Chapter 375: Piling Up Happiness

【Wolfgang】

Sunraku: Hello, it's me, the major shareholder of the Golden Scale trading company who gets treated like a VIP even if I drop by unannounced

OiKatzo: Ehh...

Pencil Knight King: Can I get a friend discount or something?

Sunraku: Lacking in sincerity

Pencil Knight King: Oops, holding a grudge from earlier? You're a petty man, Sunraku-kun

Sunraku: Oh by the way, I get to use the Scale of Compensation as much as I want

Pencil Knight King: Sunraku-samaaa! I'll go buy you some yakisoba bread right now!!

OiKatzo: The woman who will go all-out groveling for a cheat-tier item, Pencilgon

Pencil Knight King: No but seriously, you could tilt the kingdom's economy with just a little bit of abusing that thing, you knooow?

Sunraku: Your intended usage is way too evil, I really do need to deliver divine punishment upon you

Kyougoku: Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the event

Mold: I saw the chat was updated so I came to look but what is this conversation...

Sunraku: We're talking about ShanFro

OiKatzo: If three people gather!

Pencil Knight King: They possess the wisdom of Monju!!

Kyougoku: Don't you mean 'Danger: Do Not Mix'?

Mold: Ru-hio

Psyger-0: Scale of Compensation?

Sunraku: It's a nice item where you can toss whatever you want in as a sacrifice and it converts it into temporary stat points or cash

Pencil Knight King: Makes PK laundering a breeze!

Kyougoku: Eh, I really want that now

Rust: Mold's diaphragm is dancing like crazy right now, I'd like you to take responsibility

Sunraku: Just tell everyone his chronic hiccups got worse or something

Psyger-0: Come to think of it, is there anything specific we should be doing right now?

Pencil Knight King: Hm?

Pencil Knight King: Oh, the Noirlind thing? In that case, there's no need to take any action just yet

Pencil Knight King: Either way, it doesn't seem like the final battle between Noirlind and Siegwurm is going to happen anytime soon

Pencil Knight King: At the very least, as long as the exact coordinates of the White Dragon, Red Dragon, and Green Dragon aren't pinpointed, we still have plenty of time to prepare

Pencil Knight King: Besides, right now, rumors are flying everywhere about the raid monster some idiot defeated, Library exposing the truth about Ctarrnid, and a new race being discovered... Even if the 'Absolutely Unforgivable Noirlind' faction takes the lead, we probably still have about a month's grace period, right?

Kyougoku: One month, huh... In that case, I might be able to join you guys on the day of the festival

OiKatzo: The first ship is heading back your way first, right? I heard it'll take about three weeks before it arrives at the New Continent again, including the time for resupplying

Sunraku: Plenty of time

Kyougoku: Hmm... Oh, right

Kyougoku: If any of you happen to stumble upon the Beastman village, I'd appreciate it if you could visit the fox beastmen for me

Sunraku: Oh?

Pencil Knight King: I sense information concealment

OiKatzo: Execute? In the name of the Heavens, shall I execute her?

Kyougoku: Well, even I have a secret or two I'd like to keep hidden

Kyougoku: Or rather, Sunraku, you're the last person I want to hear that from

Pencil Knight King: C'mon, spit it out!

OiKatzo: We aren't afraid to resort to inhumane treatment!

Sunraku: Khh, she pointed the gun at me immediately

Rust: [Sad News] Mold slammed his face into a closed automatic door from laughing too hard

Pencil Knight King: Isn't it kinda unfair that the guy himself is just inherently funny?

OiKatzo: As expected, a walking laugh track is on a whole other level

Sunraku: His facial muscles must be absolutely shredded

Mold: You guys are being awful about this in so many ways!?

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"What in the world..."

A heavily sealed delivery box made of reinforced plastic.
Amidst a string of distinctly non-Japanese characters, my family name and Takeda's name indicated that the awaited goods had finally arrived.

And, shifting my gaze to the side, there was the physical copy of a certain game I had randomly bought after seeing it at Shop Rock Roll just a little while ago.

Shifting my gaze even further to the side, there was yet another box wrapped in non-Japanese packaging.
Upon checking the contents, I found the "once you use it, you can never use it again" type of memory cube inside.

"Requiem for Armies, Galaxia Heroes: Chaos, and Presi-Legend..."

Holy crap. Games, games, games... My backlog just perfectly overlapped.

First, let's assess the situation. Requiem for Armies is something I bought myself. It's the game featuring the faceless mercenary Jack, the character I cosplayed as when participating anonymously in the GGC.
Since I went as far as to cosplay him, I figured I should at least play it, so I bought it... well, that's fine.

Next, Presi-Legend. As expected, it arrived via expedited shipping from Zimbabwe. As expected of Takeda-san. I want to be like him in the future... Mad respect.

To begin with, Takeda-san—Mr. Takeda Ingen—is a slightly different breed of trash-game friend compared to those two fiends. While I actually play games together with Pencilgon and Katzo, my relationship with Takeda-san is more about mutually reviewing the trash games we've discovered.

Well, his trash game history dates all the way back to the retro era before Full-Dive VR, when games were actually played on monitors; he's a veteran among veterans. He once sent me a photo, and the fact that he built an entire vacation home exclusively for trash games just shows he's on an entirely different level.

From little girls' games to R-18 titles, Mr. Takeda, who stocks every conceivable trash game, is my idol, the ultimate goal I must strive toward.
The only reason I don't neglect my studies is simply because Mr. Takeda, who gives off the vibe of a real-life high-society elite, represents the perfect, completed form I aim to become.

There is absolutely no way I could possibly put off the phantom trash game Presi-Legend, which I hyped up with Mr. Takeda around last year.

"I'll just shoot him an email for now... wait, what's the time difference in Zimbabwe?"

I found out from his reply to my thank-you email, but apparently, he's currently in Eastern Europe. His footwork is way too light... Also, I casually reverse-calculated the shooting location from the building in the attached photo, and it turned out to be the headquarters of a globally famous corporation. And based on the height, it was somewhere near the top floor.

"Yeah, let's not think too deeply about this!!"

Mr. Takeda really is amazing!! I want to become someone capable of building a trash-game mansion in the future too.

And finally, there's this.

For some reason, a certain pro gaming team is sandwiched in the middle, but the sender is Galaxia Label—the developers of GH:C.
I wonder what this is... The pressure is intense. It's like, "You're going to play it, right?" No, it's probably just my paranoia acting up for the most part, but I feel an anxious dread, as if my moat is steadily being filled in.
Maybe it's a Japanese trait, but I feel a sense of unease wondering if it's okay to just feign ignorance after receiving this much... Alright, I'll pretend I didn't see it! Future me will figure something out. Believe in yourself, ai-kyan-doo-itto.

For now, I'll just send Katzo the URL to the latest version of his thread... and there.

"Leaving my backlog untouched is a matter of pride."

Let's do this. I have school normally tomorrow, but there's no other choice—all-nighter it is!!

Alright, time to build a chart. First off, ShanFro and GH:C are getting pushed back.
I'll have some free time in ShanFro for a while anyway, so it's fine to indulge in some other games for a bit.

In that case, I'll clear Requiem for Armies—which I can just finish via the campaign scenario—today, and then chug some energy drinks and dive right into Presi-Legend—!

Perfect.

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"Oh, Hizutome-kun, good morni... wh-what happened to you!?"

"...No, yeah. It was just a really emotional, moving experience."

"R-Right..."

Jack, what a cool character...
But just to convey a good story, making the campaign scenario that ridiculously long is completely unacceptable... I'm so sleepy.

Author's Afterword
A future where everything is ruled by the economy... Mercenaries are managed by numbers and codes, and human dignity is trampled upon more easily than mud on the battlefield.
The protagonist is a mercenary belonging to a certain corporation. Dispatched to a rare metal tanker swirling with human greed, the protagonist is inevitably dragged into a conspiracy that engulfs the world...

A mercenary who lost his name, a mercenary who continues to shout his own existence even after losing his face, a corporate daughter offered up as a sacrifice, an execution squad that lost its human dignity... Everyone is losing something. In the midst of an endless battle,

Engrave your "Name," who is nobody.

Requiem for Armies, it is a requiem for the mercenaries.

In the endgame, the rare metal tanker that appeared as the first stage makes a reappearance, launching a suicide attack on the corporate battleship while Jack sinks to the bottom of the ocean along with a nuclear payload at the very end.