“Sakurako-san, you enjoy games, don’t you?” he asked after taking a sip of his coffee and lifting his tablet off the table. Sakurako stared for a moment, then burst out into a smile.

“Oh, yes, I love them. And not just games, but manga and anime, too.”

Sakurako’s polite yet friendly speech was something Ichiro didn’t hear often from people around him. Frankly, it intrigued him, and was one of the reasons he had chosen to hire her.

“And recently, you’ve been playing Narrow Fantasy Online, correct?” He tapped his touchpad to open the web browser. He’d been doing research on the game here and there since the previous night. Opinions were firmly divided, and many of them seemed to carry strange biases, which was making it hard for him to learn anything.

During his conversation with Asuha, he had recalled that Sakurako was a heavy user. And indeed, once the subject came up, she started talking with great excitement.

“NaroFan! I’m obsessed with it! Last week, when you spent five days in Yamanashi? I spent the whole time immersed in it!”

“Ah, I thought your room seemed messier than usual when I got back...”

“I still do the work you pay me for. I hope you can overlook a little dust on the shelves.” Sakurako pouted as she handed him another cup of coffee.

“I was thinking I might try it out.”

“What, really?!” Another big smile; Sakurako was the kind of girl who never held one expression for long. “I guess none of your friends play, do they? You’ll have to use pick-up guilds for quests... that can be fun in its own way, but if you’re just starting, I can teach you all kinds of things! What kind of race and class do you want? Have you picked your spec?”

There was an unusual joy in her voice. But then, she had always been a lively girl.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I suppose I’ll choose when the time comes.”

“I see! Well, the controls take a little learning, and it’s easy to get motion sick, but knowing you, you’ll probably get used to it right away, Ichiro-sama.”

“Yes, I am a genius, after all.”

“You are a genius, after all!”

Sakurako didn’t even try to hide her excitement. She seemed to be enjoying the thought of playing a game with Ichiro. They’d known each other for five years, but this was the first time their interests had ever intersected. So perhaps it was to be expected.

“I’m surprised to hear you talking about things like this, Ichiro-sama. Usually I just see you gazing at bugs and grinning.”

“Nonsense. I’m sure that your expressions while consuming manga and anime are equally unbecoming of your good looks. The truth is, Asuha invited me.”

“Asuha, your second cousin? She’s in middle school, right?” That immediate recall spoke well for her memory.

“Yes. She turned 14 this year. She’s at least a decade younger than y—”

“Hey!” Sakurako thrust out a hand to cut him off. “Ichiro-sama, everyone has sensitive areas that should not be touched upon. To do so could be fatal.”

“Oh, I see.” She seemed to be quoting some novel or manga, but if she didn’t want it mentioned, he wouldn’t mention it.

Sakurako told him to wait just a moment, then walked off with the pot still on the table. He thought maybe she needed to finish something up the kitchen, but she returned soon afterward with something in her hands. It was the package for a game and some kind of large headgear.

“Here it is, Ichiro-sama!” she declared, her ponytail of wavy, chestnut hair swishing. “This is NaroFan and the Miraive!”

Ichiro picked up the “Miraive” she had offered him and gave it a look over. It was heavier than he had expected.

The Miraive Gear was the latest game hardware from Pony Entertainment, a large company that produced video games and systems. They had hired the inventor of Drive technology into their research division, and the system had come out just last year. The girl had gone independent after that and designed the MMORPG in question.

“So I’ll need one of these to play the game?”

“And of course, you’ll need an internet connection, too. Of course, the quantum connection in this house gives incredible bandwidth, so your home network environment should be smooth and crisp!”

“Glad to hear it.”

Ichiro had signed a special contract with a communications company to install quantum internet in the apartment complex he owned. It allowed for far greater data transmission than the standard household connection. Even Ichiro knew that you needed just the right home setup to play online games smoothly, and he was once again glad that it wouldn’t be any special trouble.

“Ichiro-sama, will you be going to buy a Miraive today?”

“Hmm.” Ichiro handed the Miraive Gear back to Sakurako, then looked down at his tablet once more. “That’s the Miraive Gear X, correct? The market version. The IPU is eight teraFLOPS? Quite impressive...”

“It’s expensive, though, compared to other game hardware... And nowadays, most people play consumer games on mobile devices, so they really aren’t selling that well.”

Ichiro’s tablet browser was opened to the Pony product information page. But it wasn’t the home user page. It was the one for companies. “If I’m going to play, I’d like hardware with good specs.”

“Oh, you mean the next-generation one? It’s got a slightly bigger hard drive, and it’s lighter. Though I’ve heard the first wave of them had a lot of bugs...”

“No, I mean this Miraive Gear Cocoon.” Ichiro pointed to his tablet screen, and Sakurako’s eyes went wide.

The screen displayed an apparatus with a curved form suggestive of a mini-car, along with a snappy catchphrase. The base color was metallic silver, with eye-catching black plastic transparent facings.

The near-future silhouette was similar to Sakurako’s own Miraive Gear X, but the specs were totally different. The image processor’s floating-point calculation was 200 teraFLOPS. It was like the supercomputers of ages past. What a terrifying world they lived in, for things like this to be in circulation on the general market.

Sakurako spoke up hesitantly, to confirm his statement. “Um, you mean this commercial hardware?”

“Yes, that one.”

“The ones that arcades and network cafes use for their VR games?”

“Yes, those.”

“The super-expensive ones that even the biggest arcades can only afford one or two of?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Y-You’re going to buy one?!”

“It’s not as if it’s all that expensive. And if I’m going to play, I want to do it in the best environment possible,” Ichiro said, clearly ignoring her conversational hints.

Accustomed as Sakurako was to her master’s eccentricities, this still had her in a daze. Her already wide eyes opened even wider — an amusing sight, perhaps, to an outside observer.

“I-Ichiro-sama! I am but a commoner! Please do not commit such reckless spending in my presence! You don’t know what it’s doing to me!” Tears were building up in her eyes. Her plea seemed sincere, but Ichiro ignored that, too.

“I was thinking of buying one for you, too,” he said.

“Please do! Thank you!” she said immediately.

Sakurako was defeated. Greed was truly a terrifying thing.