Chapter 10

A few days had passed since the executive meeting. I had come to realize that the boss didn’t assign me a mission; rather, she had given me a sort of vacation.

‘Is it really okay to be this idle?’

When I was told to make toys for the kids, the first concern that crossed my mind was, “What on earth should I actually make?” Just as I figured out the very next day after falling into this world, the sensibilities of children here were a complete 180 compared to those on Earth.

You could easily tell just by the fact that the boss, being a girl, cherished her robot as her favorite toy.

If I couldn’t even guess what Earth kids would like, how on earth was I supposed to figure out the preferences of children from an entirely different world? When I voiced this dilemma to the boss, she casually handed me an anime box.

“─Check this out.”

“Yes, boss.”

What she handed over was a Blu-ray box of an animated series that had been a hit in this world. It was the crown jewel of commercial animation, captivating kids’ hearts and draining their parents’ wallets.

Sure, the contents leaned much towards the boss’s taste, but that didn’t change the fact that it was a masterpiece. The boss said I could make a toy based on any of those characters.

She told me not to worry about copyright issues; they could just buy the rights.

I found it mysterious how someone as young as the boss knew exactly what scientists were dying to hear.

[Fusion—! Tenacity—!]

[Wooaaar—! Transformation!]

‘… Surprisingly fun.’

Well, just because the worlds were different didn’t mean the concept of fun was too. Sure, if the eras were different, it might be a different story, but the timelines of this world and the one I lived in weren’t all that far apart. It might seem a bit backward, but still.

Honestly, I was grateful for having at least this level of technology. It was definitely better than being under a professor who stubbornly ordered me around back on Earth.

“Oh, I like that character.”

As I was watching the anime, I stumbled upon a character that caught my fancy, so I jotted down its traits. I then hopped onto a wiki to gather additional information while gradually piecing together how to create it in my head.

Ideally, I would’ve wanted to create a toy that rivaled the laser-shooting robot the boss had shown me on my first day, but… that was impossible. After all, that fell into the realm of supernatural abilities, not science. Didn’t it use a power source classified as “crystal energy”?

‘If I made a toy that way, the costs would begin in the billions… I wouldn’t say it wouldn’t sell at all, but it definitely wouldn’t work as a kids’ toy.’

Of course, there would be demand for it given its performance, but you can’t just casually sell such an item in a toy store, and it would stray far from the intent of making a toy for children.

The boss would explode in rage if I returned with a weapon disguised as a toy after she specifically told me to make toys for kids.

‘I need to keep it simple. Toys don’t need that many functions.’

At most, it just had to include basic movement, make some noises, and allow the limbs to move freely.

Since it wasn’t particularly difficult, I quickly started on the prototype. In reality, it took much longer to decorate the outside than to install the features inside.

“─Done.”

Having spent the entire day devoted to robot-making, I finally managed to whip up a prototype. All that was left was to get approval from the boss…

Well, it shouldn’t be a problem.

After all, it was just a run-of-the-mill product this time.

*

“─Is this the final product?”

“Yes, boss.”

Regalia inspected the robot that the scientist had brought in. She had sent him to create an anime-related toy that could be sold directly to children, and what ended up coming back was an unpopular villain robot.

She wished he had just made a regular protagonist robot instead… Regalia thought this as she fiddled with the robot.

“You used a wind-up mechanism instead of batteries. Wouldn’t batteries be more convenient?”

“The original had a wind-up mechanism too. I aimed for authenticity and an analog feel. Sure, it could run on batteries, but it doesn’t have particularly sophisticated functions…”

“Fair point. In the original, it wasn’t a remarkable villain either.”

Regalia said this while starting to wind the mechanism of the robot. Once wound up, she placed it on the table, and the robot began walking all by itself.

That was all it could do. It neither spoke, nor ran, nor shot lasers from its eyes; it didn’t seem to possess any special abilities. However, Regalia was in a state of apprehension due to her past experiences.

She cautiously glanced at the scientist.

“You didn’t sneak in any surprise features, did you? It’s not going to suddenly shoot off rockets and fly into the sky, right…?”

“Come on, boss. Do you have any idea how much that would cost to make? I couldn’t even buy a bag of chips with that budget.”

“…So you’re saying there’s nothing weird? No unexpected functions that could give me a heart attack later?”

“You worry too much. There’s nothing like that.”

The scientist answered confidently, but Regalia felt a wave of unease wash over her. While finding this scientist in the street felt like winning the lottery, it was also a source of great anxiety.

After all, what he was doing was comparable to walking on a landmine while holding a treasure chest. If he got lucky, he might score the treasure, but one wrong step could send both him and the treasure flying…

From Regalia’s perspective, watching him was intensely frustrating. The fact that he didn’t even realize he was wandering through a minefield only amplified her irritation.

“Alright, if you say there’s nothing strange, I have no reason to stop you. Looks good. You’re permitted to release it.”

“Yes. Should I send the plans to the company?”

“Do that.”

A new product had launched from Evilus Corporation. A toy for children. It was a villain robot that had made a brief appearance in a popular anime.

Needless to say, the Evilus Corporation deemed that it lacked any significant function and sold this toy at an incredibly low price. It was essentially a bait product—kids wouldn’t be satisfied with just a villain robot. The angle was to encourage them to buy the more expensive protagonist robots instead.

However, to Regalia’s surprise, the robot she thought wouldn’t gain popularity actually garnered a cult following. Strangely, it had become quite the hit with young boys…

“Dad! Buy me that!”

“What’s that?”

“You don’t know? It’s the Namo Buster!”

Kids were eager for it. The price was low enough to be covered by their allowance. Thus, this new toy from Evilus quickly spread to households.

There were even people buying it just because it was from Evilus.

“It’s from Evilus? Then I definitely need one.”

“The toy is… $9.99? That’s cheap!”

It was a commonly known secret that most of these buyers were either employees of Evilus or workers from its subsidiary companies.

Thanks to this, the new product became a hit in City E, where Evilus was located, while sales in other cities were just decent.

That was, until a certain video was uploaded.

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It was a home video showing a child playing with the newly released Namo Buster from Evilus. The child had wound up the Namo Buster and was using another robot toy to attack it.

The Namo Buster, which had been waddling forward, collapsed after a few attacks. The child burst into laughter as if having the time of their life.

Then, just as luck would have it, a cat passing by nudged a pile of objects, and they tumbled down toward the child. It could have been a perilous situation if the child had been buried under the collapsing objects.

─At that moment, the wind-up robot lying on the floor quickly sprang into action and shielded the child from the falling debris with its own body.

[Oh—?]

The child tilted their head as if they didn’t understand what had just happened, and the video ended with the parents rushing in, alarmed by the noise, to envelop their child.

A one-minute short SNS video.

This video brought about a dramatic change in the sales figures of the Namo Buster.

*

[Review of Evilus Corporation’s trending new toy!]

Views: 5.61 million

[I played DM using the Namo Buster!]

Views: 35,000

[Its performance surpasses the latest graphics card!? Running modern games on 100 Namo Busters]

Views: 1.1 million

“… Didn’t you say nothing strange was inside it?”

Regalia sighed deeply as she said this. I fell silent, staring at the video titles, their views, and the sales graph of the toy displayed on the monitor.

“Um… I didn’t put anything weird in there.”

“Then what did you put in for the wind-up robot to move by itself!?”

“Well, I just used a simple circuit…”

“How does it move without a battery!?”

“Well, because it has a wind-up mechanism. That’s its power source…”

“How much power can a simple wind-up mechanism even produce!”

Regalia struck her chest as if it were going to explode. However, I had no words to offer her. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if this was something I should be discussing.

It never occurred to me that stuffing in a basic circuit could lead to this kind of uproar.

“You asked me to make a toy, and you end up with… this!”

“It’s just a toy level!”

“Well, maybe according to your standards—!”

Seeing Regalia blow up over something so trivial made me think about another robot I had stashed in a corner of the lab. The one I had modified to have semi-permanent energy through supernatural powers.

What would Regalia think if she found out I had made something like that?

‘Thank goodness it hasn’t been discovered.’

I resolved to keep it hidden forever while I nodded repeatedly at Regalia.