A Little Favor to Ask For

Samuel, upon hearing me call out his Jolt username, froze. Confused, Ken leaned over and asked.

"DogPot? What's that?"

Immediately, Ken's voice seemed to break Samuel out of his trance and he immediately excused both himself and me before dragging me over to the space underneath the stairs right outside the level 1 bathroom.

"Could you please do me a favor and not mention my Jolt username in front of my family! I don't really want to tell them!"

Putting his hands together in a pleading gesture, Samuel bowed his head and whispered.

"Sure. Sorry for suddenly mentioning it out of nowhere."

I gestured for him to stand up straight again. Straightening his back, Samuel sighed in a very tired voice.

"I don't' really want my family to know what I am really doing. To them, I am working overseas as a cook in my friend's house. Being a streamer is alright and all for some planets, but I wouldn't want to worry my family about such a volatile job. I'm sure you understand, right? You are a fellow streamer after all."

....Nope. Thinking back, Sazzy has never mentioned our financial status to me. And with the easily gathered food outside our house, I was never too concerned with the finance side of streaming or buying food to eat.

However, not wanting to disappoint Samuel, I still nodded my head in agreement. Seeing this, his shoulders relaxed a little more.

"Besides, the public impression of the Piscus people as well as our food isn't exactly the most positive, and since part of my content includes eating, having my real life identity found out would be quite concerning for my career."

Samuel sighed once more in sadness. However, halfway through his sighing, he suddenly jerked his head up as if he just remembered something.

"Actually, one of my streamer friends wanted to ask a favor from you, and I was worried about how to contact you without you finding out my identity. But since the last point is moot now, I was wondering if you had ever planned to go to the planet Ferus."

He pulled out his personal terminal to show me pictures of a planet that was covered in dark green patches, with trees so tall they blocked the sun. If the forest in Mors could be called lush, then the forests in Ferus were thick. Incredibly thick.

"Ferus, also nicknamed the savage planet, is another planet that does not recommend tourists to exit the barrier around the AT centers. Compared to the majority of the other planets, the top of the food chain is not occupied by ASCI certified species. It is because of this that it is too dangerous to exit the barrier, and you cannot go outside the AT center without a native contact. The streamer, Jolt name Lupus, real name Josh, actually was there for your first stream in Mors. Since it was on the recommended page of Jolt. He saw your ability to hybridize international food with native ingredients and wanted your help in creating several dishes that can help lessen the pressure the native's feel from scavenging for food."

Spitting out a bunch of words, Samuel then smacked his palm to his head.

"And why am I saying all of this to you right after a stressful big stream! Anyway, I'll give you the contact for Josh and he can explain the details to you through text. Can you pull up your personal terminal so I can send you his Terminal ID?"

Pulling up my terminal, Samuel first added me as a friend, then showed me how to add Josh as a friend through his friend invite. Then, saying that we should talk later, he ran away into the kitchen.

Once he disappeared into the kitchen, I moved a little deeper into the shadow of the stairs and started to talk with Sazzy. Looking at her, I crossed my arms as she avoided my gaze.

"What was the recommended page that Samuel was talking about?"

[...It's a page where if you pay enough money you can boost your stream to a small slot on the front page. It makes it easier to draw in audiences. I didn't tell you at that time because it was your first stream. And after that, well, I just forgot.]

Why did it feel as if if I never found out about it, she would never tell me.

"And also I never bothered to pay attention before, but now that Samuel mentioned it, how are our finances for streaming?"

At this, Sazzy's visible form brightened up a lot.

[For finance, don't worry! I've taken a small percentage and placed into some safe stocks for investing. Then I took a little to pay for the services we use for Jolt. Other than that, we have a lot of UC stored in the bank account I made for you. See?]

Pulling up her personal terminal, Sazzy pulled up to the intergalactical bank page and logged into our bank account. Inside, there was an incomprehensible number with at least 4 zeros.

"Didn't Samuel mention that streaming was so volatile? How have we made so much?"

[Streaming is volatile and does not make much, that he is correct about. However, that depends on person to person. For us, since we do not have to worry about sending money to family members, and since we mostly get our food from the surroundings, our earnings are more than our expenditure! Furthermore, the house we live in is owned by us, so there is no need to pay rent. You rarely go out and buy anything that is not an ingredient so there is not much spent in that category as well. In fact, if you streamed more often and didn't use so many ingredients for food practice, then the money here would be much larger!]

Happily exclaiming, Sazzy closed her personal terminal with a wave of her arm.

[In fact, for a one or two person household, this amount of money is quite a lot. However, for a four or five person household, this amount of earning is above average but nowhere as impressive as it would be.]

Following Sazzy back to the kitchen, we entered just to see Ken stacking the washed dishes away.

Ah.

Meeting Ken's aggrieved face, I apologized to him. I headed over to at least wash the dishes used for audience tasting. Instead, I met the 'innocent' eyes of Samuel finishing off the last bowl of food. Then, with a smile, he cheekily placed the dirty bowls into the sink before running out of the house.

Laughing a little at the brothers' interactions, I walked over to the sink and washed the last few dishes.

Seeing Ken walk over, I had expected him to ask about what we were talking about, but perhaps Samuel had already answered for me since Ken just moved on to chatting about the livestream.

Carrying the jars on the floor into their families basement, Ken said he wanted to try them when they were more fermented. He then suddenly exclaimed.

"We forgot to show them the flavor of the fish soup before we placed the sea dragon in!"

Ken scrunched his face as the mistake.

"Well it's already over! Time to stop thinking about it!"

Placing the jars down in the basements, Ken wiped his hands clean on his pants before patting me on the back.

"It's finally over."

Sighing as if he had just finished a large project, Ken shot me a bright smile.

"Mother told me to come help out the inn after the big stream. Since the traffic should be the highest then. And besides, although being on stream was incredibly fun, I'm too tired to be in a stream for at least a month."

Ken leaned back and stretched his back. We then walked back to carry and keep the empty jars as well as the rest of the ingredients that we didn't use.

"As thanks for the business, Mother already agreed to allow you to take home some ingredients. We'll send them to your house through international mail, so you don't have to worry about carrying them through the crowded space bullet."

Winking at me, we finished cleaning up before the both of us called it a night.

Spitting in front of the stairway, we both waved goodbye at each other. However, I didn't immediately head up the stairs. I had one hand on the ladder when an idea I wanted to discuss with Ken popped into my mind. Turning around, I wanted to call out to him but my voice seemed to be stuck at my throat.

Perhaps because he was too tired, Ken didn't bother to immediately close the door as he usually would. Through the wide open door, I could see the deep pink walls, the many soft toys that would stereotypically represent a little girl's room, as well as a large poster of a happy smiling face. Below the large poster were several photo frames, probably of the same girl. Barbie.

Feeling as if I had seen something Ken's would not have wanted me to see, I immediately turned around and rushed up the ladder.

The first thing I did was to pick up the jar of poisonous preservative that had been sitting in plain sight near the window. Pausing for a while, I then put the jar down and took a picture of it with my personal terminal. I then sent the picture to Margret with the caption 'Can I ask you for a favor? Do you happen to know what this is?'

In an instant I saw that Margret was typing.

"No? What's that?"

Hesitating for a while, I finally walked away from the jar and picked up clothes, preparing to head to wash up, as I answered.

"It's the substance that was used in The Loser's War that was sent to other planets of the Alliance."

The one that the Venenum are shunned for being suspected of using to poison millions of people.

A little silence, then Margret typed back a 'Give me a while. I'll ask around.'

Then she went offline.