Chapter 23
It’s 7 AM on a Sunday morning.
Despite having the day off from his part-time job, Isamu is up unusually early.
That’s right, today is the day of the inaugural event.
There’s a meeting-cum-meetup with the game admins and commentators at the Sundapole offices at 9 AM, so he’s about to head there now.
「…Yup, this should do it!」
Isamu says with satisfaction as he looks in the mirror and fiddles with his hair.
Having gotten a haircut at the salon yesterday and learned how to style it from the young hairdresser, Isamu looks a bit sharper than usual today.
He’s wearing a jacket and pants.
It’s an outfit he bought back when he was younger and had an ordinary level of interest in fashion.
It’s not particularly stylish, but not shoddy either – you could say it’s safely unremarkable.
「Am I forgetting anything… Nope. Alright, let’s go!」
With determination in his heart, Isamu heads out.
He bikes to the train station, rides the train for a few dozen minutes.
Isamu arrives at the station closest to Sundapole Inc.
(Now, let’s check the map…)
Isamu opens the map app on his smartphone and follows the navigation, making his way to the destination.
After walking a short distance through the unfamiliar office district, he soon reaches the Sundapole offices.
(Wow, impressive.)
As expected of a game maker representing Japan.
They have their own high-rise building in a prime location in the city.
(Okay, now that I’ve confirmed the place…)
It’s a little past 8 AM.
With quite a bit of time still before the meeting, Isamu decides to kill time at a nearby cafe.
☆
After spending a restless 30 minutes at the cafe,
Isamu enters the Sundapole offices about 15 minutes before the scheduled time.
「Um, excuse me. I’m here as a guest for the Dream Fantasy event today…」
「You must be Mr. Taida. We’ve been expecting you. Please have a seat on that sofa and wait a moment.」
「Oh, yes.」
Following the instructions of the young and exceedingly beautiful receptionist, Isamu sits down on a sofa near the entrance.
He blankly stares at the marble floor as he waits for a few minutes.
「–Mr. Taida! Sorry to keep you waiting! Thank you for coming today!」
A man calls out to him.
Looking up, Isamu sees standing there the bespectacled man he had spoken to before via video call–Kimura.
「Ah, yes. Thank you as well.」
「Great! Well then, shall we go?」
After that, Kimura leads Isamu into an unusually large conference room.
He’s shown to a seat at the very back, and as he makes his way there, he sees a business bag placed on a chair across the table.
It’s likely the belongings of whoever is in charge of commentary.
「Um, Mr. Kimura. By the way, who will be doing the commentary?」
「Hm? The announcer, of course. It should have been in the email I sent you and on the official website.」
「No, it definitely wasn’t there…」
Isamu checked the emails from Kimura, the official website, the official Dream Fantasy social media posts, and more dozens, hundreds of times.
So there’s no way he could have missed it.
「What? It’s there, I’m telling you. Want me to check? Let’s see… huh? That’s strange…」
As Kimura operates his smartphone, his face quickly turns pale.
Then, after quietly muttering 「Oh crap」,
「…Mr. Taida!! Thank you!! Sorry, could you just, just wait here for a bit!」
Kimura dashes out of the conference room in a fluster.
(I wonder if that guy can really handle this event… Well, no point in me worrying about it. But Teshigawara the announcer… could that be THE Teshigawara?)
As Isamu ponders this, the conference room door opens.
Turning to look, he sees there the face of the middle-aged man he’s seen on TV many times.
It seems it really was that veteran announcer after all.
「Oh? And you are?」
「H-hello! I’m Taida, I was invited here as a guest. Nice to meet you!」
「Oho, so you’re the Tutorial Guy!」
As Isamu greets him, Teshigawara rushes over.
「Huh? You knew about me?」
「Of course! After all, I’m a Dream Fantasy player myself. I’ve heard the rumors.」
「I-is that so!」
If Teshigawara already knows about him, that makes things much easier.
Isamu had been filled with nerves and anxiety, but he feels a bit calmer now.
「Yes! Well then, I’m counting on you today!」
「Likewise!」
Isamu shakes the hand Teshigawara offers, and the two exchange a firm handshake.
「Mhm. Oh? Come to think of it, where’s Kimura?」
「Ah, about that–」
Isamu relays to Teshigawara everything that just transpired with Kimura.
「I see. He seems to be a bit of a scatterbrain. Well, shall we sit and wait for Kimura to return?」
「Yes, let’s do that.」
Teshigawara doesn’t seem bothered at all that his own name wasn’t announced.
It appears he’s quite the big-hearted person.
(I’m glad he seems nice.)
「So… there will be 300 players participating in today’s finals. Quite narrowed down.」
As Isamu feels relieved, Teshigawara says while picking up a piece of paper on the table.
「Indeed. It was announced that about 9,000 people entered, so comparatively it’s been reduced a lot.」
For Dream Fantasy’s inaugural event–the battle royale–a total of 9,154 players entered.
With that many players gathering on a single field, it would be impossible to move and the game wouldn’t function, so preliminaries were held beforehand to narrow down the number of participants.
The preliminaries were also a battle royale format.
In the preliminaries held every few hours over the past two days, the top few percent of players in each one get to advance to today’s finals.
Incidentally, it seems Leon, Kaito, Emi, Shuka, Nana, and Elena all successfully made it through the prelims.
Isamu received an in-game message notifying him of this when he logged in yesterday.
「Well, for us, the fewer there are, the easier it is to handle.」
「That’s certainly true! 9,000 people would definitely be too much for commentary and analysis.」
「Exactly. Alright, since we have the chance, let’s review the rules once more. We need to understand them thoroughly.」
「Alright!」
Isamu picks up the paper on the table and reads out the rules.
「Let’s see… ‘The player who survives until the end on a field that shrinks over time is the winner.’ The classic rules.」
「Right. And for prohibited actions: ‘No use of items, no teaming.’ Well, items are one thing, but teaming makes sense.」
This battle royale event is an individual competition.
Therefore, teaming up and cooperating with others is prohibited.
Above all, if teaming wasn’t prohibited, popular players with fans like Elena would have too much of an advantage, so this is the obvious decision.
「True. But there will still probably be players who try to team up.」
「Well, it seems the starting locations are random, so that’s not something to worry about. Any other notable rules… Yeah, that about covers it.」
Teshigawara places the paper back on the table and drinks from a prepared bottle of water.
Seeing that, Isamu judges it’s freely available and immediately quenches his parched throat from the nerves.
「Come to think of it, Mr. Taida. What would you say is the best approach for this kind of battle royale? I’ve never actually played a battle royale before.」
「Hmm, let’s see. In this game’s case, I’d say the key is how much you can conserve MP in the early game. You can’t use Magic Potions to recover MP either.」
「I see, that does make sense.」
「As for other things–」
Isamu explains to Teshigawara some tips for battle royales based on his own experiences so far.
After that, the two spend the time until Kimura returns chatting about this and that.
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