The Fall of the Double-Cuss Emperor

마무......리? — I blinked, the word refusing to form properly on my tongue.

"Akram-nim and the paladins have started moving, Elsie!"

"Excellent!"

"They're traveling at top speed using spatial displacement magic! The Black Magic Tower is supporting them with teleportation spells as well, so they say they'll arrive within twenty minutes at the latest!"

Twenty minutes. Perfect.

If that bastard stayed in the same spot until then, this was our victory.

The only question was whether the bastard would sit still.

-Lord Elsie! The target has noticed my presence!

Of course he had.

Black magic and divine magic were rival fields — the most fundamental of opposites. If the target had borrowed the Goddess's authority to pinpoint his location, it would have been stranger if a black magician hadn't noticed.

"Don't tell me this bastard's going to run?"

"If he has a teleport scroll, he could jump to a completely different location!"

"The moment he runs, it's over!"

Amid the shouts of the Black Magic Tower mages and the Tower Master, I hastily opened my Soul Net window and dove straight into the War Era 2 Gallery, where the DoubleCursingEmperor was currently splattering his filth everywhere.

And then.

I had posted it under a title designed to bait him, hard.

And then, suddenly —

The gallery spam stopped dead.

"Elsie? What are you doing right now?"

At the Tower Master's question, I flashed a grin.

"What do you think drives people to pull this kind of stunts in a gallery? They want attention. And for someone like that, a person like me is the ultimate trophy target — the one mark they can't pass up."

A man who had harvested hundreds of souls, and what he chose to do with all of them was spam a forum board.

I didn't know the full story, but one thing was clear: this guy wanted recognition and applause, even if only online.

That's what drives most malicious commenters, after all.

"Just wait. He'll come to me. Guaranteed."

"Even knowing the Saintess has pinpointed his location, he's just going to keep posting in the gallery?"

"Exactly. Any sane person would drop the gallery and run. But this guy isn't sane. Would a sane person go so far as to exploit other people's souls just to get some attention? This guy isn't running."

I quickly typed out another post in thought-transmission.

"With this baited, he won't run — not out of sheer pride."

The Tower Master and the elders stared at my Soul Net window with expressions of sheer disbelief.

And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a short while later.

The Tower Master and the elders' jaws dropped wide open.

".........He's THAT much of a pathetic bastard?!"

"He knows his location's been found, and he's still posting in the gallery? Is this guy in his right mind?"

"Would a man in his right mind burn through hundreds of souls just to spam a forum?"

I cracked my knuckles, joint by joint.

Right.

This familiar feeling.

It's been a while.

Time to show them the old skills I honed flame-warring against that manipulative spoon-fed bastard on my old team who shit the bed and played politics.

Time was passing.

I was passionately flame-warring, dragging things out.

The DoubleCursingEmperor seemed to be pouring every ounce of his focus into firing off replies.

"Elsie! Ten minutes! Hold out ten more minutes!"

"Even for a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠madman like the DoubleCursingEmperor, running once he's clearly been found is only natural, isn't it?"

"Please! Stall just ten more minutes! Then this bastard is caught for good!"

The Tower Master and the elders were screaming, but I was calm.

This guy absolutely could not run.

Why, you ask?

The War Era 2 Gallery was, fitting for the game's popularity, an absolutely massive gallery.

And right now, every single member of the gallery had crowded in to watch my flame war with the DoubleCursingEmperor, piling on with comments of their own.

DoubleCursingEmperor.

I had no idea what was wrong with his head, and I couldn't fathom why a black magician with hundreds of souls at his command would use all that power for nothing but forum spam — but one thing was certain.

This bastard was an attention seeker.

And for an attention seeker...

...a stage like this was not a stage to run from.

I quietly looked at the clock.

Then I smiled serenely and left a comment.

And then, abruptly —

The comments stopped.

I leisurely stretched, cracking my back, and let out a long breath.

"Thank you for your hard work, everyone. And Saintess Orphea — my deepest thanks."

A clean, thoroughly satisfying victory.

News that the black magician famous under the epithet Red Black Magician had been arrested spread across the entire Dimension.

He was a warlock and summoner who, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for over ten years, had roamed the whole of the Wirod Dimension, stealing the souls of every adventurer who came to capture him and offering those souls to demons in exchange for powerful magic.

The reason he had evaded capture for a decade despite his rampage was his thorough preparation and meticulous planning —

And the fact that he was a skilled black magician who always traveled with complete escape arrangements in place for emergencies.

But this time, he was caught for good.

Because he'd been too busy flame-warring with me in the gallery to stop the paladins and the High Inquisitor from storming his hideout.

"I want to ask one question before you're sealed away in Tartaros. Why did you terrorize Soul Net?"

According to High Inquisitor Akram-nim, who had led the arrest himself and later relayed it to me, the DoubleCursingEmperor — the Red Black Magician — had attacked Soul Net for one reason and one reason only.

"I am the superior magician!"

"Oh really, now?"

"I, Elsie Bwener! I'm a far, far superior magician than that crippled piece of garbage! I am! I am the more brilliant, the more magnificent one! And yet that worthless idiot is raking in money and riding high on success while I hide my body in a dungeon crawling with skeletons and earthworms! Does this! Does this make ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ANY sense to you?!"

"So you committed the terror because of that?"

"Yes! I did it to show the world! That I am the greater man! That I am the worthier, more magnificent magician!"

Jealousy toward the man who made Soul Net.

What an utterly absurd motive.

Well.

He was reportedly confined in the Tartaros Detention Center — a place known to be so brutal that dying outright would be preferable — after leaving those words as his final testimony, so he presumably won't be going on any more rampages.

The souls he had extorted?

According to Akram-nim, they were returned to the Goddess's embrace through a proper exorcism ritual.

And in the wake of this incident —

I had gained a new meme: some kind of supernatural entity who would materialize in the real world to drag down forum troublemakers the moment they stepped out of line.

And it seemed to have served as more than enough of a warning to the gallery users.

Here and there across Soul Net, a culture of observing the bare-minimum rules I'd announced in my site-wide notice to all users began to take hold, and seeing that atmosphere spread, I could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Although.

The DoubleCursingEmperor's influence wasn't entirely nonexistent, after all.

Rougher venues like the Adventurer Gallery started adopting more and more of his speech habits.

But that was only ever a handful of galleries.

The vast majority still stuck to polite speech.

And the gentle, playful atmosphere — full of the usual "kyahaha" banter — held firm.

And there was one more positive effect that came out of the DoubleCursingEmperor affair.

The upshot was this: ordinary users consumed me as a meme and had a good chuckle, but the ones who stirred up trouble to a genuinely dangerous degree had come to fear me.

This user known as SHBrother had been one of the crowd spraying profanity and disrespect all over the galleries, but he went quiet the moment I left that warning comment.

And then —

He didn't get hauled off to prison like the DoubleCursingEmperor, but word had it he was instead sentenced to being enthusiastically used as the newest photoshopped meme in the Synthetic Magic Gallery — following in the footsteps of Wajugi and Minister Randor's castration clip.

Anyway.

That's how the DoubleCursingEmperor affair was wrapped up.

And it all tied off so nicely... or so it seemed.

"Now listen carefully, Elsie Bwener."

"Akram-nim? What brings you all the way here?"

"His Holiness the Pope of the Holy Fire Order has expressed his concerns with his own lips. The situation is extremely grave."

"Wh-what? What's wrong? Did the Soul Net users do something wrong again? Did they post nasty comments or articles about the Holy Fire Order?"

"It's nothing like that. Elsie, please — if you have a solution, tell me."

"Then what on earth is the matter?"

"Saintess Orphea has fallen head over heels into Soul Net."

"........."

"She's turning away conversations with the Goddess herself to browse galleries and watch Kraken! What are we going to do about this, Elsie!"