Increasing the Number of Games

Magic Cores were merely an unexpected bonus. The urgent matter now was increasing the number of Game Tables.

There was only one Game Table in the entire Workshop. No matter how one looked at it, it seemed rather shabby.

Besides, the cost of a Game Table was not high.

After all, Angell had designed the game, written the core Runes, and used discarded Cores from the warehouse. The only expense was the table itself—the Alchemy Workshop could have made it too, but Angell was not good with handiwork, so he had no choice but to leave it to the Item Shop.

Early the next morning, Angell went to the Item Shop to place an order.

He ordered ten tables in one go, intending to spend every last coin he had earned yesterday.

"Hmph, meow. What will you do if no customers come today?" Mithril said darkly, though it did not stop him.

Angell had figured it out. This cat simply loved arguing for the sake of it.

He wondered whether the Workshop had added too much of the "Argumentative Spirit" ingredient when it created the cat, making every word out of the Black Cat's mouth contrarian.

As the cat's owner, Angell sometimes found it irritating, but when that argumentative nature was aimed at outsiders, it felt quite satisfying.

Inside the Item Shop, the Black Cat swished its tail unhappily and shouted at the shop owner:

"Forget our old friendship. This is already the second time we've ordered these tables. Can't you give us a discount, meow?"

This Item Shop was an old establishment as well.

During the Magic Era, adventurers heading out to explore would always visit an Item Shop first to replenish their Alchemy Potions.

Thus, this shop had been dealing with the Magic Gear Workshop since the Magic Era.

The current owner of the Item Shop was an old man. He knew the cat's personality well and merely chuckled. "You hardly gave discounts back then either! Besides, these custom tables need magical materials and special spell structures. Without a little magic-item crafting skill, they can't be made at all. Not to brag, but in all of Cecilia, only our shop still has this craftsmanship!"

"That's still too expensive! And you're far too slow. We need them urgently!"

"Can't be helped. We're a small handcraft Workshop. If you want speed, go to a factory. They can make hundreds a day, though whether they'll be usable is another question."

"Hmph, meow. It's not like you're our only option. Our Workshop already has a Universal Alchemy Furnace—"

After some haggling, the Item Shop owner insisted that the price of four silver per table would not change. However, since ten tables truly counted as a large order for a small shop, and Angell promised there would be more orders in the future, the Item Shop agreed to throw in one extra table with the purchase of ten. The tables would be shipped in five batches and delivered within two weeks.

Angell calculated that the deposit would leave him with plenty to spare, and he would also have enough time to make the remaining payments.

And after two weeks, the Workshop would have twelve Game Tables... no, Arcade Machines, enough to handle the shop's customer flow.

"But why does everyone call them Game Tables?" Angell could not help complaining.

He was starting to get led astray himself.

"I think Game Table is a more fitting name," Mithril said. "Though I don't know where you copied the original name from, fundamentally, what you made isn't really a machine, is it?"

That was true enough.

The circuit boards had been replaced with Rune Cores, leaving no mechanical components at all. The outer cabinet had also become table-shaped. Even other Transmigrators would have difficulty recognizing the thing as an Arcade Machine.

Angell did not insist. He merely sighed. "Fine! Game Tables it is!"

Enlise, the instigator of it all, knew nothing of Angell's inner struggle.

When she heard about the order, she sighed unhappily. "The shop will have twelve Game Tables!"

Unlike the Argumentative Cat, obedient little Enlise was not questioning Angell's decision. She was worried about his health.

—The tables could be custom-made, but Angell had to write the Rune Cores inside them himself.

Enlise looked worriedly at the dark circles beneath Angell's eyes. "A Rune Core for one Game Table takes a whole week. Mr. Angell, are you planning to spend twelve weeks without eating or sleeping like you did last week...? You'll die!" Her voice grew softer at the end, and her eyes reddened.

"I don't think I went without food, did I? Besides, it's not that exaggerated." Angell did not know whether to laugh or cry. "It only took so much time because I was designing the game at first. Now that the Rune Core is already designed, I only need to 'copy' it once."

Still, this was indeed the "drawback" of Rune Cores.

If these were real Arcade Machines, after Angell had written the program, the following game boards could be mass-produced. As long as he had enough capital, forget merely Cecilia City—he could sell them across the entire continent.

But Runes were not writing.

They were traces left behind by the operation of magic. Thus, every Rune had to be drawn stroke by stroke with Mana. They could not be copied or printed, and once the Mana ran out, they would be destroyed. Producing them took a considerable amount of time.

Angell said he only needed to "copy" them, but even such "copying" took an entire day.

At that rate, he naturally had no time to develop new games.

"So you're planning to fill an entire hall with Reindeer Jump Jump Jump?" Mithril looked ready to argue again. "You should know that meditation is the easiest thing to grow tired of. Don't think one successful presentation will solve everything forever!"

"Of course not," Angell said.

A shop with only one game would be far too lonely, would it not?

But wanting new games while having no time was a serious problem.

Fortunately, Angell had prepared for it long ago. "I just need to reskin the game."

"Reskin?" Mithril and Enlise said in unison.

They both thought of bloodstained reindeer hides.

"How would you reskin it?" Enlise asked quietly, looking somewhat distressed.

"How would you reskin it?" Mithril's heterochromatic eyes narrowed into slits, making it look especially sinister.

Angell looked at the two of them strangely, unable to understand why they had reacted so strongly.

Did they dislike reskinned games?

In his previous life, such games indeed did not have a very good reputation.

Such games directly copied popular titles, leaving the core gameplay unchanged. They merely found another artist, swapped out the art style, altered a few details, and released it as a new game.

But if one wanted to survive in the gaming industry, what game company had not produced a few reskinned games in its dark history?

Even the famous Nintendo had entered the game industry by making its first game as a reskin of the then-popular Space Invaders—a copycat, really. Though Nintendo failed miserably that time. To avoid wasting that unsold batch of game boards, it later made the hit game Donkey Kong, where Mario first appeared as the protagonist.

Still, reskinning could not be done carelessly.

Players were not fools. Identical reskinned games would only bore them.

Besides, Reindeer Picking Stars itself had extremely simple gameplay. Its refined visuals were its greatest feature, so the following reskinned games could not be too crude, lest they ruin its reputation.

Angell had long had a plan for that.

"I'm not going to copy them outright," Angell said. "I'm going to make these games into a Four Seasons Series. Reindeer Picking Stars will be Winter, while the others will be based around spring, summer, and autumn."

Seeing that the cat and loli before him still wore equally bewildered expressions, he sighed and snapped his fingers.

With that snap, a stack of drawings fell onto the table before Angell.

"These are the concept sketches I made," Angell said.

Enlise carefully accepted the drawings from Angell, then exclaimed, "They're so beautiful!"

The concept sketches were painted in gouache:

Spring was green. Emerald birds flew over the plains, chasing the notes played by a Bard;

Summer was red. A crimson Fire Dragon plunged into a volcano, seizing the Fire Demon Crystals hidden among the sparks;

Autumn was gold. Yellow Squirrels busied themselves in the woods, storing every fruit they could find;

Winter was white. Snow-colored Little Deer bounded through The Forest, collecting Ice Crystal Stars falling from the sky.

"When did you learn this?" Mithril looked over the concept sketches. Rarely, it did not argue, instead asking in surprise.

"I learned it a long time ago," Angell replied calmly.

He had learned it in his previous life.

More precisely, Angell had started out as a concept artist in his previous life. Later, he had gotten the foolish idea of making his own game, switched careers to become a planner in order to gain experience, and began his 007 Corporate Slave life until he finally dropped dead from overwork.

Mithril did not know Angell's past. It assumed he had learned it in the Mage Tower.

—Some Mages taught their apprentices to draw, though most used it for Magic Circles. The mainstream practice among Illusionists was that the more realistic an illusion was, the more powerful it was. They mainly imitated real objects and rarely studied painting.

Although Mithril had previously thought that the style of the beautiful girl and reindeer on the Game Table was somewhat strange, it had assumed Angell had simplified them due to time constraints. It had not expected him to create illusions through painting.

Enlise asked curiously, "Will they also hop around like the little reindeer?"

"Different animals have different traits."

Angell tapped the concept sketches.

At once, the little animals in the drawings came "alive" on the paper.

The little bird pecked at its wing. The little Fire Dragon looked around blankly, lifted its short legs to run, but tripped over its round belly and fell. It spat out a burst of fire, and the sparks landed on the fluffy tail of a nearby little squirrel. The little squirrel shrieked, frightening both the little bird and the Little Deer into flying—or jumping—into the air.

"So cute!"

Enlise could not get enough of the miniature world on the paper.

As Angell watched the little animals interact, a new inspiration came to him:

"The original game's gameplay is too poor. It only makes the reindeer jump around nonstop;

"We can use this opportunity to add something new;

"For example, Santa Claus—no, there's no Santa Claus in this world. But Winter has Holy Spirit Day, so it can be a Holy Spirit Fairy instead—the Holy Spirit Fairy can throw Candy downward, and different effects will occur when the little reindeer catches it;

"The other reskinned games can work the same way;

"We can add Easter eggs that better showcase the different seasons and the traits of the little animals..."

However, updating the gameplay would undoubtedly increase the workload.

The reskinned games had originally been meant to save time. This could very well extend the development schedule instead.

But Angell could not think of that for the moment.

—At times like this, Angell would always selectively forget that this was exactly how most games ended up delayed.

Angell wrote down his spur-of-the-moment ideas in his sketchbook and was about to head upstairs.

Seeing that he was about to work again, Enlise hurriedly grabbed the hem of his clothes. "Mr. Angell, you haven't eaten since you went out early this morning, and it's almost lunchtime. How about we eat first, and then..."

"...No need. You eat by yourself!" Angell replied. "Just save a portion for me and leave it by the door."

The next instant, Enlise's hand was empty, and Angell vanished.

He had used Teleportation to return to his room.

Enlise looked at Mithril in grievance. Mithril shook its head at her solemnly.

"Give up. He's beyond saving!"

Workaholics could not be cured.