Editing Rapid Fire King:Volume1 Chapter 1 (section)

===3===

Takamura watched as the Freeter and the Owner exchanged a glance.

He could just barely make out their voices from his position.

The Freeter gave a bitter smile.

“Yeah, thanks again for doing this.”

The Owner lifted the corners of his mouth into a smile.

“I know you won’t take no for an answer about these things, Take-san. So,” continued the Owner. “You’d better show us something worthwhile. It’s been a while since you were a real challenger. I know you said you’ve been training, but I still think this is going to be difficult.”

“But once this is up on the second floor, I won’t have an audience, right? So I want to do this while the atmosphere is right. This is the perfect stage for seeing if I’m truly back.”

“Well, it’s fine by me. This should draw in some customers at least.”

“If I can’t do it, I’ll give up and go to Akasaka.” The Freeter sighed and gave a smile that did not reach his eyes. “I’m serious.”

Then he sat in Super Rapid Fire’s seat.

The Owner stood behind the Freeter. The Yakuza stood next to the Owner, so they both had the perfect viewing positions.

Based on the familiar way the Freeter and the Owner spoke with each other, the Freeter was clearly a regular here. It was also obvious he was familiar with video games.

Takamura watched the three of them and the screen facing them.

He had one primary reason to watch instead of leaving the arcade.

…''He said he’s serious.

The Freeter had said it casually, but that word caught Takamura’s attention.

…''Serious.

''About what?'' wondered Takamura with a somewhat pouty tone.

This was an arcade and games were only ''for fun''. The word ''serious'' seemed out of place here. Wasn’t this a place where fun came first?

…''There’s nothing serious here, is there?

But at the same time, he had seen something a moment before.

This shoot ‘em up game called Super Rapid Fire had been set to Very Hard.

Everyone game overed in just a few minutes with these games.

So what was this Freeter doing here?

…''It’s weird.

This arcade had older games set up on the second floor. There were shoot ‘em up games there too, but they had all had their difficulty setting lowered from normal. That was so people could ''have fun with'' those older games.

But Takamura had never done very well even with those.

He generally game overed on the second stage.

Just like the players he had seen on the first floor, he was defeated in just a few minutes.

He had thought maybe he just needed practice, so he had played the same game for several days in a row, but he had never managed to get past the boss of the second stage.

That was his experience with an old shoot ‘em up game that’s difficulty had been lowered.

But the Freeter had set one of the current shoot ‘em up games to its highest difficulty.

…''Why?

''It can’t be,'' he thought.

…''Surely it couldn’t be that.

Was there really something worthy of the word “serious” in these games that were only meant for fun?

“It can’t be.”

His whispered comment did not reach even his own ears thanks to all the noise.

And at some point, he stopped caring about the surrounding noise.

He eyes were focused on the screen he could just barely see past the Freeter’s back.

He watched the screen and the Freeter’s back at the same time.

“Now then,” said the Freeter as he pulled a 50-yen coin from his pants pocket.

When he saw that, Takamura stuck his clenched fist in his own pants pocket.

He just barely opened his hand in his pocket to grab the 50-yen coin there.

“…”

At the same time, he heard the Freeter’s coin fall into the coin slot.

The added credit sound effect played.

Even in this noisy arcade, he definitely heard that piano melody emulated with electronic tones.

After a moment, the Freeter settled back into the chair and casually pressed the start button.

Then a gray runaway appeared from the top to the bottom of the screen.

It looked a lot like a highway and a red ship was moving along it.

It accelerated.

It floated.

At the same time, the Freeter began rapidly hitting the shoot button.

His ship shot out bullets.

And a question came to Takamura.

…''What’s going to happen?

“He sounded so casual, but if he really is serious about this…”

…''Can he do it?

Takamura and so many others had been no match for these games, but could this man defeat an even stronger version?

And if that would act as proof that he was serious about these games…

…''Can he really do it?

His heart asked that pleading question and the red plane’s battle began as if to answer it.

Speed and explosions filled the screen.