Chapter 4

“And now for the third question! Oh my, this looks like a freebie?!”

“What does Amagi Hiiro, the leader of ALKALOID, enjoy doing as a hobby?!”

……

“Amagi Hiiro-kun is still a new face on the scene, so not many people know about him, but perhaps Shu-nii-san has had a chance to talk with him before since they both work for ES?”

“So how about it? Do you have any idea what his hobbies might be?”

Don’t call me “Shu-nii-san,” you imposter—I don’t even know the first thing about you.

“Don’t just chatter away with the event host, Shu-kun! Give him an answer!”

“If you don’t know the answer, you can ask me! I know pretty much everything about the idols at ES!”

……

‘S no use, Fake-Maddie. Onii-chan didn’t wanna get all jumbled up, so he up and muted ya. He can’t hear a single thing you say, ‘member?

“Well then, why did you even spend that money on me?! I’m a companion character, so it’s not even against the rules to listen to my advice!”

Ngah, he said he only gotcha ‘cause of how you look. An’ I mean, ‘course he did, since he loves the real Maddie so much an’ you look just like her.

But I guess he just don’t wanna be jerked around by some Maddie lookalike. So he’s coverin’ up his ears an’ just ignorin’ you entirely.

“He’s a more troublesome boy than I thought… I don’t see the point in being so obstinate.”

“Without my help, you’ll keep losing more and more battles and your SSG with them, and then Valkyrie will be doomed, you see?”

Ahaha, but it’s only a game though, right? Even if we lose here, we ain’t gonna be hurt in real life.

“Perhaps… But aren’t you two underestimating virtual reality just a little?”

“In this golden age of the internet, people prefer their 2D characters over real, living beings.”

“Or perhaps I should say they think characters are real, living beings.”

“The mistakes you make online can even weigh even more heavily than the mistakes you make offline.”

I getcha~ We—well, by “we” I mean Onii-chan—get callouts posted about us online all the time.

But that ain’t Onii-chan’s fault, ‘s everyone else’s, right?

“…? Mika-chan, I can understand why you’d want to defend Shu-kun, but…?”

That ain’t it. Why don’t y’all actually take Onii-chan’s advice? Our goals are totally different from all the other idols.

Obviously Onii-chan wants to win, and he hates losin’, but he’s also the type to set his own rules for the game.

Don’tcha think everyone oughta match up with Onii-chan instead?

“Hmph. If that’s the game you want to play, you’ll need power. And I’m trying to help you get it!”

“You little children don’t understand anything—So you ought to be good and listen to the grown-ups.”

“We created this whole world just for you, you know?”

—Donut shop hopping!

“What’s with you all of a sudden?! Do you want to eat some donuts, Shu-kun?!”

“Sorry, that is incorrect! Amagi Hiiro-kun’s hobby is collecting silver!”

Hmph. So you’ve thrown a curveball at me? The idols at ES have personalities that completely oppose their looks, so I tried working along those lines.

But unexpectedly, his hobby matches his stylish and attractive looks.

“Well, we’re not exactly sure what his hobby is.”

“We’re not even sure if the person himself wrote his own profile page for the official ES website!”

The information on that website is nothing but lies.

No, even if it were true… The people who manage idols so brazenly write down whatever they want the world to think is true.

For those who are familiar with the real people, it’s a total joke. Just look at Tenshouin or Sena’s pages on the official site—You’ll start wondering what kind of ideal, virtuous saints they are.

I love the beauty inherent to perfection, but we are all humans with deficits, flaws, and blemishes.

“Ahaha. You’ve got some pretty words there, but this is your third consecutive miss—It’s Valkyrie’s loss! You’ve lost the right to participate in BATTLE –Quiz Sovereign– for the remaining duration!”

I don’t care. The only reason we went along with this little game is because that fake Mademoiselle said she wanted to prove her usefulness.

We had nothing else to do, so we joined in on a whim.

“I honestly didn’t think you would mute me, Shu-kun…”

“I can’t be helpful to you like this—The only thing I’m able to do is give you advice, after all.”

Hang in there, Fake-Maddie. Onii-chan has the heart of a puppet master, so he don’t like bein’ tugged around by anyone else.

He’s had a bad experience with that before, so he’s extra careful about it now.¹

Takin’ on Maddie’s appearance just had the opposite effect ya wanted. Oshi-san hates fakes more than anything.

“…Well, It’s not as if I mind that.”

“It’s rather convenient for me, actually—exactly as planned. I never wanted to form some kind of connection with Shu-kun, after all.”

“Fufu. I thought I’d try to earn his favor by being useful to him, since he seems quite wary of me.”

“But it looks like it’s not that easy. I’m not exactly the kind of person who’s excited by a challenge, either.”

I knew it. You’re—