Chapter 177: MTC Game Hall
Chapter 177: MTC Game Hall
It looked exactly like the Creature he had imagined.
“Killer...”
Once his shock subsided, admiration immediately slipped out.
Then the Flame Lizard summoned by Brita across from him also displayed a realistic form with dynamic flames.
And what was even more amazing was the sight of those two Creatures fighting.
Since their combat power was fixed, the result was already decided, but the two illusions charged at each other and engaged in a fierce battle.
The Orc swung its weapons with difficulty, while the lizard dodged and spewed fire.
“This is insane...”
The children stared at it in a daze.
The match ended in an instant. Flames covered the Orc’s upper body. The lizard was also wounded by the axe, with flames dying out here and there, but it survived and firmly held its position.
This illusion also applied to magic, not just Creatures.
< Berserk >
When Rokta played this card, the Creatures on his field writhed, then red energy streamed from their eyes as they took aggressive stances. A faint red mist-like aura also flowed around the Creatures.
In truth, even if similar ancient magic was used, such visual effects would not appear. However, because the illusions were created based on the player’s imagination, they were expressed in this way.
“Oh. This calculates automatically too.”
Rokta was not used to calculations, so when he played the game, he usually took out a separate notebook and wrote the numbers down in it. Even now, he reflexively took out his notebook, only to see that the combat power values on the cards had changed.
The numbers looked distorted and glowing, unlike the original writing, but they were still readable.
And in reality, the combat power increase applied properly, instantly devastating Brita’s field.
“Ah! Berserk is way too broken!”
Brita lamented as his Fire Giant and Fire Mage exploded, collapsed, and fell without being able to resist properly.
Berserk was certainly a powerful card. It amplified combat power and, on top of that, granted Charge to offensive Creatures. Besides its practical ability, it also suddenly changed the Creatures’ abilities and ruined the opponent’s calculations.
Because it was so powerful, it was not a card that appeared easily. Moreover, this group was still made up of students, so they had little money and could not buy card packs often. Rokta was truly lucky.
Damn it.
Brita was troubled after the Creatures he had worked hard to lay down were wiped out. Since he had placed everything in his hand without holding back, thinking he would rush forward, he had no way to respond on the next turn.
At a time like this, the only thing he could use was the Prayer Meta.
Please!!
He could only hope for something like a Flame Whale. Even if a Creature like Flame Whale appeared, it would merely endure for one turn, but right now, he desperately needed that one turn.
Then his turn came around, and the card on top of the MTC Player disappeared before soon appearing in his hand position. Brita carefully picked it up while repeatedly praying. The moment he checked what card it was, his expression changed at once.
“Heh heh heh...”
“Huh? What did this bastard draw?”
Rokta felt ominous at Brita’s laughter. So he thought about which of Brita’s usual cards would be threatening in this situation.
But that thought did not last long. Brita immediately held out the card with a triumphant expression.
< Unstable Armageddon >
“Huh?! Fuck?!”
As soon as the card was held out, black clouds began gathering above the table. An ominous red light leaked through the clouds. The group unconsciously shifted their gazes toward the ceiling.
It began with a black-burning meteor falling.
They saw the illusion of a vast city evaporating all at once. Then enormous blue lightning filled the space between heaven and earth, burning everything away. Blood-red rain polluted the remaining living creatures.
< Destroy every player’s field, hand, and terrain. >
Rokta’s Berserk was also a good card, one that could be called 1.5-tier, but Brita’s Unstable Armageddon was a definite tier-1 card. It blew away all his own cards too, but no matter what kind of build the opponent had stacked up, it could render everything useless in a single move.
“Ah...”
Rokta was devastated.
Normally, he would have shown a more dramatic reaction, but the illusion of destruction he had just seen was so impressive that he was simply dumbfounded.
To repeat, MTC Player’s illusion magic was based on the user’s imagination. And subjects like destruction were extremely common and were often seen even in dreams, so they were reproduced with greater vividness and scale.
In this way, Final’s group spent that day busier admiring the illusions shown by MTC Player than caring about victory or defeat.
This was not an impression limited to Final’s group.
< It was seriously amazing. >
< You have to go! Win or lose, just seeing the illusions is insane. >
< No, seriously, how did they even make that MTC Player? >
Since anything was especially shocking the first time, people were deeply impressed by the illusion magic used for the game’s effects.
In truth, this was merely an additional effect, but humans tended to be dominated by visual information, so it was bound to become a hot topic at first.
Of course, this was not a bad thing for Ras. Whatever the reason, this intense reaction and interest led to an increase in visitors.
“Chairman! We need to open additional branches right now!”
Georg judged that now was the time to row like mad while the current was with them.
At first, he had worried whether they were opening too many stores at once, but when the open branches were bursting every day and endless requests to open branches poured in through Spirit Space, letters, phone calls, and more, it was only natural that his thoughts changed.
“Will that be all right? Right now, they’re going wild over that illusion magic, but strong stimulation also tends to become boring just as quickly...”
This time, Ras hesitated.
Ras also thought the illusion magic was cool, but perhaps because he was a mage himself, he focused more on the automatic calculation system. That was why he worried that the current reaction might be fleeting.
If this heat cooled all at once like a bubble, the stores they had hurriedly expanded would become empty, and that would likely create the impression that its popularity had fallen.
But it was not as if Georg did not know this.
“Yes. Of course, the current reaction will decrease. But the response is so strong right now that the incoming population is enormous. Because of that, it will take quite a long time before the heat completely cools, and right now, we need to accept as much of that incoming population as possible! That’s how we can carry this boom for a long time.”
“Hmm...”
Hearing it, it sounded reasonable.
Those who would leave would leave anyway. Rather than fearing that, it seemed wiser even for the future to accommodate as many people as possible while they were just starting to feel interest and enter, expanding the overall scale as much as possible.
And later, once the heat cooled a little and the number of people decreased, they could simply fill that space with something else. They were already planning to create spaces inside the game halls where cards could be traded, and if necessary, they could add other board games or even run another business like a café alongside it.
“Good. But what about MTC Player production volume?”
“Yes. I’ve already checked the inventory. They say the production side is also becoming skilled faster than expected, so if necessary, they can increase production by around twenty percent.”
Georg had apparently not come simply saying they should expand stores without any countermeasures, but after doing his own calculations. Well, if he could not do at least that much, he would not have been able to keep his position as the head of the IP Management Team.
“Understood. Let’s first move up the opening dates for locations where we’ve already secured sites.”
“Yes!”
“But also prepare plans for when the heat cools later.”
“Ah! Understood.”
And the additional store openings were announced through Spirit Space.
Naturally, users welcomed it enthusiastically.
< Yes!!! My neighborhood is included in the second opening!! >
< Does that mean we can use MTC Player in our neighborhood now? >
< Fuck, I guess it really won’t come all the way to this rural dump... >
That was how intensely popular MTC Game Hall currently was.
It was to the point that among people whose neighborhoods did not have a game hall, MTC trips, where they took trains to nearby cities to play, were becoming trendy.
Compared to Earth, transportation in this world was fairly underdeveloped. Considering how difficult it was to travel to another city, this showed just how great the interest in MTC Player was.
After all, even in a world where magic was natural, ordinary people almost never encountered illusion magic. That meant the sensation ordinary people felt was likely similar to what people on Earth would feel.
Not long afterward, the second round of openings took place, and those stores also began bursting with people.
This fanatical heat became advertising in and of itself.
Even people who were not usually interested in games would wonder what it was if a store in the middle of a downtown area drew an enormous crowd.
Moreover, if they heard that it was a familiar card game rather than a computer game or electronic game, which still felt somewhat distant to ordinary people, and that it included mysterious magic, most people could not help feeling interested.
Thanks to that, MTC Game Hall drew in people from various social groups, beyond Meta Soft’s existing customer base of young people and children.
This meant it was beginning to gain mass appeal.
Appealing to other social groups might not sound like much, but it was truly enormous. On Earth, only after the mass platform called smartphones appeared and the younger generation that had played games grew into adults over more than a decade did games barely manage to escape the culture of only certain groups.
And that was how the market could grow.
No, there was no need to look far. One of the reasons Meta Soft had grown rapidly was that it had not remained only in the computer game market, but had also targeted the arcade game side.
Capturing another social group meant the market grew by that much. It was a simple story.
No matter how well something was made, if the total market population was one million, its limit was that one million. But if the total market population was one hundred million, even one percent of that could produce the same sales, and reaching ten percent would immediately make it ten times larger.
“The card game called MTC is creating an enormous craze.”
Ras was watching TV at the mansion when the news appeared, and he fixed his gaze on it without realizing it.
“Aren’t they talking about our game?”
Ella also pointed at the screen in surprise, turning back with eyes as wide as saucers.
In the end, MTC had even made it onto public broadcasting.
No matter how large Ras’s company had grown, society’s perception of games was still not very good, so games were almost never shown on TV.
However, MTC had gained enough popularity to be called a social phenomenon, so the television side could no longer ignore it.
“It is currently estimated that more than twenty million people are playing this game.”
It was exactly as the announcer said.
Before the game halls opened, the number was around four million, but once MTC Player created a craze, starter deck sales exploded.
Of course, some existing users likely repurchased decks because they wanted to try different decks, lost them, damaged them, or had other reasons. But even taking that into account, the fact remained that the number of players had increased tremendously.
“This is an MTC Game Hall. It probably will not appear on the screen right now, but we are told that the people sitting at the tables can see illusion magic.”
The screen showed the game hall packed with crowds.
Ras had personally seen this sight several times, but seeing it on TV felt different.
Footnotes:
Translator’s Notes:
Prayer Meta — Gaming slang for a situation where a player has no real strategic option left and can only hope to draw or receive the exact answer they need.
Public Broadcasting — Refers to general television broadcasting accessible to the broader public, unlike niche game magazines or gamer communities.