Her platinum hair shone in the sunlight like grains of light were scattered all over it, as if she were spraying golden sand with her every move.
Stomping her feet in frustration, she looked up at me as she barked, “It’s people who make me wait that I hate the most!! I told you to be punctual! This is a loss for me! A loss! How the hell do you plan to make up for it, huh?!”
“Mule, you’re the one who doesn’t know how to read a clock. Mr. Sanjo is right on time. Why do you have to be so mad?” Lily said as she glanced at her watch. She had changed from her smart maid outfit to a neat spring look consisting of a pure-white tuck blouse and a long flared skirt.
Unlike when she was in her formal maid’s uniform, she looked somewhat defenseless as she let out a giggle.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Sanjo. For some reason, this child has always been strict about meeting times—though she doesn’t hold herself to the same standard.”
“……” (I was imagining these two girls going out on a yuri date in their casual clothes.)
“See? Even Mr. Sanjo can’t believe how you’re acting. Please, Mule, behave yourself.”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up! It’s outrageous to make an Eisbert wait!! Making me wait so long, what was he doing, traveling across the continent?! What a lovely position he’s in! He must have money. If he does, then he should take me with him!!”
“I’m sorry she’s making such a commotion. She usually sleeps in, but when she gets this way, she’s like an alarm clock,” Lily said, laughing, and I shook my head.
“No problem, it’s actually quite sweet. I would love to watch the two of you go on like that together for the rest of my life. That’s the type of guy I am.”
“Lily, this guy is really creepy sometimes…”
“Mule! He came and saved you yesterday!”
Creepy was creepy. I didn’t think it mattered if I’d saved her yesterday or if she were a crane I’d rescued from a trap.
Having come out of my school uniform wearing casual clothes that Snow had chosen, since I’d been told to do so, I asked our dorm manager, “So, where are we going shopping to get the stuff we need for the welcome party?”
“You shouldn’t even need to ask,” she replied, puffing out her chest confidently. “A maid café!”
“…Huh?”
I slowly tilted my head in question.
Akihabara—an underground cybertown in Tokyo.
Tokyo in the ESCO world is modeled on Tokyo, Japan, in the real world. But everything isn’t the same. There are big differences depending on where you go.
For example, Akihabara is called cybertown in ESCO.
Three-dimensional holographic images are projected on a video device that uses a large, specialized magic-laying device. The device shows glimpses of the advanced technology concentrated in Tokyo, an advanced technopole.
It’s a chaos of 3D images of anime characters, maiko girls, and avant-garde art that appear above, below, left and right, and all around you.
It’s so crude that some people give up on playing the game in three minutes.
In the game, you can visit Akihabara as many times as you want, as long as you plan it and pay the train fare.
The purpose of visiting Akihabara is to make money, shop, explore dungeons, or attend events, out of which players place particular importance on the first two: to make money or to shop.
There are part-time jobs in Akihabara called human generators that convert magic power into electricity, and you can earn money according to the amount of magic power you generate.
In this world, magic power exists as a source of energy, and as long as you can get a converter, you can use it as an alternative to electricity to power electronic devices.
Because many shops deal in hardware, software, and niche magic devices and conductors, players who play in particular ways (as do members of the ESCO Society) frequent Akihabara.
For example, efficient players buy large quantities of electronic devices, connect them to themselves, and use them to hack into online banks owned by the demonic religion to steal money (the most efficient way to make money in the game).
But because magic power tends to belong to individuals, it isn’t easy to convert back and forth between magic and electricity. Unlike magic devices, which are built so anyone can use them, electronic devices require conductors to be set up with specialized knowledge to successfully convert a person’s magic into electric power.
In the Sacred Yuri Empire, Ruby used the kingdom’s base magic power (a large amount of magic power siphoned off the land it occupied) to run her PCs and specialized magic-laying devices.
That conversion between magic and electricity wasn’t something that an individual could do. Even in the game, I paid experts in Akihabara to do it for me.
You could tell from the standpoint of the original game that Ruby really was abnormal.
Anyway, I’ve gone on at length with my explanations, but our objective on this occasion was not to make money or go shopping. It was to visit a maid café.
No matter how many times I asked our dorm manager why we were headed to one, she wouldn’t answer, only replying that I’d understand when we got there.
Maids with translucent bodies walked up and down the street, holding signboards for their businesses.
They were 3D images.
A system based on volume display was used to project 3D images by moving and coloring the magic operators in the air using a magic device. Because a huge amount of data communication was needed, a quantum teleportation method was used, with the magic operator as the communication medium.
This is based on the technology of volumetric displays and is completely different from holography, which reproduces recorded light… However, for some reason, it was called 3D imagery.
A large, specialized magic-laying device for video output was installed in the store. Behind the hardworking device, the store owner turned away from his duties, smoking a cigarette and reading a magazine. In the junk shop next door, used PCs were piled up from the floor to the ceiling like vegetables or something, next to which were cell phones posed as genuine products that were registered to other people.
The street underground was called Shutter Street, where its usual chaos was nothing more than routine.
Our dorm manager descended the narrow staircase, leading us farther underground from the underground level.
Plaster walls were on either side of the staircase, where stickers from indie bands and posters from coffee shops screamed out their advertising slogans in every direction. A sign was put up on the lowest landing, which said: “MAID CAFÉ (the real thing).”
You didn’t usually write that it was real, because that was to be expected.
I looked at the sign, which was covered with a suspicious smell, opened the door, and stepped inside—and saw Snow, wearing her usual maid outfit, who turned around and looked this way.
“You’re a real maid!!”
“Huh? Didn’t you see the sign? I haven’t given up on my maid career so badly that I’d violate the Act Against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations.”
“What are you doing here?! Don’t suddenly show up like that! It’s bad for my heart!”
“Stop treating me like a browser crasher, you no-good jerk of a master! Maybe you’ve never seen a beautiful girl pop out when you opened a door, but such cute maids still exist in the world. This is an authentic maid café, after all.”