Little Candy and Her Mortar

【POV: Riku】

4:12. Sunday.

Last week's Kyōto trip had drained every last bit of stamina a shut-in like me possessed. Dragging myself up temple slopes, dripping with sweat, only to be hauled into that haunted Kiyotaki Tunnel in the dead of night. I swear to God—no, I swear on Mari—I had every intention of sleeping through the weekend once I returned to Nagasaki. No guests. No outdoors. No touching grass.

But that plan went up in smoke. The reason? Ama-chan.

The room is a void, save for the neon-blue glare of three monitors washing over my panda-eyed face. The cooling fans whir softly, the perfect ASMR for a techie.

By now, Proxima should have been blaring alerts about my heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol levels. But I've had it completely silenced since 1:00.

On the main screen: C.O.R.E (Combat Oriented Reconfigurable Engine).

To put it simply, this is a top-down tank shooter. It sounds basic and archaic like those prehistoric .io games. But it's not, C.O.R.E is a monster. Its true value lies in the modular customization. With thousands of parts: power cores, drive systems, plating, radar, various weapons. You assemble them yourself, balancing and managing energy draw. The potential is limitless.

And I had just finished a masterpiece: Desert Storm V.3.

A lightweight Titan-Carbon alloy chassis. Dual electromagnetic pulse engines. And the main armament: A multi-target launch system using Launcher as the base. The core of this build is to rain down missiles that unleash a continuous spiral-pattern barrage. It sounds a bit wasteful, but it's worth a shot; C.O.R.E players are notoriously salty about bullet-hell builds.

[TOTAL_ANNIHILATION]: 『Build's done. Twister Launcher.』

Three seconds later, a message popped up, accompanied by an incredibly punchable emoji.

[Ama-chan]: 『Hehe, Mortar for me, as always.』

Seriously, this girl...

In C.O.R.E, Mortar is the most cumbersome weapon you can pick. The shells lob through the air, taking several seconds to reach the target, it's the definition of high latency. But to be fair, it is one of the only three weapons capable of firing over cover due to that very arc.

As a result, Ama-chan constantly has to guess where the enemy will stand three seconds in the future. The way her brain processes trajectories and reads an opponent's mind is nothing short of monstrous.

・・・

An hour had passed, but we'd barely managed five actual games. The lobby screen just hung there in limbo.

[Ama-chan]: 『I caught a glimpse of her at the library recently. Her eyes were piercing. The Vice President... I hid behind a rack but still felt like she was scanning my conscience. I nearly fainted!』

I took a gulp of Monster, typing away.

[TOTAL_ANNIHILATION]: 『Sounds intense. What school has a VP that uptight? Mine's the complete opposite.』

[Ama-chan]: 『Really?』

I recalled Mari slumped over her desk, lollipop in her mouth, eyes glued to her phone watching cat videos during break—or the way she'd constantly trail after Tetsuya begging for ice cream.

[TOTAL_ANNIHILATION]: 『Yeah. The VP here is a total simp. She's stuck to her boyfriend like glue 24/7. It's honestly an eyesore.』

[Ama-chan]: 『I'd trade with you in a heartbeat. The one here... I swear she has this aura... like she's planning to take over the world!』

I let out a laugh and shaking my head. It really is a big world out there.

[TOTAL_ANNIHILATION]: 『Whatever, different strokes for different folks. By the way, the Thermal Radar module they just updated has such garbage stats. Scan range nerfed by 10% and energy consumption is up by half. Are the devs high?』

[Ama-chan]: 『Totally! I'm thinking of replacing it with the acoustic Sonar. A bit slow but cheap, and it catches stealth tank engines. Thoughts?』

I propped my head up, eyeing the Sonar stats Ama-chan pinged. Wait, paired with a Mortar, this actually works. Pick up the sound, guess the coordinates, then BAM... death from above for some stealth user.

[TOTAL_ANNIHILATION]: 『...That's galaxy-brained. Let me simulate it to check for any conflicts with the auto-loader. Give me a sec.』

The digital clock hit 5:00.

Morning light was starting to bleed through the window. Rubbing my eyes, I let out a bone-weary yawn. Another night gone, sacrificed to numbers and venting about the VP. Still, it was worth it. It'd been ages since I'd met someone this compatible, someone who got the beauty of millisecond-level optimization.

Wait, 5 in the morning?!

[TOTAL_ANNIHILATION]: 『Logging off now. 5:00. Time for sleep unless I want a stroke.』

[Ama-chan]: 『Aw... that was fast. Well, sleep tight!』

I shut off the PC and threw myself onto the bed. My mind was a blur, still cycling through combat stats and Ama-chan's silly messages.