Chapter 11.

“I suppose we’re going inside, right?” I ask, feigning sarcasm.

“Nope. We stand here and admire its exterior.”

She replies, to which I don’t react at all, thus making her continue.

“Of course, we’re going inside to get a good tour of the inner workings! What else would be the point of coming here, then?”

As I thought.

Dawn…

The fact aside that I would really find it quite interesting how the game was made and is continued to be developed.

It’s also an opportunity.

“Ah! You must be Evelyn. Welcome to Dawn, I’m Richard, here to give you guys a tour. I hope you like it.” A man wearing a business suit walks out.

“This here is Val, my very good friend. He’s the one who really wanted the tour in the first place.”

Guessing by how his appearance is, how well dressed and all that, I think he’s a part of the PR department.

“Nice to meet you, Val.” He says, extending a hand.

“Nice to meet you too, Richard.”

An opportunity to get some connections into the studio and the company behind it, the publisher, V. Enterprises.

It’ll surely be useful when I win that PvP Battle Royale, since they would be more willing to publicize it since the winner is already known to them. And that would open up more possibilities.

Of course, that relies on me winning the Tournament first, but I’m sure I will, call it arrogance or overconfidence.

The man leads us into the building. The gates open automatically as he walks nearer. With the receptionist bowing as he walks in and leads us to the elevator.

I’ll probably also get to find out where the game’s heading right now, which would be good too.

“There’s different floors assigned to different departments. We’ll start with the graphics design.”

The doors to the elevator open, revealing a large, dimly light room with a bunch of desks with computers scattered around, with people working at them.

I look towards a large screen on a desk, it’s inclined at an angle and a person is using a pen or stylus to draw on it. I walk closer to see it a bit clearer.

“I’m designing a notice board for the adventurers to select quests from. Adding some tweaks for each individual board.”

That seems to be it.

I look around to other desks. It seems to be randomly arranged but I feel like there’s some meaning to it.

“The desks are arranged so that communicating is easier.” The PR guy, Richard speaks up from behind me.

The monitors themselves are filled with stuff like the one earlier. Some people designing creatures that look like oni or Japanese demons, some designing what seems to be bipedal dogs, kobolds or something like that they’re called, I think.

Next, we go to the department that handles the programming. The ones that designed the game engine and the physics and all that.

“These use real-world values for the physics calculations.” The PR Rep boasts.

There wasn’t much to see there. Other than the part that I think they probably are fine tuning the world itself or perhaps preparing a place for the competition. Also, the whole room is quite colorful and each desk is fairly personalized. Seems like the company takes care of its employees quite well.

Richard does introduce us whenever we walk into a room, making the people explain to us, what exactly they’re working on.

Next is the Animations part. They have a room full of props and then a room where they do the motion tracking while wearing special suits, and the cameras track their movement in all directions, allowing for 3-d animation and movements.

The sound design, or rather, being more inclusive, it includes the sound, smells and even how objects feel like to the touch.

“How did you guys manage to accomplish all that? And can you even taste certain things in-game?” Vera asks.

“Don’t be silly. A huge part of taste is the smell of that thing. Since you can smell it, it should also be possible to taste it to a degree.” I reply to her. To which she pouts towards me.

“He’s correct.” The sound or rather, sensory design leader, speaks up.

“We had to work quite closely with how the headset was designed. It can intercept brain signals and waves to a certain extent. And even send a few back.”

He continues, “So, we just had to record the brain activity when a person smells or touches a certain object. Try to remove the noise a little and then try to replicate it till it reached an acceptable quality.”

“Really interesting…” at least Vera seems impressed.

I already had a little clue on how it works, from those scientific journals that I tried to interpret from time to time. But it’s good to get a more hands-on experience too.

We go to the next floor up but a part of it is closed off to access.

It’s the server rooms. Almost fully automated. Human intervention would only lead to errors here.

“This one here handles the part of the traffic from the European subcontinent.” Richard speaks up.

“There’s another 2 hubs for traffic from America and from Asia. It’s so that the processing can be handled a little easier. But this is the central hub.”

The central hub is in Stardust valley, off shore to the west of Europe, in the middle of the ocean. I wonder how the rest of the world feels about it.

Then the next floor is marketing and public relations.

“They’re right now figuring ways on how to publicize the competition and the scale of it better.” Richard says.

“Are you planning to broadcast the tournament itself?” I ask.

“Yes, we are thinking that it would be good if we get to stream the competition live. It would require to get some permissions from the players about if we can stream their gameplay, but we’ll figure that out.” Another person from Richard’s PR group speaks up.

“But focusing solely on the competition might make potential players think that the game is entirely about combat, which might deter some other players, even though there is plenty of non-combat things to do in game.” Another person speaks.

“Then we’ll need to ask the other departments about integrating other parts of the game into the competition.” Says another.

“And what about the event that comes after the competition? It’ll be a large-scale world event, right?”

“Something that would demonstrate the capabilities of the open world that’s constantly changing, like a large-scale war.”

“Let’s leave them to their discussion.” Richard says to us as he leads us into his office.

“So, how was the tour?” he asks.

“Really exciting. I didn’t know that this all went into making a game.” Vera replies.

“Of course. Glad I could be of service.”

They exchange a few more words, allowing me to look around a bit. It’s a nice office. Neat and clean. Though it doesn’t feel like he never used it, since lots of objects here say that he does use it quite frequently. Especially that T.V. and the gaming console linked to it.

He gives her his business card, and also gives one to me. And notes down her contact information. Because she doesn’t have a business card of her own. Because why would she?

This business card contains all the relevant information like his name and designation, and how to contact him directly or through the company’s telephone, and all that.

She also gives him my phone number. The phone which I forgot back in the car. Oh well. But this would get in really useful later when I get to gain fame through the competition.

“Val actually really likes the game.” I hear Vera speak.

“That’s good to know. I’m sure he’s great that the game.”

“Yeah, he even insists on me playing it.”

“Miss Evelyn playing the game too would be wonderful.” He says with an oddly genuine smile.

Not like a smile which contains corporate greed or something, but like a smile from a person who genuinely enjoys playing games and wants other people to enjoy them too. Though that choice of words he used certainly was a bit weird. I don’t think I’ll regret making friends with this guy.

“We should get going, then.” Evelyn says as we get up.

Richard walks us to the front exit to the building. We wave towards him before getting in the car after which Vera speeds out of the place and onto the highway once again.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“…Yes.” I reply after a little pause.

“Were you surprised?”

“Pleasantly surprised, yes.”

“…”

I know that she’s expecting me to thank her or something. But I don’t want to say those words explicitly… What to do…

I pick up my phone to type out a message and send it to her number.

Her phone buzzes a little, she picks it up for a few moments to quickly read the text and then puts it down.

Through blushing cheeks, she says, “You could have just said that in person, you know.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

There’s a little bit of silence before she speaks up again.

“How about we have lunch… Or rather, breakfast for you. At some restaurant?”

“Sounds fine.”

It’s good to have fun and go out from time to time.

I look up a few things using my phone, things that I remembered just now that I should get more information about.

…

It’s just before 3 in the afternoon, by the time we return to the hospital and I get to once again go back into the game. Now with newfound knowledge of how things would progress.

I’m fairly certain that they do plan to introduce another world event after this tournament.

The moment that I log in, before even letting me adjust a little-

“You’re late!”

I hear the sound of a certain someone.

“You kept me waiting for like 2 hours.”

“Did you have an appointment?” I reply with a straight face.

“…An appointment?”

“Yeah, you didn’t. So, you don’t need to complain about it.”

That seems to be enough to shut her up for now.

“Anyways, where are we, now?”

I say, looking outside the carriage window, but the scenery doesn’t seem much different than before.

“Almost there. Apparently.” She speaks up with a slightly annoyed tone.

“They told me that there weren’t any other attacks from ‘bandits’” again, with her air-quotes, cute, “but they faced some wild animals. Not much trouble to handle.”

The surroundings are a little dark, signifying it’s early morning. Now that I look a bit closer, there does seem to be something just on the horizon. Some kind of stone wall, I suppose.

The path ahead seems to go through a light forest, a perfect place for an ambush. I’m fairly certain that’s where the police would be waiting next.

“Oh, right and when I came back I realized I levelled up, and so did you.” Her saying that prompts me to open the party menu to check quickly.

“It’s probably the exp from defeating those police or something. Though we didn’t kill them. It may be from progressing in the original quest to defend from the bandits.”

Vera Marconi (Level 29)

Class: Valkyrie (attack + defence)

HP: Full.

Chris Val (Level 24)

Class: Enigmatic Killer (versatile)

HP: Full.

So, the party didn’t disband the moment we logged out. That might be good to know.

And it does tell me her class now that she showed it to me.

It once again goes through my mind, I probably should show her mine if we plan to hang out from now on.

I looked up and was able to confirm. If she lives in the exact time zone as me, then the chances of her being in Stardust Valley are very high. Since it’s the most developed place on that time zone. And possibly on the planet too.

But then, if that is true, there isn’t any blacksmithing factory of any kind on this island. Why did she lie, then?

I’m probably overthinking it.

“So, which approach would you like?” I ask her.

“…What?” She responds while blushing.

Eh? Just what meaning did she imply from that?

“For the eventual ambush we’ll face once we’re near the capital.”

“Ah, that. You should have mentioned it from the start.”

I think the meaning was implied, though?

“I’d say let’s go for the stealth approach. I don’t think the trade leader would tell us who he works for so easily.” She says with her hands folded and one holding her chin, trying to look as if she’s thinking quite hard.

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too.” I say while mimicking her pose.

The surroundings get slightly darker as we start to enter the light forest.