Answer Me, Black Flame Dragon

If the first thing that comes to mind when you hear five hundred thousand is the special statute for major cities, then what comes to mind first when you hear the number fifty?

In the Bible, the Holy Spirit descends fifty days after Jesus rises from the dead. So when you hear fifty, the very first thing—above everything else—is the Descent of the Holy Spirit.

Just the sound of it is stupidly cool. It feels exactly like the name of a trump-card ultimate you'd whip out in a fantasy story, so I was extremely fond of it.

The next thing that comes to mind is knowing Heaven's mandate. It means you come to understand the will of Heaven, and it's also the word people use for the age of fifty. Understanding Heaven's will—it sounds like the epithet of some sage out of a fantasy novel, so I was extremely fond of that one too.

For the record, my age is called the bloom of youth. The flower of a woman in her twenties, or whatever they say.

Fifty is also the Great Expansion Number, said to symbolize every last thing between heaven and earth. Mentioned in the I Ching, or so I hear. It sounded like a word for some incredible realm of mastery, so anyway, I was extremely fond of it.

The Descent of the Holy Spirit, knowing Heaven's mandate, and the Great Expansion Number. Just hearing them was enough to strike a powerful chord in the heart of a chuunibyou otaku.

Which meant fifty was a great number, possessed of the power to move an otaku's soul! A sacred number that reached all the way to heaven!!!

So. Why was I going on about fifty being sacred?

"Which is to say—not 490,000, not 510,000, but a MeTube sitting perfectly still at 500,000 subscribers. Isn't that a NewTube channel that has touched heaven? And isn't Marchen, holder of a 500,000-subscriber NewTube channel, a sacred NewTuber?"

That was the point I was trying to make.

People, it seemed, were not prepared to easily accept that I was a sacred NewTuber. Fair enough. From the outside, a 490,000-subscriber NewTuber and a 500,000-subscriber NewTuber look like there's no difference at all, so the ordinary conclusion is that nothing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠has changed.

But that was knowing one thing and missing the second. If nothing changes where you can see it, isn't it possible something is changing where you can't? No—wouldn't that actually be the logical, rational judgment?

"The moment I learned that fifty is an incredibly sacred number, the thought hit me. What if there's an ability you can only use when you're a 500,000-subscriber NewTuber? The way a guy who stays a virgin until thirty can use magic?!"

Under that logical, rational judgment, I reached a perfect conclusion. And because the conclusion was perfect, my voice was brimming with certainty.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

A prophet is always persecuted, so of course the viewers' reactions weren't exactly warm. Persecution was familiar to me by now, though, so I accepted it calmly. And because I'd expected a bad reaction, I'd prepared a countermeasure.

The countermeasure was———

"So the second segment is a 500,000-subscriber ability-awakening special! We find the trigger that awakens the power!!!"

All I had to do was show and prove, right? I caught my wrist in my left hand, spread my right hand flat with the palm facing forward, and stretched that arm straight out. Eyes closed. One deep breath. Then I clenched my stomach and my asshole and shouted loud enough to rattle the streaming booth off its foundations.

"STATUS WIIIIINDOW!!!!!"

The universal law of ability awakenings!!!

I clicked my tongue and scratched my head.

"Well, the most basic awakening method failed. So, another way…."

With that, I wound a bandage I'd prepared in advance tight around my right arm, then wrote across it in marker:

Then I put on a BGM that practically dripped with ominous atmosphere.

And just like before, I seized my own wrist in my left hand, shot my right arm straight out, and shouted at the top of my lungs.

"STATUS WIIIIINDOW!!!"

But nothing happened!

"Yeah. I don't think it's a status window."

No matter how much a status window is the beginning and the end of every ability, the universal law of the genre… it really didn't have any particular connection to 500,000 subscribers!

"Giving up on the status window for now! Shall we try the next one?"

"Ah, one second?"

I said that, stepped out of the streaming booth, changed clothes, and came back. For the record, the outfit I changed into was a nun's habit.

If fifty was a sacred number, and a 500,000-subscriber NewTuber fell under that sacred number's influence, then maybe I had to dress the part before some hidden ability would trigger. So I put on the holiest-looking clothes I owned.

"If I do get an ability, I'd really like it to be one that improves my gacha luck, you know? So…."

I said that, then quietly booted up Raider and went straight into the gacha screen. I pressed my hands together, closed my eyes, and—in the holiest voice I could manage———

I chanted a spell. Yes. This time we were going with a spell. I'd already memorized everything I needed to recite, so—

I shouted the name of the spell and slammed the gacha button!

I was doomed!

"…Cancel that last one! It felt like a prayer, not a spell, so one more time!"

This time, so it felt like a spell and not a prayer….

And the result of that ten-pull….

"…Hmm?"

The same four-star character, back to back? It wasn't exactly impossible, but… something felt wrong.

"…I'll try just one more time."

This time I roughly copied a spell from an anime. I did the ten-pull, and out came Komyu, the four-star healer.

In that instant the chat filled with laughter. I'd just thrown thirty pulls into the void, so of course they were laughing. The law that someone else's misfortune is your happiness was hard at work again today.

But that law would apply to me too! I will seize my own happiness with my own hands…!!!

…That was kind of cool, so I'd better remember it and reuse it later.

"…I'm betting everything I have on this ten-pull! Draw!!!"

Result at forty pulls.

Three times I could accept. Four was a little….

"Is there actually something to this…?"

"…I'm turning Raider off for now."

I decided the gacha experiment that had opened so suddenly would end here. If I kept digging, I was going to burn dozens more pulls for nothing. Still, I'd learned one thing.

From now on, putting on a nun's habit, chanting a spell, and then pulling gacha was something I must never do again—not even if I died and came back to life.

Never…!!!

I spent the rest of the time showing the viewers everything I'd prepared before the stream, and before I knew it, it was 8:30 p.m. And what did 8:30 p.m. mean?

"…I think I'll wrap the 500,000 celebration stream here. I've got to go headline today's highlight, right?"

It meant there were thirty minutes left until Raider's official broadcast.

"My very first official-broadcast commentary of my liiiiife!!!"

My heart was pounding!