Otaku Engineering

S-So good it's criminal…!

…Is how it went. And all that remained was the fact that I'd eaten the steak.

Well, the memories and experience remained too, I suppose.

The taste was exactly the same as the steak I'd eaten in-game. And it was natural meat, no less.

Wait, in real life? Seriously… I actually ate natural meat in real life… That was actually natural meat, right?

…Yeah, brushing my teeth felt like a waste, but I didn't want cavities, so I reluctantly brushed and went to bed.

I'd brag about it to Coworker at work tomorrow. Zzz…

"That's lowkey horror material, yo… You sure you didn't just dream it?"

"That's what I thought, but when I woke up, the cardboard box and the 'Delicious Steak' paper bento trash were still there."

"So it wasn't a dream, yo."

"I almost licked the garbage, but can you blame me?"

"For real, yo? Was it really that good?"

"It really was…"

Using SP to get it was absolutely worth it. And you could eat it in real life too. What a god-tier item, the "Delicious Steak."

"You should get one yourself, Coworker. A 'Delicious Steak.'"

"…I'm close to getting my Home, so after that, yo. Also, wasn't there something called 'Reward Pancakes' too? Do those show up in real life as well?"

That was a possibility too… gulp.

"Also, doing a drop-off delivery of frozen food in the middle of the night is kinda sketchy in a few ways, isn't it?"

"Well, maybe the game timed it for when I was still awake…"

"What does that even mean, yo…?"

Come to think of it, what WAS that about???

"Anyway, putting that aside, I obviously got way more than my money's worth. Way more than five convenience store onigiri could ever cover."

"Well duh, a single natural meat steak costs way more than five convenience store onigiri, yo. How does that even work? If everyone ordered steak right off the bat, they'd be hemorrhaging money."

Now that he mentioned it, the game's base price was equivalent to five onigiri… A single cut of natural meat alone would put them deep in the red.

"So… it actually wasn't natural meat…?"

"You've only ever had natural meat in Kaito a Luise's VR Mode, right, yo? Maybe it was actually some new product… nah, but if it's that good, it could end up costing even more than natural meat."

"R-Right. And I choose to believe that was definitely natural meat. I believe…!"

Well, even if it was, they'd still be running a massive deficit regardless, so I couldn't help but worry about the game's continued existence.

I did NOT want Kaito a Luise shutting down because they were operating in the red!

"Gotta spend… I need to spend more…!"

"Makes you wanna throw money at them, yooo! Not being able to spend money on it is seriously rough."

"What happens if the service shuts down…? We can't go back to how we lived before."

"It's way too worth spending money on, yo."

After all, we now had a lifestyle where we could lounge around in-game for three full days between each shift.

On days off, it stretched to over a week.

Seriously though, I really wanted to find some way to bring anime and manga into the game…

"Oh, speaking of which. What about Mahariku-san? Did she get her Restriction Release Code?"

"Doesn't seem like it yet, yo. If she had, she definitely would've said something. I told her it exists, so she must be eagerly waiting for the email from the devs."

The Restriction Release Code was something we'd gotten via email from the devs. If it was sent out as a batch at some specific timing, she might not get hers for a while.

…

Wait! I just had an idea!!

"Hey, you can play this game on stationary terminals too, right!?"

"Uh, yeah you can, yo. I play on a stationary terminal, remember?"

"You know how you can see Friend Chat logs from in-game?"

"You can, yo."

"Couldn't you send a novel through chat and read the logs in VR!?"

"!! Coworker, please! Write me a script, yo!"

"You got it! Man, if the game had email, that'd be even better…!"

Since there was a display limit on chat logs, the pace would probably be something like reading one chapter, then exiting VR Mode to send the next batch.

"A genius has appeared, yo! As expected of my coworker, genius engineer!"

"Heh. Since ancient times, humanity has used every means at its disposal to transmit information. Even Morse code can carry text. If you've got chat, sending a novel into the game is only natural…!"

And if we took this idea further, by transmitting pixel-level data, we could even send images into the game… probably!

Though reconstructing them on the other side would take an absurd amount of time.

"Hmm, sending images would be tough though. Maybe simple black-and-white pixel art like Othello pieces wouldn't take as long."

"Coworker. If you wanna send images— have you heard of AA?"

"What? AA, as in, the art form that uses text characters to represent illustrations… Wait!?"

AA. Emoticons taken to the next level, combining text characters to depict full illustrations.

And yes. Text could be sent.

Only we could see it, but it could be sent!

"If we send illustrations converted to AA and trace the character outlines on the other side…"

"There'd be tons of limitations, but we could bring images in from real life!? It could work… this could actually work!?"

In other words, we could get novels and images into the game.

In-game otaku activities were about to go into overdrive! We could even get local artists to do clean redraws for us!

"I'm almost ready to get my Home too, so I'm building an otaku room, yo… I swear I will! I've got the time!"

"Oh. We should check the terms of service first, though. If macros and scripts are banned, we'd be violating the rules."

"Good point, that's important, yo. If we got banned, it'd be a total disaster. …Checking the TOS in real life is gonna take forever, yo."

"So the first long document we send into the game… is going to be the terms of service…?"

And as luck would have it, the terms of service weren't an issue at all.

Amazingly, the game had no rules against macros or scripts. Online games usually banned them… but, well, let's just call it lucky?

Also, since we could just use regular text search, checking the TOS ended up being faster in the real world.

The tools of civilization could easily blow past a mere tenfold speed advantage.