Chapter 10 - Video Games

The day following the after-school date. The duo was once again at Takei's house after school. Akari was lying on Takei's bed reading through shoujo manga while Takei was going through his homework assignments. He was looking for an excuse to have a break, but the goddess was already ahead of him.

"Takei, I'm bored~"

"I get it, I get it. There's a game we could do if you want to play?"

"Please!"

Takei smirked and brought out a video game case he had hid under his desk. "This new RPG monster slaying game came out the other day, do you want to play?"

Akari's eyes began to shine as she eyed the case."Definitely, please let me play!"

"Alright, it's co-op so we can do the main story together. Have you played a game like this before?"

"Nope. It looks fun though, so I'm willing to give it a try!"

The cover of the game case had several monsters from Norse mythology on it with the default characters in the center of the graphic. Characters were entirely customizable by the player so you didn't have to use the default characters if you didn't want to. This game was a part of an ongoing franchise and happened to be the fourth installment in that said franchise, earning the name of Monster Slayer IV.

Takei plugged in two controllers to his gaming console and slid the game disk into the console. Monster Slayer IV began to launch and install updates which took no less than a minute.

The menu for the game suddenly appeared on the television screen which resulted in Takei clicking on the Play Campaign option. He then clicked on CO-OP and reached the character customization screen.

The user interface shifted into split screen mode which resulted in Takei controlling the left side of the screen while Akari controlled the right.

"Alright, you can set up your character's appearance here. You can change anything from hair, height, race, gender, and anything you can really think of."

Akari didn't seem the least overwhelmed by Takei's explanation, rather she seemed very excited. "Okay, let's start customizing then!"

One of the reasons why Monster Slayer was such a beloved franchise was due to the customization in the game. There were virtually unlimited ways for you to customize a character. Besides nudity or anything inappropriate, you can control each part of your character all the way down to a strand of hair.

Takei wasn't the biggest fan of character customizers that were super deep and intricate, so he made his character as simple as possible. Black hair, average build, and average height, that was the most Takei had customized his character. Whether it be by coincidence or not, his in-game character resembled his real life person.

Takei looked to his side and saw Akari was fiddling with the character customizer as intricately as possible. Akari's character resembled her as well, but it had an enormous amount of detail and glamour that was personally crafted by her.

Takei was scared of the monster that he had created. "Uh, hey... are you done yet?"

Akari looked at him as if he was crazy. "Not yet, give me a little bit more time."

"Gotcha..."

That "little bit more time" turned to five minutes, then five minutes turned to ten, then ten minutes turned to fifteen. Akari didn't stop customizing her character until Takei forced her to stop.

Takei was a bit shocked to see how far Akari had gone with customizing. "Hey, it'll be next week once you finish customizing. We won't end up playing today if you don't stop customizing right now."

Akari finally snapped out of her trance and noticed that she had lost control. "Oh, I'm sorry... I didn't mean to forget what we were here to do..."

Takei felt bad for making Akari feel dejected, but he knew it was the only way to make her regain focus.

"Alright, are you ready to start?"

"Yes, I'm all ready!"

"Okay, I'm clicking start."

Takei clicked a button on his controller to tell the game he was ready to start. The START button lit up for a second before it disappeared. Then, the game loaded into a fresh new glorious landscape that made the duo feel as if they were sent to another world.

---

Akari's Affection Meter: 30% (unchanged)

If no events happen to influence her affection towards Takei, the meter will not change. This mini-arc will last until the next chapter and set up the next few chapters after that.

Apologies for today's shorter chapter, next chapter will be normal sized.