Chapter 357: – Link, Start! – I

Chapter 357: – Link, Start! – I

*BZZZT*

John felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, but he pointedly ignored it.

Rin tilted her head and said, "Shouldn't you answer that?"

"Don't worry about it. Anyway." John picked up his work tablet from the side of his desk and started scrolling through the list of sponsorship deals for Rin. "Raid- I mean, Loot: Dark Mythos is definitely out. It'll send a bad message, especially since you and your target audience are mostly high schoolers."

Rin sighed. "Fiiine." She paused and said, "I can still play it by myself though, right?"

"Well, I can't really stop you-"

"Yay!"

"-But I'll definitely tell Sakura about it."

"Aw... But why?" Rin pouted and said, "It's just a game, isn't it? What's wrong with loot boxes?"

"That's hell you're walking into, Rin." John looked off into the distance with a thousand-yard stare. "...Take it from a former gacha salt miner."

"Salt miner? Gacha?" Rin blinked and tilted her head, confused.

"Better that you don't find out. Anyway, if you want to get random drops and cool loot, just go play Titor's <World Line>. I'm pretty sure he talked about a service letting people cash-out their equipment for real-life printed models. At least that way the money you spend will get you neat collectibles instead of just pixels."

Rin huffed and said, "The stuff you get from loot boxes aren't just pixels!"

John let out a wry smile. "Just trust me on this one. Anyway..." He held out the tablet and said, "I've got some interesting sponsors lined up after filtering out all the quick cash grabs-"

*BZZZT*

"One second." John pulled open his desk drawer and then chucked his phone inside.

It didn't stop vibrating, but it was definitely more muffled after being covered in a bunch of random papers.

Rin glanced at the drawer and said, "Are you sure you should be ignoring that, Mister John?"

"I'm sure."

Intuition and experience told John that it was something ridiculous that had to do with his family members. Something that would quickly escalate to insane proportions the moment he got involved.

So he didn't.

Mostly because he wanted to confirm a hypothesis he was developing after seeing how events were starting to unfold around his adorable daughters.

"Anyway." John reached over to swipe his tablet and said, "Since Project MirAIs is still new, a lot of the big names want to wait a bit to see if we'll be sticking around, but there's a few who want to work with us. I mentioned that you were interested more in the music and idol side of things... Ah, here." He stopped scrolling and slid it over to Rin.

Garbage immediately straightened his posture and quickly shook his head. "N-No Queen- I mean, Ma'am! T-There's no need to go that far!"

Asako kept scrubbing down the headset and then looked at the last person in the room.

Orca met Asako's gaze from his spot at a lounge chair close to the bed.

Seeing that, Asako said, "Orca. You'll keep these two idiots in check to make sure they don't do anything weird to me while I'm in the game, right?"

Orca nodded and said, "Of course, my Queen. Even if I did not, however, I am more than certain that Miss Alphy would have plenty to say about that if something happened. Along with our fellow support staff members."

Garbage immediately paled, subconsciously rubbing his neck.

Asako chuckled and then finished wiping down the headset. After that, she took a look around at everyone and said, "Alright then you clowns... minus you of course, Orca."

Orca nodded. "Obviously."

"Hey!" Garbage huffed and said, "I'm not a clown!"

Foxy puffed out her cheeks and said, "Yeah! I'm not either!"

Asako pointedly ignored Garbage and Foxy. Laying down on her bed, she slipped on the headset and said, "Okay. I'm going in now. Again, no weird stuff."

Garbage rolled his eyes and said, "Fine, fine. Like I'd even have time for that with how busy we'll be monitoring the stream."

Foxy dragged over a beanbag before flopping down on it and pulling out her phone. "Right? All these idiots are deeefinitely going to need the ban hammer when Queen starts streaming."

Orca pulled out his phone as well and said, "Worry not, my Queen. Just enjoy playing the game as much as you can before you begin getting mobbed by stream snipers."

"Ugh." Asako reached up to turn on her headset and said, "That's going to be a pain in the ass... But I guess I can relieve some stress then." She cracked her knuckles while waiting for the headset and game to start and said, "Everyone's been asking to get beat, so I might as well give it to them, right?"

Garbage looked away from the monitor and then slowly said, "Is it too late for me to login and play too?"

"Yes." Asako lowered her hands and said, "Now... Connect us!"

A rippling sea of rainbow lights. One that only Asako could see. And then...

"Welcome to the Velv- Gah!"

Asako lowered her fist and stared at the collapsed form of a man wearing a white lab coat in front of her. She blinked and then let out a sheepish smile. "Sorry. Force of habit."

Titor groaned and jumped back to his feet, rubbing his chin. "Dammit. Definitely need to remember to turn down that pain replication number in the future... But anyway." He grinned and said, "Welcome to my world, oh Dragon Queen. Now..." He snapped his fingers, causing Asako to flash blue before turning to Aoko. "Shall we begin?"

Asako- No, [Aoko] gave Titor a blank stare before slowly saying, "How are you married again?"

"..."