[Randomizer's Lobby - Earth Live Chat]
[Bulls For Life: Did the devil just hand Mike Jordy the Gatorade?]
[Geek Analytics: That's like handing Green Lantern his ring again.]
[Devils Cult Leader: All hail the galactic devil!]
[+1 CC]
[(States) Ronald Grump: Y'all are busy yapping while there's a donation button on the screen. A hundred million lives are gone. What if this devil can be swayed toward our race? Devil, whoever you are, we are on your side. Help us all.]
[+5 CC]
Ronald Grump, President of the States, stirred the people of Earth by setting the example himself. He gave ten million dollars from his own pocket, and the gesture spread across the world faster than fear.
Since the mass abduction incident, prices had already soared and the dollar had swelled with panic, turning what had once been a rate of one million dollars per Cosmic Coin into two million.
Hermes noticed every shift. To him, every penny mattered, and he knew that a few well-chosen words could drive Earth's donations into the heavens.
"Citizens of Earth," Hermes began, his voice carrying the soft and unreal weight of an angel's. "I am no God, and I claim no sainthood. But when I receive, I also give back. I will allow ten subscribers to send a message to one co-species they can see on my live stream. That is all."
[(States) Ronald Grump: We from the USA would like to donate more and lock in those message slots. Is that acceptable, Mister Randomizer Devil?]
[(Huaxia) Xu Jifang: Shameless pig. Huaxia will not be left. Reserve ten message slots for us. How do we private message?]
[(Yamato) San Kakashi: We should settle on a fixed price, Devil-san. Yamato only needs two slots.]
[Devils Cult Leader: The devil who saves mankind. Praise the king. Praise the coming true lord.]
[+1 CC]
"Money is not merely a token of sin. At times, it is what keeps a kind of balance across the sea of stars. I will choose from the highest donors and grant them a fitting number of messages not limited to ten. For now, you may send me a private message stating what you wish delivered. I will answer no inquiries and entertain no secret dealings alike. Do not test my patience with trifles."
Gabby, who handled the cameras and moderated the chat, heard Hermes at once. She opened a private channel for the national leaders of Earth alone. Their messages came in quickly after that.
At the shop, however, the next customer had already arrived.
It was not a man.
It was something like a mouse, though nearly a foot long, and it ran with a speed that made Hermes pause. The little thing came in a blur, fast as a cheetah, its claws clicking over the ground before it stopped near the counter.
"Hello, Devil. I saw you on the interspecies chat. Name's Ren. You sell things, right? What can I trade for them?"
Hermes handed over the same contract.
The writing was plain enough to read, but the mouse only let out a small squeak and made a shy, awkward gesture with its paws.
"I'm poor back on my origin planet. But... I know someone. Can I just... bring her along?"
Hermes gave a single nod.
Ren vanished almost at once.
The next to step forward was a giant.
He was nearly as tall as Hermes, broad through the shoulders, with the heavy, overbearing air of a creature used to taking what it wanted.
There was nothing servile in him. Nothing cautious either.
"I need food. Give me the good stuff."
He even reached out and patted Hermes across his faceless features as though testing a beast for obedience.
Hermes answered by producing a larger contract.
The giant read it, curled his lip, then flung the sheet back into Hermes's face.
"You want treasures for this?"
Hermes had no patience for men like that. He moved before the giant could take another breath.
One hand seized him and punched through his ribs, turning bone and flesh into a crude handle. The other clamped around the giant's shin, fingers biting deep until they found purchase on the thick bone. The sight stunned both the approaching participants and the live chats into silence. Then Hermes hurled the giant a few hundred meters away.
With the cold new edge of his intelligence, Hermes measured the damage at a glance. Catastrophic. Not fatal. The kind of injury that left a man half dead and screaming, but still recoverable.
Those who had come with ugly thoughts in their heads went still. A few races had already been weighing whether to band together against him, but that savage little display crushed the notion flat.
Jidovi, the strongest among the known fighters, had been cast aside like refuse. His fellow giants rushed to where he had fallen, crouched over him, checked his wounds, then looked up in visible shock when they realized he still lived.
Hermes watched them without expression.
Then, by spiritual transmission, using another neat trick Gabby had taught him, he sent his voice where only she could hear.
"Have you finished analyzing them? Have you spotted which ones were raised around wealth, and which ones were not?"
"Master, the giants seem badly lacking in wealth, at least from what their bodies and behavior suggest."
"The feline race and the rodent race, however, seem to have tasted luxury much like the people of your former home planet."
"Keep me updated if you see any change," Hermes said.
Then he turned his gaze to the next customer.
A feline. She wore a tiara heavy with gems that would have fetched a fortune even on Earth. Diamond. Rubies. Sapphires. Emeralds. Each stone had been set in a style meant to sharpen the natural grace of her kind rather than drown it.
Her fur was pure white, broken only by a round pink marking on her belly.
Back on Earth, Hermes would have thought a creature like this worthy of being kept for its regal charm alone.
"Greetings, Devil, nyan. My name is Akira Nyan Purrfectia the Seventh. I am the newly crowned Empress of Nyan Prime, of the Purrfectia Empire. What may I exchange for your wares, nyan?" she asked.
Hermes handed her the same contract Mike Jordy had received. She frowned the moment her eyes ran over the terms.
When the Worlds Collide Series had torn her away from her world, she had understood the danger quickly enough. There was every chance the people of Nyan Prime might be dragged into this same catastrophe before long.
Even so, she did not mean to strip her nation bare for her own sake. She still wanted part of its wealth left untouched. To her mind, investing in herself now would matter only if it allowed her to better serve the Nyan people later.
"I am willing to invest only half, nyan. Is that possible?" Akira asked.
"Yes," Hermes said.
At once, he began altering the contract, changing its clauses so that only half of her assets could be claimed. When that was done, he handed the catfolk empress a pen from the Scavz Lasting All Terrain Paint Resource Package.
Hermes had stocked up on every sort of writing tool he could find, and this one glided smoothly even across steel.
"Please sign on the dotted line," Hermes said.
To anyone watching, the image would have been almost absurd in its cruelty. He looked every inch the devil, asking for a soul and making it seem no dearer than a cup of water.
Akira signed without trembling.
After that, Hermes took back the steel sheet and checked the Worlds Collide Series betting contract with quiet care.
[Game: Rock, Paper, Scissors]
[Participants: Minimum of 2. Maximum of 2.]
[Party A: Randomizer]
[Party B: Goddess Nyan of Cuteness & Love]
[1. If Party A, Randomizer, wins, he may claim half of all origin world assets belonging to Party B, Goddess Nyan of Cuteness & Love. In exchange, Party A, Randomizer, will provide Party B, Goddess Nyan of Cuteness & Love, with proper survival equipment.]
[2. If Party B, Goddess Nyan of Cuteness & Love, wins, the round shall be void. Party A, Randomizer, shall have no obligation to provide compensation to Party B, Goddess Nyan of Cuteness & Love. The game may be repeated until Rule 1 is successfully enforced.]
[3. If Party B, Goddess Nyan of Cuteness & Love, uses a falsified username in this betting contract, any win claimed by Party A, Randomizer, against that false identity will be void, and the round will not count.]
"I want to play scissors, Honorable Devil nyan. Would that be fine?" Akira asked.
Hermes saw no reason to refuse. He gave a small nod, then cast rock.
The contract vanished at once, which meant the wager had been sealed and settled.
[Sell Personal Assets]
[Sell Now] [Mike Jordy's Earth Assets] [3,800 CC]
[Sell Now] [Akira Nyan Purrfectia VII Nyan Prime Assets] [859,000 CC]
He had hit the jackpot.
For one sharp, greedy instant, Hermes thought of the Luck attribute and whether it deserved to be fed now. Even then, something in him recoiled. He could feel his luck thinning, subtle but real, much like the way a fighter learned to trust the stir of danger before the blade was ever seen.
That instinct did not feel human. Hermes was almost certain it came from the leprechaun trait folded into his blood, some sly little warning that fortune, when pressed too hard, had a habit of slipping the hand that tried to clutch it.
So Hermes discarded the thought of forcing another upgrade into his genetics. What he wanted now was not chance, but monopoly.
Back in the survival guide, streaming had been mentioned as something most participants failed to understand at the start. It usually did not enter common play until around the fifteenth event, sometimes as late as the twenty-fifth.
By then, whoever discovered it first almost always kept quiet. That was why the earliest users tended to snowball so hard while hiding the true extent of their strength.
Hermes, however, did not think like them.
He had no truly special combat skill to lean on. At best, he could summon a great slab of rock and little more. He knew the Peddler class was not built for battle. It began with money, information, and advantage, not with raw killing power.
Later on, that gap would become monstrous. A combat class like the EX-Rank Sword God, the very sort he had already seen once and pushed away, would eventually stand above the field like a tyrant. That kind of being could manifest sword blades stretching for tens of miles, and even that was only one skill in its arsenal.
The difference between that and a peddler was the difference between a knife and a falling mountain.
That was why Hermes kept pressing himself for every edge he could find, and the shop had finally shown him one.
From his purchases, he had learned that items did not all follow the same rules. Some came with hard limits. Learning Pills, Genetic Packages, Seraphic AIs. Those could only be bought once, or in quantities too small to matter.
At first Hermes had considered buying all of them and reselling at profit, but there were simply too many variables, too many pieces, too much spread. He let that plan die.
The second kind were branded items. Those could be exhausted. Depending on the product, it took anywhere from five units to a hundred thousand to grey them out entirely.
Then there were the unlimited items.
Worlds Collide Series Betting Contracts were one example. Every item Hermes had studied that began with Worlds Collide Series appeared to be an endless resource.
That mattered. It meant the system itself had categories, and categories could be abused.
So with that knowledge in hand, Hermes chose the first monopoly he wanted to build.
Streaming.