0 - Prologue

  “Ichiro-sama, your tea.”

  “Mm, thank you.”

  It was a usual morning, a usual scene in the Tsuwabuki household. In the penthouse floor of a luxury apartment complex that towered over Sangenjaya in Setagaya Ward, Ichiro Tsuwabuki was enjoying his elegant post-breakfast teatime.

  After breakfast, for an hour starting at 8:00 AM, this was the time when he most felt at home. The table was stacked with newspapers containing everything from the vulgar to the refined: English-language newspapers, economic sheets, tabloids, and so forth. Ichiro immersed himself in the information they provided, in addition to that which was provided by the tablet balanced on his knee and the large-screen HD cathode-ray TV in front of him.

  Sakurako would occasionally change the flavor of his morning tea, depending on her whim of the day — the fact that she did not do this according to Ichiro’s whim was one of her more willful traits — but she never added anything he definitely wouldn’t want to drink that day, which meant that he always looked forward to whatever random tea he might receive that morning.

  “Your Earl Grey,” she would tell him.

  “Is that Bergamot Peach?” he would ask.

  “Yes, in fact, it is.”

  That sort of exchange was also quite enjoyable.

  Sakurako Ogi was Ichiro Tsuwabuki’s live-in maid. He had been employing her for five years now. “Housekeeper” might have been a more accurate word for what she did, but she had insisted on the term “maid.” The fact that she wore a maid outfit was of her own volition, as well. How the two of them had met could be a story in and of itself, but there’s no need to write about it here.

  Sakurako cast a glance at the TV, which was running a story about the upcoming start of the beachgoing season.

  “Oh, the sea... That looks so nice...” she said earnestly.

  “You appear to have something on your mind, Sakurako-san.” Ichiro did not look back at her as he brought his tea to his lips, a placid expression on his face.

  Sakurako regained her composure as she heard his words. “Yes, Ichiro-sama. I do have something on my mind. But as a mere servant, I would never dream of speaking to you of my selfish desires.”

  “Although I did buy this cathode ray TV because you wanted to play video games on a big screen,” he commented.

  “That’s true! Ichiro-sama, could we go to the sea this summer?” she asked eagerly.

  “If I feel like it.” Ichiro was not especially being mean-spirited; whether he would hear his servant’s request and whether he would approve it were separate matters.

  Sakurako’s cherry blossom-pink lips turned into a pout, and she murmured, “Very well...” in response.

  “If you wish to swim, we do have our indoor pool here,” he pointed out.

  “I am aware,” she said. “I am also aware that you take a swim in it every day before breakfast. I am the one who cleans that pool, after all.”

  Despite how he looked, Ichiro Tsuwabuki never missed his personal training sessions. It was less that he wanted to build up muscle mass, and more that he simply enjoyed moving around. Even lately, while he had been primarily engaged in the fictional world of the VRMMO, he still made good use out of the indoor pool and gym facilities in his house as a way to expel his pent-up energy. His ability to not get overly muscular despite how much he worked out was a sort of talent on its own.

  But setting that aside...

  “Still, I want to go to the sea!” she complained.

  “But I don’t, particularly,” he answered.

  “Do you remember last year, when you dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night to helicopter you to Hakodate Bay?” she demanded.

  “That was because I was craving squid. Is that what you want, though? We could go out fishing on a boat right now.”

  “Ah, sorry. It’s really the beach I want to visit...”

  “As I thought.” Ichiro glanced back at the TV screen. The beach story had finished, and now they were doing a variety segment about the best places to eat in the city.

  Despite having just had breakfast a little while ago, Sakurako Ogi still watched, and occasionally murmured things like “That looks so nice...” in enraptured tones. Ichiro, as a light eater, found this very difficult to understand.

  “Sakurako-san, don’t you have to wash the dishes?” he asked.

  “I already did,” she said. “I also finished the cleaning, the laundry, and all the morning housework.”

  “I see... You’ve been working quickly, of late.” He knew why she was so enthusiastic to finish up her work. She wanted to log into the VRMMO RPG Narrow Fantasy Online as quickly as possible. Sakurako had always been a relatively heavy user, and having Ichiro playing the game now had only encouraged that tendency. Still, the fact that she did not rush to log in sooner was because of her pride in her work.

  The fact that she played his servant both in the real world and the game world suggested severe workaholic tendencies — but as they say, if you can do what you love for a living, you’ve got it made.

  “Well, I don’t wish to keep you waiting for too long. Shall we log in?” Ichiro handed her his empty teacup. Sakurako bowed to him reverently, then returned the cup to the kitchen. Ichiro remained where he was, neatly gathering up the newspapers and the tablet into a pile.

  Cleaning this up was part of Sakurako’s job, too, and despite appearances, she took a bit of excessive pride in her work. He would only ever dream of appropriating that work when he was feeling a little bit mean.

  “Forgive the wait,” she said, returning.

  Of course, she had returned so quickly that he hadn’t waited at all, but Sakurako Ogi never lapsed in her decorum. Their long acquaintance had taught him that he could count on her in that regard.

  The commercial-grade Miraive Gear Cocoons that they used to play their VR game were in one of the residence’s many empty rooms. He had also bought 2D fighting game cabinets and UFO catchers to go with them, making the room look a bit like a miniature arcade. They were mainly there for decoration, so Ichiro didn’t use them very often, but Sakurako seemed to enjoy them quite a lot.

  On their way to the game room, Sakurako never once walked side-by-side with Ichiro. She remained slightly behind him, a small notebook in hand, and read from it as they walked. “Now, as for your schedule for tomorrow, Ichiro-sama...”

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “There’s Thistle in the morning. I’ll be having a business lunch there, so you’re free to do what you wish with the afternoon.”

  “Will you be back by evening?” she asked.

  “Most likely,” he responded. “I’ll call you before I return, and you won’t have to prepare dinner until I’m back.”

  He didn’t turn back, but he could tell that Sakurako was smiling. “Very well, Ichiro-sama.”

  He had never gone out of his way to be a good master to her. But to someone like him, whose relationships with people so often chilled abruptly, the master-servant relationship they had cultivated had lasted for quite a long time.

  “Has it already been five years?” Sakurako mused, as if reading his mind.

  “Already five years, yes,” he said.

  “It’s allowed me to grow so accustomed to your eccentricities. It’s only when I see Iris and Asuha’s reactions to you that I remember how strange you really are.”

  “Nonsense,” Ichiro said.

  Sakurako’s decorum as a servant was usually extremely proper, but she had a tendency to be a little overly blunt.

  “The visit by Miss Nem the other day was yet another thing you started, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  “I can’t say I approve of your referring to that incident as ‘yet another thing,’ and it was her own decision to tear into Iris. Though I won’t deny that an objective analysis would indicate me as the initial cause of it.”

  “Oh, yes sir,” she said. “It’s just that when we talk about such incidents, we usually say ‘yet another thing Ichiro-sama started’ in order to save time.”

  He couldn’t help but notice that her tone was one of someone trying to soothe a hurt child.

  Nem was the avatar name of a player who had appeared in NaroFan the other day. Her real name was Megumi Fuyo. She was the daughter of the head of Tsunobeni, Co., one of the three largest trading companies in Japan. She was also the president of the new apparel brand “MiZUNO,” which had become quite a hit with young people. As for why she had chosen to conceal her identity to join the game and insult Iris, a member of Ichiro’s guild, Iris Brand... that was a much longer story.

  “Well, what I mean to say...” Sakurako began.

  “I see you trying to move on to the summary, Sakurako-san.”

  “Because we’ll be reaching the game room very soon,” she said. “So, what I mean to say is, you’re simply too eccentric for naive girls like Asuha to understand. If you don’t feel the same way they do, you must refuse them in good faith.”

  “I can’t help but feel like you’re making terribly rude assumptions about me,” he said.

  As they approached the room, Sakurako, who had previously been walking slowly behind him, suddenly slid out in front of him to open the door. She then stood in front of the opened door and remained bowing solemnly until Ichiro entered.

  “Megumi has made such overtures many times before, but I have always been plain with her about how I feel,” Ichiro said as he sat down in his cocoon seat, and Sakurako took the seat next to it.

  “In what way?” she asked.

  “I called them ‘nonsense.’”

  “That isn’t good faith at all...”

  1 - Noble Son, Entrust

  “Achoo!” she sneezed.

  Nem wondered for a moment if perhaps she’d caught a cold. But then she remembered that she was in a purely fictional realm made up of quantum information. If she was sneezing, it couldn’t be from a cold. She covered her mouth in a moment of delayed embarrassment.

  “Someone must be talking about you,” the man sitting in front of her said, gazing at the ceiling.

  He was tall, with pointed ears. At a glance, one might call him a very handsome man. But that sticky-sounding voice of his, a perfect match for the dank limestone cavern around them, made it hard to think of him in that way.

  “Surely you don’t believe that old cliché...” she said.

  “No, no. In the game, you see, when the AI determines that a certain account is being discussed, it forces the avatar to sneeze.”

  “Th-They really programmed that into it?” she asked.

  “Isn’t that fun? NaroFan’s balance is pure ass, but they put a lot of effort into pointless things like that. I love it, personally.” The man rolled the words out leisurely, but Nem had no idea what he was talking about.

  The game’s designer, planner, and general manager of the design team, president Azami Nono, was a friend of Nem’s alter ego, Megumi Fuyo. Sometimes, when they were talking about her game, she’d boast about all the little silly things she’d programmed in based on old superstitions, like “whenever you sigh, your luck stat goes down.”

  Nem’s only experience with computer games had been the Tamagotchis she’d obsessed over as a child. (When a friend she’d worked so hard to raise had died, she’d gone crying to her father about it.) But every time they talked about things like that, she wondered if such design was necessary to make the game fun.

  “Now, Miss Nem, was it?” The man leaned back in his seat, as if to proceed to the main subject. “Our guild house’s location isn’t available to the public... I wonder if you have a connection to the developer.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I was told that you were the most knowledgeable player in the game, Mr. Matsunaga...”

  “Ah, no need to apologize. That is true, after all.” The man smiled and spoke in a way that made it hard to tell if he was serious or joking.

  The information-gathering guild, the Dual Serpents, was one of NaroFan’s three great guilds. Matsunaga the Elf Scout was their leader. Matsunaga ran a NaroFan general information site that collected strategies and internet gossip about the game, and Azami Nono herself had told her that his ability to extract information out of the game astonished even the developers.

  “Now, let me see,” Matsunaga began, smoothly, before Nem could even think of how to broach the subject. “I know that you started a quarrel with Mr. Tsuwabuki’s guild... Now, don’t act so startled. You see, even if I don’t do anything, I always seem to end up with information about him. My information network is always active around him lately.”

  “From what I’ve heard,” he continued, “you bear no grudge against Mr. Tsuwabuki. So I’m very curious as to what you came all this way to ask me.”

  “Yes, well...” Nem’s eyes wandered to the eerie green torchlight within the damp cave. The creepy, dungeon-like atmosphere of the place seemed to be draining all of her initiative away.

  She couldn’t let things go on like this. Nem took in a deep breath, calming herself and regaining her presence of mind. It didn’t matter where she was, or who she was dealing with. This was basically a business deal. She was the president of a new business herself, and the daughter of Eikei Fuyo, demon of the economic world. This wasn’t her first time dealing with a crafty old veteran.

  “I wish to prove that my taste is not incorrect,” she said.

  “Ah... hmm.”

  Nem had thought she was expressing herself clearly, but Matsunaga’s response was a listless one. She didn’t appreciate that.

  Nem was a fashion designer in the real world. You couldn’t get by in her world without good taste, and she took great pride in hers.

  Yet, a few days ago, something had happened to shake that pride.

  “You have a lot of time on your hands, don’t you?” Matsunaga asked.

  “My time is valuable, and this matter is important enough to me that I have chosen to allot some of that time to it,” Nem retorted, unfazed by the needling in Matsunaga’s tone.

  She wasn’t sure just how much he knew about her, but partly in the interest of sorting out her own feelings, Nem decided to explain the circumstances.

  Nem’s real name was Megumi Fuyo. Her father, Eikei, was the president of Tsunobeni, Co., one of Japan’s biggest trading companies. She was friends with Azami Nono, the creator of Narrow Fantasy Online and president of the company that ran it, Thistle Corporation. Since she herself was unaccustomed to online games, Azami had provided her with a number of accommodations and advantages.

  Nem had begun playing for one reason.

  It was only one reason, but it was difficult to explain in so many words.

  First, there was the matter of Ichiro Tsuwabuki. They knew each other through their parents’ businesses, and they had grown quite close by way of that. When she had been struggling, torn between her position as sole daughter of a large trading company and her dream of becoming an apparel designer, he was the one who had given her advice and spurred her onward. Though he might not have actually remembered that now...

  Ichiro was a strange person, in many respects. Even Megumi, whose father had concerns about her naivety, was aware of that much.

  It was clear that he had excellent aesthetic sense, and yet he showed no interest in things that most people considered “good.” That was why, no matter many “good” things Megumi made, his evaluation was always, “I suppose it is good, from an objective point of view,” but he never offered his own opinion about them. For a time, she had just given up, deciding that that was just the kind of person he was.

  What had re-lit her passion as a designer was an incident that had taken place just a few days before, at a ceremony she had held for her new boutique.

  Ichiro had come, proudly displaying a rather clumsy silverwork butterfly on his chest. The material had looked like real silver, but the design had been utterly lacking in subtlety. In fact, it had been quite cheap-looking.

  Ichiro was eccentric. And of course, he had never shown interest in things that most people considered “good.” Even so, he had never once worn an accessory that would invoke the words “tasteless” or “childish.” Even from the perspective of what “most people considered good,” his aesthetic sense was on point. He had good taste.

  That was all the more reason she had been so shocked when he had appeared wearing the aforementioned brooch.

  It was both tasteless and childish. It looked like the work of a designer who lacked the experience required even to be called a novice. Megumi simply couldn’t understand. Why would he wear something like that? But she knew that if she asked him, his reply would just be, “Nonsense.” So naturally, her curiosity had shifted to the brooch’s maker.

  Iris.

  It was only by chance that she’d happened to learn that this was a person he knew in a game, not in the real world. She didn’t know this person’s age, or whether they were really a male or a female. She had a lot of questions, but she knew it would be rude to interrogate him about it any further.

  She had wanted to meet this person who could make designs that Ichiro Tsuwabuki liked, just once. So she’d made a rather unreasonable request of her friend, and had started playing the game.

  “If you don’t mind my asking...” Matsunaga had watched, with vague annoyance, as Nem told her story. “...what exactly do you like about Mr. Tsuwabuki?”

  “Ah?”

  “Well, I can understand his being generally popular with the ladies,” Matsunaga said. “He’s handsome, wealthy, powerful, and smart...”

  “Ichiro’s true qualities are not so superficial,” Nem said stiffly.

  “But his personality... ah, never mind! Anything else I say will just sound like the jealousy of the perpetually rejected. Now, let me see...” Matsunaga waved his hand as if to wipe away the question. “Anyway, here’s what it comes down to: Iris’s designs are bad, and you can’t stand it. Right? Yes, yes. So, let me see, hmm... You want to prove that your taste is correct. In other words, you want to show her up.”

 

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