Ch.28Salary Thief (6)

# Pushing Down the Bait

This refers to the act of stopping a conversation when it seems like posts are filling up with a dangerous or unpleasant topic, despite its problematic nature.

In other words, it could be considered one of the duties that an administrator must perform to prevent issues from arising on the forum.

Under normal circumstances, it wasn’t necessarily wrong behavior.

Rather, when a particular topic seemed to be burning too hot, putting on the brakes midway to prevent overheating wasn’t just an option but a necessity.

Otherwise, people would just fight over that topic, making the exchange of knowledge—the original purpose of the Magic Tower—impossible.

In short, it was unavoidable if one wanted to prevent the forum from collapsing.

But Midir had overlooked two things:

First, trying to push down an excessively heated topic was an extremely dangerous action even in her original world.

And second…

[?]

[Posts are being deleted?]

[Is that Midir? What’s going on? Was she always this fast?]

Unfortunately, most users were actually welcoming the current topic.

Combining these two factors, the conclusion was clear.

[This isn’t right]

[The admin must stop this oppression immediately!]

[Magicians of all towers, unite!]

It was too early to push down this topic.

.

.

.

After Midir’s declaration that she would push down the bait, posts with strange titles began disappearing first.

As users watched posts vanishing at an incredible speed, they posted complaints saying this wasn’t right, but the oppression that had already begun showed no signs of stopping.

[What’s happening? Are other admins deleting too?]

[Didn’t they just declare they were giving up and watching from the sidelines earlier?]

That was true—the other tower masters were busy with their hobbies or research, and the administrators had either given up and turned off TowerInside or created alt accounts to fan the flames themselves.

So when posts suddenly started disappearing at an incredible speed, they couldn’t help but be confused.

Even with three administrators working together, they couldn’t achieve this speed, yet someone was deleting posts this quickly all alone.

‘As expected, tower masters are truly different…’

‘Damn… does this mean tower masters are the strongest even when it comes to post deletion?!’

How could that be?

Unlike modern magicians, Midir had plenty of experience handling devices like pads in her previous life.

Unlike the MagicPad with just community functions and forums for knowledge exchange, the smartphones and tablets Midir used back then had incomparably more features.

Operating them skillfully was only natural.

She deleted posts at an incredible speed with almost no mistakes, leaving no room for criticism.

[How can you push this down without proper explanation?]

This issue wasn’t just about using the forum—the problem was that the Blood Magic Tower’s master, who had no connection to Aether Tower, had been appointed as the top administrator of the Aether Tower forum instead of Eterna, the owner of Aether Tower.

Yet instead of explaining anything to us, you’re just pushing down the topic without any explanation?

Suddenly receiving the top administrator position and working as if you’re familiar with it makes me suspect there’s something fishy going on between the two of you.

For example, maybe you didn’t want to be the top administrator but Eterna has some dirt on you, so you were forced into the position while crying…

Midir… please explain yourself before pushing down this topic…

Comments:

– Is this person crazy?lol Forced labor? LMFAO

– Upvoting this hardlol

– Could you say this in front of Midir?

ㄴ Yes I could. I’d state my honest opinion and meet the cute Midir… and die from having all my blood sucked out? Oh… that sounds goo— wait shit…

ㄴㄴ Upvotelol

ㄴㄴ Oh you’re insane LMFAO

ㄴㄴㄴ Then could you say it in front of Eterna?

ㄴㄴㄴㄴ ㄴㄴ No way… Eterna is too scary…

ㄴㄴㄴㄴㄴ This is hilarious as fucklol

– We need at least one person to say these things… upvoting

While there were quite a few people posting their honest opinions, the oppression didn’t stop.

Of course, many were taking advantage of the chaos to post things that shouldn’t be posted, but from the users’ perspective, such excessive oppression could only be perceived as unpleasant.

They couldn’t just be swept away like this.

They united.

Without exception, everyone began posting in protest against this oppression.

“What the…”

When everyone started posting with messages opposing the oppression, even Midir, despite her absolute power, couldn’t help but hesitate.

Unlike the intangible power of authority, this administrative privilege that allowed her to control the forum was real power she possessed, but if she faced more backlash, Midir’s original goal of improving her image would crumble.

She couldn’t so easily destroy the buildup she had created until now.

‘Ugh…’

Midir had to make a choice.

Should she let the topic burn on its own, or should she take the extreme measure of pushing it down despite their opposition?

In the midst of this, her eyes widened as if she’d discovered something.

Among the protest posts on the forum, she spotted a distinctive username posting with the same title as the others.

[Oppose the Oppression!] – Eterna(Administrator)

^^

Comments:

– Eterna??

– Was she always this playful…?

– Wow, amazing…

– It’s an honor, Eterna!

She had written “Oppose the Oppression.”

‘Is she insane…?’

Midir sighed as she looked at the emoticon that seemed to be mocking her.

Only then did Midir realize that all of this was Eterna’s plan.

Of course, handing over the top administrator position was probably just because she found management annoying, but since they started their mind games, Midir had completely fallen into Eterna’s pace.

In truth, it was a fight she could never win from the start.

Eterna had much higher recognition, and this controversy ultimately stemmed from the fact that Midir, who had no connection to Aether Tower, suddenly became its top administrator.

Given that she was at the center of this controversy, winning this game of chicken against Eterna was impossible.

Above all…

‘She doesn’t care about her image at all…!’

Come to think of it, Eterna had seemed strangely spaced out since they met.

It was like she had reached some kind of enlightenment.

‘Except for that brief moment when she was waking up, that bubbly, playful girl-like demeanor she showed me, I don’t really understand…’

Anyway, by posting this, Eterna was actually helping her in a way.

The message was clear: since Eterna had nothing to lose, Midir should just give up rather than trying to save face.

It would have been better if she had just bluntly told her to spit out the money, rather than dragging things out like this.

‘I won’t forget this humiliation…’

Midir wrote her post with tears in her eyes.

She had already received money from Eterna when she became the top administrator and had caused another controversy by using her power.

Since Eterna, who should have held the top administrator position, had no intention of taking it back, there was really only one way to resolve this situation.

[I will explain.] – SuperGeniusTruePrettyBloodMage(Top Administrator)

I think many people are curious about the relationship between Eterna and myself.

However, I judged that it would be better to remove the many comments that crossed the line, so I planned to calm the forum by pushing down the topic first and then explain afterward.

It seems I made a wrong judgment in my confusion.

I sincerely apologize for this incident.

I’ll post an explanation tomorrow, so please wait a little.

I need to coordinate with Eterna about what to explain, so it’s difficult to post immediately.

I won’t make such mistakes again.

Comments:

– We’ll wait

– So there was some mistake about becoming the top administrator

ㄴ Then shouldn’t you return the position right now?lol Why aren’t you returning it?

ㄴㄴ It’s obviously the Blood Tower Master who won’t give it back, idiot… Blood-poor people are all the same;

ㄴㄴㄴ What a funny guylol

– Please stop fighting in the tower master’s post, for fuck’s sake

– Wow, this would be unimaginable with any other tower master, how much are they disrespecting the Blood Tower?lol This is legendary lol

Indeed.

Midir let out a deep sigh as she watched people starting to fight even in her explanation post.

She felt that she still had a long way to go.