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[Chat]:
[Watching_Chloe]: is this what they call impotent rage? lol
[Enjoying_It]: she's getting anxious~ she's so anxious~
[Challenge]: a "don't laugh" challenge. interesting.
[Honest]: you don't even look at what you've done. are you cursing yourself out?
[Defender_Appears]: you people can't stand to see others succeed. Chloe worked so hard and you insist on piling on.
[Response]: people like that never even get a sip of the soup
[Counter]: you're overthinking it. he doesn't even have the reach.
[BANNED]: [User "ChloeMyWife" detected for inappropriate comments. Account banned for 78 hours.]
[Investigation]: I just checked — that guy was in the fan club for two years and bought her exactly 7.8 worth of merchandise
[Charitable_Take]: that's still better than the bosses who threw popcorn
Chloe's tantrum in chat produced a uniform response from the viewing public: champagne emoji, fireworks, and approximately zero sympathy. Even the guild-adjacent accounts trying to shift momentum couldn't make a dent against an audience that had watched the full sequence in real time.
The situation was what it was. Chloe hadn't died. Marie Alter hadn't dissolved. No information-sharing existed between players in-game, which meant there were still theoretical paths forward. But any normal comeback was closed. From here, the only viable route was the kind of notoriety that didn't require goodwill — controversial, loud, polarizing, the sort of presence that generates views through outrage rather than affection.
Which was a route. It was just not the one Chloe had planned.
Inside the game, Marie Alter was not engaging with Chloe's ongoing emotional spiral. Neither was the guild.
Max switched feeds before the situation produced anything that would require moderation.
He switched to The Marble's channel.
Then he stared at the screen for a moment.
"...Tonight genuinely is something else."
[Chat]:
[What_IS_THIS]: what are we looking at
[Describe_It]: someone is lying face-down in a wheat field
[More_Context_Needed]:
The Marble was a well-known game guide creator on the platform — the kind of channel people went to for content that was technically informative but presented with enough personality to be genuinely entertaining. Her regular style was lighthearted, casual, occasionally chaotic in a way that read as deliberate.
Currently she was lying completely flat in a field, one arm reaching forward, head barely above the wheat line, scanning her immediate surroundings with the focused caution of someone who had learned very recently that the environment was not on her side.
"...There shouldn't be anyone here, right?"
The chat had context. Max did not, having just switched over. He started piecing it together from what was visible.
The Marble's spawn point had been a farm field. More specifically, a livestock pen — cattle, sheep, and the comprehensive agricultural ambiance that came with them. Not a summoning-optimal location by any reasonable standard.
So she'd done the logical thing: cleared the fence in one clean jump.
Landed directly in a bear trap on the other side.
The farmers had come running at the sound.
By the time the situation had resolved — farmers alerted, character confiscated, Marble detained — two additional factors had compounded the problem. First, she'd chosen to play as Kariya Matou: unconventional, self-damaging, carrying a passive debuff that reduced his own health continuously, but with utility that most players overlooked. The Matou worm-control magic worked as reconnaissance, as assassination support, and in emergencies could convert blood loss into mana. The hood provided natural camouflage. For someone who understood the kit, it was a genuinely usable pick.
It also looked exactly like what it looked like — a disheveled, hollow-eyed figure creeping around a rural property — and the farmers had drawn the obvious conclusion.
Second factor: they'd taken everything when they locked her up.
Including the summoning talismans.
The Marble had spent twenty-three minutes rubbing a rope against an iron nail in the cowshed, which was completely unnecessary given that she had a worm familiar capable of cutting rope in approximately three seconds, and which her fans had been watching in real time while she did it, unable to send a single message because the tournament had disabled chat visibility for participants.
When she finally escaped through the door, she stepped into a second bear trap.
The farmers came back.
Another detainment. This time with iron chains.
[Chat]:
[TWENTY_THREE_MINUTES]: she spent twenty-three minutes rubbing a rope when she had rope-cutting worms
[Watching_Recap]: I've been here for two hours. I have seen things.
[Kariya_Matou_Fans]: please. let him rest. he's already sickly. you've made him run a marathon.
[Farmers_Assessment]: the farmers are genuinely kind NPCs — they've caught her four times and haven't killed her once. just locked her up again.
[Bear_Trap_Count]: running total: two bear traps, two detainments, one confiscation, one marathon across half a farm
[Max_Face]: Max has the expression of someone watching a natural disaster that is not harming anyone and is extremely funny
[Billing]: the platform should add a viewer compensation feature. two hours of this and I want a refund.
Two hours later — give or take — The Marble had recovered her summoning talismans.
The method had involved a level of creative misdirection with the worm familiars that would have been impressive if it hadn't been the second available option from the very beginning of the detainment.
She'd emerged from the farmhouse into open air.
Then the farmers had spotted her.
The subsequent sequence — hunting rifles, open farmland, Kariya Matou's already-compromised constitution being pushed through another extended sprint — had produced the current situation: prone in a wheat field, conserving movement, listening for footsteps.
[Chat]:
[Current_Status]: lying in wheat. talismans recovered. farmers somewhere behind her. Marble has not summoned yet.
[Progress_Check]: two hours into a four-hour Holy Grail War, she has not entered the actual Holy Grail War yet
[Fair_Point]: elsewhere on this map people have been decapitated, absorbed, betrayed, and given juggling props by ancient kings
[The_Marble_Experience]: and The Marble has been playing Resident Evil 8 with farmers
[Brave]: this is genuinely brave. in the worst possible way.
[Farming_NPCs]: these NPC farmers have carried themselves with more dignity and consistency than most of the actual players tonight
[Agreed]: give the farmers a medal
[Bear_Trap_Total]: with the bear traps she's collected on both legs she could supply a full armory
[Max_Switching]: Max is about to switch screens. Marble still hasn't summoned. Max is smiling.
[What_HAPPENS_NEXT]: what HAPPENS when she finally summons
[Waiting]: we'll find out
Max let the feed run for one more moment — The Marble, flat in the wheat, cautiously raising her head to check the treeline — then moved to the next channel.
[Chat]:
[MARBLE_NO]: don't leave her
[She'LL_BE_FINE]: she's survived two hours of this. she'll be fine.
[Probably]: probably
[End of Chapter 176]
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