"So, after you go through all that, you assemble the parts you numbered some time ago…"
"And then… we're finally done?"
"Well, then you have to design the place you're going to use to display it."
"I‐I see."
How long would it be before we're done?! Ugh, I'm tired… this is getting really tedious… and I was the one who told her to teach me, so it's not like I can tell her to stop…
"Well, that's a bit of a different topic, so in regards to making plastic models, I suppose we can stop there."
I'm relieved. I'm finally being let go…
"Hmm… I ended up talking for a long time… " Having been cheered up after talking about her hobby at length, Rias reclined back deeply on her chair. "Finishing with all the maintenance, sitting in this chair, and just gazing at my collection… and then suddenly, you realize the entire day's gone by."
"I know! That's soooo true!" And there was one person in the room who passionately agreed. "I feel that too! If all of this were Azutan figures instead, I really think I could just stay in this room my entire life staring at them!"
She seriously must be sick.
"Also! You must have other things in your collection, right!? You do, right!? Show me!"
"I know where you're coming from, but calm down, Naruko!" I caught my sister by the arms as she tried to charge at Rias like an excited bull, and I pinned her arms behind her back.
"Idiot! How could someone like you understand where I'm coming from!?"
"Dammit! You stepped on my toes!"
As Naruko and I bickered with each other, Blake ignored us and spoke nonchalantly.
"If you do have more of this collection, I would like to see too."
"Sure. But before that… "
Rias reached her arm out and gestured towards some three‐legged chairs. She seemed to be telling us to sit.
"Can you cut it out and let me serve you tea already?"
Thirty minutes later, we were in a different room in the same mansion.
"This mansion was originally remodeled to display my father's art collection. I'm being allowed to use one part of it."
It seemed that every room was a gallery based on a different concept. I had yet to find any room equipped with the normal necessities of living, but those rooms probably existed too, somewhere… right? And the room we were in right now was…
"This room is so broken down!"
"Did this used to be an arcade at some point…?"
Naruko and Blake both gave their frank impressions. It was probably deliberate, but both the floor under us and the walls had the concrete bare and showing. There was a retro atmosphere filling the entire room, and the first things I noticed were the old‐fashioned arcade machine and CRT television. There was a cable extending from the television, and connected to a black game machine I did not recognize. A toy track also wove its way between all that equipment.
"This is a room meant to recreate a scene you might see during the late Shouwa or early Heisei period. Back then, they would put arcade machines in the middle of cheap sweet shops and those shops would become hangouts for local elementary and junior high schoolers. That was a time when games like Final Attack and Golden Axe were still being actively played. Well, I guess even now, you can find places where they're still being actively played too."
How old was this girl?
"What's this black game system here?" Blake asked. If she didn't even know, then it must have been a pretty old system…
"It's a Neo Geo CD. From what I've heard, it's a frightening piece of hardware that takes three minutes to load a single match. The more relaxed gamers of today probably don't understand, but it was quite a groundbreaking achievement when people could play Samurai Spirits or King of Fighters in their own homes."
"T‐This is… this is the machine that some say is the symbol of the SNK Golden Age!? This is the first time I've seen one." Blake leaned in close stared at the Neo Geo CD with widened eyes.
I didn't really know what was going on, but this machine was probably something special to gamers.
"Oh, what's this thing?" What I caught sight of was a square glass case table. Inside the case were lined small rubber dolls that you would perhaps expect to find in Gashapon machines. They were all of things you would see in fantasy novels, like monsters and elves and knights.
"Fufufu, nice eye, Haruto-chan. Those are from the 'Neclos Fortress' toy line. They're not as popular as the Bikkuri Man Seals, but they're one of the representative toys of the Showa period and came packaged with certain food products. To people who collect these type of toys, they still enjoy a deeply rooted popularity, and are still very actively being sold at auction."
"Ahh… " So there was quite a history here. They were things from long ago, but they did look pretty cool. I could see how they would've been popular. Also, I didn't know about these "Golden Axe" and "Bikkuri Man" things she was using to explain herself, so I wasn't sure if I really understood what she was trying to say.
"By the way, you probably can't tell from across the glass, but if you touch them and warm them with your fingers, the Neclos dolls change color. I guess it's kind of like the secret emblems they put on the Transformers toys that were popular in the eighties. Changing colors based on temperature was a really trendy gimmick back then."
Seriously, how old was this girl? Was she a time traveler from the Shouwa era or something?
"What about this?" Naruko pointed to a racing car toy that had been casually set on top of the arcade machine.
Ah, I actually knew what that was. I took that bodiless blue racing car into my hands and spoke with a soft voice.
"How nostalgic… it's a mini four‐wheeler, isn't it?"
"Ohh, so you already know, Haruto-chan?"
"They were pretty popular at one point when I was a kid. But I've never really seen something quite like this…"
"Haha, I'm not surprised. That's an Avante Jr., and it's the fastest, best car in the first generation of these four‐wheelers. This toy was based on the model that they really used in the Japan Cup back then, I think. The fanatics who got into this culture from the second generation might burn me alive for saying this, but I still think that an Avante that's perfectly tuned up is the fastest car."
Why the hell was she telling me this… I mean, at this point, the only people who would actually understand what she was saying were probably all middle‐aged men. There was no way Rias could know what I was thinking, but she curled her mouth up into a ω shape and summed up.
"In anime, in games, and in all these other genres, it's just amazing how much the technology has improved. Things that people could only dream of in the Shouwa period are completely commonplace today. However, I still think that it would be a shame if we just forgot about all the things that kept us so engrossed back then, and wrote them off as 'relics.' I'm not saying we should obsess over the olden days, but in the end, fun things are fun, and worthwhile things are worthwhile. Being in this room drives that point home for me. That's why I like this place."
L