“I know it’s not perfect, but you must have enjoyed it if you played it to the end,” I said. “I’ll see if I can add some new features to help out the player. Maybe settings to adjust the difficulty or make the visuals less intense.”
The important thing is that Clare had fun playing the game. But I should have guessed that the difficulty would be too high for people in this world because they’ve never played video games before. I thought keeping the number of save points low would make it more realistic, but I’m going to have to adjust those along with the enemy spawn locations to make it easier. The next thing I need to deal with is...
“Where did Baldy disappear to?” I muttered.
That bald idiot is supposed to be here helping me and Shingo, I fumed. Why would he disappear when we’re so busy? If Noa really is counting on him to protect children who aren’t combat trained, then shouldn’t he be with us at all times? At the very least, he should be here to rescue me from all this paperwork.
“Shingo, Clare,” I spoke up. “Do you know where Baldy has gone?”
“Buh hee? I haven’t seen him at all today.”
“I haven’t seen him at all, either,” Clare said. “I don’t think he’s around today. In fact, I can’t remember when I last saw him.”
Disappearing without a trace might be one of his special skills, but unless he had to assassinate one of Noa’s managers, now’s hardly the time. I was exasperated. I don’t have a choice. I really didn’t want to do it, especially not with Clare around, but it’s the only way to find him and put him to work. If I don’t do something now, there’s going to be blood on my hands.
“Shingo! Activate Butterfly. Finding that damn lolicon is our top priority!”
“K-Kouki, wait! Clare is here!”
“We don’t have time to mess around. The media department staff members are going to die from overwork.”
Shingo looked around at the personnel of the media department who sat all around us, looking at their work with empty eyes. He knew I was right. Shingo connected his terminal to the server on his desk, and in that instant, a great number of windows opened up on the display in the center of the room. The windows were repeatedly appearing and then closing as the search for Baldy began.
“Mwahah. There’s no escape from the technological might of Noa, bald man!” I exclaimed.
“Kouki, what’s happening?” Clare asked. “It almost looks as though you’ve got access to positioning data for all key members of Noa.”
There’s no fooling Clare. She is a data analysis specialist, after all. Clare was exactly right. Butterfly was currently determining the locations of Noa’s key members and high-ranking personnel in real-time. But that wasn’t the half of it. If I tell her what else it can do, she’ll either tell my mom to order us to stop using it, or she’ll set up some kind of countermeasure. I’d better not mention it. I’d hate to lose Butterfly.
“That’s right,” I said. “Butterfly is currently determining the locations of Noa’s key members, including my mom and dad, in real-time.”
“Kouki! Do you know how dangerous this butterfly program could be?! If this fell into enemy hands...”
“Don’t worry about that. No one besides my mom would be able to take control of this software. Even Mom might struggle.”
“Buh hee, that’s right,” Shingo assured her. “No one but Miki. Even if you had the full power of the new large-scale terminal on Noa Island, the terminal would just get eaten by Butterfly.”
Clare was wide-eyed in surprise.
It might be an exaggeration to say that Mom would struggle, but I’m sure Butterfly could put up a fight against her for three days.
Shingo and I looked at each other and smiled. Clare knitted her brow and tried to terminate the program using her own terminal. I could tell that she was locked out of the server the moment she attempted to access it. That just made her more determined, and she continued trying to get access, but after four attempts, there was a morpho butterfly shown on her terminal screen.
Looks like her terminal got eaten. She’ll see why it’s impossible to fight against this program in just a moment.