“I’ll treasure it,” she said. “Er, it may not fit to the store’s atmosphere, so I’ll have to keep it at home, but...”

“Do with it as you wish, Megumi. I leave it up to you. As long as it makes you happy, that’s what matters.” There was a curious satisfaction in Ichiro’s expression.

Ichiro Tsuwabuki was a man of great refinement, blessed with impeccable aesthetic sense. How could someone like him choose a present like that? And now that they looked again, the butterfly brooch pinned to his chest was also rather cheap-looking and crude for a bit of artisanal silverwork...

But Megumi Fuyo, the present’s recipient, seemed no less than overjoyed by it.

Was there something about the exchange that only those of the beyond-rich-and-famous class could understand? Or was it an exchange unique to Ichiro Tsuwabuki and Megumi Fuyo? The young businessmen racked their brains over the sight.

Ichiro and Fuyo had known each other for about five years — both a long and short time, depending on how you looked at it.

At first, their connection had been a rather superficial one, based solely on the fact that she was the daughter of the head of Tsunobeni, Inc.

But they were relatively close in age, and during a time when Fuyo had been racking her brain trying to decide what to do with her life, Ichiro had given her some useful advice. She had formed a strange emotional attachment to him that day, and things had been like this ever since.

For his part, Ichiro didn’t think of them as particularly close, but he didn’t dislike her, either. He thought of her as a friend. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have come to her business’s opening celebration, and he certainly wouldn’t have given her a present. He was well aware that Fuyo’s attitude and feelings for him went beyond that, but to do any more for her would be nonsense. In his own mind, Ichiro had drawn a line.

The main ceremony had finished, and it was time for the guests to socialize and network. Naturally, Ichiro had quite a few prominent figures attempting to cozy up to him, which had him quite annoyed. It was at this point that Megumi Fuyo took the initiative to speak to him.

“Ichiro, are you enjoying yourself?” she asked.

Given his experience as described above, he couldn’t claim to be enjoying himself at all. In truth, he was mostly thinking about what he would do in Narrow Fantasy Online when he got home, and wondering what Sakurako was up to in the Lincoln in the parking lot. Ah, but as far as the latter went, the answer likely required no deep thought; she was likely just playing games on her cell phone or watching a DVD.

Ichiro Tsuwabuki was not one to mince words. “To be blunt, I haven’t been enjoying myself much.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I suppose you haven’t changed in that regard.”

“Indeed. Change is never easy, and I have no need to do it in the first place,” Ichiro said.

At that point, Ichiro noticed the woman that Fuyo had brought with her. She looked a good ten years younger than Fuyo, and a bit younger than Ichiro, as well. She was wearing a business suit that smelled faintly of desperation, and her expression was awash with the tension and exhaustion of one who had too much to do every day. All that aside, it was rare to see a young woman like her at an occasion like this.

“Megumi, who is this?” Ichiro, realizing Fuyo would be interested in introducing them, decided to beat her to the punch.

“This is Azami Nono, a young businesswoman,” Fuyo said with a bright smile.

The description “a young businesswoman” would seem to apply to Fuyo, as well, but... yes, of course. The more he looked at her, the more he noticed how young this girl was. She looked as though she had only just lost her baby fat.

But that name, Azami Nono. There was something familiar about that name...

“The male businessmen still far outnumber us, you know?” Fuyo said. “So we find ourselves exchanging opinions quite often.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Ichiro Tsuwabuki,” the girl said politely. “I’ve heard about you.”

“A pleasure, Azami.” Ichiro smiled cheerfully as he took the outstretched hand of Azami Nono. “Only good things, I hope.”

He looked at the card she offered him, and his eyes narrowed.

“What’s this? President of the Thistle Corporation? Ah, so you’re the head of Thistle...”

“It’s a small company, only just founded,” she said.

The Thistle Corporation was a recent start-up meant to develop software that incorporated virtual reality technology, but Ichiro Tsuwabuki was familiar with it for other reasons. The VRMMORPG Narrow Fantasy Online that he’d started playing and had become engrossed in recently was Thistle’s main product. In other words, the person standing before Ichiro right now was the one in charge of the all-powerful development team.

“I’ve been enjoying NaroFan,” he said. “Do forgive me for putting such a burden on the server the other day.”

“Ah, certainly... So that was you after all, was it?” Azami asked with a strained smile.

Fuyo tilted her head in confusion.

Ichiro was talking about something that had happened a few days ago, during the Grand Quest to liberate the Delve Necrolands. He had, to put it bluntly, gotten into a fight with another player. Then, during the match, he had taken advantage of his own connection speed and the overwhelming processor power of his commercial-grade hardware to inflate server traffic and cause a slowdown attack. Such attacks were known as DOS attacks when done maliciously, or, more commonly, F5 attacks.

It was likely that the only players on the server who had been able to move properly during that time were Ichiro Tsuwabuki and possibly Sakura Ogi, who shared his play environment. The blessings provided by the high-capacity quantum connection were vast.

“It did seem a rather immature tactic, though,” Azami said.

“Nonsense,” Ichiro laughed. “I love doing things that test the boundaries of the rules. Though now that it’s been prohibited, I can’t do it again.”

It seemed that the dev team hadn’t anticipated that form of attack, either. The next day, they had done emergency maintenance to reinforce their servers, and added a line forbidding DOS attacks into the user agreement. There had also been concern that the swell of pay-to-download potions and other items he had bought to cause the traffic surge would wreak havoc with the game’s economic balance just by existing, so Ichiro had destroyed them all personally.

“Ichiro, do you play VR games?” Megumi asked. She looked surprised, as if she had finally caught up with the conversation.

“Yes,” he said. “Well, I’ve always had interest in Drive technology. How to put it... Some time ago, I heard the stories of a young prodigy who had graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the age of ten. I learned of the theory by reading her graduate thesis, though I thought it would take five or six years to put it into commercial use.”

“Yes, that was me,” Azami said. “That was nine years ago now, I suppose... and I developed the Miraive Gear with Pony Entertainment three years ago.”

President Azami rattled all this off lightly. An unreadable something crept into Ichiro’s expression.

“Ah, I see... Incidentally, I graduated from Harvard at the age of nine.”

“I am aware,” Azami smiled back brightly.

Ichiro felt a faint touch of sourness as he felt the competitive spirit start to rear its head within him. He enjoyed competition, and he would continue to enjoy it in the future, but comparing past accomplishments to puff up his pride was counter to Ichiro’s sense of aesthetics.

“Anyway, if you have time, I think we might have a lot to talk about when next we meet,” Ichiro said. “Playing the game has made me quite interested in the development side of things. Is it true that you leave the more detailed balance adjustments to AI?”

“Yes, that’s true,” she said.

“The first time I logged in, I attempted to pick up a rock in the Volgund Volcanoes area and eat it.”

“Um?” Ichiro’s outrageous comment, given without warning, was enough to startle even President Azami.

Fuyo blinked rapidly.

“But even that was realistic,” he said. “The taste and the texture both. From both a storage space and a technology perspective, I doubt you’re programming the stats for every single rock, but I wonder.”

“It’s a crowdsourcing system... ah, why don’t you visit my company sometime? I’ll explain then.”

“Kanda, was it?” he asked.

“Jinbocho. I’ll take you to an excellent curry restaurant.” Despite her exhaustion and nervousness, President Azami’s career woman facade never cracked. It was as one might expect from someone who, unlike Ichiro and Megumi, had come from a middle-class upbringing and thrown herself into the economic world at the mere age of 19.

With that said, she excused herself, saying she had some business to attend to at her company. She thanked Fuyo for introducing her to Ichiro, then left the ceremony venue.

“I should thank you, Megumi,” Ichiro said. “The president of Thistle is an excellent connection to have.”

“Ichiro, you’re not going to try to get close to Azami to gain... ah, game benefits, would you call them? Are you?”

“Nonsense,” Ichiro assured her. “I’m a player in the game, nothing more. I don’t want to do anything to compromise that position. There are likely many ways in which I could seek out preferential treatment, but at the day’s end, if I couldn’t enjoy myself as a player, it would cease to be interesting.”

“I don’t know much of anything about the game, but as always, you set my mind at ease, Ichiro,” she said.

After President Azami left, the two remained for a while, exchanging chitchat. Ichiro looked at the clock. It was just about time. He was starting to think he should leave, have dinner with Sakurako somewhere, then return home...

And while Fuyo likely didn’t mean to delay him from that, she did end up speaking up timidly to ask him a question. “Ah... Ichiro? This may be a strange thing to ask, but...”

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s about that unusual brooch of yours.” She was referring to the silver-crafted butterfly on Ichiro’s left lapel.

“Oh, that? It’s something a friend of mine designed for fun, and I liked it so much that I had a craftsman acquaintance of mine make it. I haven’t told that friend yet, of course.”

“I beg your pardon for saying this, but it really... doesn’t suit that jacket, you know.”

It was a natural thing to say, coming from a fashion brand president and designer. Her tastes in that regard were extremely sensitive. She likely didn’t mean to speak ill of it, but the pronouncement had turned out quite harsh.

The words, though, only seemed to improve Ichiro’s mood. “Nonsense. I just told you I liked it. Of course, I’m aware that, objectively speaking, the design is ungainly, and there are many far better accessories out there.”

Ichiro’s boastful pronouncement caused Fuyo’s expression to darken.

“Ichiro, may I ask the name of this friend of yours?” she asked.

“Iris is the name.”

“Oh, a foreigner?” Fuyo asked earnestly, head tilted. Ichiro, naturally, responded just as earnestly.

“Japanese, I believe.”

“Striiike!”

“Yes!!!”

Asuha’s slingshot-like underhand pitch struck the third batter out, leading to a changeover. She was firing on all cylinders today. Ace pitcher Asuha Tsuwabuki was unstoppable, brandishing a fastball exceptional for a middle schooler and allowing her school to continue to dominate the day’s practice match.

This was why she could never quit softball. Asuha was a pitcher of severe highs and lows, her execution heavily influenced by her biorhythms. But when she was on fire, the feeling was addictive.

“Heh heh heh! You see that, Kiryu?” She turned to flash a V-sign at her friend sitting in the stands.

She had invited Sera Kiryu to watch her softball practice for a variety of reasons. One was Sera’s own attempts to get out a little more frequently, to extricate from the lifestyle of a shut-in.

One was Sera’s demonstrated interest, however faint, in Asuha’s softball club.

And finally, there was the fact that Sera so outstripped Asuha in the world of video games that Asuha felt a selfish desire to show off to her friend in her own element.

At any rate, Asuha was on fire. Three up and three down was a new personal best, and her satisfaction had led her to flash a V-sign to Sera in the stands.

But Sera was playing a mobile game.

“...You jerk!”

On her way down the mound for the inning change, Asuha threw a hard fastball that beaned Sera right in the forehead.

It looked extremely painful.

“Tsuwabuki, you sure can throw hard...” Sera said, kneading her injured forehead.

In the end, Asuha’s team had won their practice match brilliantly, in no small part thanks to Asuha’s incredible pitching. Asuha had been expecting to be showered in praise, but her coach had just sighed and said, “Now do that in an official match.” It had left her feeling crabby. Thus, she scowled as she treated the lump she’d left on Sera’s forehead.

“Right? It’s pretty amazing, right?” Asuha demanded.

“I don’t know much about baseball, but I can’t believe an underhand throw could hit so hard...” Sera said.

“It’s softball, not baseball,” Asuha said firmly. She was out of her depth when it came to video games, but this was a subject on which she could hold her (flat) chest high. “Oh, that reminds me, Kiryu... You saw how well I could throw the ball back there, right? But I can’t do it like that in the game. Doesn’t that seem unfair?”

“You mean in NaroFan?” Sera asked. “Throwing, like... knives and stuff?”

“Yeah, that.”

In NaroFan — Narrow Fantasy Online — Asuha played a Thief character named Felicia. Thief- and Scout-exclusive Skills and Arts included throwing techniques like “Throwing Skill” and “Throw Knife.” Asuha had taken them without hesitation, thinking she’d be able to apply her knack for softball. Instead, she had ended up throwing wild pitches.

“What did you expect?” Sera asked. “If you could do what you did in real life, there would be no point in having Skills and Arts.”

“Yeah, but still... why? I did these beautiful throws. It was just like how I throw the ball in real life.”

This time it was Sera’s turn to speak with pride as Asuha pursed her lips in frustration. “Tsuwabuki, the laws of real-world physics don’t apply in a game. Your pitching form is based on a different set of physical laws, so a throw that would result in a beautiful pitch in the real world won’t work the same in a game.”

Certainly, if the nonathletic Sera Kiryu could become the nimble swordsman “King Kirihito” in the game world, that had to be the case. But it was still hard for Asuha to accept.

“You need to calculate execution time based on your stats plus Skill and Art modifiers,” Sera said. “Of course, figuring out the best execution timing comes down to the player’s own skill, which...”

“Um, Kiryu. Is this gonna be a long lecture?” Asuha asked.

If this was leading up to becoming a game system rant, Sera was unlikely to come up for air anytime soon. Asuha decided to nip things in the bud before they went there. Sera, also seeming to realize the faux pas, blushed and looked away, then continued a moment later in a lower tone.

“I’m saying, if you would just raise your stats a little, it might start to feel more like it does when you play softball...”

“Hmm...” Asuha said. “So the fundamentals are important, even in a video game, huh?”

Perhaps it had been naïve of her to assume that she should be able to apply her real-life special skills to the game. After all, if the only people in the game who could fight properly were the ones who practiced karate and judo in real life, there would be no point to any of it. The world had to be friendly to shut-ins like Sera Kiryu.

“I have a feeling you’re thinking something very rude right now, Tsuwabuki,” Sera said.

“Just your imagination,” Asuha said quickly.

Oh, but that’s right...

Asuha turned Sera’s words over in her head for a few minutes, then came upon a thought.

“Kiryu, what about Itchy?”

“Hmm?”

“What do you think about Itchy?” Asuha asked. “I mean, you know... using microtransactions to raise his level and his stats... what’s his, um... player skill like?”

“Itchy,” naturally, referred to Asuha’s second cousin, Ichiro Tsuwabuki. Though he had only begun playing the game two weeks ago, he had managed to fight Sera Kiryu, AKA King Kirihito, the quintessential hardcore gamer, just a few days ago. What’s more, he had won. Of course, the way he’d done so had been slightly shifty...

But Sera still acknowledged Ichiro Tsuwabuki’s talent, and the loss had allowed Sera to grow as a person. It had been a truly memorable match.

“The old man’s got so much going for him...” Sera said.

As in the game, Sera referred to Ichiro as “old man.” Sera had originally tried calling him “Itchy,” after Asuha’s nickname for him, but Asuha had laughed and laughed, and so that had been the end of that.

“I hate to admit to it, but he’s extremely skilled as a player,” Sera said. “But it’s not only that. The way he uses money is so lame, it feels like cheating, but...”

“The microtransactions, you mean?” Asuha asked.

“It’s not just the microtransactions. It’s his play environment. He’s probably got a commercial-grade broadband quantum connection, and his Miraive Gear is probably a Cocoon, not an X. He may have overclocked it, too. You add in a personal-use laser cooling system for a high bandwidth quantum connection, and it adds up to hundreds of millions, even billions...”

“In a language I can speak, please.”

“It was,” Sera protested, then coughed, and began again.

According to Sera, it was common for well-off hardcore gamers to spend big money on improving their play environment. When it came to VRMMOs, though, it wasn’t so easy. From both a monetary and an access perspective, it was hard for a regular person to get hold of the necessary equipment. As the heir to a huge corporation, though, Ichiro Tsuwabuki could probably pull strings to get things that other people couldn’t, which felt a bit unfair.

Sera used a portable game system to log onto the internet and show Asuha the cost of the commercial Miraive Gear Ichiro was likely using. The sight of the eight-digit price point left even Asuha trembling a little. She felt so lower middle class.

“And while we’re talking about his cash flow, there’s also the DOS attack he used in our last battle,” Sera said. “One 800-yen Basic Item Pack comes with three potions, and one inventory slot can hold 99 of any one item. Now when we consider that he maxed out his inventory with just potions, and had enough left over to rain them from the sky...”

“Please don’t do the math!” Asuha exclaimed. “Are you trying to drive me crazy, Kiryu?!”

“Aren’t you curious about how much money it took to beat me?” Sera asked earnestly, pulling out a calculator.

Asuha did not have to ask why her friend was walking around with a calculator. It was necessary to calculate damage in certain trading card games. Though as far as Asuha knew, Sera had never been challenged to a duel in the middle of the street.

Asuha sighed as she watched. Sera was a gamer through and through. No matter how gracefully her friend had admitted defeat before, the desire to be the best still remained.

“Okay, so how much did Itchy’s equipment cost?” she asked. “Was that pay-to-download, also?”

“I don’t know. I’d never seen it before, so it’s gotta be an original graphic skin. The internals are probably recycled from existing equipment, but...”

“What the heck?” Asuha looked up in surprise. You could make armor with original graphics? She’d never known that. She was still figuring things out as she went along.

Ichiro Tsuwabuki’s equipment certainly was strange: a dark blue suit designed to evoke the image of butterfly wings. Asuha was a low-level player, so she had just assumed you got equipment like that when you reached higher-level areas. But now that she thought about it more carefully, Itchy’s equipment didn’t look anything like the armor worn by players of the same level range.

“Explain, Kiryu. But keep it concise and to the point!” she demanded.

Objectively speaking, it was an impudent request, but Sera complied. “I mean using 3D modeling software or something to overlay your own graphics on an existing item. Only the crafting classes can do it, though.”

“Aww...” Asuha slumped over.

Crafting classes referred to professions like Blacksmith and Alchemist, which Asuha hadn’t taken.

Felicia, Asuha’s avatar, had finally broken level 40. This level was a major checkpoint, unlocking lots of powerful Skills, Arts, and equipment all at once.

As a girl through and through, Asuha wanted powerful equipment, but she also wanted things that looked cute. She liked her current equipment set because of that. For a moment, she’d thought using original graphics would be a way of getting around her problem. But the world was, after all, not that kind.

“If you want to buy equipment, you should go to Glasgobara Merchant Town,” Sera said.

“Oh, yeah... Mr. Kirsch mentioned that...”

Looking at her watch, Asuha noticed that it was getting late. They’d ended up talking longer than she meant to. If she didn’t get back, her parents would worry, then get mad, then take away her dinner, then not let her log on to NaroFan. Sera’s household was apparently a lot more lenient, but the life of a girl in middle school was so cruel.

“Kiryu, are you logging on again today?” she asked.

“Yeah, guess so. After I do my homework for the day.”

“Oh, how noble of you,” Asuha said. It had been less than a week since summer vacation had started. She hadn’t even gotten started on her summer homework yet.

“Well, it’s not like we could meet up in the game anyway...” Sera said.

“Yeah, Felicia’s too weak.” True as it might be, the statement still annoyed Asuha, who gave Sera a chop to the neck in retaliation. Sera let out a groan and pitched forward.

After getting home, Asuha’s first stop was the bathroom to wash off all the sweat and mud. After her bath, she filled herself up on dinner, and then, following Sera Kiryu’s example, decided to spend a little time studying. But after only five minutes, she let out a groan and reached for her Miraive Gear.

She could do her homework anytime. There was something in NaroFan that she could only do today.

The truth was, Asuha had an ambition. She wanted to form a guild.

A guild referred, basically, to a team of people who worked together. They weren’t necessarily friends, though Asuha thought about it that way. Though different games had different names for them, most MMORPGs had a system where a small group of people could form a community. These community units got certain benefits, like a special intra-community messaging system that normal players couldn’t use, and the ability to pass along important items easily.

Asuha had been vaguely aware of the existence of such a system even before Sera had taught her. She had also joined temporary communities, known as pick-up guilds, a few times. But she had never formed a serious guild before.

To be more precise about Asuha’s ambition, she wanted to invite Ichiro Tsuwabuki to a guild.

Asuha loved her cousin Itchy, so it was only natural that she had come to such a conclusion. She would be the guild leader, and it would give her a logical reason to lead him around in the game. It was natural and healthy for friends to want to form a guild together, Sera had told her.

She had asked if “Kiryuhito” would like to join, too... and been given a magnificent cold shoulder for her trouble. The stubbornness of the solo player ran deep. Sera had even refused her friend requests.

Regardless, she would make a guild. Knowing Itchy, he probably hadn’t made any proper friends within the game, and she couldn’t imagine him attracting a clique. Thus, she would invite him to her guild first thing. She was very worked up about the idea.

She put on her Miraive Gear (the standard consumer version) and lay down on her bed. Quantum waves resonated with her brainwaves to draw Asuha into the fictional realm. Soon, Asuha had become the Thief Felicia, an adventurer taming the continent of Asgard.

“Ahhhh...” Felicia stretched out in the grassy field where she had just touched down. The air in Vispiagna Meadow beside Starter Town was as fresh as ever. Of course, it was all just an illusion woven together by quantum information, but still, her brain delighted in its perception of oxygen created by the greenery all around.

She opened her menu window and checked the clock in the lower right. It would be some time before Ichiro and his companion would appear.

Felicia remained in the menu and checked her item list, selected the movement item Warp Feather, and used it. It was a consumable item that let you warp to a town you had visited before in an instant. Kirschwasser had previously escorted her to almost all the towns in the game so that she could archive them. One of those had been Glasgobara Merchant Town, the town Sera had mentioned to her that evening.

The location often played host to events for crafting class players, and items freely circulated there. As a result, many of the crafting class players had adopted Glasgobara as their home base.

Smoke rose from the buildings, and the shrill sound of steel hitting steel rang out all around. It reminded her of a place called Irontown that she’d seen in an anime movie a long time ago. Incidentally, that movie had actually come out a little while before Asuha was born.

“Wow...” she murmured.

Nearly all of the buildings in the town were crafting guild houses. Most of the equip items lined up in front of their stores were suits of armor and helmets, as well. They weren’t all metallic, of course. There was a smattering of items that appeared to be made from powerful monster hide or scales.

It was a flea market atmosphere.

An interesting town, she thought, and it was fun to walk around in. It was fun, but...

“I don’t see any cute equipment...”

Most of the wares on display were bulky armor or dreary robes. There was nothing that looked cool, let alone cute. If this was the best they had, she might have to stick with her current weak equipment.

Wait, she thought. It was too early to make up her mind. She remembered what Mr. Kirsch had told her.

When Itchy’s attendant, the veteran gamer Kirschwasser, had first showed Felicia to Glasgobara, he had said this:

“Listen to me, Lady Felicia. Even if they are located on main street, the guilds that display their wares in open-air booths aren’t usually the largest guilds. They sell their wares cheap, and you get what you pay for. A wise gamer may buy the potions and such that they sell, but they buy their equipment somewhere better.”

Felicia had asked how you found “somewhere better.”

“Go to the large guild houses,” Kirschwasser had said. “They have a high standard for their member players across the board, so they can make high-quality equipment. They have a wealth of both knowhow and component items.”

In other words, what Felicia was looking at now was not the true heart of Glasgobara. The more merchant-like part of the merchant town was further in. Though she enjoyed the chaotic atmosphere of the town’s main street, she continued to press forward.

She continued for a while until the open-air booths turned to buildings. The stores had signs out in front of them, and they looked like they had customers going in and out frequently. These must be the “somewhere better” that Kirschwasser had mentioned.

One large shop in particular caught Felicia’s eye. Its sign read “Akihabara Forging Guild.” She felt like she had heard that name somewhere before. Then she remembered: it was one of the top guilds they had seen in the Delve Necrolands during the Grand Quest. She wondered if they could make some good armor for her there, but something made her hesitate. This was the kind of place that Sera Kiryuhito might come, not a level 40 nothing like her.

Her eyes wandered, timidly. Then she saw it.

Catercorner from the guild house, on the other side of main street, was another building of the same size. It was a stylish black building, very different from the stone guild houses that surrounded it. Although there was no forge smoke rising from it, she wondered if it might be another crafting guild house.

Let’s go in, Felicia thought, making up her mind. After all, the building was so cool. Very different from all those smelly old workhouses. If they really were a crafting guild, they would surely carry very fashionable armor.

Whether it would be within her reach, of course, was another question.

Written on the guild house, in gold letters, were the words “Iris Brand.”