Alan Pioneer News

  The rhythmic sound of metal striking stone echoes through the studio as Alan periodically nods his head. Meanwhile the source of the sound, a video of Aqua mining underwater, plays at the front of the room with some music overlaying the sound of her mining. All mixing with the comforting sounds of the water around her.

  “Now that’s some good content!” Alan exclaims with a wide smile after a moment of silence listening to a video posted by Aqua’s officially announced new Pioneer Agency – Star Pioneer Agency – on a video viewing website. “Star Pioneer Agency certainly knows what they’re doing!”

  “They’re the best Pioneer talent agency in the industry for a reason, Alan,” Rodrick says with a smile of his own. “Of course they know what they’re doing.”

  “And they chose our lovely little Aqua,” Alan continues with a satisfied smile. “She’s become such an important person to quite a lot of people. I can’t imagine how big she’ll get when she starts doing jobs.”

  “I heard she’s planning on doing a collab with Jack Verol as her debut song,” Rodrick says as his smile grows even wider. “I can’t wait to hear it. Her voice really is soothing for the soul.”

  Alan laughs as the screen changes to show Aqua’s prior conversation with her chat as Alan asks, “Did you hear what she said to her chat earlier?”

  “Of course!” Rodrick exclaims while leaning forwards a bit. “How couldn’t I?!”

  “Well, I thought you might be living under a rock again,” Alan says with a shrug, making Rodrick narrow his eyes. “It was comedy gold!”

  Both Rodrick and Alan turn their attention to the screen as it shows Aqua lazily asking her chat what she should do in her current predicament. Only to proceed to ignore them entirely and decide to start mining.

  Then she asks her chat if anyone wants to sponsor her a pickaxe.

  And while everyone is laughing in the chat about that, she actually grabs the pickaxe and begins mining in the tunnel connected to the cavern.

  Both Alan and Rodrick can’t help but burst out into laughter as they watch her antics.

  “The video her agency posted is blowing up all across the internet, along with the hashtag, MINERAQUA,” Alan says in-between laughs. Which only makes Rodrick laugh even harder.

  Especially when they think about how Aqua probably doesn’t even know about any of this.

  Not when she doesn’t have any way to access the internet right now, other than her livestream chat.

  After a brief intermission to allow Rodrick to calm down, Allen continues by saying, “Now for the news regarding Pioneer and Bloodliner Aqua Fallen.”

  “And this is some big news,” Rodrick says, now calm again. “Very big.”

  “You’re right about that cave dweller,” Alan says with a nod before continuing while ignoring Rodrick’s glare, “Star Pioneer Agency and Alliance Drama Central’s Oliver Ashfyre have both announced the star for the new drama that will begin airing in just two months! And you guessed it, it’s Aqua Fallen!”

  “Her very first acting job and she’s already got a starring role!” Rodrick exclaims, his eyes clearly telling Alan that he’ll get him back for that comment about a cave dweller later. “Star Pioneer Agency has also confirmed that she will be taking on a number of other jobs as well, including advertisements, commercials, and even modeling work! On top of the drama starring role and collab with Verol, this is going to make her very busy! I hope she can handle all this.”

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  “Well, does she look stressed in any way?” Alan asks while glancing at the current live broadcast of Aqua as she lazily swims through a new tunnel, occasionally stabbing her trident into a passing fish and killing the thing on the spot every time. “Because that doesn’t look like someone who’s overworked.”

  “Huh,” Rodrick mutters while blankly staring at the screen. “Guess you’re right Alan.”

  “Besides,” Alan continues with a proud look on his face for some reason. As if he was Aqua’s father or something. “Little Aqua took on far worse than a few entertainment industry jobs just over the past few days! There’s no way something as small as a lot of work could slow her down!”

  “True,” Rodrick agrees with a nod of his head. “Hashtag MINERAQUA.”

  Alan nods his head back and replies, “Hashtag MINERAQUA.”

  Aqua

  “Excuse me, they did what with the what?” I can’t help but blurt out while stabbing my trident into the face of a relatively large shark in the middle of this tunnel. Without taking my wide-eyed gaze off of the chat.

  [The video of miner aqua is all over Alcast. It’s trending right now.]

  [So is #MINERAQUA!]

  [Yep! It’s hilarious!]

  [People added music to the sound of you mining with the background water noise making the video perfect!]

  I find myself gaping at the chat as I kick the shark off of my trident, sending the creature crashing into a nearby tunnel wall.

  “Who in the abyss posted it?!” I ask, feeling bewildered by this.

  Maybe I can ask the agency to take it down if someone is trying to monetize the video…

  [Your agency did.]

  [Your agency.]

  [Star Pioneer Agency.]

  I stare blankly at the chat before continuing through the tunnel in silence.

  [She’s sulking now, right?]

  [I think so.]

  [It’s hard to tell, but cute at the same time.]

  [Guess her agency didn’t tell her about this.]

  Damnit, I shouldn’t have told him he could do whatever when it comes to promotion so long as it was appropriate.

  I let out a sigh.

  Whatever. It helps with promotion and makes me more well-known, so I guess it’s fine.

  And besides. How long could that hashtag survive anyways?

  It’ll probably be gone by the end of the month.

  I hope.

  Anyway, I continue swimming through the same tunnel I’ve been swimming through for the past two hours. But eventually I realize that it’s getting late. So I begin to head back.

  Because it’ll take another two hours to get back to my artificially made tunnel.

  And I’m starting to feel tired as I yawn while swimming.

  After about an hour though, I begin to look through my mail. Just to have something to do on my way back.

  Other than being harassed by the chat that keeps talking about how cute my yawn is or how great that video is. Or worse. Saying that abyss-cursed hashtag.

  As for other mail that I have… well, I quickly close out of the junk mail. Because that section is full of thousands of mail with different subject lines pretty much saying the same thing.

  That damned hashtag.

  Fortunately the business inquiries side of things is normal. But I don’t accept any of them.

  Because I already have way too many jobs lined up to accept as is. So I can’t really take on more right now, no matter how filled this inbox ends up.

  I continue swimming all the way to my artificial tunnel before entering the cavern and climbing up to my lovely little home. Then I lie back onto the backpack with a sigh as the broadcast finally turns off.

  Nice. Privacy again.

  Out of curiosity, I take a whiff to see if I smell bad, seeing as I haven’t bathed in days. But it’s kind of hard to tell with the armor on, so I take the armor off before doing it again.

  And something does smell bad. But I don’t think it’s me.

  I’m pretty sure it’s the blood stains on my clothes under the armor that smells.

  Come to think of it, my poor hoodies still has blood and even some infected blood on it from the wound…

  After a brief pause to make absolutely certain that the broadcast is off, I go ahead and change out of these clothes, take a brief dip in the water below to clean off, then change back into that waterproof outfit given to me in a sponsorship.

  Clean clothes at last.

  The clothes from the sponsorship are actually rather comfortable. With them being in the form of a single hoodie, a shirt under it, and a pair of shorts. With undergarments underneath.

  And to wrap it all up, I go ahead and put my armor back on over my new clothes. After washing it just in case there was any blood inside of it too.

  I don’t think there was, but who knows.

  Once it’s back on, I head to my little makeshift home again and dump the bloody clothes in my storage ring since I don’t have a trash can or anything like it. Then I finally lie down against my backpack and close my eyes.

  Going to sleep clean and uninjured for the first time in a while.

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