Chapter 377 - 269: You Can Even Drive on This Crappy Road?

Chapter 377: Chapter 269: You Can Even Drive on This Crappy Road?

Zog had suggested that Toto make her videos more about pulling off gags and stunts.

But Toto refused!

Making videos wasn’t her main business. It was just a channel to advertise her power-leveling service.

Toto was an ambitious Half-Elf, and she had already started to develop her own business.

Specifically, a power-leveling team.

She had gathered a group of the best in the business from back in the day—petty thieves and master burglars. Most of them were unemployed due to the new trend of masked heroes that had become popular in the city.

There simply weren’t enough criminals to go around.

It had gotten to the point where those "heroes" had started hiring thugs just so they could catch them, all to satisfy their sense of accomplishment from punishing evil.

Nine times out of ten, the jobs posted by the city’s Thief Guild came from that bunch of role-playing enthusiasts. This left the thieves too scared to operate on their own and too afraid to take jobs from the Guild.

The riverbanks were full of fishermen, but there were no fish left in the water.

So, at the command of their leader, Toto, they all came over to fill orders for her.

She used her own reputation to attract business, then distributed the orders to her subordinates and took a commission.

The YouTube account she ran had to project an air of expertise for herself and her crew, earning the trust of their customers.

Power-leveling, to be honest, damages the game’s environment, but it’s impossible to ban.

Where there’s demand, there’s a market. Someone will always need power-leveling services.

That’s why Zog didn’t ban it—not that he could have. As long as the proportion of power-leveling didn’t reach a certain threshold, the damage to the game’s environment wasn’t fatal.

Besides, even without power-leveling, high-ranked players would just make smurf accounts to stomp on newbies.

Zog had always hated two things: being the one getting stomped, and not being allowed to do the stomping.

In any case, the small gaming section on YouTube was currently suffering from a severe lack of entertaining content.

"Let’s see which little genius made this video."

Zog clicked on it with his claw. First off, this clearly wasn’t a video made by Toto. A pair of hands appeared on screen—one normal, the other sealed. ’Whose subordinate is this?’

"They’re really going all out!"

"What’s ’going all out’?" Yuno asked, leaning over curiously to watch with him.

"This person sealed one of their hands on purpose, just to show off how skilled they are at the game."

"Whoa—" Yuno’s reaction was exaggerated. "Doesn’t this person know the sandbox can record gameplay? It says so right in the manual."

"First of all, it’s completely impossible to expect users to read the manual carefully," Zog explained with a straight face. "Second, look at the title. ’One-Handed Gameplay.’ Aren’t they showing you the one hand? That’s brilliant internet thinking."

"I see," Yuno said, nodding in agreement.

One was bold enough to say it, and the other gullible enough to believe it.

Zog glanced at the creator’s name: Leon. He was using his real name online. Address: Twin Tower City.

’Wait a minute, could this be the kid who took down five Devils by himself the other day?’

’I didn’t think he had this kind of act in him.’

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, today we’ve got a match to see who’s your daddy. Our opponent here is on a 20-win streak. So impressive! Since he’s on a 20-win streak, we might as well have some fun with him, right?"

The tone was smug and carried a hint of a Dwarf accent. Combined with the deliberately exaggerated interjections, it sounded strangely captivating.

"We don’t want to look too strong, or else our opponent might run away. First, let’s send out a dog and have it walk right into his squad of Knights..."

"Huh? He actually dared to attack my dog? Well, I guess I have no choice but to have it maul his squad of Knights."

"Oh no, I’m about to win. If I win this fast, he’ll definitely leave. I have to throw a couple of rounds. That way, he’ll think he has a chance to win and play another game with me."

"What? My opponent still hasn’t surrendered? I guess I’ll just have to torture him—I mean, play with him a little longer..."

The entertainment value peaked at the end when the host, furious and exasperated, refused to call him "dad," kicked Leon out, and changed the room name from "20-Win Streak" to "17-Win Streak."

’Amateurish, but not bad.’

’Looks like this Leon kid can still make a living on the internet after retiring from the pro scene.’

’That’s a talent in itself.’

Even in an era where the career path of pro-player-turned-streamer was well-established, there were always some who would stream until their audience just vanished.

Meanwhile, Yuno, who had never been baptized by this kind of video before, was watching with great interest.

"Does he have any other videos? For some reason, watching this makes me want to eat something."

"Congratulations. You’ve now grasped the key purpose of ’meal-time videos.’"

Zog opened Leon’s homepage. There was only one video, and its view count hadn’t even broken ten thousand yet; it was only in the low thousands.

He decided to give him a little help by promoting him as a prime example for the gaming section.

’It’s hard to keep doing a job that lacks positive feedback.’

YouTube’s system worked not only through tag-based recommendations but also, of course, through forced promotions from the backend.

Take a certain video-sharing app, for example. Every so often, it would manufacture a viral star.

Then, after about a month, when the hype died down, they would quickly fade into obscurity.

An artificial star-making campaign.

Zog directly contacted the YouTube operations team and had them aggressively push the video onto everyone’s homepage.

Clicking "Not Interested" wouldn’t work either.

He would guarantee that for the near future, anyone who used YouTube would come across Leon’s video several times.

As for how much of that traffic Leon could capture, that was up to him.

’He’s got the skills and the showmanship. Hopefully, he’ll become the face of the gaming section.’

’I also hope that after he gets famous, he doesn’t start doing ’try not to laugh’ challenges...’

After setting all this in motion, the sound of a steam whistle echoed from the distance.

The train they were waiting for had arrived.

Lately, the efficiency of trains heading to Deepwater City Station had improved significantly.

It wasn’t because the railway company had a change of heart, but mainly because Zog had paid them a visit for a "friendly chat."

The railway company’s boss was very understanding of a Dragon’s intentions and readily agreed.

After all, Zog wasn’t making them take a loss—just earn a little less.