World Keeper

Chapter 1142: Live On

If there was one thing to be thankful for with this invasion, it was the fact that I wouldn’t need to fast forward another fifty years in order to handle the reconstruction efforts like I did against RagnaRocker. His invasion destroyed much of my civilization’s foundation, but this one simply destroyed everything in its path.

I didn’t even have the chance to try to sell Sher Dien, which took the most damage, because it had already been annihilated by the time the invasion was over. Similarly, any of the planets that had even remotely been affected by the monsters, aside from a very few in the Metong universe, were completely destroyed. There was technically nothing left for me to fix that I could fix with the passing of time.

Thus, I returned to Olympus, the others quickly making their way back as well, once they heard that the battle was over. “So, what do we do now, boss?” Lena asked, swaying happily and bouncing on her heels. “Do you have some other assignment for us, or should we take some time off, or?”

I rolled my eyes with a smirk, looking around. Lena’s other self was back in her room by now, not wanting to cause any confusion in the conversations by having two of her around. “Now, it’s fine to do your own thing. But first, Lifre.” I called out, and the slime girl blinked, stepping forward.

“Yeah?” She asked with a tilt of her head.

“I plan on going back to the Admin Room for a moment to set up the Interactive Stream system.” When I said that, Lifre’s eyes lit up, and she was practically vibrating. “It might take a little while to configure all of the options, but I thought that you’ve earned it over the years. This will also be good practice for the next annual meeting.”

After saying that, I looked at the others. “If any of you also want to do your own streams, I won’t stop you, as long as you’re willing to pause the streams when there is work to be done.”

The others nodded at that, and I caught a rather curious look in Tsubaki’s eyes, which made me hesitate. “You… it couldn’t be that you’re thinking of doing a Trial of Blood stream, are you?” I asked, my brow twitching. Dana and the others turned to look at Tsubaki, who averted her eyes.

I was used to Tsubaki trying to turn every new simulation into her trials, but I didn’t think that she’d even do it for this streaming system, which would broadcast her trial to anyone who wanted to watch. Worse yet, they’d be able to adjust the difficulty… “You’re planning to remove any options for the viewers to lower the difficulty for your stream, aren’t you?” I asked, and Tsubaki flinched as if caught.

Dana rolled her eyes with a smirk at that. “You know, Tsuba, if you only leave them options to increase the difficulty, it will be physically impossible for you to succeed. Not just practically impossible, but completely impossible. After all, one random guy can add in a variable that tips things beyond the level you could possibly handle with whatever stats you give yourself, and there won’t be any way for you to have the difficulty adjusted back down to a manageable level.”

Tsubaki’s ears drooped a bit at that, before Dana continued. “With that in mind, why don’t you set it up as an educational stream? If you do that, you can limit the viewership to the residents of Olympus, and the Greater Pantheon can be the ones to set your difficulty level. Don’t forget that you used to help James with his void research, so you are technically a licensed researcher.”

Tsubaki blinked, looking over at Dana in surprise. “You have put a lot of thought into this.” She said, causing Dana to chuckle.

“When I heard about the streams, I planned to do an educational stream like that for particularly dangerous experiments. If I have the perfect environment to handle explosive experiments, why would I do them in my workshop?” She asked, Tsubaki nodding her head.

“True… though, educational streams are only meant to provide educational resources or mentors to the streamer, are they not? How could I utilize this for my trial?”

When Dana heard that, she gave a knowing grin. “There are many types of education. For instance, Lena could do an educational stream about stealth techniques. Lifre could do one about adventure or writing. You can do a battle-themed educational stream, and the materials involved would be enemies for you to fight.”

Tsubaki’s eyes widened at that prospect, before looking over curiously between Dana and myself. “Would that work?”

Honestly, I hadn’t considered that, but Dana nodded her head. “I went and asked after the boss told us about the streams. According to the person I talked to, he said that licensed teachers or researchers were the only ones allowed to teach, but the subject that they were licensed to teach was not specified, nor was the subject that the stream was focused on.”

I haven’t even gotten the system yet, and you were already looking for exploits? I asked in the back of my mind, shaking my head with a sigh. “Well, there you have it. Is there anything else that any of you would like to ask for while I’m gone?”

Tsubaki and the rest looked at one another, though there didn’t seem to be anything urgently on their minds. With that taken care of, I ascended to the Admin Room to begin working on the new system, and also get Balu to come over to handle the payment for the information that I sent her before. As soon as I appeared in the Admin Room, Terra was all but glued to my side, hugging my waist. I gave a small smile, reaching down to pat her waist while guiding her to the couch.

Because I was busy with the new system, I kept the visit with Balu brief. There were… a surprising number of settings to take into consideration when installing this system. For instance, I could set up a tax on stream transactions, determining where the taxed money went. I could also designate whether I wanted the streams to be over a normal network connection or through the game system itself.

Once I selected the internet as the host of the streams, a website was created for me to design, and I passed the design controls for that website over to Ashley while working on other settings. Even then, it took more than an hour to get everything set up.

In the end, the website created by this streaming system was a rather magical system itself. If anyone signed onto the website and chose to stream, there was no need for any virtual reality hardware. Instead, they simply disappeared from their real world location, and were sent into the stream that they wanted to start.

Moreover, there was an ironclad protection on this website that prevented artificial intelligence or other entities from viewing its code. When Ashley investigated it, she said that it appeared similar in nature to the barriers around universes in the void. So, it was probably possible to break through that ‘firewall’, but it would be exceptionally difficult.

Finally, before returning to the mortal world, I let Ashley pass off the new system to her programming team, giving them the chance to try to figure out how it worked. If anything, this system would offer a major breakthrough when it came to designing new worlds, given that it was able to alter the rules of the stream as needed.

For most citizens, the impact of the recent ordeal was so grand in scale that they couldn’t comprehend it. On some level, they understood that there was a great danger, but there was nothing that they could do to prepare for it. Thus, they went about their days as normal, only vaguely hearing some reports on the news about the reported progress of the invasion.

Only those in the military or the gods were able to feel the true weight of this invasion, as they were the ones that had to go and fight against it. Everyone else continued to live as they always would. They went to their jobs, tended their fields, or hunted monsters as normal. Many even forgot that there was such a crisis going on in the first place.

Then, one day, a commercial played across practically every public broadcasting channel. It opened with a girl with pale white skin, white hair, and shining blue eyes. “Hello, everyone~! I’m Lifre, everyone’s favorite slime girl and servant to the Keeper, slurp~!” She said, before giggling.

Naturally, Lifre’s name and face were known far and wide, but few could associate her with the cute persona she was putting on for this commercial. They regarded the servants of the Keeper as untouchable existences, those who carried out the Keeper’s will and stood above all others.

“I’m here today to let you all know about a very special new service, brought to you by Olympus!” Lifre said, spinning as she jumped back. She seemed to be standing atop a high mountain, wearing plain, white clothes. “This new service, called Dreamer, allows you to enter a fully customizable stream. Imagine combining live streaming with a true sandbox game… only the ones in control of the sandbox are your viewers!”

“That’s right, your viewers will be able to donate to alter aspects of your stream, and all proceeds go directly to the streamer. Additionally, teachers and researchers will be able to hold educational streams to teach children about subjects that might be too dangerous or complicated to host in the classroom! Wanna check it out? Head to the website listed below! I’m already live, so come and play with me, okay?” She asked, before winking as the commercial ended.

The first thing that most people felt when they saw this commercial was, naturally, confusion. They were confused both at the contents of the commercial, and the way that the servant of the Keeper had acted during it.

Some of these people went to check out the website, finding only a few streams available at the beginning. Lifre’s stream, for example, was immediately the most popular for those wanting to see what the system was about. Additionally, she had a rather interesting concept.

Although it wasn’t something like in the annual meeting, where she promised to be constantly live, there was another gimmick to her stream in the mortal world. Because she had no need for the money of her viewers, as she worked at Olympus, there was instead a special lottery set up. Anyone who donated to change something exciting about her stream that Lifre enjoyed, for better or worse, would be entered into the lottery. 

This lottery, which would be drawn every hour and award the winner the full stream earnings for that hour. Apparently, she did this to encourage more and more people to contribute to making her stream an exciting adventure for both herself and the rest of her viewers.

Of course, there were other streams that were gradually going live as well. Popular entertainers that found the website were trying it out, and many of their fans took notice. Naturally, a lot of these streams were a little awkward at first, with the entertainers having to adjust to the new format.

Aurivy swung her legs off the side of the couch as she watched Lifre’s stream together with Julia. At the moment, Lifre was trekking through a dangerous swamp, carrying an enchanted staff in her hands. “Kinda tempted to start one of these myself.” She said with a grin, Julia chuckling lightly.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you. Being the Goddess of Love, I can only imagine what type of content  people would try to thrust upon you.” She said in a playful tone, causing Aurivy to flinch.

“H-Hey, I’m also the Goddess of Dungeons, you know?! Dungeons! They could make a super cool dungeon for me to explore! But, this is the internet, after all…” She said in a despondent tone. “You’re probably right… So… why don’t you do one?!”

Julia blinked at that, slowly pointing at herself. “Me?”

“Yeah! You were originally a professional game streamer, weren’t you?!” Aurivy asked with a wide grin. “I know you retired ages ago, but still! You’ve got the experience. I’m sure that you’d do great!” After saying that, she snickered. “If it wasn’t for your streams with your group, the two of us would have never met like this, right?”

Julia slowly blinked again, before lowering her head in thought. She seemed to be seriously considering the idea.