0014: An Oblivious Boy

A sudden tap to his head woke him up as he hastily wiped the drool off his face and tiredly blinked into focus. In front of him was Mei in her pink dreadlocks and blatant hyperactive energy but beside her was a man about just less than even his height. What made Izuku curious was the way he scratched his chin with fingers that looked like metal scoops.

'Huh, that kind of looks like…' His eyes practically bulged in recognition.

"Uh excuse me but are you Powerloader?" 

The man seemed almost pleased to be recognised with the grin that peered through his overgrown ginger hair. 

"That's me, kid. Here to check out what this gaming cafe is all about considering my little niece here kept raving about it."

Izuku was practically overjoyed that an actual hero was right here and clearly wanting to try out his store. He nearly choked on his own panic as he stammered out his next lines. "Well, we do have a couple games to offer. Currently in the VR systems we offer Resident Evil and Destiny 2. You need to pay the activation fee, game fee and hourly rates. But purchasing a membership will save you significant money in the long run."

"Well, I guess I'll just be trying it out today and for the game I might as well play Destiny 2 since Mei would not shut up about it."

Glancing his way to the pink dreadlocks and hyperactivity itself he saws she already herself down and opened up the payment function on the machine itself. A feature made for just the members of the service like Mei who had purchased the game and hourly rates membership together.

"How many hours are you looking to play? We do have a limit of six hours maximum per customer." 

"A time limit, that doesn't really seem efficient if you have paying customers willing for more." Higari mused as he had some insight into the drawbacks of virtual technology having done a couple studies on it back in his university years. 

"It's too limit mental fatigue and considering how immersive it can be. A longer duration may even cause some severe drawbacks in the long run."

"That's a fair point. Well Mei is going to be playing her money's worth so I'll pay for six hours and Destiny 2 in full."

Izuku nodded as he worked out the cost. "That'll be 5750 yen for the full day."

A curt nod as he pulled his card out and paid for it. "To be honest that isn't exactly the worst cost if this is really what Mei was talking about."

"The company behind the technology does pride itself on its innovations. But is it possible if I get your autograph?" 

"Of course, fair warning, can you lend me a pencil or a sturdy pen with these fingers," with that he clicked the metal ends of his fingers with a dry chuckle. "Aren't exactly made to hold things properly."

Izuku grabbed a metal pen he had in the drawer and passed it to him along with his notebook.

As Higari took his time writing out his signature he glanced at all the information, questions and analysis the kid in front of him had written about him in this notebook. Better yet it was labelled 'Hero Notebook 15'.

"Are you looking into entering the heroics or support industry?" 

This time Izuku returned a dry chuckle. "It's just a hobby, I'm not exactly built for heroics."

"Support should still be an option, it's not like it needs some special quirk to be good at it."

"That's true but after some personal stuff I decided to cut off from the entire aspiration."

"Guess I won't be able to convince you kid but this is some seriously good stuff here. Like this is some quality analysis work. It isn't on par with the best of the best but it's career level already and at your age that's impressive." He settled a business card on the desk. "If you ever want to look up internships later on or the sort you can just give me a call. Working for UA lets me get into contact with some high level analysts. Nothing on par with Hisashi Midoriya but they are still some of the best."

A small smile was all he could offer at the sheer praise of his father he heard from one of his favourite heroes. "That's honestly an amazing offer. If I ever want to try and get into the industry I'll give you a call. Now I do hope you enjoy your experience in the game."

Higari gave him a nod not bothering to push the boy any further in the moment as he sat down and began to play.

Izuku settled back in his seat and decided to let the rest of the day go by as he did some studying behind the desk. Thinking back to the whole discussion about the system and how it wanted him to unlock the game sync chamber. 

While doing that and looking for new heroes seeing a couple newly mentioned heroes including one from the U.S called 'Kirbin' a close copy to that old character from the game 'Kirby' considering his rathe round shape, pink aesthetic and the ability to eat through anything including rubble and debris as a rescue hero it's fitting. 

Though it was equally amusing that despite the Quirk Wars and everything else that happened a couple hundred years ago Nintendo somehow pulled through and retained all their copyrights.

He really needed to actually figure out just the raw amount of strength he had. A big issue for Izuku and his growing stats was lacking the opportunity to actually go to a gym or the sort to figure out. But he guessed that would be a discussion for later as he saw a familiar blonde figure walk in. Clearly she had been putting on muscle in recent days as he waved to her.

"Hey Melissa, are you up for some more games today?"

With a grin she nodded her head. "Yeah, I've been busy training for the recommendation exam at UA in a month or so."

"Isn't that still nearly six months ahead of the actual exam?"

"It is so if you don't get in during the recommendation you can always recover and try to get into the academy via the standard exam. It's also for students of other courses who apply for the academic scholarships."

Izuku nodded along and began to ring up her selection for the day before he realised she was still there. "Oh, did you plan on playing something different today?"

She nodded with a smile. "I was thinking of trying out Destiny 2."

"That's a good choice because of the amount of technology in it and the entire world is a lot bigger than Resident Evil. Though it centres around usage of abilities and powers."

"That actually sounds really cool to try out. How much is it to run the game?" 

"750 yen for a day or 15,000 yen for a month. If you play at least twenty days or more you pay it off. "

"That's true. I'll get the monthly membership considering I do play often enough to make it back and it really doesn't cost much to me. Anyways Izuku do you do anything outside of working at the cafe?"

"Not really I have to work everyday considering I am obligated by the franchise. And at the moment I have to manage it without another employee considering they want me to at least run it for a period of ti-"

As Izuku was about to finish the statement he heard the System chime. "Users are permitted to take days off and you can have them incorporated. Considering overlooking the work schedule I recommend setting Wednesday as the day off due to it being the quietest day of the week for work."

'Are you sure?'

"Certainly."

With that Izuku regained his focus with a chuckle. "I can probably take next Wednesday off. It's usually quiet and after this week I am overdue on a break"

Melissa's eyes lit up as she smiled. "Well you already have my number on record. How about you send me a message so I can save your number? If you like, I'd love to hang out next week."

Izuku in his pure bliss of ignorance nodded. "I'll send you a message later if you'd like and we can decide what you want to do on Wednesday."

She gave a softer smile. "That's really sweet."

"It'll be nice to hang out with a friend."

His reply almost made her feel startled as Melissa just realised she was friend-zoned. 'Ow… is he really not picking up my signals? No, that's not it, he probably wants to take things slow. That makes more sense.' As she rationalised being friend-zoned she walked off to one of the booths and signed in as she began to play. 

As she went off Izuku smiled at the idea of making another friend and one he could even hang out with regularly as he saved Melissa's number to his phone. 

And thus he went quietly back to musing to himself now a step closer to finishing his mission.