Even Ichin himself hadn't expected things to kick off this early. In the previous few rounds, it had taken nearly ten minutes before they got their first kill.
This sudden assault didn't hit just anyone—it landed squarely on Umiko's trio, who had dropped not far from Ichin's team.
The attack scared the three of them half to death.
"Waaah—ahhh! We've been caught! I don't even have ammo yet!"
They had only just landed a few minutes ago, and Aoba's shotgun barely had any shells to begin with. After getting startled by the Wraith that suddenly rushed out, she panicked and dumped an entire magazine—without hitting a single shot.
Umiko and Nene weren't much better off either. Not only did they lack proper weapons and ammo, but their armor wasn't great either—just blue shields.
They had barely sprinted out of the building when two bursts of bullets slammed into them head-on. Their shields shattered instantly, and Nene went down on the spot.
"Ah! I'm down, I'm down!"
There was nothing Umiko could do to save her—she was knocked down almost immediately afterward. Aoba, who was at the back, was then finished off by the Wraith as well. In an instant, all three of them turned into death boxes.
Checking the knockdown feed, Umiko finally realized who it was.
Nene saw it too and immediately complained in frustration, "We actually got caught by Ichin's team? Isn't our luck way too bad this round? We literally won last game!"
Umiko wasn't nearly as upset. She laughed and said, "Games like this are full of uncertainty anyway, right? Alright, let's relax a bit and watch how Ichin and the others play."
After wiping Umiko's trio, it was a pity that there wasn't much good loot on them. They just topped up a bit on ammo and then headed toward the next objective point.
This round, Ichin's team was pretty lucky. They picked up two supply drops in a row. Ichin directly swapped to a golden Kraber sniper rifle, and Eriri also upgraded to gold armor.
At this point, both Ichin and Ruri were wearing red armor, Eriri had gold armor, and all their weapons were fully kitted.
They thought this match was basically in the bag—but who would've guessed the final ring would shrink in such a ridiculous location, as far away from them as possible.
By the time they rushed over, they were immediately ambushed by the last remaining squad.
Eriri went down instantly. Ichin and Ruri held out for quite a while and managed to knock down two enemies, but in the end, they were still cut down by the bullets of a Devotion LMG.
What a shame!
They were just a tiny bit short.
Still, the final squad had clearly prepared well—losing to them wasn't unfair.
After stretching his neck a bit and interacting with the chat, Ichin asked the two in voice chat, "Another one?"
Ruri, clearly unwilling to accept the loss, answered immediately, "Yes, let's go again!"
Eriri followed right after, "Again, again! At least until midnight!"
Hearing that, Ichin said irritably, "Hey, we still have work tomorrow, alright? I'm planning to stream until eleven. If you really want to stay up late, then you can take over my shift and stream for me. I'm sure everyone in chat would love to see you guest stream."
"In your dreams!"
Eriri rejected it without a second thought. "This cute girl isn't going to help you stream so easily. If I wanted to stream, I'd just open my own channel, okay? It's not like I'm short on money!"
Ichin chuckled. Looking at the flood of messages in chat—'Let her stream!' 'Switch the streamer!'—he explained things to the viewers.
"Don't even think about it. She's a real heiress—her family runs huge businesses, and her father is a diplomat. I'm already lucky I managed to trick her into working at my company. As for guest streaming, forget it."
But as one might expect, the moment Ichin revealed this young lady's background, the stream chat was inevitably flooded with lines like "Rich lady, hungry, please feed me."
Every single one of them was a genius in their own way.
Ichin naturally ignored those comments. Once everyone had gathered in the room, he immediately started the next match.
---
The next morning, seven o'clock.
Still half-asleep, Ichin sensed some movement and slowly opened his eyes.
Then he saw that Yukino beside him had already sat up.
Last night, after finishing the games and ending the stream, Ichin had taken a shower and returned to the bedroom—only to find that the person there wasn't Utaha, but Yukino. As for Utaha, she had slipped off to sleep in the guest bedroom while he was in the shower.
That was honestly something Ichin hadn't expected at all—especially after hearing from Yukino that this had all been arranged by Utaha.
Ichin immediately understood Utaha's thinking. This was a "shift change" while she was on her period.
In the end, Ichin didn't say much about it. Since Utaha had already discussed it with Yukino, they would just go along with it.
Sitting up and yawning, he was just about to quietly get out of bed when Yukino was pulled into his arms.
"It's still early. Won't you sleep a bit longer?" he asked.
Leaning against Ichin's chest, Yukino caught his hand just as it was about to wander and said, "It's not early anymore. Get up, wash up, go for a run, then come back, take a shower, and prepare breakfast. Today isn't a day off—you still have to go to work."
"Alright, alright, I know you're disciplined," Ichin said with a sigh.
Letting go of Yukino, he patted his cheeks and sat up as well. "Let's go. We'll wash up and then go running together."
After leaving the bedroom, Ichin quietly opened the door to the guest room and saw Utaha sleeping soundly inside, without the slightest sign of waking up. She was always like this during that time of the month—extra sleepy.
Not wanting to disturb her, Ichin carefully closed the door and went to the living room to feed the cats.
After breakfast, the three of them headed to the company right on time for work.
Even though he was the boss, as long as there wasn't anything special going on, Ichin always arrived on schedule.
Seeing Aoba had arrived ahead of them, Ichin greeted her. "Morning, Aoba."
Aoba turned around when she heard him and smiled. "Morning, Ichin. Utaha, Yukino."
The three of them entered the elevator together. Ichin glanced at her complexion—it looked pretty good.
"After I ended my stream last night, did you keep playing with Umiko and Nene?" he asked.
"Not really," Aoba shook her head. "They wanted to drag me into ranked, but I was already sleepy. If I kept playing, I wouldn't have been able to get up this morning. They probably kept playing, though."
Umiko and Nene were both veteran gamers, and now they were deeply hooked on Apex. Ever since they moved in together, a lot of their free time revolved around Apex, and staying up late playing was perfectly normal for them.
When the four of them arrived upstairs, they saw Umiko and Nene, who had already gotten there ahead of them. Each of them was holding a cup of coffee, using it to wake themselves up.
----
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