One thing that might be good news for Hiro was the skyrocketing value of the LSC cryptocurrency against the US dollar. Previously, LSC was still in second place behind BTC, with a value of 1,000 LSC equal to 1,000 USD. Since two weeks ago it had been officialized, the price of LSC against the dollar had tripled. LSC had become the most expensive cryptocurrency in the world.

1,000 LSC was now equivalent to 3,500 USD.

And LSC had been universally recognized by banks around the world so that it could be used for various types of real transactions. Besides, people who had LSC no longer needed to convert LSC into local currency in their country because the world had accepted LSC in any form.

A very big thing was really happening. While the others were competing to get LSC as much as possible, Hiro was focused on strengthening his avatar, and he was satisfied with what he had achieved so far.

“Just a few more hours,” muttered Hiro, deciding to leave the flower garden where he met with Liberty. He chose that place, while thinking about the girl. He thought Liberty would definitely like it.

However, Hiro’s current emotions really messed things up.

“You have prepared words for them, right?” Lately, only Spyro communicated with him, both online and offline.

“Are you sure they’ll need that?”

“Even if they change it, I’ll let you do it anyway. Don’t worry, Hiro. You have me.”

Hiro walked towards the city. He returned to Beginner Town and walked towards his guild base. However, instead of going inside the building, he only saw it from a distance.

He could see that the guild base was very crowded with visitors. Either they just spent time by enjoying the drinks sold at the bar or they were interested in joining the guild. However, they must pass the tests Noah and Jacob had arranged first.

Seeing Noah and Jacob work together so well, it seemed like a dream for Hiro.

Even though Hiro had only focused on playing solo for the past two weeks, the Everlasting guild was still in the top five of the guilds on the NA server. Aside from the guild fame that NightFall managed to get, the BigShow party was also very active in dungeon hunting. Meanwhile, Hiro’s party seems to focus on increasing their strengths.

Before Hiro left that very crowded place, someone suddenly tapped him on the shoulder from behind.

“You came.”

Hiro was completely unaware of Cara’s existence. The girl had stood behind him, as if she had just teleported to that place and accidentally caught Hiro, who quietly observed his guild.

“Cara. You seem to get stronger. I didn’t know you were here.”

Cara smiled at Hiro’s praise. However, she didn’t let herself be carried away by the praise for too long. Besides, she also had a lot of things in her head to say to Hiro.

“Let’s go. We can go back together.” She purposely nudged Hiro’s shoulder before walking past him.

“Go back? How can I go back now?”

Cara was dumbfounded at Hiro’s very flat answer. Even the man’s eyes didn’t return her gaze. His eyes were blank.

“Hiro, you look a lot worse than NPCs. Come on, let’s go back. We will celebrate your victory.” Cara patted Hiro’s shoulder and sent Spyro flying because of her actions.

“Kwakkk!”

All players in the game could see the leaderboard. That was why even Cara knew that Hiro had the potential to become a winner for the game launching event held by Ninecent. Because the gap between rank 1 and rank 2 was quite large, Cara believed that it was impossible for rank 2 to catch up on Hiro’s Battle rating in less than 24 hours.

“No. It’s still not enough. I have to get stronger.” Hiro clenched his fists. His body slightly trembled from holding back the emotions he had been keeping all this time.

Spyro, no—Alice looked at Hiro through Spyro’s eyes with pity. She felt guilty for making Hiro like that. The man was too easy to be given the job he was currently doing.

“Hiro, Cara was right. Why not just rest today and hang out with the others? They will definitely be very proud of your hard work.” Spyro tried to speak telepathically with Hiro, setting its voice to sound so soft that Hiro would consider its suggestion.

“Do you need me to call someone else to pick you up here?” Cara still forced him to go back to the guild. It had actually been quite a while since she had last spoken to Hiro. Even though Hiro often came to take a peek at what was going on at the guild base, she and the others pretended not to see it. Cara felt that something big bothered her leader, and she felt very frustrated with herself for not knowing what was that.

“Hiro, whatever happens, you are still our leader. We will follow you. If you have something to say, say it. You know that there is no player who can use the mind reading feature here, right?”

No response. Hiro kept his mouth shut. Meanwhile, Cara was at a loss for words to convince him to come with her.

Cara decided to remain there, facing Hiro while waiting for the man to move his ass.

“You’ve come this close, but still don’t want to go back, huh?”

It was Noah’s voice. Hiro looked back to see Jacob and Noah, who were already standing a meter away from him with their hands, carrying various kinds of groceries, such as raw meat and vegetables.

Noah looked at Hiro with a flat expression, while Jacob immediately jumped over to Hiro to take a closer look. The smile on the man’s face never faded. And even though Jacob had a hard time with his groceries, he could still use his hands to put his arm around Hiro’s shoulders.

“Hiro, let’s go. We have prepared a party to celebrate your victory.”