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Hey. Looks like I've got this working.

[Atsuro's face appears on the network under somewhat inadequate lighting. An astute guess would place him in his room illuminated only by the backlight of his laptop.]

Everyone get out of that first mission OK? I can't speak for anyone else, but geez, I think I slept for a few days straight there. If they, uh, wanted a report or anything, the research labs are fine. ...Probably.

[He stifles a yawn before continuing on, the camera zooming out slightly to reveal a lot of bedhead and a conspicuously absent trademark floppy hat.]

Hnn... Sorry.

So! Anyway. I've been thinking a lot. About what they've told us and about... what they haven't. Hah, I'm still surprised this place isn't some weird hallucination. It's a little unreal, right? Like they're asking us to act out a game or a fantasy novel. But... even if it seems like it might be fun to stick around, I think we need to find out what it is we're really getting into. ...There's something I want to say about all this.

You've all run into the monsters by now, right? They talk, they cast magic, they do tricks. Not all of them are bad, but they're things we've heard of in myths and stories from different cultures all across the globe - Cerberus, the hound of Hades. British pixies and kobolds. Nekomata and other youkai from Japan. So... what gives? What're they doing here?

...I'm not gonna get into details, but I should say that these guys - the exact same identical demons - have popped up in at least two other worlds that I know of. And both times.... they showed up because the world was about to end.

I'm not saying this place is the same way, but... maybe that's why they need our help badly.

[addendum a few minutes later]

Ah, someone reminded me - if you guys want to see a database of all the demons I've ever met, you can drop by my room. Libra 5-07.

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[He's impatient, sue him.]

Pardon the intrusion! [Aoba practically dashes in, a smile on his face.

After a quick look round...] Wow... it's clean, Kihara-kun! [Clean enough, anyway.]

The things I do for my guests.

[Please don't open the closet. Or look under the bed.]

So you wanna get the business done first before we get to the games? The list probably won't mean much to you, but you might want to familiarize yourself with some of these guys, anyway.

Mm! [He nods, maybe a little too excitedly.]

I really want to see this compendium!

"...Don't tell me you're a secret mythology buff or something." Atsuro raises his eyebrows slightly and falls back onto his bed.

"Alright." As he didn't particularly want Aoba summoning or fusing anything by accident, he'll hold the COMP out between them, keeping his hands firmly on the machine. "...The Compendium here - that's the list. They're sorted by order of level right now."

"Eh..." Aoba's eyes widen as he peers at the list; so, these are what he'll be dealing with, huh? To be honest, he doesn't really understand why these apparent mythological figures are being classified as demons, but he's long since brushed that matter off as unimportant.

"So, they're leveled... Yet another RPG thing?"

"...It's more of a gauge of base power." Atsuro shrugs slightly. "If you wanted to, you could summon the weakest demon and keep working with it until it became as powerful as... Lucifer or something. But that would take a lot of time and effort we didn't have. It wasn't really much like a game."

"... Right, I shouldn't talk about it like that." Atsuro and his friends had actually been fighting for survival, right? He should really be more sensitive about this. "How does summoning work, exactly?"

Atsuro assumes a solemn expression.

"You've got to make sure you've got the right kind of sacrificial dagger first. Silver works best, but if you've got pure steel, it should do fine. Virgin blood is important - not really a problem for us, honestly - and you've got to be able to draw in straight lines. A pentagram's not a pentagram if the star looks more like a bunch of flower petals."

And for Aoba, cue a sudden widening of the eyes.

"Eh... you seriously did that sort of stuff, Kihara-kun? I... I didn't think you were the type." It's hard to tell if he's awed or unnerved by this explanation. Go figure.

Atsuro elbows the impressionable boy slightly in the ribs.

"Hahaha, don't be so naive! You say 'yes' when it asks you if you want to summon the demon. You've just gotta have enough money."

-- Eh? He was tricked?

Well, there was something confusing (and possibly informative; who knows) in what he just said, but more important...

Aoba points dramatically at his fine-hatted friend. "Kihara-kun's taking advantage of his incredibly-trustworthy aura!"

"...Incredibly what?"

Had Aoba met him before? Maybe this was some sort of replacement Aoba that had only ever talked a robot clone of his that never made stupid jokes, ever. Atsuro chuckles slightly as he turns away.

"OK, OK, sorry. I should probably be more serious about this."

Well hey, from Aoba's perspective, Atsuro's managed to be both supportive informative, helping to deal with his confusion and working to lighten the mood whenever things got a little dark. That's trustworthy, right?

Or maybe he's just been brainwashed by society to think well of his upperclassmen.

"I don't know; I like how relaxed you can be about this! It helps relieve the tension, I think."

Atsuro pauses. ...His humor was largely a coping mechanism, but he wasn't self-aware enough to realize the extent of its necessity, nor did he really want to torpedo the mood any further.

"Hah... Well, I mean, it's been a few weeks already. I can't spend the rest of my life having nightmares about these things, right?"

He probably would, but...

He nods, for whatever reason being taken in by Atsuro's words.

"Y... yeah. It's important to keep a positive mindset about these things, right?"

In truth, he's never felt the need for such things. A more logical perspective has always done him well.

"Anyway..." He shrugs slightly. "That's that. You can take as much time as you want looking through it. Let me know if you've got any more questions."

On his part, Atsuro slides off the bed and heads for his TV in the corner. Now which of his six game consoles to turn on...

Aoba nods curtly, turning his attention to the compendium.

... Or so he'd like to, but the aesthetics of the room are seriously way too distracting. Yes, that's his excuse.

"Are... these all yours, Kihara-kun?"

Alright, so one was a DVD player and two were from past generations he couldn't bear to give up. Atsuro has the shame to blush slightly as he turns back towards Aoba with a nod.

"Y-Yeah... I'm kind of an... enthusiast."

~~Obsessive hikikomori.~~

Edited 2012-10-10 02:31 (UTC)

Yeah, he's... definitely not thinking about any of this in a negative way. Not at all.

"Well... you must be quite an enthusiast. There are some things here I don't even recognise!" That's something to be proud of, right?

"It'd be pretty weird if you did!" Atsuro's blush is fading as he sees that Aoba seems to be receiving this in stride. "Different worlds, right? I bet you've never even heard of gems like Super Electrician Bros., right?"

Hopefully, this was another dumb joke.

He honestly isn't sure how to take that. Different worlds, right? Kihara-kun's idea of entertainment could actually be completely different compared to his own!

"... What's the gameplay like?"

"It's like a job simulation! You sit around waiting for a few hours until you get a call, then you navigate the social interaction - kinda like a dating sim. Everyone starts off trying to rip you off and wanting you to work for them for free, though, so it's hard making any progress."

Atsuro flips on the console and turns back around to grin at Aoba.

"...It's a platformer. You jump on mushroom people."

"Uwaa... that sounds pretty old-school."

It's the first thing to mind when he hears that, honestly. He leans over, now ignoring the list of demons altogether in favour of the console.

"Does it have a high replayability factor or something like that?"

"...To be honest, the last five games or so have been pretty much exactly the same." Atsuro shrugs. "But it's famous, and we love it, so... There's that. Don't fix it if it's not broken."

"Ah, so it's something like that..." He grins, leaning over. "So, did they ever get around to adding multiplayer in those last few games?"

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otakuro - 2012-10-19 03:00 (UTC) - Expand

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