Chapter 78: Chapter 78: Preparing the Magic Vision Drama

"Alright, follow my lead. Ready? Duck, jump, duck, jump, to the left..."

"Which way is left?"

With a cry of alarm from Elsa, the little Ranger she was controlling was hit by an enemy’s Arcane Missile and died on the spot.

The last icon in the top-right corner of the screen vanished, indicating she had lost all her chances to revive.

Zog also had his character deliberately run into a trap, ending the game.

The game returned to the start screen, showing two muscular men—one with blond hair, the other with blue—wearing white tank tops. Above them was a large title: The Resistance.

Also known as Contra.

However, because they had no idea how to translate the word into the common tongue, they had used the original name.

"Contra," literally translated, means "resistance force."

The existence of such an abstract name was entirely due to the original creators’ unique take on English.

It left countless players with this classic, inexplicable, yet undeniably cool name etched in their minds.

The characters were set as Rangers because the current level of firearms technology was still at the "fire one shot, reload for two minutes" stage.

But a High Level Ranger could genuinely draw a bow with the effect of an AK-47.

The muscular guys on the cover also fit everyone’s impression of a Ranger.

Weak, scrawny Rangers were purely a creation of literature; if they were truly that frail, they wouldn’t even be able to draw a bow.

A proper Ranger’s latissimus dorsi muscles were like wings. And if someone actually managed to get in close, they knew a thing or two about hand-to-hand combat as well.

"Which way is left?" Zog had to laugh. Was that a question a normal person would even ask?

It was on par with "Which one is the brake?"

"I just got nervous, that’s all! One more game, just one more! I’ll definitely pass it this time. Are there any more cheat codes? You must have designed some, right?"

"Nope, just that one." Zog shattered Elsa’s fantasy.

She had even used the Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A code, and she still couldn’t get past the second level.

On the first level, trying to get the Scattering Arrow on the edge of a cliff, she had managed to fall to her death six times in the same spot.

"Besides, it’s not like you can’t play this game by yourself."

"I’m too scared to! It was terrifying watching Toto play the final part."

The Hellish Evil Insects crawling all over the ground in the final level had left a deep psychological scar on Elsa.

Even though Toto had beaten it one-handed with a single life.

"Don’t worry, you won’t make it to the end. Of course, if you want to play King of Fighters, I’m happy to oblige."

"No way! Hmph! Like I’d want to play with you! I can definitely beat it on my own!"

Elsa had just played King of Fighters against Zog, going from a best-of-three all the way to a best-of-thirty-five, without a single win.

No matter which character she chose, she would be cornered and helplessly pummeled to death by the chubby Ogre Zog controlled, the one who carried a large iron ball.

To this day, she had never seen Zog use a second character.

Zog, on the other hand, was having a great time. He had always played fighting games by just mashing buttons—rolling his face on the controller, so to speak—and could only consistently pull off two moves.

Who knew those two moves would be enough to handle Elsa? In fact, even knowing the second move was a bit of an overkill.

She truly was the Zog Group’s number one gaming black hole.

This was the second game console Zog had launched after Auto Chess, a ten-in-one machine that included titles like King of Fighters, Contra, and Super Mary.

A pure Magic version was simultaneously released on the Divine Remains, allowing Mage players to purchase and play the game directly.

All the games were localized, with characters replaced by heroes from Auto Chess, in an effort to tie these figures completely to the Zog Group.

Besides the games copied from Earth, they also selected a few designed by the Illusionists themselves.

Two puzzle games and one story-driven game.

Perhaps due to the nature of the Illusionist profession, they demonstrated astonishing creativity in puzzle design and psychedelic art styles.

Zog also thoughtfully added difficulty settings to the games.

Many games from the Famicom and arcade era were notoriously difficult, as designers wanted to increase playtime and replayability through high difficulty.

But that wasn’t necessary for Zog. The consoles were still in such high demand that they were completely sold out, and a profession of waiting in line for others had even emerged.

So, it was better to let players who had gone through so much trouble just to play once find a suitable difficulty, whether they were just looking for a casual experience or seeking a real challenge.

As for how the difficulty levels were calibrated...

...they were manually calibrated using Toto and Elsa.

If Toto couldn’t beat it on his first try with one hand and a single life, that was the highest difficulty.

If Elsa could, after sweating over it for two days, beat it just once with a superhuman effort, that was the lowest difficulty.

At the same time the new game console went on sale, a piece of news was released that got all the Yo-Yo players very excited.

A machine that lets you watch the Shadow of Evil at home was about to be launched.

Simultaneously, a multi-episode Shadow of Evil series adapted from the *Firepower Young King* manga would be broadcast on that machine.

The promise had been made, but in reality, the show hadn’t even started filming; they still hadn’t even cast the actors.

The Shepherds were busy filming a comedy, while Raul and his friends were preparing their own Shadow of Evil.

It seemed to be an adaptation based on the travel experiences of the Mixed Giant Beast Corps.

Zog gave them his full support, hoping they could pioneer the road movie genre.

However, this also meant that Zog had no available actors on his roster.

He had no choice but to start another recruitment drive across the entire city and surrounding areas. He assigned a few veteran actors from the Shepherds who weren’t on filming duty to handle it.

They were still waiting for news.

After thoroughly thrashing Elsa at the game, a re-energized Zog returned to his work of revising the script.

Since Zog had only provided an outline for the later parts of the *Firepower Young King* manga, leaving the rest to the Painter’s discretion, the weekly manga struggled to maintain a tight plot every week, so adjustments were needed.

The first thing to change was the level of Yo-Yo skill in the manga. Although it was already much higher than in the original Earth version, Zog had still underestimated the capable people of the Feilin Continent.

According to news from the Adventurer Association, there were already quite a few Yo-Yos in the weapon registration options.

The killer Yo-Yo had truly been born.

The second was to fix some of the original version’s unresolved romantic tensions.

For example, the endless back-and-forth between Liffey and Milly. At first, he thought the scriptwriter was just being difficult, but he later learned it was because the characters were middle school students in the original setting, so their relationship couldn’t be made explicit.

But Zog didn’t care. This wasn’t middle school here. The pure love faction must have its grand victory.

KNOCK KNOCK! The sound of knocking echoed.

"Come in."

Elsa immediately shut off the game, put on a serious face, and adopted the air of an executive assistant as she went to open the door.

’Sure enough, the workplace is just a bunch of kids who haven’t grown up yet, forced to pretend to be adults.’

The ones who entered were the members of the Shepherds in charge of actor recruitment.

"How did it go? Did you cast all the main roles?" Zog asked.

"Well..." The group seemed a bit embarrassed to speak.

"It’s alright. However many you recruited is fine. You’ll still be paid in full."

"It’s like this," the oldest of the group began, "we only have two people so far."

"Two? The pay I’m offering isn’t low. Why did this happen?"

"Because... it’s hard to say... the Drama Guild."

Seeing the veteran actor stammer, Zog understood.

"The Drama Guild is boycotting the Shadow of Evil and restricting actors from performing, and since the Shepherds are also part of the Guild, it’s put you in a tough spot."

"Yes, yes, exactly." The group nodded.

’If they just embraced new things, everyone could develop much faster together.’

Zog found it hard to understand the Drama Guild’s way of thinking.

But what was he to do about the lack of actors? Should he halt the Mixed Giant Beast Corps’ project?

That didn’t feel right. It was their first creative project, and as a group built on culture, he had to respect the creators.

If he waited for them to finish filming and then had them go through Yo-Yo training, who knew how long that would take.

Wait, training?

Wasn’t one of the criticisms of the original TV series the level of yo-yo skill shown by the actors, who had only been trained temporarily?

They were very professional, but their abilities were admittedly limited.

In that case, why did they have to use actors at all?

"Elsa, how many professional Yo-Yo players do we have under contract right now?"