0 - Prologue

One day, two small packages arrived at the penthouse floor of a luxury apartment complex in Sangenjaya.

That in itself was not unusual; it was a place where people lived, so it was natural for the apartment to receive packages from time to time. Moreover, the resident of this particular penthouse was the young prince of the financial world, Ichiro Tsuwabuki. It wasn’t uncommon for him to receive extravagant gifts — with attached letters reading “hoping for your continued support” — from people with whom he’d had only a single, passing interaction.

The apartment was so used to receiving such gifts that the arrival of the small packages wouldn’t usually be worthy of any special mention. Except, that day, Ichiro went out of his way to sign for the packages himself. He also gave the delivery person a gift of expensive juice from Ginza Sembikiya, and returned to his living room in high spirits.

“You seem to be enjoying yourself,” his maid, Sakurako Ogi, murmured as she caught sight of him while bringing him his morning coffee.

“Could you tell?” he asked.

“I most certainly could.” Sakurako set the cup down in front of Ichiro, who was sitting on the sofa.

“Ah, thank you.”

“They don’t appear to be very large packages. Might I ask what’s in them?”

“I can tell you what’s in one of them,” Ichiro said as he picked up one of the two small packages and carefully began to unwrap it.

Sakurako hugged the tray in her arms as she leaned over the back of the sofa to watch. Except when serving his coffee or tea, it was part of her creed as a servant to always remain behind or beside him.

He opened the thin, flat package, then carefully extracted the item from its packaging paper. It resembled a butterfly made of silver, resting its wings. Its fanciful coloring reflected the room’s fluorescent lighting in a way that was quietly breathtaking.

“Oh...” Sakurako whispered, her breath indeed taken. “It’s a brooch, isn’t it?”

“It is a brooch, yes.”

“The one you wear in NaroFan?”

“Yes, the one I wear in NaroFan.”

Ichiro Tsuwabuki’s avatar in the VRMMO NaroFan — in other words, Narrow Fantasy Online — was a rather unconventional one. First, there was the fact that he had named his character after himself, but that actually wasn’t the biggest problem.

The problem was that, despite NaroFan’s world featuring a general high fantasy aesthetic, his avatar went around clad in dark blue formalwear. A suit with a glossy finish meant to evoke butterfly wings was eye-catching enough by itself, but on top of that, as if to cement the unique costume’s theme, he also wore a butterfly brooch with a rather ungainly design.

The brooch that Ichiro now pulled out of the box and gleefully pinned to his chest was identical to that one. Its flawless recreation of the design’s exquisite awkwardness reflected highly on the skill of the artisan who had crafted it.

Yes, this was the work of an artisan.

“Did you like it so much that you asked that silversmith you know to make it?” Sakurako asked as she checked the name of the sender of the small parcel.

“That’s right. The design is ungainly and the execution is poor, yet I quite like it.”

“I see.” Sakurako cast a glance at Ichiro’s chest. The butterfly’s wings were spread triumphantly. It certainly did not, in Sakurako’s opinion, seem appropriate to the high-quality suit that Ichiro typically wore. But she could not deny that the image — of a being spreading its wings regardless of whether it fit in with its surroundings — suited Ichiro to a T. “Has it been a whole ten days since the Iris Brand incident? Time certainly does fly...”

“A mere ten days, from my point of view,” Ichiro said. “I love how rich my time has felt lately.”

The two began to speak a bit more earnestly to each other, recalling their shared experience.

“After that, I had a feeling you’d start something else, and...”

“Hmm?” Ichiro asked. “Did I start something?”

“You certainly did...” Sakurako began, before opting not to bring up Ichiro’s outrageous behavior the other day at the Grand Quest. Ichiro had done what he wanted then, and to try to argue would be “nonsense.”

The Iris Brand incident had taken place shortly after Ichiro had begun playing NaroFan. It had all started with a girl whom he had met while searching for new equipment. An interesting girl, in Ichiro’s opinion.

That butterfly brooch had brought them together. As Ichiro had said, the design was ungainly and the execution poor; it was also statistically deficient, offering a mere two skill slots and a luck modifier of +3. The difference between it and the equipment painstakingly crafted by the game’s official designers was like night and day. A sad little item, but still Ichiro liked it.

“Now, then...” Ichiro stood up, leaving the other package untouched.

“Are you ready to head out?” Sakurako asked.

“Yes. I believe the ceremony was to start at 11:00. Would you drive me?”

“Certainly, sir.” Sakurako offered him a reverent bow, still hugging the tray to her chest.

As she did, she glanced back upwards, and asked...

“In the interest of caution, Ichiro-sama, may I ask...?”

“Yes?”

“You’re attending a party at the store run by the daughter of the president of Tsunobeni, Inc., aren’t you? The young woman starting her own fashion brand.”

“Yes, Megumi Fuyo. She’s opening her first boutique, and, well, we are acquaintances. I’ll only be stopping in briefly, though.”

“I’m sure it’s meaningless to ask, but... will you be wearing that?” Sakurako was referring, naturally, to the slightly awkward brooch that Ichiro had affixed to his chest.

As mentioned earlier, the brooch had been designed by a girl Ichiro had met in NaroFan. She was a bit rough around the edges, but a forthright girl. Sakurako was fond of her, too, and she knew that Ichiro enjoyed that sort of personality, which made him like the brooch all the more. But even so, it wasn’t something to be worn to his current destination.

“Nonsense,” Ichiro said, brushing off her doubts in his usual way. “From an objective point of view, I recognize that Iris’s design is sloppy, lacking in originality, bizarre in the ways it does try to be original, and so ungainly that it could never compare to the fashionable, universally accessible yet slightly high-fashion designs of Megumi, the woman who I am about to go see...”

“W-Wow... That just about covers it...”

“...but that is merely the objective point of view. I like this brooch, and thus, I will wear it. Any further questions?”

“It was the answer I was expecting, so no, not really,” Sakurako responded as she set Ichiro’s empty coffee cup onto her tray. “In that case, Ichiro-sama. I shall bring the car around. I’ll call you when preparations are finished, so please, wait a moment.” She gave him another reverent bow.

As he watched her head out, he stroked the silverwork butterfly on his chest with a sense of satisfaction, and said: “Yes, very good.”