Blanket Kick
“Fuck… What kind of all-knowing am I…”
I never thought I'd be dumb enough to show my face like that. I'd deliberately flipped the cam upside down just so I wouldn't show my face.
“Agh. Agh! Agh!”
I spent a while berating myself, sealed away under the covers without moving an inch. Honestly, it wasn't so much fear of my face being exposed as it was sheer embarrassment over my appearance—and the fact that my keyboard still hadn't arrived.
“Haa… I guess I shouldn't go around calling myself an archmage.”
Either way, I didn't want to sit in that chair right now. Every time I did, I got this creepy illusion that the cam screen was staring right at me.
And without a keyboard, there was nothing to do anyway. At best, I could read webtoons or watch NerTube videos, but I could do that on my phone just fine.
So for a while, I just clutched my phone. I tried to drown out the reality of my situation by bingeing webtoons.
But for some reason, stories about other people's romances—which I'd normally ignore—started pulling me in. Specifically, the romance genre. Before I knew it, I'd blown through 100 chapters.
Why am I like this lately?
Ever since coming to Earth, I'd been living in this girl's body, but I'd never felt it this intensely before. If I had to put it in human terms, I was feeling all sentimental.
“Hoo…”
I took a deep breath, trying to regain my composure. The discipline from hours of meditation back in the day hadn't vanished entirely; peace settled over my mind soon enough.
“Guess I should at least wash my face.”
I kicked off the covers to cool my burning face and trudged to the bathroom.
Whoosh!
Splashing water on my face cooled the heat, calming my heart. I stared at my dripping face in the mirror, wiped it dry with a towel, and sat down at the computer desk.
“Who am I?”
With a grim expression. Glaring hard at the powered-off cam.
“I am Kenis of All Knowledge. Holder of the official archmage title. Master of all magic. The great, all-wise Kenis.”
I recited some pointless epithets to stroke my ego a bit, then logged into the streaming platform. They had these “replays” where you could rewatch past broadcasts.
“Ha, fuck. At least I set it to private.”
Right after the stream ended, I'd collapsed onto the bed on the verge of tears. By the time I remembered the replay and got back up, it had already racked up some views.
About 30.
Honestly, a negligible number you could pretty much ignore, but it still didn't sit right with me.
Anxious as hell, I kept checking online communities nonstop. I had to log in there anyway if I wanted to post for the gallery creation ranking.
“Where…”
I mostly checked places like DCInside and Aorive— the hottest spots for streamer chatter.
I dove into sites I never usually visited, searching my name, stream title, all sorts of keywords. Only once nothing came up did I finally relax.
“Looks like no one saved a replay…”
If someone had, I'd considered crushing their entire dimension with spatial magic, but I let it go.
Wouldn't that be lame? The ultimate archmage accidentally shows her face on stream, gets embarrassed, and resorts to magic over it.
Plus, using magic like that would make me traceable and could blow things up even worse.
“Haa…”
Was I doomed to live day by day in paranoia like this? Or should I just go full aggro—turn on the stream right now and school all those assholes who ignored me…
“Ugh…”
Damn it. I had no idea what I was even doing anymore.
No matter how much I agonized, no answers came. My cooled head heated right back up, and my chest tightened.
My fingers flew across the mouse. I kept replaying the moment my face got exposed.
How much of my face showed? How many viewers were there at the time?
But checking it over, it wasn't as bad as I'd feared.
The magical backlash from the spell I'd cast had mostly obscured my face anyway. My eyes were visible, but my lower face was barely there.
Did I like that or hate it? Tough call, but whatever.
“Plenty of people do mask cams, right?”
There were tons of streamers who hid their lower faces with masks to avoid doxxing.
“Hoo…”
One weight off my shoulders. The tension drained away, leaving me limp. Right then, my phone pinged—a delivery notice for the keyboard.
“Keyboard! The keyboard's here!”
I shoved the brick-like old one aside and scurried to the door. To avoid another disaster, I hooked the safety chain before cracking it open.
“Not today…”
Made sense. Baek Seol-yeon didn't always have time to drop by. Luckily, I could just grab the keyboard from the doorstep.
“You're finally back, my trusty steed…”
There was a reason I'd shelled out for the exact same expensive model. Anything else slowed my gallery posting speed. Writing posts felt like it took a full five seconds longer per post.
For someone pumping out around 500 posts a day, five seconds per post was a massive time sink. Worth every penny. Obviously.
I ripped open the packaging and set it up with glee. Same model as before, so setup was a breeze.
My custom weapon, reunited after three days. I slammed the post button and started typing.
Tap.
The crisp, elegant key sounds echoed through the room. Music to my ears. Feeling good, I whipped up about 300 more draft posts.
“Nearly died doing this on my phone.”
Of course, even with the broken keyboard, I hadn't stopped chasing the gallery creation ranking. I'd hammered out over 500 posts a day on my phone. Generously.
Aaah. This was the pleasure of my life. I was the gallery now, destroyer of delights.
After dumping a bunch of drafts, I scrolled through the gallery with nothing else to do. That's when a post in the so-called “Real-Time Best” collection caught my eye.
A post from the Mage Gallery. The Mage Gallery—or lawgal for short—was a boring spot for nitpicking magic trivia.
I'd studied magic to death, so I never bothered with it, but it was pretty well-known.
This real-time best post from lawgal, though? It grabbed my attention hard.
No way my clip ended up in a gallery I never check.
It should've been the first place I looked, but I'd overlooked it since I had zero interest normally.
Still, it didn't have to be me, right? Clinging to that thought, I clicked the post.
Click.
And there it was.
“…Haa.”
Why was my gut always right about the bad stuff?
“Am I an idiot? Why am I getting dumber and dumber?”
Ever since becoming a girl—no, since coming to Earth—I definitely felt my brain slowing down.
Back when I meditated and trained in magic all day, every day, I didn't live this thoughtlessly.
Riiiing— Riiiing—
I called her. Baek Seol-yeon. She was the only one I could consult about this crap.
But in a hopeless twist, she didn't pick up.
"The person you have dialed is unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone..."
She never picked up much anyway, but today it stung extra. Holding the phone in one hand, I scrolled through the post's comments with the other.
My performance on stream must've been pretty impressive… I had to admit it drew eyes.
But what the hell was with the sexual harassment? Fuck. It pissed me off. Hard. Rage, shame, fear—all mashed together into pure disgust.
“…Hm.”
Surprisingly, there were some interesting comments too. Healthy debates on magic, and… stuff I couldn't even say aloud, like an indecent field day. Made me wanna puke.
“…I'm hungry. Maybe eat while I browse.”
It was more entertaining than expected. I used the donation money from viewers to boil some cup ramen. I can't handle spicy, so I'd stocked up on non-fried udon cups. Poured boiling water into the small cup, loosened the noodles, and crunched through the half-raw, snack-like bites.
Then I spotted a fun comment.
Pretty convincing argument. I'd started streaming to make money in the first place, after all?