---Logan's POV---

  My sed video was quickly produced.

  As expected, the video data skyrocketed.

  Take that, algorithm! Who's the small-time tent creator now? I gri my s, scrolling through the metrics. Wait, these numbers 't be right... they're actually good?

  I uood why—although veteran pyers cimed that virtual reality games were fake, deep down, they still hold some expectations for them. The fans of herworld Revolution that emerged from this expectation were as sticky as a mouse glue trap.

  I could practically hear their thoughts: "Virtual reality games haven't even been developed yet, and I'm already pissed. Now you're trying to use this as a gimmiake money?"

  Looking at the estimated revenue in the bad, my eyes practically disappeared from smiling. With a wave of my hand, I decided to reward myself with ara rge ed food at lunch today!

  "Living the high life!" I chuckled, patting my stomach. Okay, don't get ahead of yourself. Two viral videos don't make you PewDiePie.

  After celebrating the good news, worry crept ba. I no longer had any material to make a third herworld Revolution video.

  Initially, all the information about it was just a 10-minute cept video. After I gained a slight early advantage, my petitors swarmed in, nitpig and critig every possible detail like vultures, leaving nothing but scraps.

  But giving up like this? I couldn't accept it.

  Maybe I make a video about how many times the CEO blinks. That's tent, right? I muttered to myself as I reopehe herworld Revolution cept video.

  Although I had already dissected this 10-minute video frame by frame, what if? What if I found some new material?

  "e on, give me something," I whispered, leaning closer to the s. "A glit the background? A suspicious shadow? Anything?"

  After watg, as expected—nothing.

  But I didn't get disced and instead opehe ents se. At the very least, learning some creative ways to swear could make my tent more engaging for viewers.

  However, when I sorted the ents by time, I noticed a plete shift in the discussion. Everyone was now bashing aname called icles of Aeltia instead.

  "icles of what now?" I blinked, scrolling faster. The pyers' criticisms of icles of Aeltia had pletely overshadowed herworld Revolution!

  My eyelids twitched.

  I had seen firsthand just how deep the pyers' hatred for herworld Revolution was these past few days. People were so harsh that even a mild ent was accused to whitewash it.

  How oh did icles of Aeltia mao steal the spotlight, even turning the tide of opinion withiherworld Revolution's eion?

  Frowning, I sniffed out potential tent. As a gaming blogger, I couldn't afford to miss any shift in publitiment. I immediately ged focus, sc the eion to trace the source of this new game.

  ents flew by:

  [How every Tom, Dick, and Harry jump on the virtual reality hype train?]

  [Skyrain might be trash, but at least they're a major pany. With enough funding, maybe they pull it off. But where did this trash game e from?]

  [Advertising directly iherworld Revolution's eion? Shameless!]

  [Even the name is iionally simir to herworld Revolution. The inal game isn't even out yet, but the knockoff is here first?]

  [@enterAbove you need new gsses bro. One's about hell, the other's about some fantasy world with a weird name. What's , you gonna say World of Warcraft copied Csh of s because they both have "of" in the name?]

  Finally, I pieced together the in of icles of Aeltia.

  Around midnight, many guest ats had suddenly flooded all herworld Revolutioed eions. They shamelessly promoted a virtual reality game called icles of Aeltia, g it was 100% realistid about to begiesting.

  The flood of ents was relentless.

  The phrasing was diverse, with messages popping up almost every sed. No ptform that allowed guest logins ared. It was like a battle for survival.

  The ents were infmmatory, and if pyers replied, the guest ats even engaged in arguments.

  [Hehe, icles of Aeltia will start beta testing soon. Who's really riding the hype train here? ( ? 3?)?]

  [Tsk tsk tsk, herworld Revolutio let us advertise here. Afraid they 't pete? (???)]

  [Oh~ who's the real knockoff here? Don't you know which game's beta es first? ( ?° ?? ?°)]

  This is straight out of Marketing Dark Arts 101, I thought, watg the chaos unfold. Guest ats, midnight spam, e baiting—someone ying a dangerous game.

  While the passive-aggressive tone wasn't he smug emojis and baiting nguage were enough te pyers. inally united in bashiherworld Revolution, pyers turned against icles of Aeltia after being taunted.

  The ents poured in faster thaforms could moderate.

  Report one ent? Ten more appeared!

  Eventually, the rep system broke dowirely.

  I watched as frustrated pyers raged at the ptforms' weak guest at system. In an era where real-name verification was on, long-term users were automatically logged in. Even fuest ats, one phone could only create one at.

  Everyone was asking: where oh did all these bck-market ats e from?

  This hooligan tactic had forcibly shifted pyer hatred from herworld Revolution to icles of Aeltia.

  From what I could gather, Skyrain, aware of the issue, only dared to release their cept video to attravestors. It would take at least 7-8 years to actually produce a successful virtual reality game. Yet icles of Aeltia cimed their game was ready for testing? Did they think people were idiots?

  "Well, teically, everyohought that about Skyrain too..." I mused, scrolling through more ents.

  Pyers were swearing they would never follow such a trashy, opportunistic game.

  "At least wait until the inal is out before making knockoffs!" one enter raged.

  Yeah, because that's how the game industry works, I snorted.

  I also learhat Skyrain had noticed the flood of bots.

  While clearing abnormal ents, they warned rger gaming bloggers not to make videos about icles of Aeltia. They refused to give the game any attention—eveive publicity.

  Skyrain, well-versed in this bck-hat marketing strategy, uood icles of Aeltia all too well.

  After reading everything, I was stunned. Which wealthy heir with billions to spare was bored enough to hire such a massive army of bots? Guest ats were far less cost-effective than regur ats.

  A guest at could only post one ent a day unless someone replied to it.

  Hohones did they have at their disposal?

  After my initial shock, I immediately checked my own video's eion, worried it might have been invaded by icles of Aeltia bots.

  But...

  Nothing.

  The ents were still pints about herworld Revolution and Skyrain. Not a single mention of icles of Aeltia. I hadn't even received a warning message from Skyrain.

  I sat there, speechless.

  't get bot-spammed if you're too irrelevant to notice. Is this what winning feels like?

  Being irrelevant had its advantages. Even trashy web games didn't bother leeg off my videos. Skyrain didn't even spare me a gneither side cared about me.

  Disappointed, I closed my at.

  If Skyrain's warning bigger creators... maybe there's an opportunity here?

  ---

  A while ter, my curiosity got the better of me, and I opehe brain. I had ance when it came to virtual reality gaming news.

  "It's just research," I muttered. "Professional research."

  Sure, like how watg cat videos is 'market research'.

  The sheer scale of bots causing Skyrain so much trouble meant that whoever was behind this wasn't short on money. Maybe they really had researched something about virtual reality gaming?

  I told myself I was only cheg to see how far this trashy game had gone in its masquerade. I absolutely didn't believe they had developed a virtual reality game.

  Someone ending serious money on this. There had to be a reason...

  Anyway, her side cared about me. What harm was there in watg?

  "Just one peek. What could really g? It's just an overhyped game. I won't actually pre-register it. I'm just here for the drama." I muttered to myself, nervously rubbing my hands as the webpage began to load…

  Definitely not. Maybe. Probably not...

  But the official website server of icles of Aeltia was absolutely terrible.

  What is this, dial-up i?

  I waited a whole three minutes before the loading circle finally pleted and moved to a new page. It was a webpage with bck text on a white background—so rudimentary that it couldn't be any more rudimentary.

  "..."

  e on, guys. If you're trying to scam money, at least put some effort into it!

  Is this website from 1996? I scrolled through the bare-bones yout, my professional pride wounded just looking at it.

  Where's your funding and ambition for hiring bot reviewers?

  I had suspected the pany might be a trash-tier operation, but I didn't expect it to be this trashy.

  Even my first WordPress site looked better than this. And that was saying something.

  The official game site was so poorly made, it didn't even measure up to a puter sce student's final projeo background images, no fancy fonts, and the formatting was so crude it was hard to look at.

  No CSS, basic HTML... Did they hire a time traveler from the 90s to build this?

  There was only the game's name, a brief introdu, and a beta test registration button.

  Where were the promotional images?

  Where was the trailer?

  With a bnk expression, I closed the webpage.

  I must've been out of my mind to cli.

  The little bit of anticipation I had before clig, just like the three minutes I wasted, was clearly all for nothing.

  ---Viktor's POV---

  From my hiding pce beh the bloodstained altar piled with monster corpses, I could hear violent gusts tearing much of the remains to shreds above.

  The corpses were starting to smell worse than my st attempt at cooking... At least the magic barriers were holding steady.

  Seven hundred years of paranoia finally paying off.

  Bang! Bang!

  g, g…

  Heavy thuds resohrough the earth, and I sensed a figure appear beside the blood altar at some unknown point in time.

  Either a padin or someoh terrible taste in fashion.

  Through my magical awareness, I could tell it was a man silver-white armor, resembling a knight. His brown hair and blue eyes were visible beh his helm, and his features were rugged and firm, making him look to be in his early thirties.

  In his hands, he wielded a rusty hoe—pletely mismatched with his shining armor.

  This man was either a padin or someoh terrible taste in fashion.

  I watched through my magical senses as he swung the hoe down, striking the stoar over and over.

  His movements were quid forceful. Every pce the hoe hit turo pieces, crumbling like tofu. In just a brief moment, he had shattered the altar and begun digging into the soil underh, right above my hiding pce.

  Well, there goes my carefully crafted hiding spot. Again.

  The glowing orb was the first to notice the abnormality above ground. I had ordered it to keep quiet, and it had been sulking in my inner sanctum like a mushroom.

  But seeing the maing closer and closer to my position, the orb couldn't stay silent anymore.

  It jumped o my mental image in my inner sanctum and shouted anxiously. "There's a padin right above us! We o—"

  "I'm in the middle of g," I cut in. "Uhe world is ending..."

  As a god's divine core, it could sehe magic fluctuations ing from the person above.

  The man was really a padin.

  A padin—meaning he was with the Radiant Church. The glowing orb had just retly seen me being hunted by the Radiant Church.

  There was no other reason a padin would appear in this godforsaken pd do borious digging.

  The man above definitely knew I was hiding down here.

  "I told you not to disturb me unless it's important!" I shifted my focus away from w on the game website, sounding very impatient.

  "Rex. Those curses up there would turn a dragon into fetti."

  "But—"

  "And yes, I tested that. The dragon wasn't happy."

  As for what was happening on the ground, I wasn't worried at all.

  "If it were someone from the church, they'd have been blown to pieces the moment they tried to destroy the altar."

  I wouldn't dare hide here unless I had precautions in p the surface. The magical curses I'd engraved beh the altar were so many and so deadly that even the Radiant Church wouldn't dare hahem carelessly.

  Maybe the church had lears lesson after fighting me for so long. They had searched the area over and over before but never dared to touything I left behind.

  That gave the orb a false impression.

  Sure, I might appear to be a mid-level mage right now, but that didn't mean I was defenseless.

  I didn't bother expining further and muted the orb directly with a and.

  pared to what was happening above, promoting icles of Aeltia was giving me far more headaches.

  The online pyers were right—the game was irying to piggyback off the popurity of herworld Revolution.

  But as long as it worked, who cared?

  Despite pyers swearing they wouldn't give icles of Aeltia any attention…

  Iy?

  "Twenty-three visitors! We're practically viral!"

  Okay, maybe not viral. More like a mild cold.

  Though none had signed up for the beta test yet, this was still a good sign.

  By tinuously eling energy into the website, I mao attract several guest ats.

  All I had to do was say a few cssic troll lines, and justice-seeking users would show up to keep the ents alive.

  What's more…

  I had discovered that there was a time ratio betweeh and the ti of Aeltia.

  One day oh was equivalent to two days oia.

  This meant I had double the time to engage in online arguments with the pyers.

  Even though I hadn't touched the i in 682 years and was clueless about the test sng…

  With double the time and my 700-year-old mental capacity, I could still reply to every single ent and hold my own in every argument.

  My promotional efficy was excellent.

  While promoti smoothly, strug the icles of Aeltia website hill battle.

  Error 404... Should've paid more attention in puter css...

  Before transmigrating, I hadn't even been an adult yet.

  Learning programming had just been a hobby, and most of my knowledge came from tinkering with simple projects. The fuals were still there, buried deep in my memory, but the practical application after turies away from it roving challenging.

  Try expining to Stack Overflow how to debug magical HTML. That'd be an iing thread.

  Now that I ig it back up, I faced problems everywhere. Every line of code seemed t new errors, and debugging was a nightmare when mixing magic with modern teology.

  The interse of are energy and HTML was not something any tutorial could prepare me for.

  I sighed.

  "If only I could buy a pre-made website…"

  Unfortunately, I didn't have the money for it.

  I could only keep struggling with the website while arguing with pyers as a distra.

  Finishing the st bit of code, I suddenly realized that with the stant magic upgrades, the website now had an image upload fun.

  This meant—

  I could upload images of Aeltia to the i.

  My eyes lit up with excitement, though I quickly felt another headache ing on.

  I'd have to add a page to shoromotional images now.

  Whatever, I'd deal with that ter.

  When I finally finished my tasks, the knight on the surface had almost finished digging.

  At least he's thh. Most people would've given up after the first yer of cursed stone.

  Relutly leaving my inner sanctum, I looked up to see who it was.

  Ah, right on schedule. Though he could've picked a less dramatitrance.

  My mood, which had been frazzled by all the g, finally improved.

  The muted glowing orb was full of question marks.

  "A padin... helping you?"

  "What I say? I'm charming. Even holy knights 't resist." I couldn't help but grin at its fusion.

  The orb darted around in my inner sanctum, its glow flickering rapidly. "Reinforts?" it sputtered. "From the Radiant Church?"

  Before I could enjoy more of its bewilderment, the knight above, had already dug out my skeletal hand.

  Wave hello! No, wait, that might be too on the nose.

  He g my twitg hand bohat was clearly trying to show its presence.

  Expressionless, as though he hadn't seen anything unusual, he moved to a different digging point, tinuing downward.

  See? Professional courtesy. Unlike some orbs I could mention.

  I proudly gestured toward his methodical digging in my inner sanctum. "See? Edgar is one of us."

  "This doesn't make sense. He's a padin!"

  "Life rarely does make sense. Death even less so."

  The orb hung motionless in my inner sanctum, clearly stunned by what it was witnessing. Even I had to admit, seeing a holy knight—a padin of the Radiant Churo less—here to rescue an undead neancer like me was quite the sight.

  Wonder what the Church's propaganda department would make of this, I mused, watg Edgar's steady progress.

  "But... but... What oia is going on?" The orb's stammering was musiy ears.