Chapter 1
About an hour later, at SANCTUARY
—Got it?
SANCTUARY is an amusement park where anyone can become an idol!
It’s as he says. To be more precise, it is an amusement park where one can experience the gratification of being an idol.
The gratification…?
Come over here, I’ll show you an example ♪
Sure thing! Dash da—
No! No dash! I’m not gonna dash one bit!
Oh, right! That’s probably what your order was, right?
Urghhh! I get so stressed out if I can’t run it off! Gwaghargh!
Wawah—Don’t flail around, Mitsuru-kun! You’re going to get hurt!
Yes, well. Right now the park is in its beta phase, which is to say it isn’t allowing general admissions quite yet.
However, there is still a small crowd, so I would ask that you don’t make such obtrusive movements.
I’m sure you wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt, would you?
Fufu. It’s true; there are quite a few people walking around. They all look familiar somehow… Could they be—?
Yep. Everyone walking around right now should be the idols placed in the Kanto region.
Correct. They are the ones who lost motivation and gave up, believing they had no chance to turn their luck around against fine.
Ohh, so that’s how it is. I’d been wondering what was going on in Kanto, since no one except for us has been very active at all anymore.
Yes. Perhaps they were thinking to cut their losses, or rather to get through SS without incurring more unnecessary loss. Such a decision is not incorrect.
It costs money to participate in idol activities or to even just stand on the stage.
All of the money earned in the Qualifying Rounds are in SSL$, and so all earnings will be confiscated as soon as the Qualifying Rounds end.
Oh, I thought there was a rule like that.
Yes. If you make great strides during these Qualifying Rounds, you will be rated highly by ES. As a result, your chances of earning money hereafter will increase.
However, because one of the Big Three was placed in the Kanto region alongside them, there is no possibility of their success, and so they must have retired early on.
They didn’t want to take a gamble they could not win and wisely stepped down, taking their futures into consideration.
What you mean is that only those kinds of people were put in Kanto, right?
If it were someone like Trickstar, they’d definitely just go on a rampage no matter how bad their odds were.
Right. At least I know that the idols I look up to wouldn’t back down so easily.
No I mean—It’s not about making money—It’s about making people happy, so it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose—I mean?
Cool your jets, Hajime-chan! Take some time to sort out what you wanna say! C’mon, breathe with me—Hee-hee hoo~!
Hee-hee hoo~! Nghh, I’m sorry I’m no good at talking!
Usually I’d leave it to Nii~chan and Tomoya-kun to say what they wanted to say, and I could just nod my head and smile.
But right now, it’s just Mitsuru-kun and me. Mitsuru-kun always has good ideas, but it’s hard to understand what he’s trying to say sometimes. So that means I have to get a grip and actually speak up.
Go fight win, Hajime-chan! I’ll always be your personal cheerleader!
Yes! Go fight win~!
Huh? Umm, so what were we talking about…?
You guys sure are cute, huh.
Uh? Thank you very much! You’re very cute too, Tori-kun~ ♪