Chapter 148: A First-Magnitude Star in a Meteor Shower

"...Pfft, kukuku... My abs are gonna split..."

"I don't think there's any reason for you to be laughing that hard...?"

"Your very existence is like a walking gag, you know that...? No, to think you'd manage to make me laugh even in real life... Fufufu, kukuku..."

Arthur Pencilgon—after coming face-to-face with me wearing a gas mask that came as an early-purchase bonus for a Trash Game I bought ages ago—had been holding her stomach and roaring with laughter over god knows what. She finally managed to stop, and I complained to her with the gas mask still on, only to be hit with an unreasonable counterattack, declaring my very existence a gag.
How rude. It's true that inside games, I kick NPCs off the roofs of buildings, strap them to the hoods of cars to make public examples of them straight out of the apocalypse, stick bombs to other players' backs and detonate them the moment they return to base... but in real life, I can confidently say I live an incredibly sensible, common-sense existence. Even with this gas mask, when I first opened the game box, I just threw the gas mask back into the bag and forgot about it. The game was returned to my dad, never played once, and when I borrowed it again, the gas mask just happened to still be inside. It's absolutely not like I brought it here specifically for today.

"I mean, I never expected you to go to such lengths to hide your face."

"No, I wasn't really trying to hide it. It was at the bottom of my bag, so I just figured I'd put it on."

"Normal people don't pack gas masks in their travel bags."

"Maybe I'm living in a Hollywood movie?"

I mean, if a hotel shows up in an action game, you have to expect either a storm of gunfire or the building collapsing from explosions.

"Hah... that was a good laugh. Let's start over, then... I'm Pencil Warrior, nice to meet you?"

"I'm Sunraku, nice to meet you... too."

Something Rumi said a while back—"She looks good on camera no matter the time or place"—apparently wasn't an exaggeration. The way she confidently offered her hand for a handshake looked like you could snap a picture of it right now and fill a magazine page.
That being said, I've experienced firsthand exactly what kind of thing is inside that shell, and her in-game avatar looks exactly like her real-life self anyway, so I wasn't captivated like some teenage girl. I just took her hand for a normal handshake.

"So, where's the host who called us here?"

"Hmm, he said he was going to go get our other teammate."

Now that I think about it, he did mention something like that in his follow-up email. The event we're participating in at GGC is a 4v4 team battle, so besides me, Katzo, and Pencilgon, there has to be one more member. And apparently, that person is a member of the same pro gaming team as Katzo.

"Still, I'm surprised the reigning charismatic model managed to clear her schedule."

"You see, since literally every move I make looks good on camera, my actual work finishes pretty quickly."

"When overconfidence loops around twice, it's actually refreshing."

"Don't you think a humble boss character is just annoying?"

"So she knows she's a boss character..."

As we were talking like that, a man and a woman came around the corner towards us. One was a girl around my age, who looked at Pencil Warrior's face with an expression of pure shock. The other was an androgynous young man I frequently saw in magazines and on TV, who stared at me in the gas mask for a few seconds before holding his stomach and bursting into laughter.

"The combination of a luxury hotel and a gas mask is already too funny, but are you seriously like this in real life too?"

"Shut up, this is a rare item with no scheduled reissue, okay? Worship it, praise it."

"Probably because it's from a Trash Game... Oh well. Thanks for coming, Sunraku."

The young man held out his right hand for a handshake, just like Pencilgon had earlier. Pro gamer Kei Uomi (OiKatzo) smiled fearlessly at me and said that.

"Alright, let me introduce you properly, Meg. These two are my private gaming friends, Sunraku and Pencil Warrior... Well, since the latter apparently has no intention of hiding her face, I'll just say it: Towa Amane herself."

"Megumi Natsume. I see you in magazines quite a bit. Nice to meet you."

"And the gas mask bastard over there is Sunraku. I thought he was only crazy inside games, but it turns out he's a lunatic in real life too."

"I missed the right timing to take it off, take a hint."

"And this is Megumi Natsume (Meg). She's a member of our Nitro Squad, and the only person whose schedule was free tomorrow and the day after."

Katzo introduced us to a strong-willed-looking girl with a ponytail. Megumi Natsume... She's probably famous, but I don't know her. I don't read gaming magazines in the first place, and I've lived a life where I don't even glance at articles about pro gamers unless someone I know is in them.

"I'll get straight to the point. The day after tomorrow at GGC, we're going up against the American pro gaming team 'Star Rain'... But, as I explained in the email, stuff happened, our original members canceled at the last minute, and I called you two to fill the holes."

"Hey, Kei. I want to ask before we go any further... Are these two actually strong?"

Interrupting Katzo, Natsume-shi directed a suspicious gaze our way. Well, it's true that one is a famous pro model, and the other is a guy in a gas mask. Doubting whether these two are enough to fill in for pro gamers is... an entirely normal reaction.

"I guarantee their skill, Meg. The model over there is an extremely good match for the game we're playing this time, and the gas mask over there... let's see. If I say he has enough skill to secure about a 40% win rate against me, does that help you understand?"

Is that really accurate? Sure, if we both started a new game at the same time, the matchup diagram might look like that initially. But because he's a pro gamer, the more he researches, the more troublesome he becomes. Ultimately, I can usually only maintain about a 30% win rate against him.
However, it seems those words carried enough weight to drastically alter Natsume-shi's evaluation of me. As Katzo said that with a look reminiscent of a kid who successfully pulled a prank, Natsume-shi's eyes widened, and she stared at me intently.

"No way... Eh, against Kei... a 40% win rate...!?"

"Yay."

"Well, he's still a scrub who loses to me 60 to 70% of the time, though."

"Alright, you looking for a fight? Huh?"

He's a nasty guy, going out of his way to highlight that he has the favorable side of the matchup diagram... As I glared at Katzo through my gas mask, Pencilgon poked me from the side.

"You don't seem to be getting the hint, so I'll explain... Do you know how many fighting gamers in Japan can take a 40% matchup diagram against pro gamer Kei Uomi?"

"He's pretty weak to improvisation, so shouldn't there be a fair amount?"

"In domestic official tournaments, Katzo-kun has never dropped below an 80% win rate, no matter who he plays against, you know?"

"Heeh..."

"What a bland reaction."

I guess that's supposed to be amazing. I understand the concept, but... if it's a jewel or something, you can directly sense its value or rarity just by looking at it. But when someone tells you, Hey, that guy you know pretty well and can beat a decent amount of the time is actually super strong, you know?... It's hard to react with anything other than "Heeh..."

"What, am I supposed to fall out of my chair, crawl on the floor trembling in fear, and ultimately wet myself in a panic?"

"That sounds great! Do it right now, Sunraku-kun."

"You do realize you're telling me to commit social suicide, right? Hmm?"

This girl really is evil to the core. She's a crazy whiskey bonbon, camouflaging the evil called whiskey with the beauty called chocolate.

"Well, whatever. Let's get to the main topic. Anyway, the team we're fighting the day after tomorrow, 'Star Rain'... To put it simply, they're a top-class fighting game team in the US, but—"

"Hey, is this guy actually trying to make us expose our defeat on a national scale?"

"Hmm, I can think of about eight reasons off the top of my head why he'd do something that cruel. How about you, Sunraku-kun?"

"No way! I would never do something that cruel... Hmm, maybe six reasons?"

We're the kind of friends who would sell each other out to the enemy with a smile and repeatedly betray each other like it's nothing, but we are technically friends. Even so, calling me and Pencilgon... amateurs, basically... to fight against opponents like that? What on earth is he thinking?

"I didn't call you two here on the premise of losing. I called you because I'm absolutely certain that with the four of us, including Meg, our chances of winning aren't zero."

Saying that, Katzo displayed photos of four people on his state-of-the-art pad terminal.

"These are the four participating in the match the day after tomorrow. They're the first-string starting lineup for Team 'Star Rain'."

"Wow, amazing. Look at this, Sunraku-kun. There's a macho guy who looks exactly like the 'guy she told you not to worry about' in a hardcore R-18 NTR doujin!"

"Don't throw a killer pass that's impossible to respond to. I'm a minor, you know. That being said... shouldn't a guy with that build be doing real martial arts...?"

"That guy can crush an apple with one hand."

Macho men are awesome!
Aside from him, the lineup continued with some very intense-looking faces... until it was inevitable that my attention was drawn to the final person.

"Oh, what a cute girl. The lone flower of the group, I guess?"

"Blonde hair, blue eyes... How should I put it? She just screams 'foreigner'."

"Her name is Sylvia Goldberg..."

Looking grimly at the photo of a smiling girl who looked slightly older than me... meaning she looked to be around the same age as Katzo... the supposedly strongest domestic pro gamer muttered that fact quietly.

"She's the Number One Player in the US (Zen-Ichi)... The strongest pro gamer, in both name and reality."

Author's Afterword

Star Rain 1st String Members

• Johnson: A black macho man. Can crush an apple with one hand. Married.

• Alex: A white macho man. Has an overly intense face. Currently in a long-distance relationship with a girlfriend in Japan.

• Lucas: A Hispanic lean macho man. Good-looking. Smart. His relationships with women are so messy he'll probably get stabbed one day.

• Sylvia: Blonde hair, blue eyes, short bob. Super strong. Likes Japan's "Kei."