Q. Teacher, your daughter is so pretty and polite. What kind of family education did you provide to raise such a child?
A. Retro games.
*
The game produced by the Game Development Club, Tales Saga Chronicle. With three synonyms in the title, it seems to be anything but a proper game, having won the “Worst Game of the Year” award.
While playing such a game, Alice often shouted “Calculation impossible” and “System processing failure,” and the teacher couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her, as error messages popped up every minute.
The reason Alice started playing this game was fundamentally because Momo emphasized the need for basic conversational skills.
Midori, who had been taken off guard by Momo, couldn’t find any elements to teach conversation but eventually thought, “How about teaching through Tales Saga Chronicle, which caught Alice’s interest?”
“Kill… me…”
That could be said to be the reason behind Alice’s current state of groaning.
The tutorial monster suddenly shooting the player and resulting in an instant game over, followed by the insane line, “Sorry, I’m a vegetable, so it’s hard for me to talk to ladies.”
For some reason, the mother is a heroine who turns out to be the wife from a past life, and the absurd setup appears where the wife is actually a half-sibling friend who time-leaped when they were separated as kids.
After enduring such a horrific time, when Alice finally reached the game’s true ending and uttered the request to be killed, it may not have been so surprising.
“More than that… doesn’t it feel like Alice-chan’s speech is getting quite diverse the more she plays the game?!”
“If you seek agreement, brave one. I shall say so.”
“Oh? You’re right?”
“It seems a little strange, but… it feels better than just listing words!”
The teacher, hearing their conversation, couldn’t figure out where to interject, so they chose not to. After all, it was true that they had made progress from a mere list of words to some extent.
If that’s the kind of progress that happened in just three hours, it truly was remarkable.
“Um, but… I’ll ask now, though it might be a bit embarrassing… how was our game? Was it fun?!”
Whether Alice was still feeling the aftereffects of the game or mentally needed time to recover her circuits, she gazed at them with a puzzled expression upon hearing the question.
“Explanation, impossible.”
“What, what?! Why?!”
“Searching for similar expressions… loading…”
“Ho, hope you’re not looking for swear words, right?”
The teacher thought that probably wasn’t the case. Although Alice had shown signs of struggling throughout her gameplay, she had definitely also shown glimpses of enjoyment, even if it was for a very short time.
“Fun… definitely… exists…”
“Ohh!”
“The more you play… it feels like… traveling to a new world… as if… dreaming… a bit more… a bit more…”
Alice, overwhelmed by feelings that were hard to put into words, shed tears.
And that reaction was a much more meaningful review for the Game Development Club than any bad reviews they had received about the game.
Momo said that her tears were more eloquent than any critic’s words, and Alice’s evaluation and tears resonated deeply within the hearts of the Game Development Club.
“…I saw it.”
Creeak——
“Oh? The cabinet suddenly opened.”
“Ahhh! Is it a, a, ghost?!”
“Calm down, Midori! Don’t throw the Fly Station again… Ah, Yuzu?”
“Yuzu! I couldn’t find you no matter how much I looked! When did you get in the cabinet?”
Hanao Yuzu, the timid head of the Game Development Club who had been hiding in the cabinet due to her shy personality and social anxiety, was also moved by those words and approached Alice herself… Alice’s demeanor had a power that touched people’s hearts.
“Um, um, so… g-g-g…”
“G-g-g?”
The shy girl, Yuzu, approached Alice hesitantly, and Alice asked back, noticing how hard it seemed for her to even utter a single word. The teacher couldn’t help but look at Miyu, who was absentmindedly fiddling with one of the game consoles nearby.
Perhaps feeling some kinship, Miyu put down the game console and stared intently at Yuzu.
“…Thank you. For saying… the game was fun… for saying you want to play it again… for crying… truly, thank you. I really wanted to hear that our game was fun.”
Alice looked at Yuzu with a bewildered expression, as if struggling to keep up with the situation.
“Anyway, let me introduce you again. This is Yuzu, the head of the Game Development Club. Thank you for joining us, Alice-chan. I look forward to working with you.”
“Nice… to meet…? Understand.”
Alice nodded solemnly at Yuzu’s introduction, and then, with a bright smile, said, “Yuzu has joined us as a member. Pompompomp! …is it?”
For Alice, asking that with an unsure tone at the end must have captured the hearts of everyone in the Game Development Club.
After this, Yuzu, feeling an overwhelming friendliness because their game had been positively received, stepped forward to suggest a game to Alice.
Then Momo also competed by pushing titles of games she knew onto Alice.
Likewise, Midori joined in the competition, presenting her recommendation, showing that her love for games was not to be outdone.
“Looking forward to starting the game again.”
Three students who truly loved games. Alice began to defeat every game they presented right there.
From day to night, and until morning came.
Even after the teacher left for a hotel in the city, and Miyu headed to the dorm prepared by Yuuka, they continued on.
By the time the morning sunlight started seeping through the classroom window…
“Finally opened your eyes… you’re lucky, aren’t you? Are you back to your senses?”
“Eh?!”
To Midori, who woke up in the classroom, Alice greeted her with a strangely formal morning greeting… her conversational skills had indeed developed significantly.
Of course, it was a retro game conversation style.
*
Around July of last year, due to my refusal to communicate led to a significant decision made for bad reasons, it marked the beginning of the kidnapping incident’s rise and fall, culminating in the formation of a multinational six-member idol group.
We, in fact, were only able to close the loop on that incident after about eight months.
At that time, we didn’t approach the situation playfully. We already knew that the idol market in Kivotos was a blue ocean, and we merely had our minds twist towards that.
Gathering six members, each with their own outstanding charm, and officially launching as an idol group from Millennium, one of the three academies recently grouped as the top three, it was inevitable that attention was drawn.
The success of the debut of the new talent was incredible, starting with charting right after the release of their title song’s sound source and achieving number one in real-time most popular video.
Thus, they made their debut on music shows, achieving the incredible feat of a new talent hitting number one with their debut song…
Millennium’s representative idol group, Blooming Buds, announced their debut.
By the way, the group name was initially meant to be something completely serious, but Rion said that changing just that could result in a 10% difference in final expected profit according to AI calculations, so she urged us to use another group name.
Thus, the name I came up with garnered a common reaction from Haruna, Noa, and Hina for some reason.
After that, we came to an agreement that if naming was needed, it should not be left to me.
To be honest, it was a bit embarrassing.
Was it really that…?
“Hahaha, everyone worked hard.”
After everything went perfectly on stage and the awards were done, I looked over the group returning to the waiting room.
First off was Neru, looking inexplicably satisfied. Initially, the one who resisted the most and complained till the end, yet on stage, worked harder than anyone. Seeing her smile when it ended reminded me of something.
What was it again? A short comic about something like “those who do it well…” with some exasperated expression.
Anyway, Neru was now in enjoyment mode. Maybe it was because of the skejan she wore, exuding great presence. I felt the urge to poke her, but I decided to hold back since it was a good day.
Asuna, her eyes full of joy. As predicted, her outfit didn’t have any lewdness, yet the overwhelmingly present lucky pouch gave off an air of allure. Even sweating… phew. I can’t deny it’s the maximum output for the 19+ category of Blue Archive.
She was shining on stage, but as soon as she came down, she was filled with annoyance. Truly consistent, which is also endearing. No matter how annoying it was, she did what had to be done… that kind of diligence is remarkable.
As for the outfit… how does it suit her so well? Hina in a gothic lolita dress is divine and invincible. She’d likely look fantastic in vampire attire. The best, Hina-hina.
With a relaxed smile on her face, Noa winked over at us. The combination of white and sky-blue in her sailor uniform created an explosion of charm.
If we were to hand her a microphone shaped like a magic wand as a prop, she’d surely draw in popularity, absolutely the epitome of a magical girl.
Speaking of which, I was curious about how Yuuka felt seeing this performance. As I know, originally, it was supposed to be Noa pushing Yuuka down the path of a daily idol, but now she was the one walking that path herself.
Last but not least, Haruna.
Dressed in stage attire, complete with make-up and hair styling, she approached me gracefully, smiling softly as she took my hand.
“Mika-san.”
“Yup, Haruna-chan.”
“I… lost 2kg since the beginning of the year.”
“…Huh?”
“I was originally at a normal weight. Now I’m underweight.”
“…”
“Please take responsibility.”
While my brain stalled from Haruna’s statement, the kids gathered for a group hug led by Asuna. Even Neru, who was reluctant to join, ended up joining in.
In the distance, Rion who probably sensed the construction funds rolling in for Eridu was nodding along at this point.
It turns out the fundamental mistake was made by Haruna and Neru. The talents were shared amongst these six, and Rion was the one earning the money…
