Ether Web Goes Commercial?!
It was finally time to properly introduce myself.
Pointing at me with my thumb, I declared boldly.
“Yeah, it’s Queen Wednesday. That’s me.”
Allen’s face twisted in disgust.
Then he growled low.
“Fuck… the disgraced daughter of the Wednesday family, the walking disaster. Never thought it’d be you.”
What, was I already famous?
Nah, probably not.
Mirinda must’ve spread the rumors everywhere.
Otherwise there’s no way I’d be this well-known already.
Winz immediately corrected him.
“Watch your language. If you’re good enough to be hired by nobles, you should have some manners, no?”
Allen just sighed.
He reluctantly nodded.
“Fine. So you’re the eldest daughter of the Wednesday family. Guess you’ve got the skills to back it up. Still, I can’t exactly put this in my report.”
“Yeah, so go do your job properly. We’re leaving.”
“…Don’t think this is over. Stopping noble tyranny is part of my job as a fixer.”
“Oh wow, look at Mr. Justice Hero over here.”
I sneered openly and left with Winz.
That was that.
Allen could handle the rest.
I wasn’t sure how well a guy hired for just a few days would do, but whatever.
We returned to the inn, washed up, and rested. Today had been ridiculously long.
“Hehe…♥”
Winz approached me wearing nothing but her underwear, that lewd smile plastered on her face like a permanent passive skill.
What the hell is she planning now…
Fear came first.
It would’ve been fine if I were still a guy.
But my body was female now.
Two girls doing that was kind of difficult, wasn’t it?
That… important act.
Damn it, I can’t exactly conjure a nonexistent holy sword!
So Winz doing something weird was inevitable.
And that terrified me.
She slowly pulled something out.
Is that a dil—? No, a terminal?
“My lady, watch carefully.”
“Hm?”
Winz pressed a few buttons on the terminal she’d taken out.
Right after, the terminal I was holding let out a short ring.
“Huh? You called me?”
I cautiously held it to my ear.
Winz nodded with a smile.
“Yes! Try it yourself, my lady.”
“But there’s no number?”
“Number…? Ah, you just input the code!”
I followed Winz’s instructions. This world didn’t use numbers for calls—you used codes instead.
The terminal code was displayed at the very top of the screen. I looked at Winz’s code and entered it exactly.
The call went through.
Duuuu—
“Whoa, that’s amazing!”
“Hehe, right?”
I’d made plenty of calls back in reality, but doing the same thing with a similar device here felt strangely novel.
Like someone using a phone for the very first time.
Not that I’d been living like a caveman until now.
I was about to hang up when Winz grabbed my wrist.
Her expression had turned serious.
“My lady, you did really well today. I believed in you.”
“Winz…?”
After a brief hesitation, Winz met my eyes with clear resolve.
My reflection flickered in her crimson vertical pupils.
“I want to stay behind you, just like always. So no one can get in your way or hurt you.”
“Why so serious all of a sudden?”
I laughed lightly.
She laughed back, but quickly grew serious again.
“I don’t know. I’m just excited. Anyway… even watching you from afar is enough for me. I just want you to keep smiling like you did today!”
She wanted me to smile every day.
Truth was, living with a smile every single day was hard—whether in reality or this world.
As a hero, I’d been forced to. Even now, plenty of people were barely scraping by, day after day. I understood that feeling all too well.
In a reality where even protecting my own smile was a struggle, let alone someone else’s… could I really keep smiling every day?
“Winz…”
“Hehe, did I overstep?”
Winz telling me to live smiling somehow felt like she existed outside this world entirely.
I chuckled softly.
“I just need you to be happy, Winz.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. You’re the prettiest and kindest girl I know. So if you smile, I smile too.”
“Oh my, my lady… Where did you learn to say things like that?!”
Guess it worked.
Figured it would.
I was strong in serious situations, after all!
“Pretty cool, right?”
“No, it was lame!”
Winz’s single line crushed me.
I’d said it with total sincerity, thinking it was cool.
Squeeze.
But she silently pulled me into a hug. I could feel the warmth of her body clearly.
Right after came that overwhelming sense of volume, and the call ended.
We spent the rest of the time talking about all sorts of things.
Today was a day we’d earned the right to rest.
Vrrr—
Suddenly the terminal rang again. I looked straight at Winz.
“Winz…?”
“It’s not me this time.”
Curious, I answered. An unfamiliar code was flashing on the screen.
Well, every code was unfamiliar to me anyway.
“Hello?”
—It’s me.
Renua. Sigh, what now.
—Looks like things went well?
“Yeah. What’s up?”
—There’s something I forgot to mention. Remember when you were fiddling with those machine parts earlier?
“Yeah, you making something else? Something that’ll make money?”
Renua answered right away. Guess she wasn’t busy right now.
—Nothing big. Just come over. I need your help with something.
The most ominous words in the world, coming from Renua.
Asking for help with her work basically meant she needed a gofer.
I knew it instinctively.
This is gonna drag me into something annoying… Sigh.
I shook my head for a moment, then reconsidered.
She wasn’t the type to waste my time for no reason.
So I agreed.
Looked like I was meeting Renua again.
“Alright, I’m heading out. You rest, Winz.”
“Wait!”
Winz shot up.
She thrust her ridiculously large chest right in front of me.
“Where my lady goes, I go too! You should know that by now!”
“Am I the needle and you’re the thread? Fine, fine. Let’s go together.”
“Uheheh♥”
She was grinning like an idiot again.
We got ready and headed to Renua’s place.
The moment we stepped inside, the smell of oil being applied to machinery hit us.
This felt ominous.
I personally hated being someone’s errand girl.
Up on the second floor, Renua was holding two different mechanical devices, one in each hand.
They looked familiar, as expected.
“You’re here? Took your sweet time showing off.”
“Showing off what? What are those?”
Renua shrugged.
One looked like a terminal, but with a thick, eyeball-like pillar connected by multiple wires.
The other resembled an antenna.
Renua explained.
“Listen carefully. That terminal-like thing is a camera. Once installed, you can see everything happening in that area in real time.”
Ah, so like CCTV.
She actually made one.
I stayed indifferent, but Winz reacted differently.
“Whoa, isn’t that a magic-engineering eye?”
“Similar, but I modified it. Made sure it can’t be hacked.”
Magic-engineering eyes were the closest thing to CCTV, but there weren’t many of them.
Plus, skilled mages could hijack them, so safety concerns had been rising lately.
Renua was trying to solve even that problem.
Called it. I knew she would!
“And this antenna expands the Ether Web’s range.”
“Renua, so what exactly do you need our help with?”
Renua smiled sweetly, like we were finally getting to the main point.
For some reason, it looked downright evil.
“I’ve got a hundred of each. Starting now, we’re installing all of them together across the Womanchester territory!”
A thunderbolt of a declaration.
Was she sane?
Right now? A hundred each?
“Wait, are you joking? How the hell are we supposed to do all that?!”
“But we have to expand the web from Womanchester first before we can move to other territories. These antennas create range synergy by default.”
No matter how you looked at it, this was way too much. She wanted us to run around installing them ourselves?
Even Winz looked horrified.
“Even so, that’s way too many!”
Renua clicked her tongue.
“What, you don’t want to succeed? I poured everything into making these with that massive funding, and now you’re backing out?!”
She glared at us like a cat that had just had its fish stolen.
Neither Winz nor I had anything to say.
Evil, but cute.
Cute or not, this was straight-up slave labor. Sigh, no choice.
“Fine, whatever. Winz, let’s run until our feet catch fire.”
“Hiiiing… My legs are gonna turn to jelly and I’ll get athlete’s foot!”
“I’ll still like you even then?”
“Heek, th-that’s…!”
“You two are disgusting.”
Renua spat the words like she couldn’t watch anymore.
All that over a little joke.
Winz perked up again.
“As long as I’m with my lady, I’m happy with anything!”
Renua scratched her cheek.
“So how are you planning to carry all this stuff?”
“I’ve got a way.”
I stored every single item Renua handed me inside the ring.
Renua’s eyes widened.
“What the—? Is that a subspace device?”
“Something like that.”
“Ahem. Anyway, space the cameras and antennas about twenty meters apart. Do your best.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
We left the house.
And ran like crazy.
We kept running until the sky grew dark, like a pair of drunk lunatics chugging makgeolli.
Once we confirmed the Ether Web was properly expanding and saw that Renua had already started promoting it—complete with a community forming—my chest swelled with pride.
Right now it was mostly just her acquaintances, but once it went fully commercial, tons of people would be making calls and chatting on the web.
We headed back to the inn like that.
“Winz, you worked really hard today.”
“Ehehe, you worked even harder, my lady!”
“Anyway, let’s rest for a bit.”
“You say that, but you’ve got that look like you want to investigate something.”
She really did know me better than anyone.
I smiled lightly and answered.
“Yeah. About that guy Allen. But first… let’s eat something!”
“Yes!”
Winz answered energetically as I linked arms with her and headed toward a nearby restaurant.
Those who work hard shall eat!