章 182: Chapter 182: Amazon? Magic Net Livestream...
Kain Hikaru knelt on the ground, one hand clutching his bleeding wound, while gripping Doll #2 tightly with the other.
"Iron Doll!" he commanded internally, and Doll #2's material quickly shifted from rubber to steel. At the same time, his own body hardened.
"Stop bleeding!"
With another magic, the bleeding ceased, and the muscles around his wound forced themselves closed. Seeing this, Nate couldn't help but look a bit surprised.
"Can you heal yourself like that?"
"This isn't healing—just suppressing the injury temporarily!" Kain wiped the cold sweat from his brow. 'This teleportation magic is totally unfair! Impossible to defend against!'
'How honest of you to explain… Don't you know honesty just gets you in trouble?' Nate thought to himself, suppressing a smirk. "I avoided your vitals with that last strike and left a magic within you."
"What?" Kain froze, realizing something felt wrong inside him.
'Soul Magic: Soul Extraction!'
A magic within him suddenly activated. Even his steel-like skin couldn't resist an attack from within. Kain's whole body convulsed as he felt his soul forcibly pulled from his body, like a black hole tearing it out.
He arched backward with a scream, eyes rolling back, and collapsed.
"Kain-sama?!"
The Grimoire Heart mages stared, horrified. One of the Seven Kin of Purgatory… dead?
"He's not dead," Nate replied calmly, sheathing his blade as it returned to his storage space. "I have no grudge against him, no need to kill. I've just… extracted his soul."
His strike had been precise, embedding the soul extraction magic within.
"You… You're the Master of the Internet Magic! The Wizard Saint, Nate!"
"Good, so you know who I am. Why aren't you running yet? Want a ticket to the underworld?" Nate shook his head at their reaction. If he were in their shoes, he would've bolted the moment he saw a Wizard Saint.
At his words, the group breathed a sigh of relief and scattered.
"Wait. Take your Kain-sama with you. And pass on a message to your Master, Hades."
They hesitated, then turned back, forcing smiles. "Of course, Nate-san. What message would you like us to convey?"
"Tell him… thanks for sending such fine recruits, Second Master."
…
Before long, Kain Hikaru's body was carried away by the small squad of Grimoire Heart mages.
More precisely, they had to carry him—and due to his size, it took six people to lift him, making for a somewhat comical scene.
Nate watched them leave, then turned and headed back toward Magnolia, his mind splitting off a trace of awareness to enter the Deep Web Space.
[Soul Cage]
This empty, endless void held nothing but cells.
Kain stood in one of the cells, shaking his head in confusion. "Where is this? Is anyone here?"
"Shut up! You're making a racket!" a voice came from the adjacent cell.
Kain recognized the voice, shuffling over to press his large face against the bars to see who it was. However, his head was far too big to fit through the gaps.
"Don't bother. This prison can't be broken out of," the voice snapped again. "Can you keep it down? I'm trying to study magic here."
"Oh, now I remember! You're Brain, the leader of the Oración Seis," Kain exclaimed, clapping a hand to his forehead. "You're still alive?"
Brain wasn't interested in continuing the conversation. While he would have appreciated some company—especially from one of the Seven Kin of Purgatory—Kain was far too talkative.
After a pause, Brain stopped scratching notes on the damp floor. "When's Hades getting in here?" If his cellmate was Hades, he might actually be glad. This place was unbelievably boring.
Just then, golden light flashed, and Nate appeared outside the cells.
"Play nice, you three," Nate said with a smirk. "From now on, consider yourselves coworkers." He looked at Kain. "Kain, want to go out?"
"You're going to let me out?" Kain sat down heavily on the floor, crossing his arms. "Don't take me for a fool. I don't believe you'd actually let me leave."
'Well, you're not exactly a fool—but a bit of a weirdo,' Nate thought to himself, bemused. "Your body's already been sent back to Grimoire Heart. Your soul, though, can stay here and do some work for me."
"All right then, what's the job?" Kain asked.
'So much for not being a fool.' Nate resisted the urge to sigh. Kain's curse magic, 'Ushi no Koku Mairi,' was actually a powerful magic but clearly wasn't suited for direct combat. His attempt to pick a fight with both Nate and Mirajane had been a poor choice.
Nate decided to keep things simple. "My Magic Net recently gained over 50,000 regular users. Previously, the majority of users were mages, but now, regular people are quickly becoming the largest group."
"In the near future, that gap will only widen. Mages may eventually make up as little as 10% of Magic Net users." In other words, ordinary people would dominate the platform—a foreseeable reality. But right now, the Magic Net was too focused on niche, magic-based activities. It needed more entertainment for average users.
'For instance,' he thought, 'Can regular folks play [Magic Arena]? Not a chance! They don't have the magic to handle it.'
"So I want to make [Magic Arena] accessible to everyone, and that's where your magic, 'Ushi no Koku Mairi,' comes in…"
Kain blinked in confusion, failing to follow most of what Nate was saying.
Nate could tell he'd lost him. "Long story short, I'm planning a limited-time event called 'Magic Arena: ... Oración Seis', where regular people can become powerful mages and experience the thrill of fighting evil."
Brain's face darkened. He didn't know exactly what Nate intended, but it was bound to be trouble. Unfortunately, as a prisoner, he didn't have much say.
"Anyway," Nate said with a shrug, "for now, you all can stay here. Get comfortable—this sentence might take a while."
…
Returning to reality, Nate reopened the temporary chat group, [Harvest Festival Patrol Alert Group].
Skimming through the chat history, he saw that Mirajane had already reported on the situation. Nate then briefly updated everyone on his encounter with Kain Hikaru and confirmed that he had been repelled.
Next, he checked the Magic Net forum. He hadn't been following it closely, but now that he took a look, he was amazed by how lively it had become. New posts flooded in constantly.
One post in particular caught his eye—a [Points Trading Post] with over 100,000 replies from a user with an unfamiliar handle.
"Transactions are happening this frequently?" Nate was surprised to see so many threads like it. Some posts were specifically dedicated to selling points, which was even more striking.
"It's a bit chaotic… people are getting scammed, losing points, and even money," Nate thought, considering a more structured solution. "Maybe I should develop an official trading feature. Let's call it the [Magic Net Marketplace]."
In this marketplace, users could list their points for sale. Naturally, Nate would implement a small transaction fee as the developer—a dual-sided fee for both buyers and sellers.
"It would also allow some points to be recirculated while earning a little extra through fees," he reasoned. "But that would require coordination with the banks. We can't just rely on cash transfers every time."
Nate thought about asking Jude to discuss integration with the banks, ideally connecting directly to Magic Net.
"Actually, if we're going to launch a marketplace, why not expand it further?" Nate mused. "Allow users to open their own online stores… and maybe even feature the Magic Net rings produced by Jude as a main product."
(Amazon!)
Satisfied with his ideas, Nate set his Thought Projection assistant to start coding.
Afterwards, he closed the forum and opened [Magic Net Live].
In a short time, Magic Net Live had really taken off, and the most popular stream was, predictably, from the host next door.
Instead of clicking into Jenny's stream, Nate scrolled further down the list, his expression becoming increasingly perplexed.
Many of the stream titles had veered far beyond any gray area.
'Some of these streamers are really pushing the limits,' Nate thought, shocked.
'Come on, everyone—this isn't what Magic Net Live was made for!'
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