A golden full moon hung high in the sky.
A cold, aloof girl dressed in black wandered along the lakeshore.
Makoto Tsukimi sat beneath a tree beside the tranquil lake, the glow of the tablet in his hands illuminating his face.
His stylus moved skillfully across the screen.
Makoto entered a specific web address into the browser.
As soon as the address was submitted, the page redirected.
A remarkably clean and organized homepage appeared before his eyes.
Various videos were displayed across the homepage in a grid of rectangular thumbnails.
Clicking on one would open the corresponding video.
And across those videos floated something Makoto was extremely familiar with.
Danmaku comments.
These were the scrolling comments that appeared directly over a video while it played.
In 2025, the year Makoto had transmigrated from, danmaku comments had already been used so extensively that they had become commonplace.
In this world, however, they were still a remarkably novel concept.
The website was called NicoNico.
Makoto had borrowed the name from a well-known danmaku video website in an anime-loving country from his previous life.
The website primarily focused on anime, novels, and video games, all of which were currently experiencing rapid growth in popularity.
The reason Makoto had chosen this particular market wasn’t simply because he was an anime enthusiast himself.
Rather, when he first considered establishing a video-sharing website, he discovered that several major corporations were already operating in the industry.
For a lone individual like Makoto to compete against those corporate giants in terms of technical capabilities and financial resources would be like a mantis attempting to stop a moving carriage.
Consequently, Makoto almost immediately abandoned the idea of confronting those companies directly in the broader video-sharing market.
Instead, he turned his attention toward a much more specialized niche.
Rather than establishing a general-purpose video website aimed at the widest possible audience, he would create a gathering place specifically for enthusiasts of anime, novels, and video games.
Because he lacked the money for advertising and promotion, his website currently relied almost entirely on people recommending it to one another offline.
Surprisingly, this approach had brought Makoto some unexpected benefits.
With relatively few users, the costs of managing the site were considerably lower than those of larger platforms.
Furthermore, because the user base was small and consisted primarily of enthusiasts who had discovered the website through personal recommendations, the overall atmosphere was exceptionally pleasant.
It was gradually developing into a close-knit community centered around shared interests.
And the consequences of this increasingly community-oriented environment were quite remarkable.
Although Makoto’s website had relatively few users, their activity levels and enthusiasm far exceeded those of users on several major platforms.
Upon noticing this trend, Makoto didn’t hesitate to encourage it further.
He began contributing a substantial amount of content drawn from his knowledge of creative works from his previous life.
It was the perfect opportunity to put his role as a cultural plagiarist to good use.
He established the concept of video games on the site.
He also added several major creative projects to his publicly displayed development plans.
Among them were Touhou Project, which had sparked an extraordinary wave of fan creations around the turn of the millennium in his previous life, and the Fate series, with which Makoto was also extremely familiar.
He arranged these projects one by one on his pinned list of planned releases.
Of course, as far as their actual content was concerned, Makoto had barely gotten started on any of them.
His Touhou bullet-hell game was only partially completed.
As for the Fate series, he had essentially done little more than introduce the basic information surrounding the Holy Grail War. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
But for many people, that was already enough.
Sometimes, what a small group of enthusiasts sharing the same interests needed wasn’t necessarily a fully developed work.
What they truly needed was an opportunity.
An opportunity to share their passions and interests with others.
And evidently, the fictional worlds and settings Makoto had introduced provided exactly that kind of starting point.
Using several novels that Makoto had written on a whim as their foundation, a creative movement began taking shape.
With his deliberate encouragement, an unprecedented wave of fan-made derivative works swept across the website he had established.
Nowadays, whenever Makoto browsed through the forums, he could easily find all sorts of novels written by users based on the story openings or fictional settings he had provided.
There were also fan-made animated videos created using various illustrations of the characters.
Some of the more highly regarded posts even featured small games independently developed by members of the community.
Naturally, since most of these projects were created purely out of passion, their production quality was often rather rough.
But when countless works accumulated together, even an enormous collection of amateur creations would inevitably produce one or two genuine masterpieces.
After all, the finest grains of gold could always be found by sifting through enough sand.
“Everyone’s so enthusiastic about this… Somehow, it’s making me feel a little evil.”
Beside the lake illuminated by the golden full moon, Makoto used his stylus to open several of the website’s most highly regarded posts.
He had already read many of them numerous times.
Scrolling through the screen, he examined the latest comments beneath the videos and forum discussions.
His encounter with a magical girl had confirmed that supernatural powers genuinely existed in this world.
As a result, Makoto’s previously modest desire to earn money had suddenly intensified.
And as for running a danmaku video website…
To put it bluntly, turning something like that into a profitable business was an extremely distant prospect.
In Makoto’s previous life, a certain famous blue-themed danmaku video website had suffered losses year after year, month after month, before the arrival of the mobile gaming era.
It had practically been drowning in financial losses.
And that was precisely why Makoto’s method of making money was actually quite simple—
— Sell the website.
Under Makoto Tsukimi’s management, NicoNico had demonstrated a level of vitality far exceeding that of other websites.
In the eyes of many industry professionals, this made it quite valuable.
However, because the website’s overall scale remained limited, there was practically no chance of selling it while retaining his own control over its operations.
If he wanted to sell, he would have to sell the entire thing in one go.
And after selling everything…
“Seriously, compared to introducing all kinds of pay-to-win features and squeezing money out of users in an environment like this, wouldn’t directly selling the website be the more decent thing to do? I’d just need to find a good buyer.”
Makoto repeatedly tapped his stylus against the screen, opening and closing various forum pages.
Although he had already made up his mind, he couldn’t bring himself to feel particularly enthusiastic about the decision.
After all, this was a website he had poured considerable time and effort into creating.
“So I guess I’m not really cut out to be a businessman.”
The objective rules governing society dictated that, to become a successful businessman within its economic system, learning when to let go was one of the most essential qualities.
Once he possessed that initial capital, he could finally begin the process of using money to make more money.
After all, money would become his most important bargaining chip when it came to winning over the magical girls he might encounter in the future.
That wasn’t to say magical girls could necessarily be persuaded simply by throwing money at them.
Rather, money was a means of mobilizing the resources of human society.
If Makoto wanted to involve himself in matters concerning magical girls, he would need sufficient financial resources to give himself as many options as possible.
“Should I post an announcement now, telling everyone that I’m planning to sell the website? Somehow, that feels like the kind of thing that’ll earn me nothing but criticism for my trouble.”
Muttering complaints to himself, Makoto opened a local business communication app specifically used in the city of Mitakihara.
He carefully considered how he should inform the friends in his contact list about his intention to sell NicoNico.
However, just as he raised his stylus and prepared to continue—
He suddenly discovered that he couldn’t move his hand downward.
Hmm?
What’s going on?
Oh, wait.
Actually, it’s pretty easy to guess what’s happening.
By manipulating his five senses, Makoto could freely alter everything he perceived, even making people and objects disappear from his vision.
However, those things never truly vanished.
He simply became unable to perceive them.
For example, in his current situation, someone had probably grabbed his hand and prevented him from moving it downward.
Illusions couldn’t interfere with objective reality.
Even if Makoto couldn’t perceive the other person’s touch or see their presence, his hand would naturally remain restrained if someone was physically holding it.
No matter how he altered his senses, he couldn’t change that result.
And so, Makoto voluntarily released his interference with his five senses.
Rustle, rustle…
Rustle, rustle…
Faint sounds began reaching his ears.
“Are you really going to sell it just like that?”
A clear voice spoke with a hint of seriousness.
The moonlit lakeside scenery dissolved before his eyes, and the real world once again occupied all five of Makoto’s senses.
It was still the middle of physical education class.
On the athletic field, his classmates continued running around and participating in various activities.
The somewhat harsh midday sunlight shone down from the sky.
Having just transitioned from a moonlit night to broad daylight within his own perception, Makoto instinctively narrowed his eyes.
Through his slightly blurred vision, he could make out a petite girl standing before him, dressed in a white gym uniform.
Apparently realizing that Makoto had returned to his senses, the girl quickly withdrew her hand.
She also instinctively took two steps backward.
As she retreated and created some distance between them, her small figure looked even more delicate beneath the sunlight.
Makoto Tsukimi: “…Madoka Kaname?”
He instinctively called out the girl’s name.