Kye had met with Zen and the others before the final battle with the knights to discuss the interview offer with them.

She smiled. "I’m very glad you’re still alive. From what I gather, the system won’t start reviving people that died during the fourth wave till after it’s done calculating rewards."

"What about people killed by Fix?" Thalia and Faust asked at the same time.

Kye shrugged. "The system can bypass its own laws, but it’ll take some sacrifice. As long as the sponsors support it, reviving them shouldn’t be hard."

"You came to talk about the interviews, right?" Thalia said immediately. She fixed Kye with a rigid look that made even the alien straighten up. "I’m going to ask what everyone’s been too nice to ask: why should we come on your show in particular? Are there better offers? What is the nature of your audience? Assholes, nitpickers, or rational people?"

Kye struggled to follow her question at first, then that yellow light flashed again. To Kye’s left. The alien moved casually to that position, drifting through the air. Her Lapis Lapel gleamed on her white dress.

The fire beneath her pink skin intensified for a moment, then she smiled.

"Let me explain. Your first worry is affiliations and standing. The Hierophyt Company is on neutral standing with the most powerful systems. We employ the highest diversity of races in the entire galaxy."

"Sorry, but we have no way to fact-check that," Thalia cut in.

Kye looked into the air like she was interacting with an interface, and suddenly, screens popped up in front of them.

Faust scrolled through the packet of information on the Hierophyt Company with deep interest. At the top of the file, it was noted that this information was verified by the system and a third party, Knowhere.

That’s the third time I’ve heard this name.

Upon seeing the name of her Sponsor, Thalia immediately relaxed. She read and reread the packet before anyone was even done with their first read.

"Um... they destroyed a planet recently?" Greg asked worriedly.

Before Kye could answer, Thalia spoke. "It’s a requirement to broadcast to this system. They have to take a planet with an Origin Server adjacent to us. The population were non-sentient by the way"

Spider frowned. "You don’t even know what that means."

"Basically, our servers exist in a meta-digital space, but they still have distances between them. So they needed to be closer to us to broadcast what was happening on this server."

Spider shrank back. "Okay, maybe I just don’t know what that means."

"’High diversity, focused on showing all viewpoints, not just system-built ones’ Ries," Faust repeated some points of the information. "Not to mention you rank highest in average viewership in the last few decades."

"To use Earth slang, we find hidden gems," Kye said, "and our viewers appreciate that. You can see our compensation for interviews on page 14. But I wanted to point out that the system will allocate you to be interviewed by someone eventually."

"So we don’t really get to choose," Zen grumbled.

"Unfortunately, yes. The system will choose randomly based on payments and make sure every channel gets a player despite their political leanings or viewership."

Thalia shook her head. "Not very business-smart."

"It’s still young. It will become better as time goes on," Kye reassured. "Once you interview with us, based on your performance, we can lobby the system to get you again when it does its random distribution."

"So we have to behave to come back?" Faust asked.

"More like we’ll choose the most interesting and those with potential. You can say anything, except about the sponsors of this season and the current... Temic Regime, in your language. It is the government of the system our company is licensed in."

"Sounds kind of totalitarian, but okay," Thalia said.

Kye strangely glanced up and opened her mouth but held back her words.

"Come for one interview with us, then try your luck with other companies," Kye said confidently. "I’m sure you’ll feel the difference."

With that, she bade them farewell. About a hundred people had chosen—not exclusively within the top one hundred players, but ones Kye’s employers wanted.

They would be taken out for the interviews if they accepted after rewards were distributed. The interview would take around an hour and would introduce them to the intergalactic stage.

So if they wanted to look at the memories, they had to do it now.

Faust brought out the fragments and pressed them together. White light flushed from them along with a chill along his fingers. He pressed ten together and formed the Memory, a ten-pointed, clear crystal star.

He made four of these and put them down in front of him with the fifth already formed memory gotten from the Knight Captain.

He looked between the six of them. "In case the time difference is too grave, I think we should each enter a memory."

"Who’s staying back to protect our bodies?" Zen said worriedly.

"I’ll stay," Spider volunteered immediately. "Not very interested in this stuff."

With that out of the way, they passed the Memories around and took deep breaths.

"Remember brute strength isn’t the only way to solve problems there," Thalia said.

Faust briefly opened the stream to check what was on and didn’t see anybody going into memories. So whatever they learned there was for them alone. Good.

His 100% Drop Rate had created an advantage that he had to fully exploit.

He closed his eyes and said, "Ready?"

"Yes," they all answered.

Then he poured his mana into the crystal and felt it shatter into dust immediately and rush into him. His eyes snapped open as cold shock paralyzed his limbs and robbed him of breath.

His eyes glowed white and the world was consumed by the pale radiance.

***

A/N: Sorry for the late Chapters. Was really busy.

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