"You!"
The blunt remark, "The world doesn't revolve around you," completely threw Mitei Miyano off her game. But she clearly realized her usual mind games weren't working on Tetsu Fuyukawa.
"You'd better watch yourself at the company from now on!" she snapped.
Outtalked and outmatched, she let out a huff, stormed out, and slammed the door so hard the glass partition rattled. But—
-1000!
+3000!
"What a tsundere," Tetsu muttered, shrugging as he stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.
He wasn't fazed by Mitei's threat. Judging by her emotional values, she seemed to have enjoyed their little exchange anyway.
And if things really escalated? He'd just quit. Sure, staying at NTsoft to lay the groundwork for Fate before going independent would be safer, but it wasn't the only path. As the saying goes, "When you want for nothing, you fear nothing." Mitei's little jab didn't rattle him one bit.
After finishing his smoke, Tetsu sat back down at his computer, fingers flying across the keyboard.
But the screen wasn't showing the script for Surrounded by Beauties. Instead, it displayed a game engine called Zeus.
He'd already wrapped up today's script revisions and was now getting familiar with this world's new engine.
The foundation shapes the structure.
Due to different gaming trends in this world, classic engines like Unity 3D, Frostbite, or Unreal Engine from his previous life didn't exist. While Zeus wasn't bad, its interface and mechanics were different.
"The usage is different, but not by much. I'll get the hang of it soon enough," Tetsu mused, sipping his goji berry tea. "But… engines, huh."
Anyone who lived through 2023 knows one thing: selling products is nowhere near as profitable as building a platform.
It's true across industries. E-commerce platforms take about a 10% cut; food delivery apps like Meituan skim 20%; iOS in-app purchases take 30%; web novel platforms grab over 50%. Some Chinese app stores were the worst, hitting a jaw-dropping 90% cut at their peak.
Yes, 90% to the platform, 10% to the creators.
As Let the Bullets Fly so aptly put it, some things never go out of style.
The gaming industry was slightly better, but platforms still took around 30%.
"They just siphon off 30% of the revenue," Tetsu thought. "In the future, I'll definitely build my own gaming platform. But the market's already saturated. To get other games to publish on my platform, I need to give them a reason to come. Low fees alone won't cut it—I need a killer game engine."
"Epic tried that route, but they entered too late, and their platform experience was garbage, so they never caught up to Steam's shadow. Steam's got massive traffic and top-notch user experience. Epic's was a mess, but their Unreal Engine gave them a fighting chance. If I could combine the two…"
His eyes lit up with excitement, but he quickly calmed himself. "A platform's operating model and engine development would cost way too many points—far more than what I'd need for game music. Plus, the startup capital would be insane."
"Slow and steady," he told himself, taking another sip of tea and diving back into studying the Zeus engine.
---
When you're deep in work, time flies.
With Hao Hao's Mom, Leqing Lin, locked in as the key actress, Surrounded by Beauties was picking up steam.
The next morning, Tetsu called in Ms. Mariri Shiraishi. After another audition, he assigned her the role of Miki Okura (Yun Si Li).
Mariri was over the moon!
It wasn't a starring role, but for someone like her, with no financial backing and who'd shown up on day one for auditions, landing this part was a huge win.
No surprise, then, that at noon she cornered Tetsu in the parking lot, ready for a "love wrestling match" in the car. She'd even brought a cherry blossom-themed kimono, hinting she was down for a hotel rendezvous too.
Tempting, no doubt. But her luck wasn't great.
Sayoko didn't show up this time, but Mitei Miyano did.
Under Mitei's venomous, snake-like glare, Mariri's legs turned to jelly. She hopped into her corgi-like K-Car and peeled out. What left Tetsu speechless, though, was that Mitei didn't say a word to him either—she just hopped into her Porsche and sped off.
"Is this woman keeping tabs on me?" Tetsu muttered, scratching his head in frustration as he watched her car disappear.
Ever since that night in the office, Mitei had been giving him the cold shoulder, her face like ice, only talking business and not sparing a single smile.
Classic PUA move.
For a regular employee, it'd be effective. Mitei, as department head, held serious power. One word from her could double someone's salary, saving years of struggle—or wipe out years of effort in an instant.
Too bad for her, Tetsu wasn't buying it.
Worst case, he'd quit. No big deal.
Watching Tetsu in her rearview mirror, getting farther away without even a hint of chasing after her to talk, Mitei's teeth itched with irritation. Her manicured fingers gripped the steering wheel tighter.
"Just a guy!" she fumed.
She hated how Tetsu kept the upper hand, but she was out of moves. The worst part? His work was impeccable—reports, proposals, and attitude were all flawless.
"So infuriating! I can't outtalk him, can't outmaneuver him, and he doesn't even try to smooth things over!" It was driving her up the wall.
Tetsu, oblivious to her thoughts, kept to his own rhythm.
That morning, he finalized Yun Si Li's role, bringing Surrounded by Beauties to three confirmed female leads. That left Ziyan Zheng, Xiao Lu, and Huixing Shen—the younger roles.
These three had bigger parts and higher popularity than Zhong Zhen or Yun Si Li, but casting them was easier. For Hao Hao's Mom, you needed an actress who could pull off the charm of a woman in her thirties while looking like she was in her mid-twenties—a tall order for acting chops. But for Ziyan, Xiao, and Huixing? Just find good-looking women in their early twenties who didn't break immersion. The acting bar was lower.
Japan's idol scene, while not as intense as Korea's, was still packed with girl groups—SKE48 (home of former star Mikami-sensei), AKB48 (which launched Risa Tachibana), Nogizaka46 (Asuka Saito's old group), and more.
With plenty of options and lower acting demands—plus many candidates free from major gigs—Tetsu shortlisted twelve actresses in a single afternoon.
The lineup included idol group trainees, students from nearby art universities, and young women who'd dropped out of high school to chase dreams in Tokyo.
All were stunning—pure, captivating beauties who could make boys lose sleep, the kind you'd reminisce about years later, thinking, "She was so beautiful in that sunset glow."
But in one afternoon, Tetsu got at least twenty dinner invites or "love sumo match" offers. It was a bit harsh, but there's truth to the saying: "Beauty is rare for the masses but dime-a-dozen for the elite."
Ignoring the messages, Tetsu stuck to his standards for casting.
Days passed like this—interviewing actresses by day, tweaking Surrounded by Beauties scripts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings, and working on Fate on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Before he knew it, it was Thursday of the second week.
---