Chapter 148: Racing Through Sky, Sea, and Abyssal City — The First Star of the Meteor Shower
Towa: "...Pfft, hehehe… My abs are gonna split…"
Rakuro: "I haven’t done anything to deserve being laughed at this hard…"
Towa: "Your entire existence is a gag, isn’t it, you…? I mean, I didn’t think you’d actually make me laugh in real life too… heheheh, pfft…"
Arthur Pencilgon—Towa Amane—had been clutching her stomach and howling with laughter ever since being greeted by me wearing the gas mask that had come as a first-purchase bonus with some trash game I'd bought ages ago. Once she'd finally stopped laughing, I kept the mask on and tried to complain, but she countered with the unreasonable verdict that my very existence was comedy.
Rude. Sure, in games, I'd kicked NPCs off the roofs of buildings, strapped NPCs to car hoods in post-apocalyptic displays, and stuck bombs on other players' backs to detonate them when they got back to base. But in real life, I could confidently say I lived with common sense. This gas mask? I'd just forgotten I'd left it in the bag when I opened the game, returned the bag to my dad without using it once, and then borrowed it again with the mask still inside. I definitely hadn't brought it specifically for today.
Towa: "I mean, I didn't expect you to get so worked up about hiding your face."
Rakuro: "I'm not hiding it. It was at the bottom of my bag, so I just, y'know, put it on."
Towa: "Normal people don't put gas masks in their travel bags."
Rakuro: "Hollywood movie-style?"
Like, if an action game has a hotel, you have to assume at minimum either a firefight or a bombing-induced collapse.
Towa: "Ahh, that was a good laugh. Anyway, let's try this again… I'm Pencil Warrior. Nice to meet you, 'kay?"
Rakuro: "Sunraku. Nice to meet you too…"
Just as Rumi had once said, "camera-ready at any time, anywhere" apparently wasn't an exaggeration. The way she held out her hand for a handshake with such poise—even a random snapshot would've filled a magazine page. Still, I knew her true nature firsthand, and since her in-game avatar was basically her real appearance, she didn't steal my soul the way she would some teenage girl's. I shook her hand normally.
Rakuro: "So where's the host who called us here?"
Towa: "Mm, he said he's getting the other team member."
Right, he'd mentioned something like that in the follow-up email. The GGC event was a 4-vs-4 team match, so besides me, Katzo, and Pencilgon, there had to be one more team member. And that person was supposedly a member of Katzo's pro gamer team.
Rakuro: "Still, I'm impressed the world-famous charismatic model managed to match her schedule."
Towa: "Well, you know, my every movement is photogenic, so honestly, work wraps up pretty quick."
Rakuro: "Overconfidence that colossal goes all the way around to refreshing."
Towa: "Aren't boss characters who act humble just annoying?"
Rakuro: "So you do have self-awareness as a boss character…"
As we were talking, a man and a woman came around the corner. The young woman—about my age—took one look at Pencil Warrior's face and froze in shock. The young man—androgynous, the kind of face you often see in magazines and on TV—stared blankly at me in my gas mask for several seconds, then doubled over laughing.
Kei: "A luxury hotel plus a gas mask is already way too funny as a combo, but are you like this in real life too?"
Rakuro: "Shut up. This is a rare item with no reprint date. Worship it. Praise it."
Kei: "Because it's from a trash game, huh… Well, whatever. Thanks for coming, Sunraku."
Just like Pencilgon moments before, the young man—pro gamer Uomi Kei, Oikatzo—held out his right hand for a handshake, a fearless grin on his face.
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Kei: "Alright, let me properly introduce you, Meg. These two are my private gaming friends, Sunraku and Pencil Warrior… Well, this one doesn't seem to be hiding her face, so I'll just say it: this is Towa Amane herself."
Megumi: "Megumi Natsume. I've seen you in magazines a lot. Nice to meet you."
Kei: "And the gas mask guy over there is Sunraku. I thought he was only insane in-game, but turns out he's a madman in real life too."
Rakuro: "I missed the timing to take it off. Read the room."
Kei: "And this is Megumi Natsume. A member of our beloved Nitro Squad, and the only person whose schedule was open tomorrow and the day after."
Katzo introduced us to a ponytailed girl with a strong-willed look. Megumi Natsume… probably famous, but I didn't know her. I didn't read game magazines anyway, and pro gamer articles were something I'd spent my whole life ignoring unless someone I knew was in them.
Kei: "So, let's cut straight to the point. The day after tomorrow at the GGC, we're up against the American pro gamer team 'StarRain.' Like I explained in the email, a bunch of things happened and our members bailed on us at the last minute. So we called you two to fill the holes."
Megumi: "Hey, Kei—before that, I gotta ask… are these two actually good?"
Megumi cut Katzo off with a dubious look aimed at us. And honestly, fair. One was a pro model—famous, sure—and the other was a gas mask. Wondering whether two people like that could really fill gaps for pro gamers was… well, perfectly normal.
Kei: "I'll vouch for their skill, Meg. The model over there has an insanely good matchup for this game. And the gas mask… let's see, how about this: he's good enough to take about four matches out of ten against me."
Was that right? Sure, if we both started a new game from scratch, maybe the matchup ratio would be about that. But since he's a pro gamer, the more he studies me the more trouble he becomes. I could probably only hold about three out of ten in the end.
But those words carried enough weight to completely flip Megumi's assessment of me. She stared wide-eyed at me as Katzo spoke, a mischievous grin on his face like a kid who'd just pulled off a prank.
Megumi: "No way… wait, four-tenths… against Kei…?!"
Rakuro: "Yep."
Kei: "Though, y'know, he's still small fry who loses to me six or seven times out of ten."
Rakuro: "Alright, you wanna fight? Huh?"
Making a point of advertising that his own matchup was better—what an asshole. I glared at Katzo through the gas mask, when Pencilgon poked me from the side.
Towa: "You seem like you haven't picked up on this, so I'll explain… Do you know how many fighting gamers in Japan can take a four-tenths matchup ratio against pro gamer Uomi Kei?"
Rakuro: "He's pretty weak to improv, so there's probably a decent number?"
Towa: "In domestic official matches, Katzo-kun has never dropped below an eighty percent win rate, against anyone."
Rakuro: "Huh…"
Towa: "That reaction is so flat."
I got that it was an amazing thing, I understood that much. But, y'know, it's like jewels—you can look at one and directly feel its value and rarity. But when someone says, "Actually, that guy you know and beat sometimes is super crazy strong"? The only response I can give is "huh"…
Rakuro: "What, should I fall out of my chair, tremble in fear, crawl across the floor, and piss myself in a panic?"
Towa: "That sounds great. Go ahead and do it, Sunraku-kun."
Rakuro: "You know that's telling me to socially die, right? Right?!"
She really is fundamentally evil, this one. An insane whiskey bonbon—evil named Whiskey camouflaged by beauty named Chocolate.
Kei: "Alright, enough. Let's get to the point. So, the team we're fighting the day after tomorrow—StarRain—is basically, in a word, America's top-class fighting game team."
Rakuro: "Oi, is this bastard trying to make us get publicly humiliated on a national scale?"
Towa: "Hmm, what have we done to deserve something that cruel…? I mean, I can think of about eight things off the top of my head. How about you, Sunraku-kun?"
Rakuro: "No way, I'd never do something that horrible… Let's see, about six, I guess."
We're in a relationship where we sell each other out with a smile and betray each other like it's nothing, but we're supposedly friends. Sort of. Still, calling in amateurs like me and Pencilgon to fight against opponents like that—what the hell was this guy thinking?
Kei: "I didn't call you two expecting to lose. I'm convinced that the four of us, including Meg, still have a shot at winning. That's why I called you."
Saying that, Katzo pulled up photos of four people on a latest-model tablet.
Kei: "These four are the ones we're up against the day after tomorrow—StarRain's starting lineup."
Towa: "Whoa, check it out, Sunraku-kun. There's a muscle monster who looks like the bull in an R-18 hardcore NTR doujin!"
Rakuro: "Quit throwing killer passes that are impossible to respond to—I'm a minor here. Still, with that build, shouldn't he be doing real martial arts…?"
Kei: "That guy can crush an apple with one hand."
Goddamn, muscles!
After several more people with intensely distinctive faces, it was impossible not to focus on the last one.
Towa: "Oh, a cute one. The sole girl, I take it?"
Rakuro: "Blonde, blue eyes… really has that 'the foreigner' look."
Kei: "Her name is Sylvia Goldberg…"
The pro gamer—apparently one of Japan's strongest—stared at the photo with a scowl. The girl in the picture, smiling, was a little older than me. About Katzo's age, maybe.
Kei: "Number one in all of America… the strongest pro gamer in both name and reality."