Content warning: Predatory monetization, some more homophobia, death threats.

I sigh.
It is Sunday and I just so happened to have the time to start learning for my D-Wheel license exam. And the first thing I learned, was that I could not possibly ever pay for one. Perhaps after I've worked a year or two on research and did not spend any of my money for anything other than rent or food, I might have just enough to buy that one lottery ticket, that by sheer luck earns me the amount that I would need to pay upfront to even take the exam.
But let's be optimistic and assume, that I'll get that money somehow at some point. I should still get myself familiarized with the theoretical part before then. And considering, that I haven't had a formal education in duel science and the few traffic laws I picked up by sitting next to Chris won't help me much, sooner is probably better than later.
Farewell, my drunken self after work hours, I have a lot of learning ahead!

Still, I'd like to keep up my social links… or rather establish ones in the first place. To that end, I need to be a little more outgoing at work itself. But how exactly am I supposed to do that? The supreme negotiation abilities, that landed us the arrival of new cards in about two weeks, were actually Yuri's lily perfume. And the effects it has on women is devastating, so I'm avoiding her as much as I can right now.
The first person, that springs to my mind, who I actually want to keep in contact with – apart from Chris, of course – is Kazuko. I know both her and Hyona from karaoke and she seems to be the more talkative one of the two. I look around for her office and find, that they share one. I'm still not quite sure, what to think of this "two girls, one office" concept, but oh well, it works out for me this time. I knock on the door and enter. "Hello, there, I wanted to ask if I can…"
As I enter, I see something quite disturbing. While Hyona's eyes were glued to her screen with extreme attention, Kazuko's eyes were glued to her screen with extreme attention. Her smartphone screen however. I already know the game she is playing by its smell. It's none other than the infamous RAID: Shadow Legends.
I have somewhat of a past with this game. After I failed to get a job, I looked for a way to pass the time while immersing myself in some other activity. At the time RAID: Shadow Legends seemed like the ideal replacement. You pointlessly grind hours and hours without end, get daily bonuses just for showing up, and end up sinking an enormous amount of cash in less than a month. I got over it, when I realized, that Duel Links existed. But still, both games feel much like work in some respect, and to someone like me, who couldn't find a job, this feeling of having your labour exploited for monetary gain was something, that I ended up paying for.
Now, Kazuko is in exactly the same situation as I am, and yet I am unable to help her, because the conditions that led to her being there are probably different from those I had at the time.

I let out a huge sigh. Alas, I alone will never have the power to stop her from what to her seems probably to be "just a game". Maybe Hyona might be better suited for this task.
"I-Inoue-shi?" Ahh, it appears she's noticed me.
"Can you help me with Kazuko?" I ask.
"Sorry," she responds. "I'm waiting for BTS' new song to go live, so I can listen to it."
Can't she listen to that song in the background? I refrain myself from asking – who knows what she would do, were I to insult the holy word that is their lyrics. "Okay, then have fun doing that, I guess."
I could ask Yuri for her help, were her methods not at least part of the reason I'm avoiding her in the first place. From what I've heard through rumours, Emily's behaviour still hasn't been fixed since then. And Yuri's justification for not doing so? "For most of those involved, it's better than the alternatives." Yeah, right.
Since Yuri is a no, Ryouko is out of the question as well. No, wait, Ryouko is a no even if Yuri wasn't. Yandere-types like her are a literal pain to deal with and never worth the risk.
Ciel Malmström is also a no. I'm not sure why, but he hated my guts ever since I got here. It has become mutual since.
Who else could I visit?
People will probably not appreciate me walking into their rooms with no prior knowledge of them or their field whatsoever. In other words, I have to restrict myself to Ms. Nakano, who according to Yusei once did 625 duel experiments. Yep, that's the extent to which I know what happens in this lab. Sad, I know.
I quickly find Ms. Nakano's room. Apparently her given name is Nani, so she doubles as Ms. Pizza Hawaii. Two weeks ago, she was on vacation, so that should have probably ended by now. I place a few knocks on her door.

A slightly tanned woman with brown eyes and hair wearing a Hawaii shirt under her lab coat greets me with an "aloha" as she allows me to enter.
"So, you're Ms. Pizza Hawaii," I blurt out my thoughts, before I correct myself to "Ms. Nakano."
Ms. Nakano giggles. "And you must be the new one. I hope Yuri was gentle."
"Huh?"
"Nevermind, I had assumed she'd pop your cherry." She pauses for a moment before laughing. Clever pun, Ms. Nakano, very clever, 6 out of 9.
"I was told your research was similar to mine… something about 625 duel experiments." With that, our conversation is directed away from my sexual non-adventures in the lily garden and back to science… hopefully.
Ms. Nakano looks at me with a sharp gaze. "You're the one, whose idea it was to add even more mechanics, aren't you?"
"Y-yes," I said, figuratively shrinking before her.
"Do you have any idea what kind of pain it is to account for such a thing?" It seems I have hit a nerve without knowing. "Just look at this sketch. How the fuck are you supposed to 'overlay' cards on a duel disk? What the hell is an 'overlay unit'? Why are 'levels' called 'ranks' all of the sudden? Who designed this piece of shit Summoning method?"
As much as I'd like to take credit for Konami's work even in the face of the exact criticism people threw at them back in the day, it would not be fair to do so. "I merely made a suggestion. The powers that be decided the specifics."
Ms. Nakano sighs. "Fine, I suppose Kaiba Corporation is desperate for money itself. So… I take it you're interested in Duel Robot AI?" She throws some large stacks of documents on her very disorganized desk around for about a minute, effectively shuffling the whole arrangement. Then, as she picks up one of them, her eyes begin to sparkle. "There it is." She hands me a fairly thick, stapled stack of paper. "Here, please. While it's quite outdated, this paper started it all."

"An Evolutionary Theory of Duel Robots" by Nani Nakano, subtitled "Applying Genetic Algorithms to children's card games for fun and profit". As expected, the title is already confusing enough for me to not understand any of it. Well, perhaps with the exception of the words "children's card games", "fun" and "profit", but I have no idea how she defines any of them. Ahh, that's going to be a pain. "How are duel robots even made?" I sigh.
"When a man and a D-Wheel love each other very much…" For some reason, Nani does not conclude that sentence. "Wait a minute, why do I have to explain that to you? Are you by any chance on the physics side?"
The physics side? This lab has sides? "Uhm… no?"
Nani lets out a very heavy sigh, the heaviest sigh that I ever heard someone sigh until now. "Which professor let you get to a degree without even understanding that much then?"
"Well, my degree is in economics, so…"
Ms. Nakano goes completely silent, as her brain processes that information. Economists like me are quite rare in this lab, it seems – she did mention physicists as if they're one of only two big groups. What is the other group then? "Can you at least program?"
"I can barely do my presentations."
I realize on my own, that I'll not be helping Ms. Nakano anytime soon. Back to Chris it is.

"Wow, you've been busy." Chris was not busy herself, apparently. She did have some spreadsheet open with some data about something, but I'm not quite sure, what that is. Perhaps it's related to the tests she lets me run, but honestly speaking, I wouldn't be able to tell that from the way she organizes her tables. Still, I wonder how she even pitched that idea to the others… or is this perhaps her private research on company time?
"Sadly not. I'm just getting myself familiar with all my seniors."
"Quite hard if you don't have lunch break, isn't it?" Chris saw right through me. "To be honest, I'm not even mad about that. Yuri works so diligently, it's hard to fault her. By the way, I told her you'd take the usual."
"Thanks." That's right, Yuri takes our orders as if this was a maid café. As such, we don't get to speak to her other masters besides those sitting at the same table. "Say, does Yuri allow photo shoots?"
"Why? You interested?"
"Not for myself." That said, I was wondering if she allowed photos of herself to be taken. Thinking back about how this is a normal thing for such cafés, I am of course reminded of Ryouko's words on the matter – that Yuri does not like to stand among photos of herself. If she allowed photos to be taken, that would probably count as moe. If not…
Chris clears her throat. "It'd be better, if you were a bit more honest with yourself."
"I really don't swing that way!" Once again, I find myself having to clear up something, that should already have been cleared up when that scheming bitch lured me into kabedonning her. But alas, Chris was not willing to listen to me at the time and she sure won't listen to me now.

I turn my back to Chris and plan on heading out again, but as always, Yuri had the obnoxious ability to appear out of nowhere and stumbles over me with plates full of hot food and some drinks. Naturally, as the two of us collide and she ends up tripping over me, her chest hits my face with full force, quickly knocking me out.
"-sama! Ojou-sama! Ojou-sama!" As I wake up, I am greeted by the sight of Yuri's breasts from below while she fans me some wind from the side and Chris stands by with a glass of water. Naturally, neither of them made any effort of cleaning away the food, that was wasted in the process.
"Drink some. Don't worry, it's clear." I do as she says.
"Phew, we barely managed it." Yuri wipes some sweat off of her forehead after having stopped her fanning. "But now my arm is sore and my legs went to sleep."
"You're not used to seiza?" Chris asked. "I always assumed, they'd teach that at an all-girls school."
"Which girls' school are you talking about?" Yuri asked back. "Who even sits that way in this day and age? That's like torturing someone."
"I do, easily." I get up and demonstrate it to Yuri. "My friends were members of the kendo and archery clubs. I've gotten used to this position by watching them."
Yuri plants her head in my crotch. "Hey, stop that!" I can feel her breath in a place she very definitely should never ever have gotten close to. Fortunately, I can still walk while sitting, allowing me to politely move away – even through sauce – and politely let her head slam on the floor.
"Ouch!" She falls flat on her face, just as I had planned. Time to clean up the mess, that she's made.

One cleaning session of about half an our later and Yuri still has not moved from her spot. Chris convinced Ryouko somehow to take care of her other deliveries, but now that she was finished with them, she entered our office to find what had happened to her.
"So, you dare hurt my sweet Yuri and then order me around?" Naturally, she didn't take it well. I quickly find myself in her grasp with a knife held against my neck.
"Calm down! Killing her won't help Yuri in the least." A rather convincing argument from Chris. "You know quite well, how touching her can be dangerous in a lot of ways."
Dangerous in a lot of ways? Is she making an argument about how her breasts make up a larger part of her torso than her torso? If so, then I'd have to agree.
"Her body would make for a better pillow than the floor, however." This is bad. Ryouko is seriously angry at me this time – I doubt I can make it out of this alive.
"Don't go murdering your coworkers. Not even Yusei would forgive you that. And you know Yuri wouldn't want it." Once again, Yusei courageously comes towards my rescue. Well, not Yusei, but the cool-looking man from the time "nothing, thankfully" happened. As he transported Yuri away, I noticed, that he was not only tall, but also very muscular and that his spiky dark-blue hair had some kind of otherworldly appeal, that matched neither 5D's nor the world I came from.
"Ugh… fine." Ryouko withdraws her knife and heads to the kitchen with that man. Who was he, and how was he so able to control her?
"You should really thank Kaito the next time you meet him." Thanks to Chris, I at least have a name. "Now back to work."
Work follows, and it seems I finally got the permission to check out the tools by which I would be able to test my changes to the game. After completing a six hour installation job, that is. There is no way this would be done before I'll have to call it a day, but if I start it now, I can maybe get to test it tomorrow in the morning rather than the afternoon.

My hopes are the first thing to be crushed on the next morning, as the installation process turned out to be an "all or nothing" deal. I sigh as I restart it.
"Hmm, quite interesting," Chris says to herself.
"What?" I ask her.
"I'm starting to notice certain patterns… It would probably be better to have other testers."
Wait, she only considered having more than one tester now? How serious can she be with her research? Then again, already noticing patterns after not even a week of daily usage is not something to laugh at either. But it's not really that surprising either. I don't put much thought or fantasy into the procedure – merely imagining the device to be Yusei's Junk… Warrior already does it for me to be completely honest. "Do you have anyone in mind?" I ask. "Last time, you said it's me or Yuri, and you didn't want Yuri to have it."
"I still don't." Chris sighs. "But perhaps there are other potential candidates."
"Like who?"
"Hmm, let's see." Chris flips through some pages in a notebook – the paper variant of a notebook to be exact. I wonder what she's been writing about us. "Ahh, yes, I've excluded Hyona, because I don't care enough about BTS to make her seven different ones in the right size."
"The right size?" Is she referring to… "Is that even public knowledge?"
"It is not?" Chris asks in surprise. "What are the K-Pop stans doing if they don't even know that?" No, no, no, what are they supposed to do? Get close enough to their idols, so that they can whip out their Junk… Warriors and hold a tape next to them while also forcing an erection through whatever possible means? That would at least be sexual assault, if not outright rape depending on how it develops. "In that case, one massager may even be enough. Lucky me." Phew, am I glad, that was solved. "But still, to think, that no one knows the size of their hands… that's bitter." She was talking about hands? "Aren't there handshake events and stuff like that?" Even if there are, I find it hard to imagine, that anyone would use them to determine their idol's hand size rather than… you know, shaking them.
"If you're going for an ergonomic design, wouldn't it be better to have Hyona's hands as reference?"
"Perhaps you're right." I'm glad that I am, but also worry, what idea she would have had in mind otherwise. Not that it matters any longer.

Chris goes to deliver the massager and all is well. Back to my own research, then. While I'm still waiting for the software to install, I wade through floods of emails asking me to describe the Xyz mechanic and certain interactions with great detail. Having dealt with it myself for multiple years, it did not seem that big of a deal to me at first, but there were a number of angles to consider, that I hadn't so far.
For one, the problem of using them in a duel at all. Unlike in my world, where duels could take place on a table of appropriate size and shape – and even some of less appropriate size and shape, or by streaming your table to someone remotely while making sure you don't hold your hand into the camera – in this world, people expected automated dueling systems both in day to day usage and big arenas alike. As a result, the implementation of such systems had to be perfect, otherwise chaos would ensue. Such a perfect implementation was not just born out of two weeks of labour and yet, that was our job.
Apart from that, there was also the problem of duel robots, that Nani so kindly reminded me of with at least one mail per day. Apart from implementing the summoning checks correctly as in the duel disk case, complicated logic is needed to understand the concept of overlay units in terms of card economy, as the units are both present and non-present on the field at the same time.

Chris returns with a sigh. "Everything fine?" I ask, even though I'm not currently in a situation, in which I could immediately help her if it was not.
"Of course not. How could I forget that BTS recently released an album?"
"I could have told you."
She sighs once again, then goes on a rant about Hyona's unhealthy obsession with the boy group, that I only half listen to as I am still busy writing emails and stuff. Apparently no one – except for Kazuko perhaps – can even talk to her for at least a week after they released a new album, as she has to listen to each and every song over and over again and again nonstop without stopping… okay, perhaps I did listen to her.
I sigh in response to her. "Too sad Yuri can't just give her a boob pillow and magically cure her from her gaming addiction." Both of us share a laugh at Kazuko's expense.
"I should give her a boob pillow? As you wish!" Since when was Yuri here? Well, whatever. Surely nothing bad will come from… oh yes, something bad might come from it! What if Yuri suffocates Kazuko with her H-cups? There's also the chance of her passing a sickness to her but… well, after what I've seen today already, I can't really expect her not to do that anyway. Is anyone here even aware of this danger? I seriously doubt it.
"We should probably check, whether Kazuko is safe," I declare my decision towards Chris.
"Nah, I'm sure she's fine. She might even be magically cured from her addiction." Chris winks at me, knowing that I can hardly go back on my own suggestion, even if it would be the right thing to do.
No! To hell with that, Kazuko's safety is at stake! But I still have to phrase it in a way, that assumes this stupid plan to succeed. "In that case, shouldn't we use this as a chance to talk to Hyona while we still can?"
Chris sighs. "Fine, but you do it." She gives the box with the device in question. "Make sure not to lose it on your way."

Another box with strange ad slogans in my hand, I rush to Kazuko's and Hyona's office… or perhaps I walk in a normal pace, because others are there as well and running in hallways is dangerous. It seems that Ryouko as well as some others are on their way to the social room – to think that it is used outside of formal occasions like my introduction… perhaps I should check what's up there once I'm done with this.
I enter the office and to my surprise encounter Kazuko actually doing real actual work on using real actual VR headsets. Well, fuck, how am I supposed to get through to her now. "Kazuko!" I shout. "Kazuko, Kazuko!" I shake her.
"Woah, sorry." Kazuko actually reacts to me! "Hmm? What's that?" She takes the box of the Minami Momentum massager, that I had to leave on her table, so that I could shake her. "'Feels like a riding duel on your…' Well, I'm glad to see, that you two take your work so seriously."
I get red with embarrassment, being connected to her weird inventions. "That's not… I was tasked to deliver this to Hyona, but she won't react."
"Ahh, so I was only a mid-boss on your way to her." I'm not quite sure, whether one can put this in gaming terms like Kazuko as she just did… but well, she did. "Wouldn't it have been simpler if you asked Yuri to boob pillow her as well?"
"Would that cure her addiction?"
Kazuko sighs. "Probably not, and I don't think she's into boobs that much."
"And you are?"
"I'm not sure how much I care one way or the other." So Kazuko is bi confirmed? "There's something calming about Yuri's… her lap as well if you've ever lied on it."
As a matter of fact, I did, but I can't recall it to be a calming experience. Wait, did Kazuko have a calming experience on Yuri's lap? And here I thought I was here first… what does that have to do with my delivery?
"Well, not that I'm interested in her, but the girl she decides to date will be a lucky one." And with that, Kazuko concludes this topic. So she's not bi? Or has Yuri already dumped her? Why am I even interested in those questions? "Now to solve your problem…"

Kazuko pulls out a BTS-themed gift wrap and we wrap the massager box up inside it. She then writes "From Chris to you" on a BTS-themed gift card, which she attaches to it, finally tying everything up with BTS-themed ribbons and presenting it to the person herself. Hyona noticed the thing within less than a second and unpacked it just as quickly and without words. My job here seems done.
Now back to… the kitchen – recall that you had to go through the kitchen if you wanted to head over to the social room. Given the time of day and the fact, that Yuri has already taken care of Kazuko through the method I proposed, one would assume she'd already be cooking, but bzzt, you're wrong. I think I can hear her voice from the social room as well.
"That's troublesome… to think not even the promise of 'evolution' would be kept." What are they talking about?
"In a sense it is – not that we can rely on it," a deep, manly voice speaks to her. "Perhaps your choice not to duel was indeed the right one. You can see, what it did to me." Her choice not to duel? But Yuri did duel just the other day. Well, not honestly, but still. She at least has
"To be honest, I can't even imagine what it did to you. Your suits cost more money than I make in my entire life and they still look cheap – nothing personal."
"I know," the man growls, "but they're all I have ever since that incident, and you know it." Suits? What suits? I take a quick peek into the social room, hoping that they don't notice me. The man they're talking to appears quite tall and muscular, like Kaito. On a second look, it is Kaito! Spiky, dark blue hair, a sharp gaze thrown towards Yuri and a blue shirt, whose logo is obscured by his extremely bulky arms. "Enough about me. Ryouko, what about your research?"
"It broke again, what did you expect?" She sighs.
"Well, that is to be expected," the blue-haired man is quick to comment. "Aren't you searching for an energy source more powerful – and thus more dangerous – than Momentum? Sometimes I wonder, what makes you invest so much faith in this."
"Yuri does," Ryouko answers with an audible smile. "It is she, who can drive me to both extreme joy and extreme despair."
"The princess…"
"Shh." Ryouko interrupts the man, before he can finish his sentence. "We're being listened to." I quickly take my leave, fearing what she'd do to me if I was found out.

I have to report this to Chris. Not only do Ryouko and Kaito get some research done, it seems they're also part of a larger conspiracy involving Yuri. I knew it! You can't trust gay people. One time they demand marriage, next they'll bring the end of the world. Okay, perhaps their scheme is slightly less evil than ending the world, but I still can't imagine them planning anything good – why else would they be so secretive about it?
"That took you long enough."
"Well, I was held up on my way, but I made sure to deliver it."
"Thanks." Chris makes a gesture pulling me near to her desk. I think there's something she wants to show me. "In the meantime, I decided to go ahead and plot what we already have available."
I can feel Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß staring deep into the innermost parts of my soul from this chart – it obviously is just a normal distribution as one would expect it, but the underlying values say something very deep about the deepest regions a typical person is going to explore about their own body. And it is so embarrassing to think about that.
"I think, this data quite clearly establishes, that you've hit your sweet spot." Please don't comment about it! I'm already starting to regret having agreed to this. "Well, for the purposes of our research, we can flatten this curve to a rectangle – that way, we'll know what settings have been tried often enough and which would need more data."
"And you're hoping to cover the rest through Hyona?" I ask.
"I'm pretty sure her preferences will be different from yours – just like her obsessions are different." That does sound like a reasonable assumption, although there still remains a risk, that they aren't. "By the way, is this just me, or is the food taking longer than usual?"

I can't even remember having placed an order today. But after Chris spoke those words, we didn't even have to wait for Yuri to appear with cake and tea. Huh… It's as if she had already anticipated that to happen.
"Come to think of it, did you ever hear anything about Yuri being a princess?" I ask Chris after she has already left to serve food for the others.
Chris sprayed her tea all over the desk as laughter forced it out of her mouth. "Don't spout such nonsense while I'm drinking!" She unplugged her keyboard, which was drenching with fluid and did her best to clean it. I was more worried about her laptop, but apparently it was spared – only the keyboard and her two monitors got hit. "Who told ya that one?"
"It does sound surreal, am I right?" I can't name the person, who I got this idea from, mainly because I don't know it yet. But given Chris' reaction, perhaps they were being sarcastic. "Onto some more serious business. I think Ryouko is actually doing some scary research."
"Actual research, you say?" Chris assumed a typical thinking pose with her chin resting on her thumb. "That does sound troublesome. She has been the odd one out for quite a while, openly declaring to not love Yusei and what not. On a scale from one to world-ending, how sinister do you think her plan is?"
"That's hard to tell – for now I know she's looking for a strong enough energy source."
"Strong enough energy source? That could have a wide array of applications, from shooting a laser beam into space to a bunch of other weird weapons with names ending in -inator." Chris rises from her seat and clenches her fist. "Sakura, you come with me after work. We have to adopt a platypus."