Server name: Alpha Scarlet.
Starting location: Tokonatsu City, Mega-Float II.
Log-in credentials accepted.
Welcome to Money (Game) Master, Kaname Suou.
The young man saw bright lights and intense colors flashing in his eyes, burning his retinas. He suppressed the knot in the back of his throat, overcome with sudden vertigo and nausea. Eventually, the storm began to quell, giving way to sensations of a new world.
A few seconds later, his vision focused, and he found himself in a low-built right-hand-drive sports car. Neatly contained in the driver’s seat of the stationary vehicle, Kaname checked his face in the rearview mirror. A pair of piercing eyes glared back at him, framed by silky black hair. He was wearing a white dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a loose red necktie. He looked down at his arms to find a smart watch strapped on one of his wrists. His eyes trailed down his arm to his legs, clothed in a pair of blue pants, attached to which was a small black carrying case.
For a second, he’d been disoriented, but then he settled into his new environment.
This was him now. As for where he was…
He opened the door and stepped out of the car. Beams of sunlight and a clear sky greeted him, and the warm, dry air reminded him of the tropics. He was in a seaside industrial area dominated by asphalt and concrete. The car he now stood outside sat just off the road by the seafront—a small two-seater coupe painted a garish green color, like mint ice cream.
And upon the hood, sprawled out on her front, lay a beautiful woman who oozed sex appeal. Every now and again, she would take a languid sip from a straw stuck into a coconut. It was as though she was relaxing on the beach, sunbathing. Except what she wore wasn’t a swimsuit exactly. A white bikini top and a pale-green miniskirt, over which was a cropped jacket trimmed with fur. It seemed to be based on a pit babe’s outfit.
ToyDream. MegaloDiver Shipping. Fiamma Securities. Logos traced the seductive curves of her body. They weren’t printed on, but rather they scrolled constantly like on an LCD screen or projection mapping.
There was something even more striking about her than the way she dressed. Her long, fluffy hair was dyed a mint green, and a pair of white horns, cowlike, sprouted from the sides of her head. She had bat wings on her back and a tail that extended from her waist, arrow-shaped but forked at the end in a way reminiscent of a bident or a stag beetle’s horns.
“Tselika.”
“Why, if it isn’t you, My Lord. Punctual as ever, I see.” The pit babe grinned without changing her posture.
“What exactly are you up to?”
“I was just in the middle of taking a selfie using the dashcam,” she said. “After all, it would be blasphemous were we not to preserve such beauty for future generations.”
Kaname was about to retort when an electrical sound came from the car on which Tselika was lying. It was gentle, like a cell phone’s ringtone. At the same time, lines of text, large and small, began to wrap around the entire frame of the car. They looked like the sponsorship messages on a race car, but that’s not what they were. The polished surfaces of the vehicle became a monitor, and a large square window appeared on the side of the car facing Kaname.
A video message started to play, and a timer appeared in one corner of the screen. A short-haired girl popped up on the window, looking around with a somewhat nervous expression. It was as though she was trying to record herself without ever having used a video camera before. To Kaname, her speech sounded different from normal. Stiffer.
“Ahem… How’s my dear brother?
“I’m thinking of going to see a movie with my friends Mich and Tanya. It’s called Kotemitsu Gold Rush. It’s that one about the Swiss Depression. You know, the one that nearly got out of hand.
“I wasn’t sure how to respond when they asked me, but I don’t think it’s right for me to stay cooped up in here all the time. I figured this could be a good chance to try to switch it up. Can I go? If it’s okay, then please give me permission to leave.
“…Ack, hurry! I don’t have a lot of time left!”
There were movie theaters here, but the one that Kaname’s sister was referring to was in the real world. Kaname moved his gaze around a digital keyboard, typing an e-mail granting her request, and sent it off to his sister’s address.
Tselika was stunned. “Rather overprotective, I must say.”
“I know how it looks,” Kaname said, “but it’s what she wants. She gets even worse if I don’t pay attention to her, so I have to go along with it. Besides, my stomach is on the line.”
“Oh? You make Ayame cook for you?”
“Not really. My parents usually take turns. But when Ayame gets frustrated, she often heads to the kitchen. To ‘clear her mind,’ she says. I don’t know what secret ingredient she uses, but it’s enough to ruin supper for the night. So you see, I’d prefer to keep her happy.”
Anyway, back to the task at hand. After taking care of business, Kaname checked the time on his smart watch and shifted his focus back to taking stock of the situation.