“Morning! ♪” Aina said.
Kai didn’t expect to be greeted in such a dizzyingly normal way. When he met Aina again in the afternoon, she was back to playing the same innocent darling from head to toe, as if the events of their prior meeting had all been a terrible dream.
But every now and again when their eyes met, Kai recognized the same look from this morning peeking back at him. He realized she was showing off that side of herself on purpose, so that he wouldn’t forget. It was an appeal: she was practically demanding of him, ‘Watch my acting skills.’ Regardless, with such an intense display first thing in the morning, Kai wouldn’t have been able to forget even if she begged him to.
Once everyone gathered together, he repeated the explanation for why voice acting would have to wait for Nanaka, Aya, and the headphone-wearing Eru
Aina nodded along sensibly and agreed to follow his decision, but Kai knew the displeased look in her eyes was more than his imagination. From their ensuing conversation, he found that she had absolutely no knowledge regarding game development. In order for her to grasp the basics of social game management and the decision-making process, he assigned her to act as Nanaka’s aide.
“Professor Nanaka! ♪” Aina sang, turning to the other girl.
“P-Professor?! U-Umm...! I’m a little nervous, but I’ll explain anything I can!” Nanaka promised.
“Okay, professor!” said Aina, who immediately raised her hand.
“Yes?!” Nanaka called on her enthusiastically.
“I was told that I’m going to help you write up the master data... but what is the master data, anyway?”
Ah—Kai barely stopped himself from cutting into their conversation. He and Nanaka had divided up work to write master data plenty of times, but he had never explicitly defined what master data was to her before. Thus, he figured he’d need to explain, but... I don’t need to interrupt, he reminded himself.
“Oh! Right?! I get you! I really get you! You wonder, ‘What is master data? Is there non-master data?’” Nanaka stopped to glance Kai’s way for a brief moment before continuing on slowly, “Um... broadly speaking, social games have two types of data.”
Aina raised up a peace sign with her fingers and asked, “Two types?”
“Yup, two types.” Nanaka mirrored with a peace sign of her own as she answered. “These two types are ‘data that changes’ and ‘data that doesn’t change.’ The one that does change is like... for example, the player’s level keeps going up and up, right? So that’s the kind of data that changes. For the type that doesn’t change... for example, maybe the very first combat has a slime that gives you 100 EXP. That’s always the same for every user, right? That’s data that doesn’t change... Bringing this all back to your question, master data is the data that doesn’t change!”
After having explained all of that in one sitting, Nanaka whipped around to face Kai with such momentum that he could have sworn he heard the sound of her turning. “That’s right, right?! Master Kai...!”
“M-Master? Um, yeah, that’s fine,” he told her reassuringly. “Your explanation was basically right.”
“......I’m so relieved.” Nanaka felt reassured from the bottom of her heart, and it showed in her smile.
In truth, nothing about her explanation was wrong: master data effectively encompassed all the static parameters that were established within the game. The monster example that Nanaka used was easy to understand. Other examples included character names, skill names, dialogue lines, and story text. Even the list of items that could appear in the gacha was considered to be part of the master data.
The only nitpick Kai had was that the term ‘master data’ was colossal in scope. Therefore, it was common practice to specify what kind of master data was being discussed. There were separate Excel sheets for quests and gacha, often referred to as ‘quest master’ and ‘gacha master’ respectively. The general term ‘master data’ was usually reserved for discussing all these subcategories together, or whenever it was easy to discern what branch was being referred to through context.
“Wow! I get it now! Nanaka-chan, you’re so smart!” As Aina continued praising Nanaka with ‘Wows’ and ‘You’re amazings,’ Kai internally agreed with her.
There were tons of planners who began writing data files without a clue about what master data was. They’d go along, wondering what to call master data, questioning whether or not what they made was master data, and updating the master data all around them without a solid idea of what it was they were doing. Surprisingly, this was a good enough practice to keep working. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for a planner to be unable to provide a clear explanation when asked what master data was.
These sorts of planners would often only stop to ask themselves, ‘Wait, what is master data?’ when working in an environment without preexisting data to build from (such as a brand new project). After asking that question, they’d finally come to understand a fundamental part of the whole process.
But Nanaka had been getting along with Akane since their joint project, so perhaps she’d learned that lesson from her. Kai looked over at Nanaka to see her smile of relief, and was pleased to see that she was capable of standing on her own two legs as a planner.
“Man, I’m really glad...” she exhaled. “I was really anxious that you might tell me I was completely wrong.”
“That wouldn’t happen...” Kai responded. “But why’d you call me ‘master’?”
“Well duh,” Aya cut in, “Aye-aye called her ‘Professor’ earlier, so she just chose something that sounded smarter than that. None of that matters right now, senpai. Right now, all you need to do is say, ‘Good girl, good girl!’ and praise Nana-sen like you would pet a dog.”
“I-I’d rather be praised normally!” Nanaka objected.
“So you do want to be praised, then?” Aya pointed out.
Nanaka didn’t say anything back, but her blank, stupefied face did all the speaking for her. Having effectively dug Nanaka’s grave for her, Aya grinned smugly, and Nanaka turned to Kai. When their eyes met, she blushed shyly and looked away.
Kai would have praised her as much as she wanted had he not been so self-conscious about doing so. With all the ado Aya introduced to the situation, he hesitated and couldn’t bring himself to speak up. After all, a ‘good girl’ was definitely out of the question, and ‘You did well’ seemed kind of condescending. What else could he say? he asked himself. ‘You’re amazing’ would seem sort of impersonal...
As Kai mulled over what to say, Nanaka’s emotions popped off and she exclaimed, “...Geez, Ah-chan! Don’t tease me like this!”
“Nana-sen...! Look at his face! Senpai’s definitely picking his words for you, so hold it in a bit longer!”
Led on by Aya’s statement, Nanaka looked over toward Kai again, and this time it was he who looked away. He ended up averting his eyes toward Aina, and for an instant, she turned sour and clearly mouthed, ‘Dumbass’ with large, deliberate motions so that Kai would understand. After blinking, he was again met with a flawless smile from a cheerful beauty.
“Don’t tease your upperclassmen like that! Hey, Ah-chan, listen to—” Nanaka tried to capture Aya as she made her escape, but then her phone vibrated from where it was resting on top of the table. Nanaka turned on the device and checked her LIME notification and—after looking over at the corner where Eru was working away—she sent a reply.
“Eru said she’s done working on the materials you asked her for, so she wants you to check over them,” Nanaka announced. “She said she’ll be working on her own art until you do.”
“O-Okay,” Kai agreed uneasily. “I’ll check them right away...”
Pen-on-tablet scratching echoed throughout the newfound silence in the room. There was an air of electricity surrounding Eru that didn’t require any language to ward off any attempts to talk to her.
Ultimately, Eru’s poor mood remained in place. Even after completing the pre-preparations, her attitude showed no signs of cracking. Without a word, she only notified Nanaka of her progress. She came to the club alone and left for home alone.
Nanaka had tried to ask what happened between her and Aina, but her inquiries were met with no new information.