The security guards were drenched in sweat by the time they wrestled the scooter down the final flight of stairs and out the front entrance, every one of them heaving and trembling like they'd just survived a CrossFit marathon. The stairwell clearly wasn't designed for hauling machinery, and the collective relief on their faces when Sam gestured toward an open spot near the curb was almost comical."Just set it down over here," he said lightly.A couple of them looked ready to weep with gratitude. Scooters weren't allowed in the elevator, and if he'd asked them to carry the thing up to the sixth floor, they'd have needed a solid week of bed rest to recover. They eased the machine down with the gentleness usually reserved for newborns, murmured breathless thanks in overlapping voices, then practically fled the scene as if their shift depended on the speed of their retreat.Sam watched them go with mild amusement, then walked inside with Alex. They rode the elevator up

The viewers weren't the only ones caught off guard.Every journalist and content writer who'd been hammering out articles about Sam Sparks froze mid-sentence when the notification hit their screens.The influencer you follow is now live. Time since last stream: 1 hour, 23 minutes."Are you kidding me? It's only been an hour." "He's back already?" "Does this guy not sleep?"Reactions poured in across comment sections and group chats. Sam Sparks was built different, that much was undeniable, no normal person treated livestreaming like a relay race where they never passed the baton. Still, confusion gave way to excitement almost instantly, and viewers flooded into Sam's Channel without a second thought. History had taught them one thing: every time Sam went live, something insane happened.The chat erupted the moment his face appeared on screen.Sam, what's the challenge this time? The suspense is killing me. Give us something to look forward to.Sam

The director's jaw went slack."What is happening in there?"His assistant stood frozen beside him, eyes fixed on the monitor feed. In all his years on the show, he had never seen a caretaker behave like this. The whole point was to comfort the patient, to soothe them with gentle words and a calm demeanor, not to burst through the door swinging."How should I know?" the director sputtered, half-rising from his chair.He'd been in this industry over a decade. He'd seen contestants panic, cry, freeze up, even bolt from the room. But never had he witnessed someone walk into their assignment and immediately start beating the person they were supposed to be caring for.The Madhouse Dare livestream chat erupted.He wasn't even scared? What's going on?This new victim is built different...Trevor's performance was flawless and this guy just went in swinging?Wait... which one is supposed to be the mental patient here?The audience had colle

The analyst's comment hit like a bucket of cold water, and the entire chat snapped awake.Of course. That was what he'd been doing all along.On screen, the camera panned to Alex Cheek, who stood off to the side with his arms loosely crossed, watching Sam's performance with undiluted exasperation. He didn't say a word. His face said everything.Because those weren't rat poison pellets, they were chocolate candies, dark little spheres wrapped in black foil that Sam had picked up earlier without explanation. At the time, Alex had figured they were a stress-relief snack. Babysitting a psychiatric patient for hours was no joke, and people coped in different ways. But never had he imagined Sam would rebrand cheap chocolate drops as rat poison and then casually pop one into his own mouth first."No wonder the chat calls him a born streamer," Alex muttered, shaking his head. "I couldn't dream up a trick like that in a hundred lifetimes."He sighed. Say what you wil

So the Prerequisite Quest was done.All Sam had to do now was follow the script the Damn System laid out, and the real challenge would begin. He was already looking forward to it, curiosity gnawing at the back of his mind. What kind of reward would this Faceplant Quest drop?But first, there was the small matter of the production crew standing in front of him, clearly expecting him to tuck his tail and leave."So you're kicking us out," Sam said, his tone flat and unimpressed. He folded his arms across his chest and tilted his head, studying the staffer in front of him with the kind of patience a man reserves for a particularly slow vending machine. "Fine by me. Hand over the money and I'll walk right now."It wasn't about staying or leaving. Getting paid came first. Everything else was negotiable.The staffer didn't even blink. His expression remained perfectly neutral, rehearsed, like he'd delivered this exact line a hundred times before. "Our show has rul