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1st Rewrite [Text - UN: koko1010]

So doom and gloom aside... I believe that there's a big problem that needs to be addressed here!

Why isn't anyone talking about the awesome gacha games on this smartphone!?

Warrior Stickman. Dragon Odyssey. Blood Empire. Strike Knights. There's so many mobile games around here and I see everyone is just sleeping on them! Do none of these ring a bell?! Have you all lost of your sense of romanticism and adventure!? We just had a tournament with Mario Party for crying out loud! Surely this has tickled your interests in video games a little bit!

For those who don't know... Gacha gaming is the ultimate pass time where you can play video games on your little smartphone here. Pretty self-explanatory, right? But be warn that if you decide to step into the world of gacha... It's a incredible hell that you're walking into. An all-or-nothing bloodbath where the strong live and the weak die. A path of carnage and broken dreams where 1-Star characters are devoured and forgotten by the irresistible 5-Star characters.

In a sense... Our society is no different from a gacha game, no? The strong and beautiful who live in high society are considered the 5-Star characters and we who have been drinking from the gutters and crawling through mud are the mere 1-Stars! But fear not 1-Stars... I, Tennouji Kotarou, the man who rules over common sense, am here to bestow my knowledge upon you! As the chosen "Common Sense Archon" it is my duty to pass on my fruits of wisdom!

So if you'd want a place to start, I can suggest that you play "Glory Kingdom"! It's one that I'm pretty into lately. Ever dreamed of befriending a cute goddess? Ever wanted to build your kingdom from the neck up? Ever wanted to team-up with a crazy tyrant babe who hates your guts, then slowly falls in love with you as you show her the joys of the normal world?!

Then this game is absolutely for you! They're even giving away free gems for new players who join, so what are you waiting for? Don't be a 1-Star, be a ★COOL STAR★ and join in the big sensation sweeping the island nation!

P.S: I was not paid to do this (though I will accept donations since I'm a little low on cash right now from my valuable gacha gaming research)! I simply want to share my joy involving a little hobby of mine! If you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer. Thank you. ♥

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[ "The joy and satisfaction of a cute 2D girl saying how much they like you warms the heart so much more than a 3D girl." Then how do you explain the player who deleted her just so he could complete the game, hm? Lies. These are all lies.

Sure you may pretend liking the cute 2D girl, but the moment she asks you out? There's nobody left. All players are hypocrites. ]

You're spending untold amount of money on pictures, as you said. They're not even sentient girls! I could understand if pouring money was like, helping them escape from a fate worse than death or something.

[ ... Wait, no if she starts saying that it'll sound weird. Without the proper context it makes no sense. ]

The fact that "stopping" is equal to "losing" for you is exactly why it's an addiction. Your money would be better spent on improving your own life. You could get so many books, with narratives of far better quality than the stories in these games. Or you could get yourself a new house. You could learn new things, you could treat yourself to quality food.

Basically, strive to better yourself Kotarou! That's a much better use for your money. I'll cheer you on if you do that.

Fate worse than death? That's getting a little too meta here. I couldn't imagine a gacha game like that...

[And it sounded a little scary too. Imagining these cute waifus needed to be freed from their smartphone prisons. More people would be dedicated to these in hindsight.]

Ah... I'm not a very smart guy, so there's definitely going to be plenty of books that are far beyond me. I wasn't born with a genius brain like some people. But I do want to change myself more... The issue where you actually start with that. [A beat.] You know... You're starting to sound like a nagging wife now. OR maybe class rep would be more accurate... Wouldn't it be more easier to laugh at me if I look so pathetic?

[Not everyone is you, Kotarou.]

[ A nagging wife or class rep? Sighs. Old habits die hard, huh... She'd been doing that in the Literature Club too. And failing. She'd taken that whole gacha thing a little too personally. ]

Sorry, I didn't mean to nag at you.

But I most certainly won't laugh at you, nor would I ever call you pathetic. The companies developing those games are preying on your vulnerabilities. And you expressed the desire to change. I can actually relate pretty hard to feeling lonely and not knowing where to start, you know.

I think you should think of it less as changing yourself, and more as improving yourself. Would it be easier if you had someone to help you? I'd be happy to be that person. Sometimes, it's hard to be motivated when you're on your own. But when there is someone you can talk to, it like gives you something you can hold onto to make sure you stay focused.

Hmm... Weeeeell, I wouldn't mind it if you say "I'll be cheering for you!" ♥ in a very cutesy and supportive manner!

Hold on, hold on! Where did I say that I was lonely?! You're clearly overanalyzing things here! More friends wouldn't hurt, but I'm not super desperate here! Gotta make sure that people get into gacha games for a little levity in their harsh or boring lives.

[This entire post was a very loud scream of friendship desperation. Kotarou, you're not fooling anyone here on how very lonely you are...]

Oooh... Are you signing up to be like my motivation coach? Will this come with a cheerleader outfit? I can pay you a little extra if that comes with the program here.

[ Eww, gross. Why, Kotarou... Yet again, she was the sort who'd totally wear whatever for her partner if they asked her, so she didn't really have any room to judge. And really, that kind of humor was very obviously a self-defense mechanism. The normal reaction for anyone would be to get angry and offended here. But when someone was hurting (even if their pain so happened to be gacha) you had to be calm and understanding.

Next thing, he would received a voice message from Monika. She sounded very gentle and kind as she spoke the words: ]

I'll be cheering for you, Kotarou~♥!

[ There. That was the "sign up" form filled, right? And really, if speaking kind words had the power to help with an addiction? She was more than happy to speak those words. ]

I'm officially your motivation coach now, ahaha~! No cheerleader outfit, sorry. And no more gacha. I think you should give yourself a week to delete them from your phone.

[There's a delayed pause because he did not expect her to do that. He was completely joking! Most of the time, he'd expect a more "Drop dead!" or some kind of dismissive comment thrown his way. A little teasing like that usually cheered him up. This was very unexpected, though... And now, he's just flat out embarrassed about even saying that.]

WHAAAAAAAAAT YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO SERIOUSLY DO THAT
I WAS KIDDING

[Now he's conflicted if he should delete that voice message or not. No, he'll keep it just in case that he needs a pick-me-up. It made him feel like a pervert, though. (More so than the usual, anyway)]

Huh? Isn't that a little too soon? My gems will be flushed down the toilet!! You should at least let me keep Glory Kingdom! There's nothing wrong to limiting yourself to one gacha game at least!

Ahaha! I guess I got carried away a little... But this made you happy, didn't it? Don't you think getting someone real to cheer on you felt better than having a game character say some pre-recorded lines devoid of meaning?

Alright, so here is Monika's tip of the day: you're gonna feel compelled to go back to your gacha games sometimes. It's natural. Whenever that happens? Contact someone in the real world instead! You don't need to spend your money trying to get characters, when your life is full of 5-star friends. We're all cheering on you to better yourself. And before you realize it? Rather than playing gacha, you'll be having fun with your friends all the time.

And that was Monika's tip of the day~! Thanks for reading. I'll have another one ready for you tomorrow.

I was scared for a second! You can say some rather dangerous things, Monika-san!

[No, seriously... His heart almost stopped at the thought of having all of his precious gacha games deleted like that! It'd be like a virus just slipped its way into his phone to wreak everything. Having that message did cheer him up, though...]

Whenever you put it like that, I guess that's a little easier to do. I can spend time coaxing them into playing the gacha games that I'm into instead. Then I'll have my little "Gacha Game Empire" going with me as the king up front and center! Muhahaha! (/^▽^)/

But all in seriousness... Thank you for the advice. You sound like you have a lot of experience with helping people out with their problems. NOT that this is a huge major biggie or anything.

[ A virus... Now that was an idea! With her Technomancy, she could try to delete all of his gacha from his phone without him even realizing a thing. She'd definitely have to try. ]

I think it helps to never consider any problem "small." By saying it's not huge, you're downplaying it. Even if you consider your problems small, they're no less "problems" than anything else. And you deserve help. Addictions are usually the result of very serious troubles that are invisible on a surface level.

I have my own problems, you know. I'm pretty self-aware of what my underlying issues are. But it's often hard to open up and show your vulnerabilities to others... You got a glimpse into my issues last time we spoke, but that was by accident. And I think that's why I'm trying so hard to help others. As a way to cover my issues.

The same way than you say bad jokes whenever you feel your vulnerabilities are about to show.

[ Hopefully he didn't think she had shifted the conversation away from him. She's pretty good at taking conversations exactly where she wants them to be. ]

So like, don't hesitate to open up if you want someone to talk to, alright?

[Monika... He would be crying for weeks upon weeks of losing all of his precious waifus and data.]

It isn't like I'm smoking or drinking. I think those are a little more serious compared to just playing some video games. Those first two screw up your body more with the long term affects. The worst that a video game can do is give you strained eyes if you push it a little too much. But nothing overly serious that deserves a psychoanalysis.

[Whenever it came to his own issues, Kotarou tended to internalize them and brush them aside until he has to confront the issue. Or he does his best to ignore them through doing other mundane tasks to distract him... Hearing Monika say that, well, he's more than a little surprised that she remembered that conversation. He tended to take the little things he did for people more for granted compared to the bigger things. The more you stood out, the more that you were remembered... That's how the social world worked in Kotarou's eyes.]

Oh, uh... You remember that whole conversation, huh? I thought you forgot about all of that. It didn't seem as memorable compared to being, well, you know, being shat out of a worm. I had to take the longest shower of my life there!

[Oh boy... Kotarou just realized that he also might've realized something personal about himself by accident. And little did he know, he was deflecting with a bit of bad humor again. Monika had that side of him down to a tee and that was a little scary. But he was glad that she had did some reflecting after what they spoke about.]

I'll keep that in mind... But I'm more interested in how long your shower was compared to mine! Will I be seeing wet shower Monika-san pics in my future? ♥

[The more awkward he felt, the more dirty his jokes became... That was also a classic Kotarou-ism.]

[ "Wet shower Monika-san pics" wasn't what she'd expected to hear today and wasn't what she ever wanted anyone to ask of her. ]

Kotarou, what the heck? That's gross!

[ Most unfortunately for Kotarou, Monika is a self-aware visual novel character! So while if he'd said that in-person it may very well have gotten more of a reaction out of her, through text? That's about it. It's gonna be hard hiding feelings and emotions behind a veil of bad humor when she's basically got TV Tropes memorized. ]

Anyway, we're not talking about video game addiction here, you know? It's more akin to a gambling addiction. While it may not affect your physical health the way drugs do, it affects your mental health instead. Lack of sleep, isolation, self-depreciation. That ends up affecting the physical side, too.

And I thought our conversation was more memorable than the worm adventure, ahaha. The stuff you told me that day showed a lot of wisdom and knowledge. I really think you can do great things. You just need a bit of help, and not from gacha games.

Oh, uh..... Sorry about that.

[Though Kotarou had to wonder how was that more gross than getting crapped out of a worm!? He didn't see the problem here. Girls always had to make mountains out of mole hills. (Maybe the issue was the fact that you were objectifying her, Kotarou...)]

The worst thing that's happened to me so far was seeing Sayooshi-san, the heroine of Glory Kingdom, in a dream. She told me to keep spending money to build my beautiful kingdom and get more subjects. She's a good girl who never lies to me. The main heroine usually never leads you astray unless this is a dark revenge isekai. You know... Technically, we're all already living in an isekai. That's a bit of mindblowing thing to think about!

What kinds of things are you thinking about? Becoming a hero or a knight would be nice... But I don't think I have the talent, looks or competence for either of those things. I'm just a supporting character at best... Background character at worst.

[ That... There is something that particularly hurts about that last sentence. Being a supporting character at best, a background one at worst. She knew something about that. ]

If the world won't let you be more than a side character, then you can become the hero of your own story. You're severely underestimating your own potential. And you've just earned yourself the certainty I'll be sending you daily advises for the foreseeable future!

[ Mind you, her advises when it came to such matters were probably not the best ones, considering... What had happened when she'd decided to stop being a side character. ]

Right now, we're not in a dream. What if Monika, President of the Literature Club and host of the Literature Corner, was to tell you to stop spending your money on gacha? Of course, I know I can't compare to a legendary heroine from a glorious kingdom—

But I'm real, right? That Sayooshi is just a fictional character with pre-written lines and no personality of her own! [Wait... The way she was getting angry at the attention given to some NPC... That started sounding very familiar.] Give it some thought, alright?

[She was being oddly passionate about all of this! Kotarou is definitely caught off guard by Monika's assertiveness. There's no way that someone would go this far for a person that they barely knew unless it deeply affected them somehow. It might've been a cold way to think, but Kotarou knew that people were built on self-satisfaction whenever they wanted to help someone. She did say that she wanted to avoid her own personal issues, but it felt like this stabbed a bit deeper than that.]

Uh Monika-san

I've got a bit of a personal question to ask. Were you affected by video games in the past? Like did you used to be a hardcore player and drifted away from that life or did you know someone who's life spiraled out of control from gacha games?

[ Monika was surprised at her own assertiveness, too. Usually she was a pushover lacking in confidence... But desperate situations had pushed her beyond her limits before. Like when she'd been trapped in a game and forced to deal with the player preferring to go with her friends whom she'd thought of as mere NPC.

That was really different, though... And seeing his question, her emotions were showing. She really ought to not let that get to her. Urgh, why was it so hard? ]

I've never been addicted to games, nor have I had a friend suffering of it. [Yet... There was more to it.] But you could say they have negatively affected my life.

It would be too complicated to explain and besides you wouldn't believe me, ahaha!

[That definitely sounded odd. Her behavior felt off even to a dense idiot like Kotarou. It was one thing if she had a tragic past involving video games or knew someone like a friend or a lover who got really addicted and it lead to a break up. In any case, Kotarou tries his best to take this seriously for once.]

Well, I am an idiot, but I can definitely try to understand things as best as I can. I've experienced a lot of weird things in my lifetime. Some of it that I'm still trying to process even now.

[Thinking about everything that happened to him on the Moon still made his head spin a bit, but it all definitely occurred. But that wasn't the topic to discuss right now... He wanted to say his piece for her.]

But anyway, you've been pretty pushy... So it's my turn to push back! If you've got a problem, you can come to me to talk to! You don't have to make a big confession to me right now. Just whenever you feel like your heart's been settled enough to tell me how you're feeling or what you experienced. I'm an ally to pretty girls, you know.

Ahaha, thanks Kotarou.

It's pretty hard for me to open up... I've never been good at showing my vulnerabilities to others. And my past definitely qualifies as a big vulnerability. I'd like to tell you now, but I don't really have the confidence for it. I think you could actually dislike me if you ended up hearing the truth, ahaha!

Maybe someday, after I've built up the courage to speak of it. But I can assure you: this will probably be the weirdest story you'll ever hear.

[ She really appreciated the offer and really really wanted to speak... But she didn't want to risk him thinking less of her, or worse, coming to hate her the same way the player had. ]

Hmmm... We'll have to see about that! I've read all kinds of bizarre stories about the occult, so I don't think there's much that can faze me now. But even the greatest of journalists can be surprised every once in a blue moon.

[He definitely used to have a part-time job as a journalist back home. Now that he thought about it, he should do some snooping around to see if he could get hired for something like that here in Avalon. It'd be a good excuse to talk to more people and potentially make more friends.]

Ahaha! Be ready then, cuz the day I'll open up, your entire world will be thrown upside down~!

[ Literally. She can't imagine him having ever heard a weirder story than hers. ]

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1st Rewrite [Text - UN: koko1010]

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