Chapter 161: Going the Extra Mile (For a Price)

"You can't participate in the match anymore!?!?"

".........Yeah."

Pencilgon, Natsume-shi, and I unintentionally harmonize our screaming in response to the words coming out of Katzo's mouth—while he wears a face entirely drained of any joy or amusement from the emotional spectrum.

"The host bailing at the last minute... wait, was the massive hidden-camera prank theory actually true...?"

"If this was happening to someone else I'd be busting a gut laughing right now, but Katzo-kun, isn't this a bit too far beyond a joke?"

"W-what is the meaning of this, Kei!?"

"Orders from up top... or rather, an 'order' from the sponsors. I've been drafted to fill in a vacancy for the RwH6 tournament..."

"Huh?"

To summarize Katzo's story:

Day two of the GGC. In other words, the very same day as our exhibition match—a so-called live gameplay demonstration for Galaxia Heroes: Chaos—the world finals for RwH6... Ruins War Hounds 6, are apparently being held. If it was just that, it would've stayed a completely unrelated issue for us, but things took a sharp nosedive when one of their players got hospitalized in a traffic accident.

In this day and age, as long as your body isn't torn into pieces, modern medicine can patch you up—and fortunately, it doesn't sound like an injury that'll leave lasting aftereffects—but obviously participating in a tournament is completely off the table, forcing them to frantically scramble for a replacement.

Normally, they would've just pulled a substitute from the bench of the FPS division Assault Company under the Cyber Battalion pro gaming team umbrella, but that's exactly when the sponsors decided to stick their noses in.

Apparently, they dropped a massive "Since we're doing this, just make Kei Uomi the extra member" demand—which was essentially a thinly veiled threat disguised as a request—forcing Katzo to swap his game category against his will.

Normally, a ridiculous demand like that wouldn't fly at all, but Katzo just so happened to be at the venue on the exact same date and time—and the start times for the RwH6 tournament and the GH:C exhibition match were offset by just the most awkward, half-assed margin—and combined with the fact that pissing off that "sponsor" would be a massive blow to their business operations... all that abysmal RNG chained together into a totally unavoidable infinite combo that brought us to this current hellscape.

"Your bad luck is pinballing so hard it's actually looping back around to being hilarious."

"If it was somebody else I'd be laughing too..."

"More importantly, why on earth is a fighting game specialist like Katzo-kun getting drafted as an FPS player? Isn't that totally backwards?"

"Ah... well, a lot of stuff happened a while back, and I ended up playing an FPS in front of that sponsor. Haha, I might not look it, but my FPS skills are pretty much second only to my fighting game specs..."

I see, so because he showed off his half-assed decent skills, it got burned right into the sponsor's memory.

Katzo lets out a dry laugh with a tired, resigned face, while Natsume-shi looks utterly devastated. It seems neither of them have realized it yet, but the people in this room are currently divided into two entirely different species.

"W-Wait, if you just steamroll the RwH6 tournament super fast, wouldn't you still make it in time...?"

"I mean, sure, our resident military meatheads are strong, but the opponents are the German team 'Sturm und Explosive', so nine times out of ten it's going to drag out into a total slog."

Whether it's Morning Glory Company or Shrimp-Bean Paste-Expensive[*1], it doesn't matter—in Katzo and Natsume-shi's minds, the verdict is already set: Katzo's participation in the exhibition match is completely hopeless.

"Makes sense... Just out of curiosity, if it turned into a complete mud-wrestling stalling match, how long would this grand finals thing actually take?"

"The mode is territory control, Best of 5... each match is thirty minutes, so yeah, factoring in breaks, I'm going to be hostage there for three hours."

"And for the record, the GH:C exhibition match starts at 10 AM, while the RwH6 world tournament starts at 9 AM."

So no matter how much he scrambles, he's guaranteed to be an hour late. Unlike FPS games, the match timer for fighting games is incredibly short. If I remember right, the exhibition match rules set one round at ten minutes—so even if a match went the absolute distance to a final round, it'd only eat thirty minutes—and even if we shoved Katzo into the fourth slot on the roster, it's highly doubtful he'd make it in time.

And that's operating on the baseline assumption that "the three of us stall out every single match to the full thirty-minute time limit"—which is so utterly absurd it doesn't even qualify as a strategy.

Which means this situation is already...

"So what you're saying is, if we all stall to the final round, he'll make it in time, right?"

"We'll just cheese it by telling them our anchor is stuck in the bathroom. But seriously, how the hell do we stall out the timer for a full ten minutes per round? Aggressive roleplay?"

"If the opponent plays along with it, sure, but if we string them along by keeping the objective split between securing the Chaos Cube and going for the knockout for three rounds, we might just be able to pull it off, right?"

"...Wait, are you guys insane? Are you seriously suggesting this!?"

The two who were busy grieving over our current reality snap their eyes wide open at the two of us plotting to totally break the current reality. What's there to be so shocked about? I mean, it's me and Pencilgon here, okay? You should've completely expected this exact line of thought from us the moment things went south.

"You dragged two amateurs out to perform in front of a massive audience, so there's absolutely no way we're going to let you AFK and ditch us by yourself, right?"

"It already screams 'we ran out of people so we threw in a random benchwarmer', so if the main star bails too we're going to be a total laughingstock, and I really don't like standing out in that kind of loser way~."

"The fact that you guys are going out of your way to drag me back down in this situation is so crazy it loops back around to commanding my utmost respect... wait, no! You have to realize what you're saying is completely impossible, right...!?"

"You didn't think I was just preparing my cosplay this whole time, did you~?"

Pencilgon smirks as she says that. If she was in her real body it probably would have looked super dramatic and imposing, but we're currently inside the GH:C matchmaking entrance hub—where the last character you used is reflected as your avatar—so the one flashing that fearless, scheming grin is a mysterious character in a swallowtail tuxedo with a CRT monitor for a head.

By the way, the facial expression is just a human face being broadcasted onto the CRT screen, and apparently it's actually a female character. Did she randomize her appearance, gender, and outfit settings using a slot machine or something?

Ignoring Natsume-shi who's floating question marks over her head muttering "Cosplay...?", the grand speech from Professor Pencilgon—now completely locked into her Mastermind Mode—continues.

"Listen up, okay? In extreme terms, winning or losing this exhibition match is strictly secondary—the absolute main priority here is communicating 'just how insanely fun this game is' to the live audience, to the viewers watching the stream, and to the people watching the VODs later."

"Which is exactly why this isn't a battle, it's entertainment. The crowd doesn't want a one-sided stomp that ends in the prologue, they want a hype-inducing climax that drags all the way out to the epilogue!"

"So, how do we perfectly execute both our personal agenda and the overarching objective of this exhibition match at the same time?"

Natsume-shi leans forward, entirely sucked into Pencilgon's silver-tongued rhetoric. Once it comes to this, there's absolutely no escape—anyone who gets strings attached to them by a puppeteer like Pencilgon is destined to be exploited as a marionette until they break.

Though, for this time and this time only, we're the ones volunteering to tie the strings to ourselves.

"We're not just going to fight a thirty-minute match... We're going to broadcast a thirty-minute drama[*2]."

───

──

─

"Alright, let's get to work."

The to-do list is a mile long, and this massive role I've been assigned by our resident Fixer[*3] is absolutely not going to be an easy carry.

If the battle against Wethermon was a fight that forcefully pushed a single sword named "Sunraku" to its absolute breaking point, then this battle is essentially an extreme multi-wielding juggling act.

We're ramming our way through sheer impossibility to achieve our goal—taking Pencilgon's diabolical scheme designed to clear a harsh player limit and a strict time quota with just three people, which is already a total junk strategy full of holes, and barely making it function by having one person act as multiple cogs in the machine at once.

Honestly, trying to figure out a legit way to just win with three players would've been a hell of a lot easier. Sure, the Number One Player in the US is a terrifying opponent, but we'd at least have better odds doing that than challenging the Emperor of the Night with stats that barely even scratch Level 30.

But still, Pencilgon's grand conspiracy is basically tap-dancing barefoot through a field of thorns, and by eagerly jumping on board with it, I—and probably Natsume-shi too—am a total idiot. We're massive, colossal idiots.

"Hm?"

Going out of his way to email me to ask for my true intentions... Katzo, you bastard.

"Why, you ask? Well, obviously..."

Why go that far for me?

The answer I fired back to his incredibly brief question was just as simple.

Subject: Re: Why
Sender: Sunraku
Recipient: OiKatzo
Body: You went out of your way to invite us, so it's a super serious event for you, right? I'm telling you I'm going to let you have the spotlight, you idiot.

If this works out, we're getting Yakiniku. On your dime, obviously.

Subject: Re: Why
Sender: Pencil Warrior
Recipient: OiKatzo
Body: Fighting Sylvia-chan is a huge deal for you, right Katzo-kun? This is just Onee-san offering to strip down [*5] and go the extra mile for you!
Well, in reality I'll just be layering on a cosplay outfit though!

If this works out, I really want to eat sushi~. Fully covered by Katzo-kun, of course!

"...I'm already footing the entire bill[*4] including the hotel expenses, you know."

Reading the texts from these two trying to naturally swindle him out of even more money, Kei lets out a wry smile—one packed with exasperation, resignation, sorrow... and a profound gratitude that completely overwrites all of the above—before tossing his mobile device onto the bed.

He had fully intended to phone in this so-astically RwH6 world tournament with rock-bottom motivation, but if his incredibly reliable friends are going to stall for time with absolutely everything they have, then...

"Bring it on. I don't care if you're Cream Puff Cult Exercise[*6] or whatever, I just have to utterly sweep you and get back to my main gig!"

Booting up the software hastily installed on the VR system set up in his room, Kei, too, dives into the virtual reality world to do exactly what he needs to do.

Author's Afterword

・Sturm und Explosive
A German pro gaming team, and one of the world's leading FPS powerhouses. Not a Sugar Stick.
They possess a perfectly coordinated, completely ruthless, and highly efficient playstyle. Not Ukon.
By the way, ever since arriving in Japan for the finals, they've been constantly complaining about the quality of the beer and sausages, but they love octopus wieners! Not Explore.

Translator's Notes

• *[1] Shrimp-Bean Paste-Expensive: Sunraku is brutally butchering the team names by misinterpreting their pronunciations into random Japanese words. "Morning Glory Company" (Asagao Company) instead of "Assault Company", and "Shrimp (Shrimp) - Bean Paste (Anko) - Expensive (Expensive)" for "Sturm und Explosive".

• *[2] Drama: The author emphasizes this word using Japanese ruby dots over the text.

• *[3] Fixer: The Kanji reads "Mastermind" (Kuromaku), but the ruby text forces the English word "Fixer".

• *[4] Footing the entire bill: The Kanji reads "Covering Everything" (Zenmochi), while the ruby text forces the slang "Treat" (Ogori). 
•  *[5] Strip down: Pencilgon uses the Japanese idiom hitohada nugu (一肌脱ぐ), which literally translates to "taking off a layer of clothing" or "baring one's skin," but idiomatically means "to pitch in" or "go out of one's way to help." She intentionally uses the literal meaning to set up the punchline about putting more clothes on for her cosplay. 
• *[6] Cream Puff Cult Exercise: Katzo's own localized butchering of "Sturm und Explosive".