Isiho's Electronic Drugs

[What are you staring at so intently? It'll be a problem if you touch it carelessly. You know you shouldn't interfere with other people's games, right?]

The employee reacted sensitively to my staring intently at the electronic drug Hardware bearing the Isiho Logo.

I nodded to show I understood and took one step back from that den of cyber derelicts.

It was nothing special.

I didn't come all the way here because of work related to Headquarters either.

The reason I came to the game center/arcade was purely due to personal circumstances.

Even so, the reason I hesitated in front of the Headquarters slogan was 'just because'.

Just for a moment, I felt an uncomfortable sensation, wondering if the money I received as a salary from Headquarters was earned by sucking the marrow out of people like them.

It was a trivial thought.

It would be one thing if I were doing work directly related to electronic drugs, but that wasn't the case.

The position of a restaurant chef or a bar's On-site Manager was in an industry as far removed from this electronic drug den as heaven is from earth.

I was someone who earned money without harming others, making as much as I worked for, or perhaps even less than the effort I put in.

There was absolutely no reason for me to feel guilty.

Of course, strictly speaking, just by working for Headquarters and receiving money, I might be contributing to their suffering to some extent.

But so what? Should I go on strike and starve to death?

I wasn't some sage, and I didn't want to force such strict standards upon myself.

In the first place, I was nothing more than a slave whose identity and salary were mortgaged, forced to do whatever I was told.

All the Super Megacorps worthy of being called Megacorps operated in a similar manner.

They monopolized the market by acquiring or bleeding other companies dry, and turned consumers and Workers into corporate slaves to suck their money dry.

It was just that in the case of Isiho Corp., the Mechanism was revealed extremely blatantly in the form of electronic drugs.

The reason the Lower Class of Dusk fell into electronic drugs wasn't simply because the stimulation was intense.

Literally, it was because the game was better than life (Better-Than-Life).

Rather than suffering in the Hell of reality where not an inch of hope could be seen, it was happier for them to close their eyes and drown in a virtual paradise filled with pleasure.

Our Headquarters, Isiho, was indeed extremely vicious in that it exploited such people.

However, Isiho couldn't be pointed out as the sole source of the suffering they experienced.

Because that source was the painful reality itself.

Fundamentally, the problem lay with the Megacorps that created this society and the city as a whole, and by that same logic, I shouldn't get a job or spend money in this city at all.

This was Dusk City, and everything that happened here was entirely under the grasp of the Megacorps.

Because whatever kind of production and consumption I engaged in here, it would all ultimately return as profit for the corporation.

Fuck that.

I didn't want to fall into such excessive nihilism or pessimism and escape from reality.

I was merely doing what I could do, nothing more.

This sight right now wasn't pleasant to look at, but what could I do about it?

I couldn't overturn it, nor could I submit a resignation letter to the company or step up personally to persuade the Chairman.

Stopping that undeniable social phenomenon was something outside the limits of a person like me.

It was the same as running around trying to solve the drug problem, the low birth rate problem, or the public safety problem all by myself.

And a mere outskirt bar manager at that.

It made no sense.

[…Or, have you also taken an interest in VR games, Masked Asian? It just so happens to be a package sale period. Why don't you at least give it a try? I'll recommend a good one for you.]

Perhaps interpreting my blankly lost in thought state as something else, the masked game center employee spoke with a sly smile.

However, just because I couldn't stop it didn't mean I had the slightest intention of joining that scene myself.

Was he crazy? He should recommend things actually worth recommending.

They weren't called electronic drugs for nothing. In this World, Game is a disease and a drug.

Most of them were VR games that utilized a Brain-Computer Interface to directly interface with the brain.

In the virtual reality of those games, the exact same actions caused an increase in neurotransmitters that was at least dozens of times, and at most thousands of times, greater than in reality.

These stimulated the brain circuits to make one feel amplified pleasure.

Even if they started lightly with about a five-fold amplification at first, they would quickly reach hundreds of times that within a few months.

Because they developed a tolerance to the existing pleasure and gradually sought a higher multiplier.

Once started, it could never be quit.

They would only blindly advance down a path of no return.

Eventually, their minds would break, rendering them unable to feel any inspiration or emotion in reality.

A few months was enough to end up with a zombie-like appearance like those over there.

It wasn't for nothing that electronic drugs displaced existing physical drugs and reigned as the king of the industry.

Compared to a VR game, things like marijuana or cocaine were considered cute addictive substances on the level of cigarettes.

Even the Rooster Comb Yakuza who smoked weed all day—Shimizu Dick next door, who recommended me as a game center member—said he absolutely never touched electronic drugs. He said if you messed with them, you could be gone in a flash.

It was just that dangerous.

Not even attempting it at all was the best course of action. I had never tried it, but at least from what I'd heard, that was the case.

Therefore, I shook my head and said.

"No. I'm not interested."

[You're firm every time. I heard there's a saying in Buddhist scripture that 'No fire is hotter than desire,'…truly the East Asian virtue of restraint.]

Here we go again.

It wasn't even surprising anymore. Right, you couldn't be called a Duskian without having one or two trivial prejudices about East Asians.

This guy here seemed to have some baseless conviction that all East Asians were Buddhist believers.

Next time, I should bring a wooden moktak to the game center/arcade. He'd probably love it if I chanted Namu Amita Bul.

[Ahem, then should I guide you to 'that' thing you always do?]

Perhaps feeling awkward when I showed little reaction despite his reciting his confident Buddhist scripture verse, the Game Center Employee cleared his throat and asked.

I nodded and glanced at my Cyberwatch.

The time was already 2:46 PM. There were about two and a half hours left until I had to go to work. It was quite tight.

…I really hoped I'd reach the target score today.

* * *

"These crazy Veteran Player bastards…."

I gripped the two-handed controller, designed to act as both a keyboard and a mouse, so tightly it felt like it would break, before gently setting it down.

Because it would be a huge problem if it actually broke.

I didn't have the money to pay for it. Plus, it was an old-fashioned controller that was hard to find in this day and age.

As I threw off the helmet-type headset with built-in monitor, the scene of my miserable defeat vanished from before my eyes.

In the end, compared to the time I invested today, my game score was at a standstill.

I only needed to raise it by exactly 100 points, but it was as difficult as hitting a wall.

I let out a deep sigh and stood up from my seat.

What I had played was a non-virtual online game.

A legacy of the old generation that had been forgotten as Neural Interface technology was commercialized and VR electronic drugs became prevalent.

A wholesome video game is designed to provide a sense of accomplishment solely through one's own control and effort, without microtransactions or any brain manipulation. It is the origin closest to the true meaning of a game.

You could consider it a more advanced form of the computer games played in the past.

Even so, it was the most niche of the niche, standing in a position on the verge of obsolescence.

Perhaps this game center/arcade didn't only deal in electronic drugs, as there were one or two machines handling this kind of classic game if you went really deep inside.

And that was why I kept stopping by the Kabuki Game Center.

It wasn't because I wanted to feel the nostalgia of past computer games, or because I wanted to soothe my exhausting daily life with an online game…it wasn't for those reasons.

If it were for those reasons, I would have chosen a single-player healing game rather than this kind of competitive game, a PVP game.

If I had done that, I wouldn't have had to be miserably toyed with and tremble in defeat like I am now.

The reason I kept going despite suffering like this was because I had a clear purpose.

"

Video Game Addict (Arcadenik)

:

Choose one of the old-fashioned niche online competitive games equipped and gathering dust in game centers throughout Dusk City, and achieve a specific score in a ranked game.

"

You could call it a sort of…hidden piece. It was one of the hidden achievements in the Original Game.

The reason I still remembered it was that the achievement conditions were easy and simple, and the rewards were quite lucrative.

It was emphasized in bold letters in the strategy video that it was absolutely beneficial to clear this achievement.

Of course, it being easy was strictly a story from within the game.

The player character in the game was so overflowing with talent that they would automatically reach the target score after a few tries, but with my physical abilities in reality, it wasn't easy at all.

I wasn't someone who would be told I was bad at games anywhere I went, but these niche classic game users all just seemed like lunatics.

When I tried a shooting game, they would accurately land headshots through tiny gaps between buildings time and time again.

When I played a sword and shield combat game, they would exploit the 0.1-second gap between my character's action motions to instantly sever my limbs.

I guess you could say it felt similar to the experience of the Veteran Players who practically occupied classic arcade games.

They were truly incredible gatekeepers, blocking my score from rising above a certain level with plays that were beyond amazing and bordered on bizarre.

They were practically Zhang Fei at Changbanpo.

They must eat and do nothing but this all day. Or maybe they received Body Modification so their reaction speed was at a level beyond imagination.

Anyway, today was a failure too.

Thanks to those crazy Veteran Player bastards, I didn't even have the motivation to try again. Even if I queued up for another match, I'd just meet those bastards again.

At this rate, when would I ever succeed?

Could I even succeed in the first place?

And even if I succeeded, would there be a reward….

That was the question.

Perhaps I was challenging it until now just to confirm the existence of the reward itself, rather than for the benefits I would gain from it.

In the original work, when you reached the target score, some masked old gentleman in a tuxedo would appear and demand you choose one of several options, such as experience points, a high-grade weapon, or additional body modification.

If you chose one, the reward was given just like that.

What would happen now that the in-game World has become reality?

If I actually reached the target score, would a tuxedoed old gentleman appear out of nowhere with a 'ta-da' here too?

What would the reward options be?

Even setting aside an additional modification or weapon, experience points would be a concept that couldn't be applied in reality.

It was a well-known fact that this place was Dusk City from the game's universe.

However, whether the in-game elements still operated after coming to reality, and if they did, whether this place I was in was reality or an in-game world made of 0s and 1s data.

Whether this place was truly the future of the 21st century Earth I used to live on, or if I had merely fallen into a similar-looking parallel world.

In many ways, there were still many unanswered questions.

And this hidden achievement was a clue that might perhaps be the only one.

Because all the other original game elements were either too complicated so I forgot them, or even if I remembered them, they were only the difficult and dangerous kinds that were impossible for me to challenge.

That was the reason I stopped by the game center/arcade to challenge it whenever I had free time, never giving up until the end even while getting beaten like a dog every time.

…Well, setting aside the dirty veteran player users, the game itself was also fun.

As expected of future technology, the graphics, controls, and sound were all excellent.

If raising my score wasn't this ridiculously difficult, I could have enjoyed it as a daily pleasure.

As of now, the stress is just as great as the enjoyment. It isn't simply entertainment, but homework.

And without fail, I would have to put off today's homework until tomorrow.

It was already past five o'clock.

Time-wise, I had to stop here and slowly head to work. Even if I played more, it didn't seem like there would be any exceptionally good results.

Tomorrow's me, who would challenge it again, would surely show better skills than today's me.

I gave up cleanly, paid the usage fee, and left the Kabuki Game Center.

"…."

Flinch.

The moment I stepped out of the flashing game center main entrance, I got a subtle feeling that someone was watching me.

I quickly turned my head to look, but there was no one.

As always, on the plastic walls plastered with graffiti, the long row of Pachinko machines merely blinked in place, making ringing sounds.

…It must be my imagination.

Thinking so, I hurried my heavy footsteps without fail today as well.

Ah, I don't want to go to work.