The next day, Noah opened the [Facebook] backend and was surprised to realize that both Ariel and Grimhilde were online until the wee hours of the morning.
'Luckily I've scheduled some posts to be released in the early hours too...' Noah thought relieved.
Realizing how tiring it was to maintain the internet on his own, Noah decided to start expanding the internet.
With the 100 rings he has, that would mean 100 more people using the internet, which could make the internet practically self-sufficient.
Having 100 people posting, interacting, liking and commenting on other posts would make it much more organic.
So over breakfast, Noah decided to express his desire to his current partner.
"Good morning, Lady Grimhilde." He said with a polite and warm smile as he entered the banquet hall.
Grimhilde, who was already sitting elegantly in her seat, completely focused on the internet screen, slowly raised her eyes and cracked a small smile as she replied. "Good morning, Lord Noah, I hope your first night's rest in my castle was satisfactory."
Noah smiled and nodded. "Your hospitality was very good, Lady Grimhilde, being able to work on my magic and then lie in bed without having to move around is very practical, something I'm going to adopt as an essential for my home."
The small smile on her face got slightly bigger when she heard this, so she nodded towards the table. "Come, sit with me. After spending a day using... [Facebook], I have a few questions."
Noah quickly sat down and began to serve himself, while listening to her questions.
"Why don't I have any followers yet? I remember you were 38, right?" she asked confusedly.
Hearing this, Noah felt a little embarrassed, since not only were his followers fakes, but those followers couldn't follow Grimhilde or if she tried to interact with them, it might become obvious that they weren't real people.
But that gave him the opening he needed.
"Really? Let me see your profile..." Noah said as he opened his internet and went to Grimhilde's profile.
There, he saw no post, no comment, no sharing of a post she liked, basically since she started using the internet, the only thing she did was like a few posts that interested her, but she hadn't published anything herself.
So Noah explained. "Imagine with me, Lady Grimhilde, imagine we're at the same ball, even though I follow you and listen to everything you say, even agreeing with many things, if I stayed quiet the whole ball, would you care about me? Would you be interested in hearing what I would say in the future?"
Hearing this question, she looked at Noah with confusion. "Of course I would, you're a powerful mage, you look great, even if you didn't talk, I'd still be interested in hearing what you had to say."
Shaking his head, Noah explained further. "But imagine that you don't know that I'm a wizard and that throughout the ball I wore a mask with a hood, leaving nothing of my appearance showing."
Hearing this, she became pensive. Looking at the internet screen, she finally understood. "So people won't follow me just because I'm the Most Beautiful Queen?"
Smiling at the innocence of this beautiful woman, Noah explained. "They don't know you're the Most Beautiful Queen, Lady Grimhilde, to them you're just another ordinary person in the crowd. To attract other people's attention and gain followers, you'll need to post things that interest them and only then will they follow you to see other posts you make."
Hearing this, her eyes began to sparkle. "What do you suggest I post, Lord Noah?"
Looking at her appearance, 90% like Gal Gadot, but even a little prettier, Noah knew that if the internet had an option for taking photos, her appearance alone would be enough to attract attention, but since it didn't, she would need to use some differential she had to attract that attention.
Thinking about this, there was something very interesting about her for ordinary people.
Just as people liked to follow rich and famous actors in his old world, in this world wasn't that role filled by royalty? So it would be best to take advantage of that!
"How about posting about your daily routine? I think that for commoners, or even other nobles, being able to know more about you, how a queen lives, what your routine is like and that sort of thing would be very interesting." Noah explained.
The queen was surprised by this answer, not thinking that her life could be that interesting, but when she remembered what she imagined her life would be like when she became a queen, the way she thought things would happen, she realized the appeal it would have.
"I think I know what to do, thank you Lord Noah." She smiled with satisfaction.
Noah smiled too, and clicked something on his screen.
Suddenly Grimhilde's screen flickered slightly and the ring on her finger shook.
Surprised, Grimhilde quickly looked again and found a red number [1] next to a bell in the top right-hand corner of the screen.
This startled her, causing her to look at Noah worriedly, even forgetting to use honorifics. "Noah, I think some mistake happened on my internet, my ring shook and a red number appeared at the top of the image!"
Noah tried not to laugh at how the elegant and imposing queen was acting, and explained. "That's a notification, click on the red number and see what [Facebook] is notifying you has happened."
Surprised, she did just that and saw the reason for the notification.
Friend request received from [N]
"Someone added me!" She said excitedly, looking at her profile and seeing that her number of followers had risen from 0 to 1. And when she accepted the friend request, the number of friends had also risen to 1.
But looking again at the names of those who followed her and asked to be her friend, Grimhilde remembered the screen Noah showed her yesterday.
Curious, she even opened his profile and saw that this account had a total of 39 followers.
Looking at Noah in surprise, she asked. "Are you the [N] who just asked to be my friend?"
Noah smiled and nodded at her. "Yes, since we know each other, I'll like to see what you post. On the internet, that's the most common way to get followers, start with people you already know and over time get to know different people."
Hearing this, her eyes lit up with an idea. "My soldiers said that you had more rings with you when you were found, is that true?" She asked with an intense look.
Noah smiled and nodded. "Yes, fortunately I carried a bag with a few dozen rings before I was teleported to the middle of the sea. Why the question?"
Hearing the confirmation, Grimhilde considered for a few more seconds before continuing. "How much would you like to sell me these magic rings for? I'm thinking of having a ball tonight and giving your rings as gifts to the noble guests."
Upon hearing this explanation, Noah immediately realized her intention. If she gave the rings to her noble friends, these people would follow her and consequently she would instantly have several followers.
Despite having a limited amount of rings, Noah didn't mind, since that's exactly what he wanted! To use the Queen's interest in getting more followers to convince her to help him spread the internet as much as possible.
So he pretended to think for a moment, and replied. "Considering the hospitality you've shown me, talking about values between us would be a breach of the friendship we're building, Lady Grimhilde, I'll tell you what, I'll present you with 50 magic rings and you can distribute them however you see fit, how about that?"
Noah's proposal surprised the beautiful queen.
"You're going to give me the rings for free because of our friendship?" she asked confusedly. She asked confused. "I'm just following basic manners to welcome you to my castle, you don't need to feel so grateful for that..."
But Noah shook his head in denial upon hearing this. "That's not true, Lady Grimhilde, for you, this act may seem little, a mere basic education, but for me, who was teleported to a completely unknown place, without any coin in my pocket to feed myself or a sword to defend myself, your help is being invaluable, and that makes me very grateful, that's why I consider you a friend, and this gift is the demonstration of my friendship."
Noah's speech surprised Grimhilde more than he imagined, leaving the queen thoughtful and confused for several minutes, with only the sound of silverware ringing out in the room.
When breakfast was finally over and they were getting ready to leave, Grimhilde snapped out of her trance and looked at Noah in a different way.
"For how you treat me, and for presenting me with something so interesting, I also consider you a friend, Noah Noyer, so I'll accept your gift graciously, but I'll also give you a gift as a friend." She said it in her usual way, a cold and slightly distant voice, but to Noah's ears, the change in her attitude couldn't have been clearer.
It brought a smile to his face.
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Author Note: Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed my story, if you have anything in mind, please comment, it will encourage me to write even more!!