Chương 189: B2 Chapter 188: First 24 Hours

The food tasted off, even though there was nothing wrong with it. The chuck-and-brisket patty had a proper crust, the bun had been toasted properly, and the green pepper sauce was cracked. Rina would have made him order some deep-sea moss with fish eggs and rice instead, inflicting a massive debuff purely so she could cure it afterward. Even the Honeyjuice had been optimized incorrectly.

It reminded Meno of killing a boss, then checking the forums afterward and finding twelve guides explaining that the fight was trivial if you stood three steps left and equipped the correct resistance ring. Sure, the optimized version worked better. It had also completely missed the point. The new Honeyjuice was objectively better. The ginger hit harder, the lime was balanced properly, and nothing in the glass tasted like it had been selected because it happened to be yellow. That was also the problem.

Solved games were the same. Once every route was mapped, every build ranked, and every mechanic optimized, Meno had nothing left to solve. He could ignore all that and pretend the answers did not exist, but deliberately solving an already solved problem was a self-troll. That would be like dressing as a clown before going to the circus, then spending the whole performance trying to figure out whether the audience was laughing at him or the performance. Meno stopped chewing.

His brain had somehow gone from Honeyjuice to optimization theory to clowns. Veyrath being gone made sense, at least by the standards of an AI ragequitting its own MMO. Rina disappearing did not. If Rina wanted to dump him, she would tell him. Quietly checking out of The Pearl to dodge the conversation did not fit her at all. Something happening to her made more sense than getting ghosted, and Meno really did not want that theory taking rank one.

He called Thorn, who answered almost immediately and sounded way too cheerful.

"Hey! Don't say a thing," Thorn said.

"I am about to board the plane to Vernova. Once I am there we can talk. We can talk real good, my friend. Can't wait!" Then he hung up before Meno could answer. That did not sound promising. Thorn had already had a rough day. If he actually came to The Pearl looking for a fight with negative Movement Speed and Massive Weapon Attack Speed, Meno was going to dodge everything, and getting perfected in real life might finish whatever emotional HP Thorn had left.

The guy seriously needed more Action Speed before taking this matchup.

"Anything useful?" Celeste asked.

"Yeah," Meno said.

"Thorn is coming here to beat me up." Kestrel burst out laughing and kept going long after the joke stopped being that funny. Somewhere in the middle, the laugh stopped sounding happy and turned into his brain dumping excess pressure wherever it could.

"Good. Good," Kestrel said.

"We need content for tomorrow. We can't just stop streaming after this. Brine thinks the viewers will stay no matter what, but I'm not betting on that."

"Honeygrave and me are doing an IRL stream tomorrow," Merry said.

"If people follow you outside the game, at least you know they're there for you and not just the content." Celeste sighed.

"Brine hates IRL streaming."

"Brine, do a chopping stream," Meno suggested.

"You have rustic vibes with chopping-stream energy. We'll get some firewood in the suburbs and you and Kestrel can race."

"Amazing," Kestrel said.

"That's exactly why I became a streamer. Manual labor in the woods!"

"Chopping-stream energy?" BrineSaint asked.

"I have no idea what that means." Brine was in denial, and Meno had more important problems, so he pulled out his phone and called Vivi. She could not possibly be asleep already. More importantly, she should have called him first. Veyrath had just deleted its entire playerbase, which felt like the kind of event his manager was supposed to notice before bedtime. Vivi answered sounding like Meno had resurrected her against her will.

"I am sleepy. Let me sleep, boss."

"Have you seen what happened with Veyrath? Do you know anything about Rina? She just disappeared."

"Zero on Rina, but up to date on the rest. I will deal with it tomorrow. Already posted everywhere that you take full responsibility." Meno pulled the phone away from his ear and checked the screen like that might somehow change what he had heard.

"You did what?!"

"Do not worry, this is the classic blame-drain play. Everyone already thinks you did it. If you refuse to deny it, the people who think you're innocent will get angry enough to start doing PR for us."

"That makes no sense."

"It does. I am going to sleep. I will talk to Brad tomorrow and we will handle everything." Vivi hung up, leaving Meno pissed about being volunteered. He had already dropped Solar's name for the playerbase to latch onto, while Vivi had gone the complete opposite direction and claimed responsibility for him. Maybe the two plays would stack. His fans could get angry enough about the blame to grab onto Solar instead and start spreading the name themselves.

Around him, everyone else had already started building tomorrow. Honeygrave and Merry were throwing around IRL stream ideas, Kestrel was trying to work out what Crownfall even was without Veyrath, and Celeste had moved straight into practical planning with Brine. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Meno still had nothing. He got up and gave the table a quick wave, but Celeste stopped him before he made it away.

"What are you planning for tomorrow?"

"I don't know," Meno said.

"I need to figure out what happened to Rina."

"We got your back," Honeygrave said.

"You're a bit off, man."

"Honey!" Merry said.

"Tomorrow's stream is critical."

"Didn't say nothing about not streaming," Honeygrave said.

"But this seems important as well."

"Thanks, but there is no need. I will figure something out." Meno escaped before the whole table could turn helping him into a group project. Back in the suite, he shut the door and started checking properly. If Rina had left in a rush, something should have remained behind. A charger, clothes, makeup. Anything. She had left nothing behind. The suite looked like Rina had intentionally uninstalled herself from it. Meno called again, got no answer, and kept trying until he had added six more calls to the pile.

Every one connected. She ignored every one. That made no sense either. If Rina wanted him gone, blocking his number took about three seconds. She knew how phones worked, and silently letting him spam her without doing anything about it did not fit her. Meno lay on the bed staring at the ceiling while his brain kept trying to whisper lies about how the process of winning had been way more fun than actually having won. He purged that immediately. It was crap.

Winning was the most important part, even if it cost everything.

Monday morning did not improve anything. Meno climbed out of bed, showered, then called Rina three more times without getting an answer. He went down to the restaurant and ordered a breakfast salad on the theory that performing one of Rina's rituals might summon her. It failed and only left him hungry. By the time he returned to the suite, Meno was pacing between the couch and the windows with his phone in one hand.

Vivi had already called to tell him his T-shirts were completely sold out and she was setting up another batch. Normally, number going up was good, but Meno could not make himself care. He turned on the television and lasted about two seconds before a news anchor started talking about Veyrath shutting down. It had made mainstream news now. Meno turned it off and called Rina again with the same result. Around noon, his phone pinged with a banking notification. His first real Streamline payout had arrived. 3.

5 million credits. That was an insane amount of money. Slightly low for where his audience had ended up, but his viewership had only exploded recently, so the next payout would hit much harder. Advertising revenue was still trash, and Streamline had banned donations after some famous streamer faked being sick to farm sympathy money. His account balance went up, and Meno kept pacing. Rina had mentioned buying a house somewhere, but she had never told him where. There had to be a way to find it.

No legitimate service was going to hand over Rina's home address just because her boyfriend showed up asking, but a private investigator would know how to find that kind of thing. The thought had barely formed when something hit his suite door hard enough to shake it. Another impact followed, then an angry thump-thump-thump as whoever stood outside gave up on knocking and switched to demolition. Meno crossed to the door, waited through one more hit, then opened it. Thorn filled most of the frame.

The bodybuilder laughed.

"Good. Good." Then Thorn threw a punch. Meno stepped out of range. The fist missed, but Thorn was already moving into the next attack. He lowered his shoulder and rushed forward, forcing Meno to sidestep rather than retreat. Bad commitment. Thorn had enough mass that acceleration came with a recovery phase. By the time he stopped himself several steps inside the living room, Meno had already turned to face him. Thorn reached the couch first. The opening throw struck Meno square in the chest.

Meno caught it before it fell, returned fire, and watched Thorn take the hit without even trying to evade. Thorn grabbed a second pillow and advanced behind pure confidence in his HP pool. Meno gave ground around the coffee table until Thorn overextended, then stepped through the opening and drove a horizontal strike into his ribs. Thorn retaliated immediately. His pillow came down across Meno's shoulder with enough force to fold around him. Meno understood the matchup now.

Thorn had superior base damage, reach, and mass. Meno had Action Speed and Multi-Strike. They engaged properly. Thorn controlled the center of the room and forced Meno toward the sofa. Meno refused the direct trade, circling the outside and using every loose pillow as ammunition. He threw one into Thorn's face, grabbed another, and struck before Thorn could clear his vision. Thorn ate both hits and kept advancing. The next rush caught Meno near the couch.

Thorn drove him backward into the cushions and hammered a pillow into his chest before Meno rolled off the far side. Meno recovered from the floor with another pillow already in hand. He came up on Thorn's flank and landed hard across the shoulder, shifting enough weight to dump Thorn onto the couch. Thorn did not waste the knockback. He compressed into the cushions, let them throw his weight forward, and converted the bounce into another attack. The pillow caught Meno high across the chest and forced him back.

Both players disengaged. For several seconds they stood on opposite sides of the living room, weapons ready. Meno recalculated. Dodging was winning the exchanges, but Thorn showed no sign of understanding why that should make him stop. There was an easier solution. Stamina trade. Meno planted his feet and let Thorn come to him. For the next five minutes, neither of them gave ground voluntarily.

Thorn built every swing for maximum pump while Meno optimized for Parry and Counterattack, shortening his motion and accepting hits whenever trading one Thorn attack for two of his own kept the numbers favorable. Thorn hit harder. Meno hit more. The difference accumulated. Thorn's swings gradually lost speed, then power, then the ability to look remotely threatening. Meno maintained tempo until Thorn finally abandoned the damage race, tossed his pillow onto the floor, and collapsed backward onto the couch.

"Okay, I am done."

"You need to do more cardio. You know what they say, leg day is always tomorrow, but you needed them yesterday."

"Who says that? Shut up. My stamina is capped. The larger the muscle, the more the drain. You can't have it both ways. You either stack damage or speed." Meno dropped into the chair opposite him.

"Damage through speed, obviously." He let Thorn recover for another moment before pulling out his phone.

"Can you check Rina's page for me? She just poof disappeared." That got Thorn's attention. His subscription was now at risk of becoming worthless. He opened the app and checked.

"Last post yesterday afternoon. That's all." Thorn turned the screen toward him. Meno recognized the picture immediately because he had picked it for her. It was not from the latest batch. Rina had told him she posted every morning. Monday had nothing. The breakup theories died immediately. Meno needed to know whether Rina had walked out of The Pearl alone. Hotel staff were useless for that.

They had barely confirmed she checked out, so security footage and travel information were not happening without somebody forcing the issue. Grandpa could force it. He could get into the hotel system, track Rina's phone, or pull whatever other creepy tech wizardry was required. Meno seriously doubted that kind of help came free, though. Asking for it meant accepting whatever quest Grandpa handed him later, and Morlando was already fried. Hiring a private investigator avoided that problem, but a PI needed time.

Meno had watched enough TV to know the first twenty-four hours after a disappearance were supposed to matter most, while reporting someone missing supposedly required waiting forty-eight. That system made about as much sense as mandatory healers on raid bosses: reduce everyone's damage, then force the party to waste a slot keeping the reduced damage alive longer. Cooked. Meno looked at the empty Monday slot on Thorn's screen again. A private investigator was cleaner, but Grandpa was faster. That settled it.