I Have a Reason to Hate Streamers - Chapter 162: IKL Finals (1)

[2022 Science Fiction Starlight Award Word-of-mouth Good Book]

[Third Prize of 2022 Science Fiction Essay]

When a photo of the North Pole taken by a satellite was sent back to various countries, people on earth were shocked by the content of the photo.

They saw thousands of wolves in the North Pole, including hundreds of polar bears and arctic silver foxes, all bowing their heads in unison.

On the top of the snow-capped mountain, a giant arctic wolf whose size exceeds everyone’s imagination is overlooking the arctic ice sheet.

- Description from novelbuddy

‎At just twenty, Christy Scott has lost everything. Betrayed by the people she trusted most, she’s left homeless, jobless, and barely surviving as a dancer in a strip club.‎‎Then Kendrick Black walks in, billionaire, emotionally ice-cold, and hiding a secret that could destroy his reputation. He offers her a deal: pose as his girlfriend for ninety days to kill rumors questioning his masculinity. For Christy, it’s survival. For him, it’s damage control. It’s supposed to be business. Nothing more.‎‎But living under Kendrick’s roof turns out to be more than she bargained for. His manipulative sister wants her gone. His childhood sweetheart plays a twisted game. And worst of all, her ex, the same man who crushed her heart, is now Kendrick’s driver, watching her every move.‎‎Just when Christy starts to find her footing, everything comes crashing down. A leaked video from her past blows up online. Her name, her dignity...shattered. In a desperate attempt to escape the media storm, she’s caught in a brutal accident.‎‎She wakes up in a stranger’s home...Kendrick’s best friend. And with him, the truth: she’s not just anyone. She’s the missing daughter of the powerful Lancaster family. And she’s carrying Kendrick Black’s child.‎‎Now the girl everyone once dismissed is coming back stronger. With fire in her eyes, a baby in her belly, and the truth at her back, Christy is no longer the victim. She’s the storm.‎‎But when the man who couldn’t protect her comes begging for her love, can she forgive him?‎‎Or will she become the bride who burns it all to the ground?

Leo had a problem. Don't be like Leo!It wasn't that he was poor. It wasn't that he was unlucky. It was that he had been cursed, or blessed by the Accidental Tycoon System.The rules were deceptively simple. Any money he lost on an investment would be returned to him, doubled. And any money he gained, aside from system reimbursement couldn't be used by him on himself.His life's new mission was crystal clear. He had to go bankrupt.In a high-tech world of S-Rank Heroes, magic, and newly-contacted alien civilizations, this should have been the easiest thing to achieve in the galaxy. He just had to become the biggest, most spectacular loser the universe had ever seen.So, he tried. Oh, how he tried...He threw billions at publishing a dungeon guide written by a 10-year-old. The maps were in crayon, and it listed the final boss as a Big Grumpy Badger.[Breaking: New S-Rank dungeon called 'The Whispering Labyrinth' appears! All high-tech mapping drones fail. A lost F-Rank porter used the crayon guide... and it's 100% accurate. The final boss is a 50-foot divine badger. The Galactic Union has declared the guide a 'holy text' for exploration!]He bought the galaxy's most useless moon, planning to build a 'Museum of Paint'.[Alert: Ancient magical ley-lines discovered under the moon's surface! It's the only place in the universe that can safely grow the 'Star-Lotus,' the key ingredient for immortality!]To the Intergalactic Hero's Guild, the Magic Academies, and the Alien Federations, Leo was the god of investment whose every move was like 5D chess that ordinary people couldn't understand.Heroes would soar with his sponsorship. Alien emperors offered him their daughters' hands in marriage for a single 'tip'.But Leo just stared at his bank account, which now displayed his wealth that he couldn't use on himself, with tears streaming down his face.“Please,” he cried, “I'm trying to fail! Why won't you just let me be poor?!”

Introvert!? Me!? The hell am I an introvert? I stay indoors all day because I am afraid of getting my butt kicked.Until I contract my beast, I won’t be walking freely. This is a promise I made to myself.My name is Ryder, and I am black-marked. The planet where I live is dominated by summoners. If you guessed it, then you are right—we contract beasts from the Astral Shadow Plain and summon them at will after successfully forming a contract.A mark appears on the left shoulder of every human after a period of maturity, a mark given by the beast that chooses you. There are five different types of marks—the brown, the orange, the red, the black, and lastly, the white.Of all the markings, I was marked black. I was chosen by a supreme demon monarch of the Astral Shadow Plain—the Dracogon.There was only a 0.5 percent chance for me to survive the contraction process. However, with a slight twist in the original outcome, contracting a creature from the black-marked plain was nothing compared to the catastrophe I caused shortly after—I opened a link between the beasts of the Astral Shadow Plain and the planet of humans, Terra.Everyone on my planet has been endangered because of me. The fact that no one knows when the link will trigger and cause a breach that pours mindless creatures into my world makes it all the more unsettling.Now, with no other choice, I have to find a way to resolve the mistake I made—alone, just like I caused it.