Hajin shifted Juna higher against his chest and read the donation line again, since the number under her name had not changed.
"Hey, ashley," he said, keeping his voice down for the sake of the girl asleep in his arms, "why hand over that much?"
The column jumped as the viewers caught up.
[ CringeSlayer91: ] wait she donated that much??
He kept walking, because the road toward the town had not gotten any shorter while he stood there reading, and the girl in his arms was not getting lighter either.
[ ShadowMage44: ] 100k is insane, that's like months of salary for most people
A gold badge sat beside her name, the first one he had ever seen on the panel.
[ ashley: ] because I find you entertaining
'Entertaining,' he thought, watching the badge turn slowly next to the letters, 'so a stranger paid a year of wages to watch me get hit by a pig.'
[ ashley: ] honestly, I've been watching for days and can't stop. I don't know if this is real, but I want to help manage the community even if I can't enter your world.
'She wants to help,' he thought while his arms went on complaining, 'though nobody has told me what a mod actually is.'
A new panel slid in front of his face before he could ask her.
[ New Function Detected: Moderator Request ]
[ A viewer has requested moderator status for your stream. ]
[ What is a Moderator? ]
[ A moderator is a trusted viewer granted partial control over your stream's community functions. ]
[ Moderators may manage chat, donations and community events. They cannot access the host's system, stream controls, funds, inventory or status. ]
[ Grant moderator status to: ashley? ]
[ Yes / No ]
He read the list twice while he walked, since it was the first screen that had ever bothered to explain itself.
'So a mod is a helper,' he thought, going back up the permission line, 'she can tidy the room, though she cannot reach anything I keep in my pockets.'
'No harm in that,' he thought, looking at the amount beside her name again, 'and refusing her after a donation like that would be cruel.'
"Alright," he muttered, reaching out to press the yes with a thumb he could barely lift, "you can have it."
The panel flashed gold, then a confirmation line dropped in underneath the request.
[ Moderator status granted to: ashley ]
[ ashley now has access to community management functions ]
[ A notification has been sent to the viewer ]
The comments piled up faster than he could follow.
[ CringeSlayer91: ] he did it
He tilted the panel further from Juna, on the theory that a sleeping person deserved a quiet road.
[ ShadowMage44: ] gg ashley, you're officially part of the team
Her reply arrived with a second tag beside the gold one.
[ ashley (Mod): ] thank you!! I promise I won't let you down. I'll start organizing things right away
"Do not thank me yet," he said toward the panel while he changed his grip, "you have signed up to manage a room that argues about whether I exist."
'Guess I have a mod now,' he thought, letting the panel drift toward the corner of his vision where it bothered him least.
A week ago the idea of a stranger from another world organizing anything of his would have counted as a symptom of fever, or of a head injury he had missed.
Her donation had landed as shop credit rather than as coin in his pouch, which was doing nothing whatsoever for his shoulders.
His arms had gone past aching into a dull steady complaint, while the place the boar had hit came back to him every time he changed his hold.
'I want a bath,' he thought, shifting Juna as the road bent north, 'then a steak with more garlic than any cook would think reasonable, and a bed with nobody else in it.'
"Steak," he said to nobody in particular, testing the word out loud while his stomach answered it, "and I am paying whatever they ask."
The system went red across his whole field of view.
He jumped, nearly dropping Juna as the color cut across the road in front of him.
[ Warning: Demonic Bloodline Detected ]
[ Proximity: Close ]
[ Direction: East ]
[ Threat Level: Unknown ]
'Demonic bloodline,' he thought, reading the four lines while his pulse caught up, 'because five quiet minutes was clearly too much to ask this world for.'
He dismissed the panel and kept walking, since Juna needed a healer more than the system needed a volunteer.
"Whatever you are," he said toward the eastern road without slowing down, "stay there until somebody better paid comes to find you."
A few steps later a pull settled in behind his ribs, patient about it, drawing him east whether he agreed with the idea or not, so his feet slowed without any decision from him at all.
'What is this,' he thought, standing still while the pull got worse instead of fading, 'am I supposed to walk toward the thing the screen just warned me about?'
A second panel arrived before he could ignore the first one properly, carrying the same red tint.
[ Tempered Monster Essence Detected ]
[ The boar you defeated was artificially enhanced with demonic blood. ]
[ Source signature matches nearby entity. ]
[ Direction: 2 miles east ]
He read it while the pull went on working at him, which did nothing good for his mood.
'So the boar did not evolve on its own,' he thought, looking down the eastern road, 'somebody built it, which is a worse answer than a bad mutation.'
"Two miles," he said, glancing from the road to the girl in his arms, "which is a problem I will still have tomorrow if I keep walking."
A gold panel slid over the red one before he could finish arguing with himself.
[ New Function Tip ]
[ Tap your Summoner Skill to manage active summons. ]
"My summoner skill," he said, hitching Juna higher while the pull kept its steady hand on his ribs, "which I have opened forty times this week."
'Since when does that menu have anything in it,' he thought, glaring at the tip until it failed to become more helpful.
He tapped it anyway, so the skill tab opened wider than it ever had before, with a second column in it that he had never once been shown.
[ Summoner Skill ]
[ Active Summons: 1 ]
[ Juna ]
Her name sat there under the count in plain letters, where it had presumably been sitting since the day he called her out of the light.
'That was there the whole time,' he thought, pressing the name harder than the panel needed, 'so the system hides useful things until the worst possible moment.'
A smaller menu dropped open beneath her name.
[ View Status ]
[ Unsummon ]
A line unfolded under the second option as soon as his eyes settled on it.
[ Unsummon: Place the active summon in a resting state until summoned again. ]
His mood turned over in the space of one line of text.
'A resting state,' he thought, reading it again in case the wording hid something, 'so I do not have to drag her into this, nor leave her under a bush.'
"Juna," he said, tipping his head down toward her face while the light off the panel moved across it, "you are going to sleep somewhere better than my arms."
"Do not take it personally," he said, getting his thumb over the option, "you would only wake up halfway through and start biting things."
Golden light spread under her body, so her outline went soft against his chest while thin strands of mana peeled off her and sank somewhere he could not follow.
She was gone a second later, leaving his arms holding nothing at all.
[ Juna has been unsummoned ]
[ She will remain in rest until summoned again. ]
He stood in the road with his hands still curled where she had been, then the panel came back all at once.
[ CringeSlayer91: ] wait where did she go
"She is resting," he said, turning onto the narrower track that ran east, "so tell the rest of them I did not do anything to her."
[ ashley (Mod): ] on it, pinning an explanation for the new people
'That was fast,' he thought, watching the reply go up under her gold tag, 'so the hundred thousand might have bought me something useful.'
"Two miles east," he said to the road ahead of him, shaking the stiffness out of both empty hands, "so this had better be worth the walk."