Chapter 78: Character Introductions
Name: Rakuro Hizutome
Player Name: Sunraku
Age: 17
Sex: Male
Special Skill: Full-comboing rhythm games with the sound muted
Likes: Games, sashimi
Dislikes: Lag, skewed RNG
Favorite Game Genres: Almost everything (trash games are even better; he especially likes games that make him move his body)
Disliked Game Genres: Visual novels (if it's a trash game, it's just endless hours of hell; anything with repeated-playthrough requirements gets a dead-eyed stare)
Playstyle: Omnivorous. Depending on his mood and the situation, he can handle just about any type of playstyle reasonably well. If forced to define it, he's an evasion-type attacker who uses superhuman reactions and experience-based judgment to dodge and attack.
He's also good at improvising plans, searching for breakthroughs, and changing strategies to suit the situation. The longer a battle drags on, the more the strategic side starts to favor Sunraku.
The downside is that trial and error is simply normal in trash games, so he's too quick to give up on a failed approach and move on.
Details: The protagonist of this story, who was so captivated by trash games that he was on the verge of selling his youth to the devil (trash games), only for a god-tier game to reach out a saving hand.
His reaction speed is far beyond normal. Combined with the tolerance for unfairness and player skill he built up across countless trash games, it lets him produce astonishing performances. His mood and performance are directly linked, and the worse the odds get, the more fired up he becomes. Perhaps because he's conquered so many trash games through a mixture of swearing and setbacks, his stress tolerance is high and he's forgiving about most things. But he will not forgive skewed RNG.
He's basically positive toward unpopular playstyles such as player-killing. Yep, yep, that's just part of gaming. But he'll kill them. That, too, is part of gaming.
Name: Rei Saiga
Player Name: Psyger-0
Age: 17
Sex: Female
Special Skill: Splitting a watermelon with one blow
Likes: Rakuro Hizutome
Dislikes: Overly familiar people
Favorite Game Genres: Nothing in particular
Disliked Game Genres: Erotic games (she blushes just from seeing them)
Playstyle: She's fully armed with numerous Uniques, but she's also the honors-student type who uses every one of them properly and exactly as intended. She does what needs to be done when it needs to be done. She originally learned kendo and self-defense as part of her training, and she makes use of that foundation in-game, giving her ability a clear edge even among players of the same level.
That said, people who can dodge ultra-fast attacks after seeing them, tie themselves to horses, or use up an entire organization for a single chance are very much the sort she struggles with.
Details: Excellent in both academics and athletics, sociable, born to an old family, and perfectly mannered: a superhumanly complete package. Heaven gave her not just two gifts but three, and in exchange confiscated her romantic ability. Then again, both of her older sisters are bad at romance too, so apparently it's hereditary.
Watching Rakuro have fun every day gradually drew her to him. Wanting to get closer to him, she bought the same games he played, only to be broken by a succession of trash games that hurl anyone without the proper resolve straight into despair. Iwamaki, unable to keep watching, recommended Shangri-La Frontier to her.
At first she created a burly male character because she didn't want people bothering her in-game, but her older sister Momo found out she was playing SLF. As she kept getting swept along by events, she somehow became one of the strongest players in SLF.
Name: Uomi Kei
Player Names: Modor Katzo, Katzotataki, Oikatzo
Age: 19
Sex: Male
Special Skill: Pulling all-nighters
Likes: Games, victory
Dislikes: Defeat
Favorite Game Genres: Fighting games
Disliked Game Genres: Mecha games (he can't get used to having a robot as an extra layer between himself and the controls)
Playstyle: Thoroughly logic-driven. He gathers information, develops countermeasures, devises responses, then fights for real and fine-tunes the details. Depending on the opponent, he can freely shift between styles such as all-out offense or counter specialization.
He does have a weakness—or rather, a natural enemy: opponents who improvise in the middle of a fight. He's extremely bad against that type. He uses Sunraku to train countermeasures against improvisers, but he still hasn't been able to eliminate the possibility of losing to them.
Details: He doesn't love games so much as he loves winning at games. If the game itself is fun too, all the better. He's a professional gamer, the sort of job gamers everywhere envy. The undisputed ace of the fighting-game division of the multi-pro-gaming team Cyber Battalion, commonly known as the Nitro Squad; the name Kei is recognized even by gamers overseas.
He should originally have had nothing to do with trash games, but then he saw a video of Constipation uploaded to a video site and became interested. His fate was sealed when he bought the "download version" of Berserk Online Passion. Sunraku handed him five losses while screwing around, five more just as he was getting used to the game, then another five after getting serious—a total of fifteen straight defeats that dragged him completely into the trash-game swamp. Incidentally, he then ignored his actual profession to research Constipation and, as payback, scored twenty straight wins against Sunraku.
In private he uses ore, but in public he switches to boku. Combined with his androgynous face and voice, that makes him popular with all sorts of... suggestive demographics.
Name: Towa Amane
Player Names: Pencil Warrior, Arthur Pencilgon
Age: 24
Sex: Female
Special Skill: Striking a pose even when photographed without warning
Likes: Fireworks, thrills
Dislikes: Ennui, slugs
Favorite Game Genres: Strategy games
Disliked Game Genres: On-rails games (because they leave no room for strategy or negotiation)
Playstyle: A fireworks-artisan type. She steadily lays the groundwork for one enormous explosion that lasts only an instant. The important part is that it's all "for the final thrill"; she doesn't actually enjoy the preparatory work itself and, if anything, dislikes it. Her negotiation ability is exceptional not only with players but with NPCs as well, to the point that supposed enemies can end up taking actions that benefit Pencilgon in the end.
She's skilled at changing plans on the fly while still making the situation she built come together, and her improvisational ability is high. But those adjustments are all made within the premise of a final objective, so if that underlying premise itself is destroyed, she drops to being only a somewhat-above-average player.
Details: A star model and an idol admired by teenage girls everywhere. In reality, she's the kind of bastard who can watch people explode spectacularly and shout, "Tamaya~!" A born live-for-the-moment type: thrills over peace, pleasure over stability. Doing that in real life would ruin her life in no time, so she came to the game world in search of thrills instead.
She's the type who steadily prepares the ground for one final massive explosion, and the culmination of that tendency can be called the Unite Rounds [Pencil Dynasty] Incident. She's taken her live-for-the-moment philosophy so far that she loves self-destruct mechanisms. Naturally, she packed the royal castle with huge quantities of explosives. The players who had become her subordinates weren't told a thing, so they were blown up along with the castle.
She uses her real face as-is, but copying a celebrity's appearance in full-dive character creation is common enough that nobody has identified her. So far, anyway.
Her latest problem is that people around her have found out she plays full-dive games and keep asking, "What kind of games do you play?" She can hardly tell the fans who idolize her, "Well, today I handed the clan my little brother was leading over to another player and got it annihilated."
She subscribes to the doctrine that no little brother is superior to his big sister.