A few hours later, Luke, who had checked his settings one last time, smiled as if he was satisfied with himself.
“Alright, it’s perfect.”
His face appeared clearly on the screen, and the broadcast visuals and audio quality were good.
At least, there should be no discomfort in watching the broadcast.
Now, there was only one thing left to do: wait for people to come.
After all, he didn’t have the hobby of talking to empty air.
Luke leaned back slowly in his chair and thought.
‘Then, I might as well read something while I wait.’
That would be better than just sitting there blankly waiting for people to arrive.
He took out a book he had previously read from the bookshelf and opened it.
Where had he left off?
Ah, right.
He needed to start from the principle of anomalies.
Luke’s eyes began to move slowly along the text.
—-
-Tap.
Luke closed the book.
It wasn’t that he had decided to stop reading; he had finished it.
The problem was that even though he had read the book, a considerable amount of time had passed, and no one had come in.
This was strange.
Could people really be this indifferent?
Even if it was the first day of broadcasting and he lacked experience or foundation, wouldn’t this be odd?
It was too unbelievable that no one would enter when such a cute girl was on the screen.
“Something is wrong.”
Luke got up from his seat, returned the read book to the shelf, and began to walk around the room slowly.
This situation was very unfamiliar to Luke.
He had never been in such an extreme state of indifference in his life.
In his previous life, he had been born a genius grand magician and received attention, and even now, when he went out, he often felt curious gazes upon him.
He had grown so accustomed to the attention directed towards him.
So, where had it all gone wrong this time?
He had been confident that he would succeed…
Was it the title of the broadcast?
Could it be that the name ‘Luke Irushi’ was too cheesy?
No, even so, wouldn’t it still be strange that not a single person came in?
Or could it be that the reason no one came was that he was reading a book?
Of course, he knew that the scene of reading a book was hardly stimulating.
But even when watching other broadcasts of people reading, they didn’t have zero viewers.
So why was no one coming to his broadcast?
As he pondered that, Luke soon came to a realization.
People might not even know that his broadcast existed.
As solo broadcasting had become more common, there were now countless broadcasters in the network.
When there are popular broadcasts, there are surely those that are not.
Luke had only watched popular broadcasts, so he didn’t know, but there were many broadcasters who continued to broadcast yet remained in single-digit viewership.
These were people who were swept away and drowned in the sea of information known as the telepathy network.
Luke was just one of those countless individuals today.
In a network where one couldn’t even shout out to attract the attention of passing viewers, and where good looks didn’t offer much help among the numerous beautiful faces on broadcasts, he felt truly insignificant.
“Ha…”
Luke began to stroke his chin, feeling a mix of confusion and embarrassment.
‘What should I do in this situation?’
Should he play a game?
He didn’t want to admit it, but games were indeed stimulating.
As those he met at the Internet cafe had said, using his persona of the ‘Enthralling Archmage’ could easily attract the public’s attention.
If that happened, he could play the game while advertising his broadcast by saying it was ongoing.
Perhaps being matched with a famous broadcaster and having his chat exposed could lead to a tremendous influx of viewers.
It was indeed an easy path.
But was that really okay…?
Could that truly be the answer?
He felt lost.
Even so, he wondered if someone would even consider giving him money.
—
‘Did I really not need to broadcast, as Dayton said…?’
It was at that moment.
-Knock, knock, knock.
“Hey, come out for dinner.”
The sound of knocking accompanied by Dayton’s voice came from beyond the door.
Had it already become mealtime?
“Ah, I got it. I’ll be right there.”
As he opened the door and stepped out, there was Dayton smiling, apparently having prepared a meal, wearing an apron.
“Sorry for interrupting your broadcast, but we still need to eat, right?”
In response to Dayton’s concerned tone, Luke replied with a downcast expression.
“No, it’s fine. No one came in anyway.”
“What? Really? Why?”
For no one to be in Luke’s broadcast, what did that even mean?
However, contrary to the confident demeanor he had shown, Luke spoke with a pitiful smile.
“I guess I was too arrogant… You were right. I should refund the broadcasting equipment after all.”
“…Is that so.”
At his words, Dayton rubbed the back of his neck.
“Well, let’s think about the refund later. For now, let’s eat and cheer up! Who knows, you might come up with a good idea while eating. Anyway, it’s only been a day, so let’s not give up just yet, okay?”
Dayton’s words were a great comfort to Luke at that moment.
He had thought Dayton was against him broadcasting…
“…Okay, I understand, that sounds good.”
Luke replied with a slight smile towards Dayton.
Haha.
Was it really him who was the immature one, not Dayton…?
Indeed, looking at it now, Dayton seemed quite the responsible adult.
Wasn’t he the one who should feel very ashamed?
While heading toward the stairs past Dayton, Luke suddenly realized that Dayton was not following him and asked.
“By the way, aren’t you coming with me?”
Dayton pointed toward Diana and Pyris’s room and said.
“You go down first. I’m going to gather the others.”
Luke nodded at that.
“Oh, I see. Alright then, I’ll leave the kids to you.”
“Sure! Go down!”
Dayton waved until Luke was out of sight.
While Luke went down the stairs without a particular doubt…
Dayton quickly seized the chance while Luke wasn’t looking, entered Luke’s room, and headed to the computer.
To solve a single curiosity.
“What on earth did he set the broadcast title to?”
Indeed.
Dayton had actually been looking for Luke’s broadcast and rummaging through the network for a while now.
He had planned to enter as a secret viewer and play a prank or two.
But no matter how much he searched, he couldn’t find any broadcast that seemed to be Luke’s, driving him nearly mad with frustration.
After all, there’s no shortage of people currently broadcasting.
He thought he could find it easily if only he could see the face, but it seemed he had underestimated the number of broadcasters existing in the continent.
He searched through dozens of pages with names like ‘Luke’, ‘Irushi’, and ‘Luke Irushi’, but to no avail.
Then a thought struck him; perhaps Luke wasn’t using one of those names for his broadcast, and he decided to sneak into his room to check.
Dayton took off the apron, draped it over his shoulder, and cautiously operated Luke’s computer while sitting down.
“Let’s see, Luke’s broadcast nickname is… Ah.”
Finally, upon discovering Luke’s nickname, Dayton realized why he couldn’t find Luke’s broadcast through search.
“What the heck is this? He used special characters for his nickname…?”
Surprisingly, Luke’s nickname was written in old characters that were no longer used in everyday life, now classified as special characters.
In this case, it made sense that it wouldn’t show up in searches.
‘How the heck did he come up with this and use it?’
He thought it baffling that someone aiming to earn money through broadcasting would do something like this.
At the very least, shouldn’t his name be easily searchable…?
What a hard-to-understand guy.
No, in fact, even more shocking was the title of the broadcast.
“The Future Grand Magician’s First Steps and Communication in the Present…?” What was he thinking when he wrote that?”
This horrendous title, which seemed to reek of stale air just by looking at it, was something he would never click on even if he stumbled across it.
From just the title, it was unclear what kind of broadcast the guy was planning on doing.
This could be attributed to the fact that while Luke had diligently researched how broadcasts generally worked, he hadn’t considered the aspects outside of broadcasting very important.
In other words, while he had diligently observed how to conduct a broadcast and how to respond to reactions, he hadn’t thought at all about how to come up with a good title to attract viewers, how to embellish an account, or how to conceptualize a broadcast.
Luke had been thinking, “As long as the content is solid, everything else is unimportant.”
This matter could be seen as Luke still holding onto the mindset of an ‘old-fashioned person.’
In the past, there were only book titles worthy of being preserved in writing, and usually, a title that drew attention back then would be something unnecessarily long, like “The Amazing and Great Journey Experienced by a Man Swept Away by the Strong Winds of the Twilight Hour in the Great Highlands of Hreyayad.”
Thus, in Luke’s standards, the title involving “The Future Grand Magician” was already quite simplified.
After just a year, it was understandable that one’s senses wouldn’t change all at once.
Still, who would ever want to click on a suspicious profile with a flower photo as a picture?
At the very least, the profile picture should have been of his own face!
No matter how much he liked flowers, this was just wrong.
Well, maybe after some time, one or two people would come and click, but even with his limited experience from watching broadcasts a few times, this was overflowing with issues.
Why was he so clumsy?
Did he really intend to do something with this?
In the end, Dayton shook his head.
“This just won’t do.”
He would have to tell him not to do the broadcast.
“Ah, of course, after I play a prank on him.”
Still, he could not let this slide.
He was already getting excited just thinking about it.
