by Blitz Kiva
“You do stuff like that, old man?” Sera asked.
“For the sake of Sakurako-san’s honor, I won’t bring up our win-loss record.”
The housework aside, Sera suspected that Ichiro was probably the one who always won the endurance contests.
“But you’re different,” Ichiro continued. “In the game, you’re always challenging me. That makes me happy. I enjoy it. And what makes me even happier is the feeling that you intend to keep challenging me.”
So Ichiro knew what was on Sera’s mind... perhaps that stood to reason.
Sera had never forgotten the experience of losing to Ichiro. The battle certainly had been invigorating. In that moment, Sera had merged with “King Kirihito” and pushed Ichiro Tsuwabuki to a standstill. Almost to defeat, even.
It had been a fun battle. But it wasn’t true that Sera had no regrets. The loss had been frustrating, but the desire to win next time had been fuel for Sera’s continuous training, moving forward.
“Do you think that’s true for the others, too?” Sera asked.
“Yes. I think it definitely applies to Iris, especially, though she comes at it from a slightly different angle than you do.”
Ichiro seemed to like Iris quite a bit. She had no talent, but she knew that, and she faced that truth unflinchingly. She often failed and suffered setbacks, yet she never gave up. She was the polar opposite of Ichiro, who had been blessed with too many talents, and even a far cry from Sera in that regard. Having someone like Iris to continuously challenge him probably made Ichiro ridiculously happy.
“So, what about Tsuwabuki?” Sera asked.
“Asuha is also a bit different. She’s trying to break out of her shell.”
Asuha Tsuwabuki. Ichiro’s second cousin and Sera’s classmate. She had told Sera that Ichiro was effectively her big brother, and also her first crush, and given the way she fawned over him, it was likely that some of those feelings still remained. She had said she’d have to leave him behind when she grew up, but Sera wondered if she could do it.
“Lately, Asuha’s started to turn her gaze elsewhere,” Ichiro commented.
“Really?”
“Yes. I don’t believe she has a concrete goal like you and Iris do, but she’s trying to find one. You’re all growing up on your own, and that makes me extremely happy.”
Ichiro always spoke as if he was looking down on others. He was convinced of his superiority, and didn’t doubt it, even if he should. Sera found that annoying enough, but it was probably even worse for Iris.
“You act like the demon lord in an RPG, old man.”
“Sakurako-san tells me that often.”
“Then I’ll say this outright...” Sera downed the glass, then set it on the bar. “The demon king always loses eventually.” Then Sera looked at Ichiro Tsuwabuki with a gaze stronger than the young gamer had ever managed. “I don’t know if the hero will be a Fighter, a Mage, or a Thief. But some day, you’ll lose.”
“That is how games work, I suppose.”
“I guess it is.”
Ichiro’s smile was indomitable. But facing down with him in real life and hearing those words from his mouth, Sera now knew. It was a declaration of war.
King Kirihito wouldn’t lose. Someday, Sera would beat this man.
“I cannot wait to see it.”
The confidence to say a line like that was truly the confidence of a game’s final boss.
It was a few minutes later that Asuha woke up, started crying upon seeing both of her companions gone, and was led to the bar by the attendant, as well.
5 - Noble Son, Arrive at Your Destination
Sakurako Ogi awoke for the morning of the big fight. From her point of view, that grandiose phrasing was no exaggeration.
In order to psyche herself up, she spent the morning exactly as she always did. She cleared her head with a cold shower, then dried off her hair and combed it. She brushed her teeth, changed into her usual maid outfit, sat down in front of her vanity, and opened her makeup box.
Sakurako was preparing to do battle. For a maid, the battlefield was the same place she lived her daily life. She was always ready to fight. Her maid costume was effectively her battle uniform, and having it on put her fully into fight mode. The light makeup she wore was her war paint. She then added her lace cap, transforming into the complete Sakurako Ogi.
Pilder on!
“Okay!”
She threw up her hands and howled at the ceiling.
She prepared for breakfast, did the laundry, cleaned up Ichiro’s room in his absence, and treated herself to breakfast a little sooner than usual. On days when Ichiro wasn’t there, she would usually rustle up a more half-hearted breakfast, but not today.
Crispy fried bacon and scrambled eggs, toast, salad, and soup. She observed her table manners perfectly, and even poured herself an after-breakfast coffee.
As she had promised to Matsunaga, she sat down in the Miraive Gear Cocoon around 7 AM.
After she finished her login, Sakurako Ogi transformed once more, this time into Kirschwasser. The shift in consciousness brought her to a place that was not the Knights’ guild house she had logged out from, but a lake shore covered in mist. A few Sahagins were sleeping on the shore, showing no signs of hostility.
“Hmm...” Kirschwasser put a hand to his jaw.
This was the Mediterra Demon Sea. It was probably safe to assume that Matsunaga had been leveling him up here, although it seemed a bit inconsiderate to just leave him out in the field like this.
He opened his menu window and checked his stats. His level was over 130, which put him around the upper tier of the top players.
To have increased this much in only six hours... Kirschwasser was surprised by it, but not at all happy. It made him realize how much he had enjoyed the process of leveling himself up.
He’d made an exception and gone along with Matsunaga’s plan, since he really had wanted to stop Duplichiro himself, but he couldn’t deny that as a player, it felt like a tremendous waste.
He hadn’t explained his own build in detail, but unsurprisingly, Matsunaga had understood it very well. He had increased his stats in an extremely min-maxed manner, and had brought him to the point where he could likely equip a new tier of weapons and armor, too. Kirschwasser hadn’t lost any money on hand, but to his surprise, he hadn’t gained much, either. Perhaps the mini-quest Matsunaga had talked about didn’t earn much in the way of money, or perhaps he’d quietly taken a stipend for his assistance, but either way, Kirschwasser didn’t mind.
What about his Skills, then? Matsunaga had increased these, too, in alignment with Kirschwasser’s original build. His typically ironclad defenses had grown even stronger, and his support attacks had also been raised across the board. All of his Skill levels had increased greatly, and he was probably running drastically low on slots.
He wondered what his ATK and DEF amounted to now. He could obviously just check the numbers themselves, but he’d prefer to try them out on someone.
He looked around, but couldn’t find any mobs in range besides the Sahagins that were resting on the beach, and while they were just programs without feelings or free will, he felt a bit hesitant to attack a creature that was resting. This was not him being overly sensitive, Kirschwasser thought, but a natural state of mind for players of games. There were always going to be some monsters that acted innocently enough that it made you feel guilty about killing them.
He had drawn his Knight Sword, looking around for an opponent to fight, when someone came walking out of the fog. He stiffened. Kirschwasser’s perception stat wasn’t high enough to make out what the other character was doing in the fog.
“Hello there, Sir Kirschwasser.” At last, the form became visible as the familiar Elf with the superficial smile, and Kirschwasser sheathed his Knight Sword.
“Lord Matsunaga.”
Remembering that it was Matsunaga who had been increasing his stats, he realized that his avatar must have been using that same
body language just a little while ago. It was a bit unsettling to think about.
Kirschwasser bowed to him. “I see you’ve been up all night leveling me. Thank you.”
“Oh, no need to thank me. We gained useful data from it, too. This place might make a good new dojo for high-level players.”
Of course, he wouldn’t be making any of that information public for a while, Matsunaga added emphatically.
“‘We’?” Kirschwasser asked.
“Oh, didn’t you realize? Right, your perception stats aren’t that high, after all... See?”
Snap. As Matsunaga snapped his fingers, a number of players dressed in chain mail whipped into view out of the fog, one after another, and surrounded Kirschwasser with overly acrobatic movements. If they’d wanted to attack him, he would have been completely vulnerable to the ambush.
This was the Dual Serpents’ Shinobi Army. They wore horned noh masks and frilly shinobi costumes that bore a crest of intertwining serpents textured onto their collars.
“Ah, hello,” said Kirschwasser. “Um, does this mean you helped me level up?”
In perfect sync, the shinobi all widened their stances, thrust out their chests, and silently bowed. Even the angle of the bows was identical. Kirschwasser was forced to wonder if they were really bots.
“Your guild members are truly thorough, Lord Matsunaga.”
“That is our guild’s philosophy, after all. Well, and we enjoy it... in chat, we all have our own personalities.”
Kirschwasser could tell that much from looking at the names displayed over the avatars’ heads.
Matsunaga then changed the subject, explaining the all-nighter he had pulled to increase Kirschwasser’s stats. It seemed to Kirschwasser that he should have been exhausted, but he seemed surprisingly lively.
“Duplichiro hasn’t shown any signs of taking action yet,” Matsunaga continued. “Of course, that’s just as we expected... he still seems to be holed up in the volcanoes hunting Lizardmen, grinding up his stats and Skill levels in the usual way. Which means that, for now, the plan is still on schedule.”
Matsunaga then manipulated some windows, and Kirschwasser received a friend message. Its title was “Development Chart.”
Matsunaga’s blog and the walkthrough wiki he ran both included charts for how player characters could most efficiently improve themselves. Given Matsunaga’s personality, it was probably a joke, but he had also included a detailed timetable on how fast a character would grow both under normal situations and with microtransaction boosts applied. Kirschwasser had referenced this many times in deciding his own path.
“So this is my own personal development chart?” Kirschwasser asked.
“Yes. I had lots of time to think while I was repeating the mini-quest. It’s going to turn you into a lethal weapon against Duplichiro.”
That was what Kirschwasser had wanted, of course, and when Matsunaga had made the proposal to him, this had likely been his goal. Having infinite money made it possible to level in ways standard play wouldn’t allow. At the moment, the money spent on the microtransaction boosts wasn’t very significant, but...
Kirschwasser opened the message and examined the chart. He grasped that the concept was to find a way to compensate for Kirschwasser’s main deficiency, the inability to deal massive amounts of damage in one hit. Nodding in agreement, he scrolled down further. The further he scrolled, the more ashen his face became.
“L-Lord Matsunaga... is this...”
“Yes. That will increase your ATK. This is one area where you’ll really need to spend virtual cash to increase it. That’s why, until you logged in, I focused on leveling up and bolstering your Skills.”
It certainly was a method of increasing ATK that only Kirschwasser—or rather, someone using Ichiro’s credit card—could accomplish.
“It’s the combination of Mr. Tsuwabuki’s money and my knowledge of the game system,” said Matsunaga. “What do you think?”
“I-It’s excellent, of course! But this...” Kirschwasser couldn’t help but feel like crying. It was only natural; the development chart he had been given was such a blasphemy to the middle-class Sakurako-Kirschwasser that she wasn’t sure if her financial sense could survive intact. Putting this into practice might be crossing a line that could never be uncrossed.
But Matsunaga just smiled his superficial smile and wagged his finger. “Sir, that credit card is not just a lovely thing to have in your collection. It is a powerful weapon, and a weapon must be used. Why did he make all that money, if not to use it?”
“L-Lord Matsunaga... You’re so perfect for this role...”
“It sounds like a villain’s line, doesn’t it? I’m glad to hear it. I do enjoy characters like that.”
The thought arose in Kirschwasser’s mind that he’d gone to the wrong person for advice, but he squelched it right away.
Matsunaga was right. Sakurako-Kirschwasser had been entrusted with the full force of Ichiro Tsuwabuki’s money. When one was given power, they had to use it. Whether that power might crush them in the process was irrelevant; it was a servant’s duty to carry out their mission.
Kirschwasser struck his fist into his palm, gauntlets clinking from the impact.
“Let’s do it. I put myself into your care.”
“Very good. Depending on what Duplichiro does, we may need to hasten our plans a bit... but I’m sure we’ll make you dominant soon enough. Using the power of money.”
Kirschwasser looked up at the foggy sky above the Mediterra Demon Sea.
Can you see me now, Ichiro-sama? I’m going to go as far as I can with the money you entrusted to me. Though my heart may be that of a peasant, I’ll be reborn as Great Whale Kirschwasser, the legendary fighter with no financial sense whatsoever...
Sakurako’s sense of duty was starting to take her in a questionable direction.
If she kept on down this road, her ideas about money might end up closer to those of her extravagant master, Ichiro Tsuwabuki. But perhaps this sacrifice was another way of showing her pride and determination as a servant.
“You can’t just call me out of the blue and ask for this!” The person on the other side of the phone, screaming in English, was Ichiro’s friend from college. “You’re supposed to make appointments for things like this, Ichiro! I’m busy, you know!”
“Sorry, but it’s quite urgent. I’ve actually just arrived in Chicago, so I’ll be there in only a few hours.”
“You idiot!”
The airport lobby of Chicago O’Hare was a bustling place, with people coming and going all around them. As usual, Sera was playing a portable game system, while Asuha was sitting on top of her suitcase, looking all around. From time to time, she murmured, “Chicago, huh?” to herself, suggesting she wasn’t much of a fan of the White Sox.
From Chicago, they were going to take a private plane to Pittsburgh. There hadn’t been many flights convenient for a connection, so he’d reserved it in advance. If they waited, there would be domestic flights. But Ichiro, who had just been through a boring eleven-and-a-half-hour flight, wasn’t about to allow himself to be subjected to any more passive modes of travel.
Once they’d touched down in Chicago, Ichiro had remembered that he hadn’t actually contacted his friend at the lab, so that was what he was doing now. As a result, his California-born friend was hurling strings of profanity at him, a specialty of West Coasters. Naturally, Ichiro was unfazed by them.
“Allow me to explain the circumstances, Charles. There’s something I need you to investigate for me before I arrive.”
“If you weren’t my sponsor, I’d throw you and your phone out on your collective asses!” his friend screamed.
“Since I’m the one who provides funding for all your equipment, that would be inadvisable.”
Such exchanges summed up their relationship perfectly. It was just about five years ago that his friend had declared that he wanted to start up a robotics lab, and Ichiro had provided the funding for th
at. That was when Ichiro had just been getting into investing for real, and a portion of his swelling bank account had gotten invested—half for business, half for friendship—into make Charles’s dreams come true.
As a result, things were going quite well for Charles. Said dream was to create an autonomous robot maid, so Ichiro was the only proper sponsor he’d found. Apparently, he was currently working on developing artificial intelligence. Ichiro had no particular interest in a maid robot himself, but he’d still asked to be sent one when the prototypes were finished.
He wasn’t telling Sakurako about the maid robot, but given the rate at which the development was proceeding, it probably wouldn’t be finished until she was already retired—assuming she didn’t miss her chance to get married first.
“I want you to investigate whether there’s been outside, unwarranted access into your lab’s servers,” Ichiro said.
“What?”
“I’ll tell you the details in an e-mail. If my estimations are correct, an outside program has infiltrated your servers. But if you do find it, please don’t delete it.”
“This is an awful lot to throw at a guy out of the blue,” Charles protested. “I’ll do it if you insist, but...”
“Thanks.”
“You know, I said this before, but I wish you’d told me sooner. Are you the only one coming?”
“No, my cousin and her friend are with us.” Ichiro cast a glance at Asuha and Sera, both looking rather bored. He’d been holding the entire conversation in English, so it likely only confused the two of them.
“Cousin?! You mean Asuha?”
“Yes.”
“Yahoo! Ichiro, she’s still in primary school, right?”
“No, she’s in junior high now.”
“Ah, I see... No, but that’s still okay! Japanese people look young! Please get me a picture, okay?”
“If she gives permission, I shall.”
