BTOG 199 – Closer than you can imagine.
Rin-chan brought me to the 39th floor, one floor down from the 40th where I usually live.
All the rooms on the 40th floor was bought by Rin-chan, and I was given one of them, but I had totally no idea that she also owned a room on the 39th floor.
“I don’t know you owned a room on the 39th floor.”
“Well, I left the 36th through 40th floors unsold.”
“Huh? Unsold?”
I tilted my head at Rin-chan’s statement, she made it sound like she owns the whole apartment to begin with. She continues to speak and answered my question.
“Yes, this apartment is mine.”
“…… eh?”
“I don’t want to tell you that, because I don’t exactly know what the real estate company’s or any other details about the process. Well, in short, you have to go through me to sign the sales contract for this apartment.”
“He……”
Rin-chan says it as if it were a very natural thing, but if it means that she is the landlord of this apartment or someone in some similar position, isn’t that something quite huge?
I thought I knew that Rin-chan is extremely rich even without the support of the main Takajou family, but maybe the extent of her wealth is much more than I imagined.
That said, Rin-chan is not the type to be greedy with money. Perhaps it’s because she has more assets than she can spend, but she only spends it when she has to without wasting it in pointless thing.
Somehow I’m now convinced that she was born under such a star, a star that naturally raises money for Rin-chan, without needing her to do anything.
Well, now that I am also being supported by Rin-chan and receiving all the benefits of it, I can only be grateful for her financial power.
“We have arrived. But no matter which door you enter, everything inside is connected.”
“It looks like a secret base.”
“That’s the concept.”
I regain my composure and enter a room which been called as secret base by Rin-chan.
“Ooh…”
The first thing that caught my eye were various gadgets glowing in seven different colors.
The blue lighting highlighted their presence, and even the automatic vacuum cleaner running at my feet looks like a robot thanks to this room atmosphere.
I have no idea what the purpose of the lights was, but come to think of it, many of the game events that Rin-chan took me to in the past also had seven-colored lights.
As I recall, in Rin-chan words it’s …….
“Gaming items shining for nothing!”
“Fufufu… that’s right, I taught you that once.”
“But I think you said you didn’t like it?”
That’s right, be it a gaming PC, or a gaming chair, or a keyboard, or a mouse, there are some that emitting light for no reason, but none of them exist in the equipment Rin-chan use.
Have her tastes changed in the past six years? But then again, her equipment on the 40th floor room has no such gimmick at all.
When I wondered why, Rin-chan explained to me.
“This floor is also the office of HEROES. It’s better to make it look like this to attract new members.”
“Is this the team’s office?”
“This is the team’s office.”
“Woah… I’m shocked, I’ve never thought that it was closer to home than I thought…”
I look around the room feeling a bit astonished. I had no idea that the HEROES office was right below the room I usually live in.
Seeing this, Rin-chan-chan sighed and shook her head.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you… but next time you should at least check the location of the team you belong to.”
“I don’t even know the exact address of place I live in.”
“I’ve already told you.”
“A-Ha-Ha-Ha.”
That being said, I don’t even know the name of this tower apartment.
It seems the ownership changed to Rin-chan at some point, and I don’t even know what happened to the previous house after she brought her things there. I think it’s probably cleaned up by now.
“But… it’s an office, though there’s no one in it, is there? There’s no sign of anything but cleaning robots.”
“As for the newcomers that I let join HEROES, I make sure they have their proper equipment set up at their home. Not many of them go out of their way and spend money to come to our office. Our briefing also done via online meet.”
“I see.”
Hearing Rin-chan’s words, I understand.
If that were the case, there would certainly be little reason to come all the way to the office.
I heard that in the days before we were born, there exist a time when you had to prepare cables and connect game consoles directly over a short distance to play with each other.
But with the advancement of the Internet, the distance barrier between gamers around the world has disappeared. Most games now have built systems that connect people around the world while staying at home.
Even WLO is the same, and so did Zero Wars which we are about to play. We live in an era where we can play games with people from all over the world, regardless of language barriers and distance.
If it is true that Rin-chan has set up a proper gaming equipment for the members of HEROES, then we can play games at the touch of a button without having to go out of our way to get together.
There would really be no reason left to spend the travel expenses to come here.
“By the way, how much support they get when they join HEROES?”
“Most of the kids who are good enough to get my attention have an up-to date equipment to play the game. The highest salary is about 500,000 yen per person in addition to their basic salary. Occasionally, if a recruit has achieved top-level results in an unbelievably bad environment, I might allocate them a million yen or so.”
“That’s very generous of you.”
“I have a rotting surplus of the prize money I’ve earned so far. If it improves the performance of the members even a little, then it’s a small price to pay. Of course, I’ll ask them to produce results that are worthy of the investment.”
Despite her words, seeing Rin-chan’s happy expression on her face, one can see what the HEROES team means to her. For Rin-chan, HEROES is like a child she raised with her own hands.
The professional game team [HEROES] was originally founded by Rin-chan to support her journey to become a professional gamer.
At first, it was a team in name only, with only Rin-chan as a member, but through her scouting and training, the team has quickly shown its ability in the past few years and is now one of the most famous teams in the world.
All of the operating funds are provided by Rin-chan, and she also personally does all the scouting for the members.
She has been slowly preparing for the team since a little before they won the WGCS and became the best in the world, and has been vigorously pushing for the team’s growth even after they became the best in the world.
It took only about three years and the team has grown into a monster team that has performed well in most of the prominent games.
There is, of course, the effort of the team members. But there is no way to say that Rin-chan’s influence did not play a part.
On the contrary, the opposite is true. Rin-chan was truly devoted to supporting the members of HEROES, sometimes as a leader and sometimes as a manager, supporting everything from the mental to the technical aspects of the game.
As a result, the HEROES team has become [a gathering of strong people who adore professional gamer Rinne], (or so the Rinne Wiki says).
Well, I have never met any of the members of HEROES, so I don’t know if it’s true or not.
“Nana?”
“Ah sorry, I’m on my way.”
Thinking about those things has left me a bit spaced out. I then started to walk following Rin-chan to enter the said room.
“Oh…”
When I saw the room where Rin-chan was waiting, I subconsciously let out an admiration.
It was a room with a very particular layout, with more game monitors embedded in the walls than I could count.
===*
A note:
Although it was called a secret base, it was actually a proper office. It’s ready to be used by the staff that may or may not be stationed there.
And as matter of course, gaming device should shine in seven colors. {tln: no, it’s not}
By the way, the expression “landlord of a apartment” is exclusive to Nana. She thinks that all the building managers are landlords. Please excuse her for this.
Tl note:
Ok, I was sick, thankfully I managed to translate the chapter steadily.
The problem comes in proofreading, I had not enough concentration to proofread the translated chapter. So I post it on Patreon as it is. (currently BTOG is up to chapter 206)
So yeah, sorry for the delay, expect some daily chapter for a few days to cover the day of my absence.
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