Gojo Satoru In Re:Zero Chapter 129 129 - Update!

With every piece of the plan rolling along on its own, Gojo wandered back to his room, flopped onto the bed, and settled in like a satisfied cat.

"You know, I figured after we took care of Regulus and the whole arc wrapped up, a new episode would start up."

"Nothing yet. That's odd."

Going by narrative logic, the sequence with the White Whale and the Sin Archbishops was unmistakably a climax point. Every previous stretch like this had triggered a broadcast. Why this one felt different, he couldn't say.

"I was looking forward to seeing how many Popularity Points I could rack up this ti, too."

He scratched at the back of his head, puzzled.

These past stretches had pushed his Popularity Points back up around the forty thousand mark. As the story built and ti ticked on, the rate at which the counter climbed kept accelerating.

He was halfway through wondering whether to set Adaptation aside for the mont and dig into other powers that might suit him better when the system chi he'd been waiting for finally sounded.

[The ani Re: Zero - Starting Life in Another World is about to begin.]

[The Interdinsional broadcast function has been activated. Real-ti Comnt section and Popularity Ranking viewable during playback.]

"So it can hear , and that's what kicked it off?"

"Or that's one hell of a coincidence."

Gojo stroked his chin, thoughtful.

Not that it mattered.

A new episode was a new episode.

The timing actually worked out. This arc had plenty of runway and a good clutch of big monts. Ti to see how it landed. Popularity Points would tell the story.

On cue, an image blood across the panel before him, picking up right where the last one had left off.

[Finally! Here it is!]

[First!]

[Back to see my husband!]

[Bold of you. That's MY husband!]

[Poor pathetic Subaru. Please die again, just one more ti.]

[Cracking up. Subaru really wants to yell at soone right now.]

...

The comnts flickered past in a scrolling rush.

He'd grown used to them by now. There was almost sothing fond about seeing them fly by.

The ones about Subaru in particular tugged the corner of his mouth up without him aning to.

Wherever these viewers were from, their back-and-forth was genuinely entertaining.

On screen, the story moved briskly.

The group had returned to the Royal Capital after the conference, reunited with Old Man Rom after a stretch apart, and then headed to the castle barracks to verify Felt's Royal Candidate status. That was where Reinhard, picking up on Felt's cluster of telltale features, had taken sharp notice.

And the bombshell had dropped.

[Felt is the last remaining mber of the previous royal line?!]

[See, I kept saying. A straight-up thief landing Royal Candidate made no sense. The Divine Dragon's eye for people isn't that bad.]

[Figures. These things never have anything to do with commoners like us.]

[Yaro, who put this comnt on my phone. It has nothing to do with !]

[Honestly, this feels unfair to Felt. She's literally royal blood, and now she has to compete for the crown all over again.]

[That's what happens when the biggest authority in the country isn't the royals. It's the Divine Dragon.]

[Go Felt! I'm going to cheer for you forever!]

With Felt's heritage out in the open, the Comnt section swelled. The Popularity Points in the corner crept up alongside.

Pragmatism, pure and simple.

"What a practical bunch."

Rembering how these sa viewers had behaved when ogling the Royal Candidates earlier, Gojo chuckled to himself.

The ones declaring eternal loyalty to Felt now would, without a doubt, start "defecting" the mont they got a look at the other candidates.

Enemies or not, he couldn't deny the other candidates had their own appeal, each in her own register.

Once Felt's bloodline was confird, Reinhard knelt in oath, and the Comnt section cheered all over again.

Reinhard's na alone carried weight that went well beyond ordinary.

[My husband AND the kingdom's strongest Reinhard. Can sobody please explain how Felt loses from here?]

[How does she lose 1!]

[Felt's lineup is kind of stacked. Once competition actually begins, she's going to steamroll every other candidate.]

[Reinhard is the kingdom's strongest. Doesn't an there aren't other strong people out there.]

[Exactly. Roswaal is no slouch either. Even if he's a fence-sitter.]

[Becoming king isn't only about power...]

[Has the person above been reading too many girls'-genre novels? If not power, then what?]

Girls'-genre novels?

Sounded like quite the thing.

The Comnt section kept churning, and the on-screen story sped on with it, pushing rapidly into the conference proper.

The group rode a Dragon Carriage to the royal castle.

The second they set foot in the gilded great hall, every eye in the place swung toward the other candidates.

Once everyone had assembled, five strikingly beautiful young won stood in a line, each with her own presence.

The Comnt section, whatever it had been debating a mont ago, whether plot, combat power, or shipping Gojo and Reinhard, forgot all of it in an instant.

[Wow. Wives. So many wives!]

["Wife" is too distant. Skip straight to "mommy."]

[I get it now. The Divine Dragon is a pervert like the rest of us. When picking the future ruler, nothing else matters. Only looks!]

[That's actually the truth. Every one of these five has sothing that stands out.]

[I'm into the older girl in the red dress. Rich AND generous. Compared to her, Felt and the others might as well be elentary schoolers.]

[What's wrong with elentary schoolers? I love elentary schoolers!]

[Reporting you to the authorities.]

...

Reading the increasingly unhinged material scrolling by, Gojo's mouth twitched. Honestly, he'd half want to make that call himself.

"Loves elentary schoolers," now that was a hard line.

On the ranking panel off to the side, Anastasia's na and those of the other candidates had appeared.

Exactly as he'd predicted. The mont their nas registered, their Popularity Points climbed at a pace visible to the naked eye. Enviable stuff.

But.

His turn wasn't up yet.

He watched, a small flicker of anticipation in his chest.

The peace of the conference didn't last. With Felt's lineage revealed and each candidate's declaration made, Rickert and the others pivoted toward Felt and Emilia, claws out.

The ugly, small-minded sneer on their faces would turn anyone's stomach.

Sa for the Comnt section.

[Where did this old man even co from?]

[He thinks he can bully them because the royal line is gone. Otherwise you'd never dare say that. You'd deserve to die for it!]

[This is at the conference. He's saying that out loud? Unbelievable.]

[Cutting through it. He's picking on Felt and Emilia because they don't have backing.]

[This is making crazy. Reinhard, what are you standing there for? Go do sothing. Are you a log?]

[Embarrassing all around. Felt gets a pass since she only cares about money, so whatever. But Emilia, what's she supposed to do...]

Comnts poured in one after another. The anger in them was real. The indignation too.

The grievance kept coming. The show didn't slow down to accommodate any of it.

Then Subaru stepped forward.

Just a regular guy. No title, no office.

With the highest stratum of the kingdom watching, he walked out into the middle of it anyway. For the girl he had his heart set on.

[Didn't see Subaru being the one to stand up.]

[This guy's useless most of the ti, but he's got guts.]

[Guts doesn't help. He's only making things harder for the rest of them. Can't do anything else.]

[Painful to watch. All that edgy adolescent posturing.]

[What's painful about it? At least he has courage.]

[And? Dumb-hero nonsense. Soone else has to clean up the ss. With his standing, they'd have had him hauled off on the spot.]

The Comnt section split down the middle. So rallied behind Subaru. Others didn't buy it.

Gojo watched the debate flare with the corners of his mouth curling up.

Because he knew the real show was about to start. Which ant the Popularity Points were about to pour in.

And then, right in the middle of Subaru's challenge, his own figure appeared on screen.

Composed. Unhurried.

Against the backdrop of a hall packed with titled power, the effect was jarring. Out of place in a way that made everyone else look smaller.

"Sothing satisfying, naturally."

"I can't stand self-righteous lectures!"

Two lines. The hall rippled with murmurs, the noise rising. And the Comnt section caught fire.

[This is it!!!]

[That's my husband! So cool!!!]

[Yes! This is how it's done! Go!]

[Just kill both those mouthy old bastards. Kill the other candidates while you're at it. Forget the money. Crown himself today!]

Gojo had been curious what complints the Comnt section would co up with for him, but the one about slaughtering the competition and self-coronating on the spot actually made him laugh out loud.

That was a reach. People really would type anything.

Still, the episode played out pretty much exactly the way he'd expected.

The second he moved, the Comnt section's tone snapped into alignnt.

No more bickering. One collective breath held, waiting for him to let them have it.

He didn't disappoint.

In front of everyone, he and Betty silenced the entire room.

Reinhard had ant to step in, but Felt cut him off. Everyone else stayed frozen in place, nobody daring to so much as twitch.

Exaggeration aside, the two of them had pinned down the entire hall with nothing more than their own presence.

That level of arrogant swagger sent the Comnt section into giddy ecstasy.

Line after line flew past, packed with nothing but variations on [HELL YES HELL YES HELL YES!!!]

The Comnt section was having the ti of its life. Gojo, watching the Popularity Ranking beside the footage, watching his own numbers climb in a blur, was enjoying it just as much.

One good dressing-down of those two at the conference, and in the span of a few minutes, his Popularity Points had surged by thirty thousand.

And the trend showed no sign of slowing. The counter kept ticking.

"So this is the answer. Dig up more scenes like this and the payoff speaks for itself."

Watching his numbers race ahead, nearing a hundred thousand after what felt like barely any ti, he'd worked out exactly what the Comnt section was hungry for.

Thanks to his little performance, what had started as a solemn, formal conference had devolved fully into farce.

The dignity of the kingdom's upper tier? He'd ground it into the floor.

[Told you Felt's camp was the strongest!]

[Sha this is a selection. Candidates aren't allowed to kill each other.]

[That's just the official line. If you were quietly taken out and the body cleaned up, who'd know?]

[Ah, he could've self-coronated right then. Such a waste.]

[If there weren't a Divine Dragon in the picture. Cooking up a system like this. Genuine brain damage.]

[Got to say, Satoru really is cool. This kind of move, nobody else pulls it off. Straight-up ignored every authority in the room.]

[If I were Felt I'd just marry him on the spot...]

The Comnt section kept getting wilder.

But with his Popularity Points climbing like that, Gojo wasn't inclined to take issue with anything.

By the ti the conference concluded on screen, the Comnt section was still buzzing, still luxuriating in the afterglow.

And with the conference, the episode ended.

The image in front of him faded briefly to black. He was perfectly content with his showing. In the style departnt and in the bottom line.

After a short pause, the panel lit up again.

[Episode two! Let's go!]

[Got to give it to the production team. One episode of this is worth two of any other ani!]

[Seriously. The payoff hits so hard.]

[Even at that length, still not enough.]

[Update! Drop the whole batch at once! Twelve episodes!]

Gojo blinked at those particular comnts.

First he'd heard about the episode length situation.

That explained the sense he'd been getting. Each episode packed a lot in. So that was the reason.

His only window into this was the system's projected footage. There was no tistamp, no progress bar, no fast-forward options like on so streaming site. Comnt section, picture, and sound. That was it.

"That's inconvenient."

"If one episode equals two of theirs, they could just keep the sa pace and drop more. Easier farming for Popularity Points."

He turned the idea over with a small pang of regret. Unfortunately, the system wasn't his to steer.

...

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