After Mario's adventure segment ended, it became Link's rescue-the-princess adventure.
"Wow, it's The Legend of Zelda!"
"The Legend of Zelda? Is that person Zelda?"
"Tch—one look and I can tell you're clueless. That's not Zelda. That's Link!"
"??? Link? Then why is it called The Legend of Zelda?"
"Because Zelda is the princess."
"Can you play as the princess in this game?"
"Uh… no. In this game you can only play as Link. You can't play the other characters."
"Now I'm even more confused. If the protagonist is Link, why isn't it called The Legend of Link? Why is it called The Legend of Zelda instead?"
That had to be a century-long mystery.
Countless people were baffled by why the game was called The Legend of Zelda.
Hardcore fans would defend the series and offer all kinds of explanations.
But none of those explanations were official—they carried no real authority.
Someone once interviewed Takayuki and asked why it was called The Legend of Zelda instead of The Legend of Link. Takayuki only replied that it was his personal preference, with no special reason.
That answer counted as "official," but it obviously didn't satisfy the player base.
Could a game's title really be decided just because of "personal preference"?
No way they'd believe that!
They were more willing to accept other players' analyses that sounded more reasonable.
Eventually, someone even founded a "Zelda Studies Research Society," focusing on researching the series' stories—and especially researching why The Legend of Zelda was called The Legend of Zelda.
As for Takayuki's explanation, their response was: Takayuki was just a game creator—he didn't understand the true core of Zelda at all. So they promptly "revoked his Zelda citizenship" and chose to believe only their own explanations.
Takayuki had just one word for behavior like that: bored.
Though to be fair, he used to be pretty bored too.
In his previous life, besides "Nintendo Studies," there were also "Kojima Studies," "Souls Studies," and all sorts of bizarre groups that could form seminars out of thin air.
To study hidden lore in Dark Souls, countless people burned through who knew how many brain cells.
There were also groups dedicated to studying Hideo Kojima—whether the games he made contained deeper meanings.
Even when Kojima himself came out to explain certain things, many players still refused to believe him, and it became a running meme.
Takayuki hadn't expected to receive the same kind of "treatment" in this world.
At the Olympic opening ceremony, Link was searching through clusters of mysterious jungles and caves in the arena, looking for something. At last, he seemed to find a treasure chest.
He opened it, revealing a small flame inside.
The flame burned in the performer's hands as if it would never go out.
Then the Link performer walked to the very center of the venue, where a gigantic torch had appeared.
Surrounding the huge torch were smaller torches.
Link placed the flame he had obtained onto one of the smaller torches, making it burn steadily.
At the same time, a beam of light on the ground stretched perfectly straight toward the end of the field, reaching the spectator stands.
Seats along that straight-line path lit up one after another. The light finally converged on the stadium roof, sparkling like stars.
"Is this… lighting up a path of light?"
Earlier, Mario had opened a route so that Link could find the chest.
Once Link's chest segment ended, the mechanical stage terrain began moving again. A few minutes later, a castle-like scene emerged.
At the castle gates stood a knight wearing a helmet.
"Sun Knight! Praise the Sun!"
A small group in the crowd jumped up in excitement and raised their hands high.
Seeing that, Takayuki felt it was strangely familiar.
In Dark Souls there was a Sun Knight, and Suri Electronics had also created its own Sun Knight.
Originally they belonged to two different worlds, yet somehow they formed an unspoken resonance—creating very similar Sun Knight imagery.
On the stage, the Sun Knight raised both hands. A ray of light shone down on him. Then the castle gates opened, and a dragon—projected as a hologram—appeared before the knight.
The dragon's oppressive presence was intense. It spewed violent flames. The actor playing the Sun Knight remained calm, holding a longsword as he was lifted into the air on wires, then drove the blade into the holographic dragon's forehead—
And a burst of light exploded at the center of the arena.
"Has holographic projection technology already become this mature?" Takayuki exclaimed in surprise as he watched the performance below.
This world's pace of development was several years ahead of his original world. Even holographic projection technology had become fully realized—it no longer relied on a screen or curtain to barely fake the effect. Now it could genuinely place a lifelike hologram into real space.
But achieving this wasn't cheap. If Gamestar Electronic Entertainment hadn't been wealthy enough to provide Ono Sa with massive technical and financial support, he likely wouldn't even have had the chance to use such advanced technology.
In fact, this holographic projection was still at a laboratory stage in this world. Just those few dozen seconds of the dragon scene cost over a million dollars—more expensive than CGI.
If it weren't to immerse the live audience, Ono Sa wouldn't have wanted to burn money like this.
"Didn't expect you to be impressed by something like this," Aya said beside him, holding little Yume. "Then the hologram tech really is impressive. Do you want to develop games using it later?"
Yume—like a cute porcelain doll—had eyes sparkling with light, reaching out as if trying to grab the distant, unreal-looking hologram, but of course it was futile.
Hearing Aya, Takayuki's mind suddenly sparked. "We really could make a holographic projection game. But the cost is still a bit high right now. We can wait until the technology matures."
In his mind, a rough blueprint for holographic-projection games had already formed.
In his original world, there were no true hologram games.
But VR technology in that world was quite mature. He could transplant classic VR gameplay ideas into holographic projection, making the holograms feel even more real.
Below, after the holographic dragon was defeated, a small flame appeared in the Sun Knight's hand. The performer carried the burning flame to the central torch and lit another small torch beside it.
Then, as before, a beam of light extended from the ground into the stands, illuminating seats along its path, and finally forming another glowing point on the stadium roof.
At that moment, everyone understood.
Next, each character would appear in turn, each collecting fire in their own way.
It was like playing a game.
No wonder this was an opening ceremony led by Gamestar Electronic Entertainment.
But in truth, this idea hadn't come from Takayuki or anyone inside Gamestar.
It had been conceived entirely by Ono Sa—the seventy-plus-year-old director himself.
Ever since he was young, he had loved chasing trends.
When video games rose, he had been hooked for a time.
Later he also had various ties to games, even serving as a supervising producer for some game adaptations.
He could be considered quite familiar with video games, able to evaluate them from a player's perspective—and to come up with great game-inspired ideas.
This time, he wanted to emulate the polished experience of Gamestar Park.
In Gamestar Park, visitors didn't merely stroll around and ride roller coasters like in a normal theme park. Instead, every visitor was given "missions" and gameplay-like objectives, motivating them to complete tasks and experience the joy of "playing a video game" in real life.
Now Ono Sa was treating the Olympic opening ceremony itself as a video game.
Even the audience in the stands could feel deeply involved.
Those sweeping beams of light made it feel as if the spectators were actively participating, experiencing the thrill of "play."
Some people even felt jealous of those seated in the illuminated paths.
Those lucky bastards—paying the same ticket price, yet enjoying an experience beyond the ticket's value.
This concept had been kept completely secret. Everyone had signed NDAs, and any breach meant enormous fines, so no one dared leak the opening ceremony content. Ono Sa wanted everything to remain mysterious.
When the truth was revealed, everyone would suddenly understand: so that's what it was—how did I not realize earlier?
Link and the Sun Knight had completed their missions, but they didn't leave the stage. Each stood quietly before the torch they had lit, waiting for what came next.
As for Mario—because he was the Prime Minister—he couldn't realistically participate through the entire ceremony. So he was removed from the sequence, leaving only Luigi to continue the tasks.
After that, an image from a classic Japanese anime appeared.
Takayuki didn't recognize it—it was a classic icon of this world. Some people in the stadium shouted excitedly the moment they saw it, just as gamers did when they saw familiar characters.
Earlier, some had questioned whether Gamestar's involvement would turn the opening ceremony into a solo show for video games, making the Olympics a promotional tool for gaming.
But Gamestar wasn't that narrow-minded, and Ono Sa was too proud to do something that would tarnish the ceremony's image.
He had his own backbone. If he had to become Gamestar's marketing tool, he would never have agreed.
So anime and traditional Japanese culture also held important places in the ceremony.
Out of personal taste, he leaned the focus slightly toward video games—but only slightly, and never more.
Anime icons and traditional cultural symbols continued appearing in the performance.
At the center of the stadium were twenty-one small torches arranged around the giant torch.
The Legend of Zelda, the Sun Knight, Metroid, Suri Electronics' 3D racing, a mecha from an anime resembling Gundam, a sumo wrestler from traditional Japanese culture—
Everything was represented, each highly iconic.
In total, there were twenty-one figures.
Video game icons occupied nine slots, anime occupied seven, and traditional Japanese culture only five.
Mainly because Japan was rather small.
There were only so many things that the general public had a shared image of. Show too much and it wouldn't work, because some "traditions" were essentially copied from ancient continental cultures—pulling them out now would be embarrassing.
But ninjas, sumo, haiku, and the like had evolved over time into distinctly Japanese elements—those were safe to display.
Satisfied.
At least, the audience was satisfied.
They didn't care whether "traditional culture" had fewer slots. They only cared about seeing what they loved.
And who dared claim that video games and anime weren't part of Japan's "tradition" now?
If you really wanted to be strict, everything shown in the opening ceremony could be considered part of Japan's modern tradition.
Finally, all twenty-one small torches ignited, and twenty-one beams of light projected onto the stadium roof. Using those twenty-one points as anchors, they formed a complex star pattern overhead.
Then a man descended from the sky.
He was a national-treasure-level Japanese actor—someone even the Prime Minister deeply respected.
Takayuki also had some impression of him, though he had never had any contact.
He had been chosen as the final torchbearer partly because of his status, and partly because he was Ono Sa's close friend. During preparations, Ono Sa had slipped in a bit of personal preference, letting familiar friends participate in the ceremony.
No one objected. Everyone felt it was perfectly normal.
The actor's stature was more than sufficient—there was nothing wrong with him being the final torchbearer.
He descended from above, flew on wires for a while, and then arrived before the massive central torch.
At this moment, the twenty-one figures representing different cultures all turned to look toward the national-treasure actor.
He radiated presence. Holding the torch, he walked step by step toward the giant flame.
Yet his hand trembled slightly.
Even as a national-treasure actor, he had never seen a scene like this.
To have this one chance in his life—to light the Olympic flame—meant he would have no regrets.
Then, as if making up his mind, he raised the torch toward the enormous central brazier.
Boom!
The torch ignited. Above the stadium, the twenty-one "star lights" burst into dazzling fireworks.
Music swelled—a melody woven from video games, anime, and traditional culture.
The Olympics had begun.
And in the hearts of every spectator in the stadium, and everyone watching the live broadcast, they all agreed:
This was the best opening ceremony they had ever seen—utterly unique, different from anything before, and perfectly in step with the times.