Idol Gunner [Yuri Villainess LitRPG]

It wasn’t until Tuesday morning that Kana was forced to sit down in Ryu Sakai’s office once more. It was then that she realized something. In the week that she hadn’t had to look at the man, she had been at relative peace. If not quite literally, at least in the case of not having to look at the man.

Now, scratching his beard as he tried to shuffle through multiple files, he had all of Velvet Beats waiting in front of him. Kelsey was on her phone, checking the group’s growing social media numbers. Jina, on the other hand, had been staring at the floor while sulking, which was consistent with her behavior since morning. The incident yesterday had clearly left its scars.

“Whoa. Look at that.” The blonde girl tried to whistle, but failed. Ignoring it, however, she continued. “Five hundred thousand. That’s big. Pink Beats only ever hit four hundred thousand on their main account.”

“What do you mean?” Kana asked, legs crossed. “Have we not been using the same account with a name change?”

“Nope!” She shook her head. “That one had one final post as a memorial for RiRi and Sanada, and then we asked people to come over to another account instead. About seventy-seven thousand ended up migrating.”

“Out of four hundred thousand? And you think that was a good idea?”

“Well, we have more now, alright? Don’t be a downer about it. It all worked out because you’re such a nice girl despite going through such terrible times recently.”

“Yeah. I am. So, you know, maybe I do get to complain about how we could have had nine hundred thousand by now instead.”

“Yeah, yeah. You are. I know. You are this, you are that…you’re everything.” Kelsey gasped. “It’s all about you, isn’t it?”

“Why are you doing this? What’s the point? Are you annoyed about not getting to play your last round?”

The blonde girl rolled her eyes, scoffing as she put her phone back down and leaned on the sofa. “I couldn’t care less about that farce of a game, Minami. It was just a fun way to pass some time, and that was it. Winning was meaningless, and…what happened was probably more important.”

Sakai finally cleared his throat at that comment, slamming his fist on the table as he did. “That important bit of fun that you all got into has cost us tenfold. Do you understand that!? Do you know how much work all the agencies had to put in by coming together and stopping the press from breathing a word about it!?”

“Please enlighten me,” Kana murmured under her breath.

“What was that, Minami?”

“Nothing, Sakai-san. Please just get to it already. It’s getting tedious and boring to be in this room every other day.”

“This is where we work, Minami. Where else would you be sitting?” The old man raised his eyebrow as he opened the laptop in front of him and started clacking away.

“I don’t know. Starbucks?”

Stopping the moment those words left her mouth, he groaned and turned the screen towards them. On it, looking very awkward in a glitchy, blurry mess of a video call was Yamazaki. He raised his hand and waved with a smile. Out of his audience, only Jina waved back. For this, she had finally raised her head and gotten back to her usual attitude.

Working on his files as usual, he prepared to speak up. To Kana, Yamazaki had become an almost ghostly presence over the last few days. Even seeing him on the screen made it feel like it had been forever. Yet, it hadn’t. She had seen him less than a week ago. Maybe the fact that he wasn’t in contact with her at every second of her life had caused that change.

Kana wanted Yamazaki back already. Just another reason to fuel her dislike for that old, fat man sitting behind the screen.

“The Coalition is in a tough spot.” The ex-manager started all of a sudden. “They aren’t making much progress when it comes to the Monster Dimension, and the situation with the press is making them uncomfortable. They believe that the eyes of the media are still on them in an effort to find some dirt. So, the expeditions are slowing down and becoming quite difficult to pull off.”

That was a shame, Kana thought. She had been looking forward to seeing what they would find in that place. The Four-Armed Demon they had killed back then had piqued her curiosity enough. But at the same time, the limitations made her snicker.

To imagine that this multi-trillion-yen conglomerate related to the government could not send agents to a single house was insane. All because some guy from the media was sitting in the opposite house and spying on the…

Kana blinked and found herself standing on that street. The one between the house where one of the doors to the Monster Dimension was, and the house where the ‘spy’ in her brain had been placed. She could still hear Yamazaki’s hand ruffling over the papers, and she could still feel the couch under her. But mentally, she had already checked out of Sakai’s office.

The question had been bothering her ever since she had made that promise to Marie yesterday. But now, a single visual joke in her brain had given her the beginning of an idea that could help fulfill it.

The spy in the other building peered with binoculars, trying to look into the house with the portal. One of the media members who was still trying to get revenge for the death of a colleague. Even as he looked into the house, though, he did not know what he was looking for.

That was the case with every single one of the locations they had eyes on. The media was not going to let go of the Coalition that easily, so they would keep any and all suspicious places under surveillance. So, why had she first imagined the house? Why not the ruins, or the field?

Yamazaki continued to explain the situation, “They have confirmed that the monsters do have societies, though. There is a very strict code of conduct with different sects, countries, and groups of some sort. There are laws, and rules, and there might even be a judicial system for when they are broken.”

“The last one shouldn’t be a surprise. If there are laws, there will be a court. What else?” Kelsey pointed out, following it up with a yawn to punctuate. It would have been fine if that had been directed towards Sakai. But her doing it towards Yamazaki ticked Kana off. She shook it off and focused on the idea unfolding in front of her first.

There were three things that needed to happen. They needed to take down MidoriLIVE to bring the Fair Play Committee down. Then, she needed to get rid of this kind image that the audience had created for her, while somehow not letting them leave. And all of that had to be done while the enraged press members were still looking for ways to bring the Coalition to its knees.

So, why was she thinking of this house? Why had her brain reached a conclusion without even telling her what it was?

“Don’t forget that you still need to work on your lyrics, by the way! You'd better submit them by the end of the week, or else we won’t be able to take advantage of this new wave of followers, got it?” Sakai suddenly shifted the conversation, “What is the song going to be about?”

“Uh…Sakai-san? I still have some information to share.”

“What is it, Yamazaki? What’s the information!?” The CEO snapped. “You’ve been sharing information for the last however many minutes, and it has just been the same. They didn’t find anything; that’s it. Do you have anything actually new to tell us?”

“Yes, I do. I was just getting to it little by lit-”

“Get to it right now. How about that?”

“Um…Lilac Shower is going through some major internal drama.” He did get to it immediately, though it was followed by the loudest jumbling of papers yet. Even with all those smarts, he still needed to rely on pages. It reminded Kana of that white-haired man from the Coalition. “There has been….um….some friction between Akiko Hara and uh, Kenji Tanaka. People say they’re not happy with each other thes-”

“Alright, Yamazaki. That’s it. I’m not happy with these girls either. They still haven’t given me the lyrics, even though the beats and steps for the performances are ready! That doesn’t make it news. That makes it work. Do you actually have anything to give us?”

Yamazaki went silent. Kana opened her eyes and looked at the screen. He had finally found the paper with the information on Lilac Shower, and now he was forced to keep it back down. Clumsily doing exactly that, he adjusted his glasses and waited for Sakai to ask another question.

She wiped away the image of the house from her mind. Whatever she was thinking would have to be focused on later. She could do something with the house, and she felt it. It had to be relevant in some way. But right now, she needed to put her efforts into staying angry at Sakai instead.

“So?” The old man screamed, “Do you have anything more, or is that it?”

“Well, I was going to expand on those topics a litt-”

“You got nothing, then. Just say that and get out.”

“No, wait! The system!”

“What about it?” Kana asked, stopping Sakai from adding any of his zingers to the statement.

The manager looked at her directly, nodding, “They have fixed it. It is in working order again, but they haven’t released it back to the agencies because of…” His voice trailed off as he kept his eyes on Kana.

She rolled her eyes and accepted the rest of the statement without it needing to be said. They hadn’t given them access because they were afraid that a certain someone might end up using it outside the Monster Dimension.

Nice of them to be so perceptive, Kana thought.

“And finally, about the Monster Dimension once more. Or rather, the Four-Armed Demon you fought.” He picked up a sheet of paper, “There were some samples of dried blood found in the area of the battle, so they analyzed them. Turns out that these demons are also carbon-based lifeforms. They also breathe oxygen, which…makes sense. Their intelligence levels, however, are weird. They are simultaneously not as smart as us, while also being much smarter than us.”

“Do you think you’re making any sense, Yamazaki? Also, we don’t need this information, so keep it to yourself. We’re here for the business. Not to be scientists, got it?”

“Yes…sir.” Yamazaki grimaced, rolling his eyes in annoyance. “It is still relevant to us beca-”

“Good morning, si-!” Naomi opened the door to the office and stepped in with a smile, only to pause as soon as she looked at the laptop. “Ah. Jun! How dare you show your face here? You ran away from me at the resort after the meeting, and now you’re here talking to them instead!?”

“Oh…Naomi.” He looked away from the camera, “How’s…uh…how’s Ya-”

“Your wife is fine!” The sister rushed forward at once, slamming the files she had brought on Sakai’s desk and leaning down to take over the entire camera’s view, “Your kids are not. How about you think of that one instead, Jun?”

“Yeah, well, you’re closer to them than you are to Ya-”

“Are you trying to call me childish? Is that it? You are trying to say that I am a little nobody who is closer to a child than I am to an adult? Is that it? Wow. You have fallen far. Your wife was right!”

“Wait, she said that? She said that I’m too far gone!?”

Sakai fumed in the back, almost heaving in anger at the scene unfolding. Kelsey, however, looked like she could not contain her joy. Happily watching the scene unfold with a wide smile on her face, she was maybe one step away from wrapping her arms around herself to stop it all from bursting out. Jina put on a slight smile as well, trying her best to still look sorry about yesterday.

“Yeah, she did. That’s exactly what she said! She was just disappointed in you as…as a human being! Do you realize what that even means? A human being. Not even a husband. What the hell have you been doing?”

“Oh…” He replied in despair, bending his head down in shame. “I…I am-”

“Failure. As a human being! Her words, not mine.”

Kana leaned back on the couch and cracked a smile as well. Keiko came to mind. It had been a while since they spoke, so maybe it was time to do that. That would be nice.

For that moment, Kana forgot about Marie Iwata, MidoriLIVE, the press, and all of that unnecessary stuff.