If It Doesn't Exist, Just Make It

A long, heavy sigh slipped from my lips, and across the desk the quill that had been turning through documents froze mid-stroke.

Parchment scrolls packed the shelves so densely they seemed ready to punch through the ceiling. Orbs of blue mana drifted between them, washing their light across the vast desk — and in front of me, a mountain of unsigned paperwork rose like some grotesque monument to bureaucracy.

What am I even doing right now...?

The highest authority in the Imperial administration. The Chancellor of the Empire — second only to one, and above all others.

Ian Cleber.

That was my title, and that was my name.

"I'm so fucking bored."

The groan stretched out of me before I could stop it. Sylvia, Chief Secretary of the Chancellor's Office, set her quill down with exaggerated care and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"How long do you intend to keep putting such vulgar language in your mouth, Your Excellency? A little self-awareness, if you please."

I arranged my face into the most pitiful expression I could manage.

"But... I'm bored. I'm going to lose my mind from boredom."

"Would you fix your face first... no. Your Excellency. The war against the demonkin that dragged on for over a hundred years has only just ended. The entire Empire is gasping for air and drowning in postwar reconstruction."

"That's exactly the problem."

I shoved the desk away and surged to my feet.

"The war was better. Every day I was out inspecting the front, smashing monster skulls, punching open supply lines. Body and mind were wrecked, sure — but there wasn't a single second to be bored. And now?"

I flicked the stacks of parchment with a finger.

"An investigation into embezzled northern relief supplies. A dress-code revision for noble brats' tea parties. The capital sewer-maintenance budget. This is what the Imperial Chancellor is supposed to be doing? Subordinates can handle this crap!!"

"You accepted the Empire's second seat of your own accord, in accordance with His Late Majesty's dying will. And none of those matters can proceed without the signature of the man in charge."

"Hahh... goddamn it..."

The Late Emperor's will. At those words I shut my mouth and stared at the ceiling, my gaze going hollow and far away.

I had originally lived as an ordinary college student on a world called Earth. For reasons I still didn't understand, I had been dropped into this fantasy world, and I had clawed and kicked just to stay alive. I learned magic. My talent bloomed. I rolled through battlefields that danced on the edge of life and death, and in the end I put a period on a hundred-year war.

The Late Emperor had been my friend, and an excellent monarch. There had been a fair gap in our ages, but... he had always stood on the front lines with me, bleeding to hold the Empire together.

In the last battle, mortally wounded, he had seized my hand with fingers slick with blood and left me a promise just before his last breath.

And so the Late Emperor passed, and just as he had intended, the Empire rallied around a furious me and seized victory.

My wish had been only one thing: to go home to Earth.

The instant I pierced the Demon King's heart and ended the war, I threw every scrap of knowledge the Imperial Court and the Mage Tower possessed at constructing a dimensional transfer circle. The result was a disaster. Pulling a person into this world from another dimension was the kind of thing that could happen when chance and miracle piled on top of each other. Sending someone back the other way, locking onto precise coordinates and returning them to their original world, was a formula that simply did not exist in this continent's magical theory.

There was no way home.

The humble little dream of sprawling on a toasty heated floor, pouring hot water over instant ramen, and rolling around with a smartphone in my hand shattered into a thousand pieces.

The one who succeeded the Late Emperor was a crown prince who had only just turned five. A child emperor who was still practically a toddler could not possibly hold together a vast empire that was coming apart at the seams. The little boy on the throne clutched my pant leg and wailed at the top of his lungs, begging me not to abandon him.

In the end, with no way back, I gave up on everything and sat down in the Chancellor's seat to serve as Regent.

But once the one clear task of going home had vanished, all that remained was a boredom so vicious it sank ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into the bone, and a hollowness to match.

God, I want YouTube. Hell, I'd settle for TV...

Short-form content that detonated dopamine like fireworks. Spicy morning melodramas you cursed at and still never missed. Reality shows that dumped people in the middle of nowhere and told them to survive. I missed those ordinary Earth days with a madness — lying in my room, tearing into fried chicken, hunting down an endless stream of content.

The entertainment in this place was pitifully thin. Not enough stimulation. My dopamine had dried up, and it felt like my brain was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rotting in my skull.

"Sylvia."

"Yes, Your Excellency."

"What do people even do for fun at balls?"

"They generally dance, split into factions to drink tea, and gossip behind one another's backs."

So backbiting was their idea of a good time.

"Boring. Pretentious. What about the commoners?"

"They watch dogfights in the back alleys, or gamble with dice."

"That's slightly better, but still not great."

I folded my arms and sank into thought. Then the decision arrived, fully formed and completely impulsive.

"Right. If there's nothing to watch..."

"Pardon?"

"I'll just make it myself."

Life flickered back into eyes that had been dying of boredom. Sylvia took an instinctive step backward, as if goosebumps had just run the length of her spine.

"What... what are you planning to unleash this time...!!"

"I'm going to make the most entertaining thing in the Empire."

With that single sentence, the history of the Empire began to veer in a direction no one could have predicted.

If I was going to live here for the rest of my life anyway, I might as well become someone who made the history books.

And then five years went by.

It was more than enough time to turn the landscape of the Empire inside out.

The brat of an emperor was ten now. Hmm. The kid took after his father — that aristocratic air was finally starting to pour off him, and he was growing into his looks. Cute and handsome enough, frankly, to charm men and women alike.

Capital Central Square. On the wide stretch of land that had once been the Imperial Garden, a structure of a grandeur never before seen anywhere on the continent now stood against the sky. A tapering mana spire that called to mind the modern skyscrapers of Earth. Across the building's face, enormous letters had been inlaid in gold.

On the top floor of that colossal building, looking out over the capital through a wall of open glass, I allowed myself a faint smile.

"Perfect."

The last five years had been blood and sweat and capital poured out like water. In truth, I hadn't needed to start from a complete blank slate. The foundation of this enormous project had been laid by none other than myself and the Late Emperor.

In life, he had been deeply interested in how to bind and command a vast empire as a single body. Governance by broadcast address. That was the ruling infrastructure I had proposed, and the one he had accepted. The Emperor would speak into a mana device that served as a microphone in the Imperial Palace, and his voice would fan out through receiving towers installed in public squares across the Empire. For that grand design, he had sunk a staggering budget into planting the skeleton of mana cables beneath the continent.

I put that inheritance to work with both hands.

I overhauled the voice-only receiving system into a communications network that could transmit and receive video in real time. I ran the dwarf craftsmen of the northern mountains and the elite mages of the Mage Tower in rotating shifts, grinding them down for five straight years while we dug and raised hubs. At the same time, I threw myself into distributing the devices that would serve as televisions — the Mana Displays.

For the nobles, I fitted them with premium sandalwood frames that complemented their chandeliers, engraved each house's coat of arms, and sold them off at astronomical prices. The moment I quietly spread the rumor that without this mana device, you will fall behind the currents of high society, the aristocracy trampled one another to buy terminals.

For the commoners, I hung the whole thing on the pretext of an Imperial emergency disaster-alert system. Using the national budget, I installed large terminals free of charge in every square, inn, and village hall.

The current emperor, now ten years old, had been completely captivated by this giant toy. He spent his days staring at a display the size of a palace wall, and sent messengers to the Chancellor's Office every single morning to demand when, exactly, he would get to appear on that screen and wave to his people.

It was a national mega-project in every sense of the word. And at the end of those five years, the entire great Empire was bound together by a single, colossal mana communications network. From the great nobles in their glittering capital mansions to ordinary farmers in blizzard-scoured villages on the northern frontier — if I so much as flipped a switch in the central control room, tens of millions of people could watch the same image at the same time. An overwhelming infrastructure, complete.

I did it. Fuck... I actually did it!!

Knock, knock—

The office door opened, and Sylvia walked in with dark circles sunk so deep under her eyes they looked carved. Over the last five years she had served as Chief Secretary of the Chancellor's Office, construction-site supervisor, and labor negotiator all at once, and the work had worn her down to half a person.

"Your Excellency. You son of a... I mean, Your Excellency."

Ah. The overwork had given her a habit of cursing me out when she thought she was alone. And I did not care in the slightest — because Sylvia was the kind of irreplaceable talent you simply could not afford to lose.

"Just call me a son of a bitch. You've earned it. Status report."

Sylvia clenched her teeth and flipped through the parchment charts she had been clutching to her chest.

"Hahh... Terminal installation is complete across eighty-seven major territories and more than three hundred small-city squares. Personal distribution among noble houses has reached ninety-eight percent. As of midnight last night, the final transmission test recorded latency of under three seconds even at the far edge of the continent."

Hmm. Three seconds. Not meaningfully different from the fiber-optic cables back on Earth.

"Mana camera setup?"

"Twenty latest-model video-recording mana devices capable of high-definition multi-angle filming have been deployed inside Studio 1. The audio-collection ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mana devices are functioning without defects as well."

"Good work, Sylvia. And His Majesty's reaction?"

"He sent another messenger this morning demanding to know when the first broadcast will air. He has gathered the nobles in the imperial banquet hall and is currently waiting."

I perched lightly on the windowsill. The machines were perfect. The system was flawless. An information network without precedent in the history of the continent sat ready to be controlled at my fingertips. All that remained was to flip the switch.

"However, you son of a... I mean, Director."

Sylvia pushed her glasses up and chose her words with care.

"The infrastructure is all laid. Receiver distribution is finished. There are no technical defects. All of that is well and good, but."

"Go on."

"What exactly do you intend to show them? Surely you are not planning to live-broadcast yourself signing documents in your office to the entire continent?"

"Nah. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'm going to broadcast you working. Congrats in advance, continental celebrity. You're pretty — you'll be popular."

"......!"

Sylvia started trembling from head to toe.

"You, you son of a—"

I cut her off at speed.

"I'm kidding."

"I thought as much."

How was I supposed to not tease her when she reacted like that? It was no exaggeration to say I had spent half of the last five years building broadcast infrastructure, and the other half tormenting Sylvia.

I gave her an easy, thoroughly unbothered smile.

"I've got it all figured out."

"...Well. I'm sure you do."

"We'll talk about that in due time. For now, the first broadcast should naturally be an address from His Majesty the Emperor, don't you think? Everything ready?"

Sylvia's eyes changed.

"Yes. Give the word whenever you like."

My heart was pounding. My first official broadcast, years in the making. Otherwise known as Cuteness Overload Hour with the Child Emperor.

When I thought about the staggering good looks and sheer cuteness of an emperor who was all of ten years old... this was going to be a smash hit. Guaranteed.