The First Live-Broadcast Hearing
"Look at these images! Beings sliced apart with chainsaws, split in half, torn limb from limb! Honored members of the Senate! Do you truly believe this is appropriate content for a game that anyone can log into and play—even seven- and eight-year-olds? Even a child of five?"
Tribune Duratus, the man who had personally petitioned the Senate for this hearing, was a middle-aged gentleman with just a hint of a paunch.
A slightly receding hairline.
A meticulously groomed mustache.
And an expression so crooked and contemptuous that it oozed from his very face—he clearly didn't like whatever new game we had developed.
At this hearing, he was quite literally pelting the mages of the Black Magic Tower with accusations—along with Carmack and Alfonso, the developers of Doom's Hell Slayer.
And me.
Of course, I wasn't just going to sit there and take it.
"Think about it logically. Monsters appear, they kill people, and heroes subdue those monsters—isn't that simply daily life? Children already live in a world drenched in blood. Claiming that this level of depiction has a critical, damaging effect on them is a gross exaggeration, wouldn't you say?"
"Exactly! And look at the content of the game itself. This is a game about killing demons! Consider that real dark mages have summoned demons that go on to harm people! You could just as easily interpret this as mental training to stand against such threats!"
If this had been Earth—
If this had been the Earth of my past life, that line of reasoning would have left us with only a murky defense. The game really did contain viciously graphic gore and violence.
But this wasn't Earth. This was a fantasy world in another dimension.
An era where monsters genuinely appeared, demons truly existed, and the denizens of the Nine Hells occasionally crawled into the mortal realm to cause mayhem!
Reality was already more brutal than any game. Calling violent depictions "harmful" felt like it went a step too far, to put it mildly.
But Tribune Duratus could not have cared less.
"Indeed. Reality is more brutal and violent. Monster hunting and demon hunting do happen in real life. But it is not an everyday affair! I might understand if we were talking about knights, paladins, priests, or adventurers—people who make such things their trade. But this game puts even young children directly in the line of exposure!"
Duratus swept his gaze across the noble families seated in the hearing chamber, crying out as if in desperate appeal.
"Do all the children of the empire grow up witnessing gore-soaked scenes of monsters and demons being gutted and torn apart every single day? They do not! The vast majority of them live happy, quiet lives under their parents' protection! Noble children most of all! Is there truly a reason to force such children into this—into this grotesque, horrifying experience?"
The nobles of the Senate began to murmur at Duratus's words.
And among them, some began voicing their support openly and forcefully.
"My own son has become obsessed with this game, neglecting his studies and skipping his sword training! What exactly is the utility of this game? It's nothing more than a moment of chaotic, vulgar pleasure—no more, no less!"
"Well said! Reality is far more important and precious than losing oneself in such things!"
"This is nothing but base entertainment that nibbles away at the soul!"
My head throbbed at the sight.
Duratus's target had never been the majority of imperial citizens.
He only needed to persuade the nobles of the Senate seated in this chamber.
And the overwhelming majority of those nobles were negative on games.
Well, it wasn't as though men of that age were going to look fondly on games. To them, gaming was exactly what Duratus said it was: cheap, vulgar amusement.
"A level-one spell! With nothing more than a level-one spell, anyone can log into Soul Net and access these gruesome, horrifying experiences! Anyone! A four-year-old! A five-year-old child can already cast household spells! Is it truly right for such children to be left defenseless against this kind of exposure? Well?"
Nearly half of the nobles in the gallery exploded.
And the other half listened to Duratus with hard, stony expressions—not exactly warm toward the Black Magic Tower either.
"This game is paid content. It's not as though every child who logs in can simply play it for free. At minimum, Mana Fruit must be paid to the Black Magic Tower before anyone can play. That alone filters out most four- and five-year-olds. Those children have no means of payment, do they?"
"A child would need to be at least nine or ten years old before they could get money from their parents and purchase Mana Fruit. And by that age, haven't they received at least enough education to distinguish right from wrong?"
"Where is the evidence that playing this game actually harms children? Not only is such evidence lacking, but even granting the point a hundred times over—even if such harm truly existed—that would be a matter for parents and guardians to manage and care for appropriately. Was it really necessary to convene a hearing and pelt us like this?"
Still, I fought back desperately.
Alfonso and Carmack.
And the mages of the Black Magic Tower mounted what rebuttals they could.
Both sides had their logic.
Nearly half of the council's members sided with Duratus, but the other half stayed silent—which meant our arguments carried at least a measure of persuasiveness.
Left as it was, the hearing would obviously drag on in an endless, exhausting stalemate.
And frankly, I was prepared to settle for a half-victory.
Anything new always looks distasteful to the old. I understood that.
So even just demonstrating that our side had some degree of a case would have been a worthwhile trade, I thought—
"You said you needed evidence that this harms children? Very well. Here is that evidence."
Duratus clearly had no intention of letting things fizzle out.
"I have brought before you a mother whose child was ruined by Doom's Hell Slayer! Everyone!"
At his words, a woman with a haggard, worn face walked steadily into the chamber and took her place at the very center of the hearing.
Bad feeling.
And as always in my life, bad feelings—
"My—my son... while playing this game, he attempted to summon a demon, and—and it ruined his body! Sob...!"
—had a vicious habit of landing with unbearable precision.
Demonic possession was not such an easy thing.
Only properly trained, high-ranking dark mages among dark mages could make contact with the demons of Hell—and possess them.
Demons were, first and foremost, expensive bodies.
They did occasionally descend at the summoning of dark mages, but only after exacting a brutal price would they deign to grace the ritual at all.
Therefore, the claim that a person had been possessed by a demon merely from watching a game screen—driven by illusion magic, no less—was an outrageous leap and a magical absurdity.
But the cheat item known as a grieving mother's tears was making sensible arguments impossible.
"He saw the Reverse Five-Star Formation the demons use in the game, and the demons themselves, and called them cool! And not long after! He attempted a demonic summoning and—his body was ruined! My son! My son ended up like this entirely because of that game! Sob...!"
Unable to bear the mother's wailing any longer, Eldrad Camion, Tower Master of the Black Magic Tower, finally roared.
"Demonic summoning is not something done so simply! I am someone who has devoted his life to the study of interdimensional and spatial travel! Do you think the connection between dimensional planes comes that easily? What that woman is saying right now is utter, senseless nonsense—"
But the Tower Master's voice was drowned beneath the mother's sobbing wails.
"Then who is going to compensate me for my ruined son? Hmm? Are you evading responsibility right now? My son! If only the game had never shown such demonic imagery in the first place, none of this would have happened! It showed him these things, stirred his curiosity, and that curiosity gave rise to this tragedy! Without the game, none of this would have happened! Sob...!"
Tribune Duratus seized on the mother's wailing as his foothold and shouted like a man making a declaration.
"What matters here is not whether a demonic summoning was magically possible in reality! Curiosity! Look at the imagery these in-game scenes carry! Demons! The Reverse Five-Star Formation! Children can see these things and think them cool—and for precisely that reason, they can imitate them thoughtlessly! Looking at this, can any of you still claim this game carries no harm?"
The Tower Master tried to speak, but the enthusiastic applause of half the Senate nobles in the gallery drowned him out entirely.
This situation was flowing toward the absolute worst.
And at the end of that worst—
"Therefore! To prevent cases like this poor mother's! I, Tribune Duratus, intend to establish a game rating board under the supervision of this Senate, so that games may be distributed on Soul Net only by that board's judgment! All of it—for the healthy and beautiful minds of the empire's children! And to protect those minds going forward! Everyone!"
A leash was waiting.
Cunning.
When Soul Net first appeared, the Imperial Family and the Society of Linguists had tried to snap a leash on it and failed—and Duratus had cunningly revised his strategy accordingly.
Now they were shoving a leash in our faces using "children and the weak" as a shield—an absolute value that was nearly impossible to deny.
The moment anyone raised a counterargument here, they could be branded trash who scorned children and the vulnerable. It was practically a guaranteed winning move.
But what could you do?
"As I understand it, a hearing is, by principle, to run for a minimum of three days before any conclusion is reached. We will exercise our right to remain silent for today. If the hearing resumes tomorrow, we will speak then."
For now, I had no choice but to take a step back.
"Absolute nonsense! A kid watches a game screen and tries a demonic summoning? And gets his body mangled in the process? How can such garbage that wouldn't fool anyone with a shred of common sense be spouted so damn smoothly! If it were really that easy, why would dark mages bother gathering human blood and souls for their summons, huh?!"
The meeting room inside the Black Magic Tower was positively gloomy.
The Tower Master was shouting in frustration, but everyone knew.
The point here was never whether such a feat was magically, concretely feasible.
"The core issue is that a child was influenced. He saw the game, took an interest in demons, attempted a demonic summoning, and had an accident. The very claim that a game can make children interested in demonic possession is the battleground."
At my answer, the Tower Master, rarely unable to contain his emotions, panted heavily and clenched his fist.
"All this chatter about the mental health of the empire's children—it's all a pretext! A rating board? Ha! What a joke. Isn't that just talk about squeezing money out of us? Do they think I've never been through this once or twice? It's the exact same shape as the persecution of magic back in the days of Fallen King Gilmore!"
"The shape is the same. But the mask they're wearing is different. On one side, you had a tyrant's oppressive rule. On the other, they're carrying the hard-to-deny value of protecting the mental health of children."
"Cunning bastards!"
The Tower Master raged, but in the end he fell silent.
How in the world were we supposed to break through this?
No clean answer presented itself.
Everyone was glancing at me, none too subtly.
This was, presumably, the first time they'd faced something like this.
So they had no choice but to look to me for the answer.
I let the silence stretch for a moment.
Then I finished my thinking, rose from my seat, and spoke.
"Tribune Duratus never needed to persuade everyone in the first place. He believes he only has to persuade a few thousand nobles in the Senate and he's done."
"Isn't that obvious?"
"And even if the Senate nobles were handed the absurd, nonsensical story that someone played a game, attempted a demonic summoning, and got hurt, most of them would likely stay conveniently silent. Creating a rating board means taking into their own hands the leash on Soul Net—a leash even the Imperial Family failed to secure."
"And with that power they'd claw at Soul Net's revenue too. The excuses are endless. They might make us pay review fees. They might forcibly extract a portion of our revenue in the name of giving back to society. It's the oldest trick in the book!"
"On top of that, the mask Duratus brought is far too pretty. While regulating Soul Net, he can simultaneously claim the lofty cause of acting for children's mental health. Even the silent half of the nobles will likely agree. And the key point here... is that this entire process would happen strictly within the Senate."
"Obviously?"
I flashed a broad smile at everyone watching me with anticipation.
"Then the solution is simple. We turn this whole process into an event that does not happen only inside the Senate. That makes internal collusion to ram through a specific policy impossible. Tomorrow's hearing—I'm going to show it to everyone."
"So then how would you—ah!"
The Tower Master seemed to catch on.
"It's time to see the returns on three months of expanding the dimensional network, working through the night."
I declared it proudly.
And then, the next day.
Day two of the hearing.
"Tribune Duratus. I have one question for you. Everything taking place in this hearing is necessary for the health and welfare of all imperial citizens. Correct?"
"Precisely. That is why games must be regulated."
"Good. Then something done for the health of all imperial citizens... would be fine for all imperial citizens to watch, wouldn't it?"
"...What?"
I carefully activated a single level-three spell.
A blue circular magic circle materialized beside my face.
"Honored nobles of the Senate, one and all. Please log into Soul Net immediately and open the front page of the community site."
At my words, everyone complied with puzzled expressions, exactly as I'd instructed.
And then—
"Wh-what is this?"
"It's a live broadcast, everyone. We are, at this very moment, testing the video functionality that will soon be added to Soul Net."
When they touched the enormous banner plastered across the top of the site—Elsy Bwenner Hearing: LIVE—every noble of the Senate and Tribune Duratus himself were able to confirm their own faces staring back at them from within a Soul Net screen.
And it wasn't just them.
Tens of thousands of viewers.
And that number was surging higher by the second, in real time.
Duratus's eyes went wide.
The eyes of the Senate nobles went wide.
And with every one of their eyes stretched open—
"Day two of this hearing will proceed as a live stream, watched by all the people of the empire. Since it is being conducted for the sake of every imperial citizen's mental health, I believe the citizens have a right to know."
That single sentence of mine echoed slowly through the chamber.