Chapter 12: Securing Voice Actresses

Early in February, the official Castro Games server was taken by surprise because of the new update.

Idle Power now has online features!

There are the leaderboards, friend lists, and then a new feature called "Visit World". According to the guide, "Visit World" is only possible for players with the same game progress. That means they cannot visit players that are stronger or weaker than them. This feature is different from invite, which is only possible through having the player on their friend list.

Players immediately tried this feature after connecting their email accounts. Their eyes were focused on the friend list and invite features at first, though on the following day, they found that the "Visit World" feature was the most interesting part of the update.

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There was one player who was just eating a meal when he looked at his phone and saw a notification of someone intruding on his world. He immediately opened his game and then saw an entire street ruined along with broken walls and debris all around the sidewalk and buildings as his avatar and another stickman wearing a cowboy set duked it out. They threw various amounts of powers, most of which were either evaded or blocked by using other powers. Tapping the intruder, he saw that it was an evil-aligned player who was invading his world.

"How dare you! Beat him up, my hero!"

Enraged at first, later on he watched in amazement as he saw their avatars fight more creatively. It felt as if characters were learning their tactics and changing every second.

"Amazing!"

When his character wins, the invader is vanquished by his world, and he is given a new title and gets a new reputation on the Amity Town stage.

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Another player was having fun watching his avatar wreak havoc on the Bright Capital stage when a sudden, stylish prompt along with the pixelated sound of warning horns resounded in his phone, notifying him of a hero approaching. He saw his avatar pause for a moment before immediately leaving the mobs of capital enforcers alone, moving with purpose in a certain direction.

He read the popup on top of his avatar's head and saw that its action was hunting the world invader. When his avatar got to a certain part of the stage, it suddenly teleported, the screen of his phone shifting into another part of the city where he saw his avatar manifested. The split second his avatar appeared, it quickly used a mixture of lightning and fire manipulation with its roundhouse kick, creating a beautiful effect of two powers intermingling together. Whoever was the intended target would surely die, as his current status and the additional elemental damages and other stuff he had would easily result in a fifteen-digit damage.

That wasn't the case in this part, as whoever was his avatar's intended target had blocked it with a force field, a defensive power that blocked 99% of every type of damage to an avatar. The one his avatar attacked has its feet skidding on the asphalt road for a short distance before stopping as the sounds of glass breaking occurred along with the scene of its bluish barrier breaking out like shattered glass, its remnants vanishing into the void.

After that, he watched as his avatar and the good-aligned player intruder stared at each other for a single second before they started hurling fire, electricity, ice, and any element that could be thought of. Sometimes they boost their speed and go on a melee; other times they teleport somewhere far and then snipe at each other with long-range powers. After awhile, he noticed that the intruder mostly preferred long-range battles, as it usually parkoured itself away from his avatar and moved towards higher elevations where it could shoot at its avatar freely.

"Tsk! You still call yourself a good-aligned player? You fight like a sissy!" He grumbled in dissatisfaction.

He looked at the traits of the intruder and saw one of its traits being cautious, which usually prompted the avatar to fight at a safe distance. It was unlike his avatar, who had the reckless trait, which always prompted his avatar to move closer to its enemies regardless of what was happening. It was a mismatch, and after a long time, he saw his character fall in a pool of its blood and a countdown that told him how much time it would take before his avatar respawned.

"Nooooooo!!!"

He realized that, while having a reckless trait avatar would always have the most cinematic fights in a stage, it doesn't hold up to other players whose characters always leave his range, essentially losing him advantage and causing the damage to accumulate until he falls.

"Ugh... I might have to start all over again."

Regression would let him change his traits again, though that meant starting on the first stage again. It was a shame, but he decided to do that again instead of letting the invader keep beating him up.

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There were also other players who got a visitor that has the same alignment as their avatar. Instead of being called world invaders, the notification instead either called them an ally of good or a fellow villain entering their world. In the case of the good-aligned players, everyone would help each other beat the bad guys in the stages. As for evil-aligned players, depending on their traits, players would find them either ignoring each other, helping each other, or coming at each other's throats.

This amount of variety in just a single feature caused everyone who played the game extreme joy. They couldn't believe that Castro Games wouldn't just implement a simple online capability in the game; he would also include something this creative. It further immersed them in this idle game!

"This is it! This is the type of idle game I am looking for!"

"I love invading worlds!"

"This is a lot more exciting than other battle simulation games!"

"Who cares about other idle games? This game is the best idle game!"

"The idle game of the century!"

Those were just a few common praises most players uttered after they were done playing. As for the Accord server of the game, they were already discussing a lot of things, like the strategies that they suddenly became aware of after the initial shock of this new feature.

Murim: Reckless looks good at PvE, but in PvP its trash!

Mahoutsukai: Cautious, Paranoid, and Cunning traits are so OP!

Pleaides: Try pairing Street Smart on Reckless. Your character will fight like a demon.

SpicaWolf: Amateurs smh

Just choose cunning and your set for life.

Zetsubou: Charitable is trash at PvP ;cry; ;cry;

Shork: Cute & Charming is OP ;demon smile; ;demon smile;

Shirocc: Cute & Funny!?!? ;cry; ;cry; ;cry;

Ggibes: determinator is thr best

Gun_Holster: Cold, Apathetic, and Ruthless ignores charm effects. GG @Shork ;sticking out tongue; ;sticking out tongue;

Dracula_Vizard: Ruthless and Efficient is the way.

CQC_Combatant: I like the Determinator and Martyr more. Counter type abilities frequently get activated with this combination.

There were very few who found some issues with the new update, like sudden lag spikes, delayed loading of sprites, and delayed animations, though those concerns were buried by a large amount of praise. In the end, Idle Power v1.1 was accepted by a lot of them, and the enthusiastic ones advertised the game to their other acquaintances, which further increased the traffic on his game.

Mike barely got any boost from Idle Power. The only day he got a huge boost from it this year was when he rented the servers for it.

Cute Girls Academy, on the other hand, more than made up for the lack of improvement from his first game. The introduction of a private server increased the value of his game in the eyes of his power. The projected profits for this game increased tenfold, and with the server personally being maintained within his house, it further ate at his wallet. This was considered losing actual profits, as he wasn't earning anything at all, and any minimal earnings he did have through donations were all considered spent on the server.

CGA is essentially in the red, and his power has made a mental note within his subconscious that lets him keep track of the product that's in the negative in the present. Essentially, he has a 24-hour display of his actual profit loss within his mind, and it's quite helpful at letting him know which game was giving him that loss.

By the rules of his power, if an actual money loss occurred in his product, he would have to decrease that loss by earning them back. The more his loss persisted, the more his talent would improve based on whatever he did to make or achieve the quality of that specific product that was giving him a loss. That meant it's not just a simple multiplier for his skill improvements. It's a persistent multiplier that would stay until he earned more than what he lost from that product. The earnings must be done by the product that was at an actual profit loss, so other products earning him more wouldn't decrease the accumulated profit loss of that product.

Which is to say, he got a drastic boost to his skills from CGA v0.2.0!

"... Right, this can't go on."

And with the boost in skills, he learned that the current state of his CGA's physical servers was atrocious. It's a disaster waiting to happen!

"I need to rent another place for my server room!"

And with that realization, he immediately started looking for something with a bigger space nearby and immediately called the landowner to negotiate the price.

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Going back on topic, CGA's new private server made those at the CGA server ecstatic. They have been pestering the gamedev for an online server for the game, and now they finally got it. It was basically a closed beta for every CGA member. The majority of the hundreds of members immediately tried it out after reading the announcement.

There were no new features in the new update other than the online version. The online version added features like friend lists, world chat, and private chats. Then there were the differing online features on the two game modes. In the mockup challenges, the "mockup arena" was a new feature that let players set their defense team and their offense team, and then they could use their offense team to fight against the defense team of the other player. As for the exploration mode, there was now a "student meetup" which let players use their preferred student to visit the world of another player. The only rule was that they couldn't use the same student as the others who joined. A host could open up their world, and a total of seven players could join their world.

This new feature was rich enough for all of them, even with the lack of other features. The mockup arena was the most popular out of every feature. In just a few days, players created their own meta with the limited student roster. They kept constantly fighting against the other players, as their ranking determined the amount of gold and Pages they could gain every single day. Pages couldn't be bought, so finding out anything that could increase their Pages would be immediately exploited.

CGA players were very happy with this new update!

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Unfortunately, no matter how good Mike was, there were still those who were unsatisfied. Though unlike the past versions, these criticisms were more relevant.

In Idle Power, the players were unsatisfied about the slight delays on the loading screen when they connected to other worlds. This was because the invader had to connect to the player they were invading, which meant pairing their data with the other so their actions and the stage they were currently inhabiting were in sync in real time.

Despite having ordered a high-quality server, the data storage room and its equipment still paled in comparison to the other well-established web hosting companies in other countries. The Philippines mostly had second-hand technology available to them, so even what they considered cutting edge would only be an average spec to a first-world country. Another thing was that, even with the millions of pesos invested in this company, this was still a startup company. They didn't have the capability to buy equipment that would be up to par for hosting games like this all over the world without any delays in it.

The simplicity of the game could at least host ten thousand players concurrently, but the current amount of players actively playing this game was already in the hundred thousands. 90% of these active players were frequently using the "Visit World" feature. So it wasn't a surprise that the server was having some problems.

The server was also located in a single location. Regardless of how high-end it was, only those in the vicinity of this region would have a smoother experience than those beyond the borders of Southeast Asia. Most active players of Idle Power were mostly located in Europe and North America. The delay was inevitable due to how far they were.

This issue was still a bit minor, even if it was valid. Idle Power players were used to the smooth gameplay when it was still a standalone game. No, this problem wasn't that serious. The game that was getting a lot of negative feedback was Cute Girls Academy!

Unlike Idle Power, which, even with the delay, was still maintained by an actual company specialized for it, Cute Girls Academy's physical dedicated server was run in an empty room in Mike's house. It had some of the equipment for it to continue running, but it wasn't enough to accommodate a full live service, even for a private server.

Visiting worlds in exploration mode was laggy; their movements were always delayed by a second or two, and loading the models of their character and the entire stage itself took so long that even if it loaded, they would only see a clutter of incomplete nonsense on their screen while other parts were still blank. Most of the time, when they had more players joining a single world, they always had the experience of seeing their girls lacking clothes, hair, and even an entire body itself. This was quite a horror that some of the owners of these OCs screamed in horror when they found out about this bug.

Thankfully there wasn't any explicit part in their naked models when Mike made them. At most, they looked like dolls walking around. It was still creepy for them that they demanded he fix this as soon as possible.

CastroGames: I apologize to everyone. I am still a newbie when it comes to making online features in a game. Please give me some time. I'll fix most of the bugs when the next update comes!

With the continuous barrage of criticisms, Mike made a public announcement on both the official server and the CGA server.

'I know I can do it!'

He was already starting the plans on making his own data storage and making plans for how he would do that. He was getting all the knowledge he needed for that to happen. At the same time, even when it was still not done, he was already making all the revised backend data for the improved server so there wouldn't be any problems when the server room was done.

'I also need to learn how to make a server with my own hands.'

He also knew about the issue of tech in this country and knew he wouldn't be able to compete with other game companies if he just relied on third parties in this nation. He had to make his own brand if he wanted to keep up with the others.

It might sound impossible and incredibly arrogant for a single person, but his power would make it possible. It's the power that increases his talents and skills instantly depending on his potential and actual profit loss.

He still didn't have the relevant knowledge of how to make a server of his own. He only knew how to operate and maintain one, but not how to create it. Though, with the knowledge, he had an inkling where to start with that.

"I'll make some prototype servers and test it in March!"

That's what he had decided on. He still has plans in February, so he could only move that plan to March.

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Early in February, Mike left his home to get together with his friends on QC. He deliberately chose this day out of all days because it was currently his birthday. He didn't have time to prepare anything for his birthday, so he was grateful that Elmer had invited him for a gathering once more. He hasn't made it the last few weeks because he was busy wrangling with codes and pushing up more content for his game. Optimization for the online feature has also consumed a lot of his time, so this was the first time he actually had free time to himself.

When he arrived, Elmer and another person greeted him with smiles on their faces.

"Hey, you're finally here!" Elmer said.

"It's been so long, Mike. Happy birthday to you!"

His eyes settled on the bespectacled woman who greeted him. She was a few inches shorter than him, had hair that reached her waist, brownish-colored eyes, and clothing that looked too casual despite being a gathering. She wore a black shirt and pants, with the shirt having a printed anime character on it. Along with that were some accessories on her, like a bracelet with butterfly symbols on it, which resembled the same symbol from some gacha game, and her phone, which has a high-quality casing of a Vtuber along with a keychain of that same Vtuber.

"Thanks. It's been so long too, Cath."

Catherine Hernandez. This woman is one of his friends that got acquainted through Elmer. The rare female otaku that wasn't obnoxious and had a good sense of humor.

"Haha, I thought you wouldn't come again. Come on, let's enter!" Catherine said with a smile before turning around, inviting them inside her house.

Mike still couldn't believe that Elmer befriended someone like this when he was in high school and that he managed to get acquainted with her through him. Catherine was one of the relatives of the Hernandez, one of the wealthier families in Manila. Unlike her other relatives and the main family, she mostly focused on her own hobbies, which were gushing about anime and learning more about Japanese culture because of those anime.

As they entered, he also saw other people within the balcony of this mansion. Those were Elmer's long-time gaming friends and Catherine's otaku friends all gathered in one. They greeted Mike with smiles on their faces, a few even trying to catch up, as it had been long since he came here.

"Ey, Mike. Heard from Elmer you made a game."

"Yeah. It's an idle game. You wanna try?"

"Mike. Long time no see!"

"Long time no see too, bro!"

"Have you watched Remaker? Animation's amazing, Mike!"

"I'll watch it later."

"Congratulations Mike. Heard from Elmer that you're getting up in life."

"Thanks, bro!"

After a brief conversation with most of his friends, they started with the party. Most of them sat, while a few had already gathered on the corner where their karaoke machine was set. Most of the songs installed in it were mostly anime songs and a few popular J-pop songs too. They were a gathering of friends who had the same hobbies and interests, so they weren't afraid to sing songs like this in the open.

While that was happening, Mike was talking with Elmer, Catherine, and the other close friends he had at one of the round tables. Their plates were half-finished, and a few juices and gins were set here and there. Of course, Mike only had fruit juice. He really doesn't like to drink any alcohol.

"So..." Catherine turned to Mike after they were done catching up with the others. "I heard that you gained a lot with your game. What do you plan next?"

It might sound a bit intrusive, but this was just a harmless question from her. They learned about Idle Power through Elmer and had played it for a bit, so they know just how popular it was. They also knew Mike enough that they expected him not to be satisfied with just this. So they were curious about his next plan.

Mike already has a plan for that. He was just going to tell this to them.

"Right. I'm actually looking for voice actors."

"... Voice actors?" Elmer piped up, confused.

"Yes."

"... Uh, why do you need voice actors? Wait, are you planning to make a new game?" Catherine tried to guess while tilting her head.

Mike smirked. "Actually, I'm already at the close beta. I just need to add a few things to it before it goes live." He took his phone, unlocked it, and opened it on a certain page before showing it to them. "Here."

All of them looked at it. They saw the witch.io page of Cute Girls Academy.

"Wait!? Wow, look at that, it's so cute!"

"Cute Girls Academy?"

"Why does it look like a high-quality anime game!?"

"Did you commission this!?"

They exclaimed in various shock, surprised at the preview images in the game. Catherine's eyes even lit up when she saw a lineupof six beautifully illustrated female anime characters in one of the preview images. Elmer's eyes also lit up at the preview image of the exploration mode.

Then, Catherine frowned when they scrolled for a bit and read the description on the game.

"Wait? Community-driven gacha game? What do you mean by that?"

"It meant what it said. This game is run by the community itself. Fans can influence how the game will progress, including any features they want to see from it."

"... Isn't that ridiculous!?" Elmer exclaimed.

Elmer has some knowledge of game development. He was a programmer, so while he couldn't imagine the other aspects of it, he knew a lot about the coding part. What Mike just said should be impossible. That's just putting in a lot of work without being rewarded for it!

A waste of time, basically!

"... Right. This is stupid. What do you mean by non-profit? Are you trying to work for free!?" Even Catherine was baffled as she read that part.

It wasn't just a game that the community could influence on their whims; it was also a non-profit game. The idea alone was absurd. But Mike just smiled at them as they gazed at him in concern.

"There's no need to worry. I can do it!"

He looked at them with a confident gaze. It's a sense of clarity that was very clear in their eyes as they looked at him.

"Don't worry about it. I'll handle everything else. For now, I am really looking for some voice actresses. It's one of the problems that I unfortunately can't solve by myself..." He said, his shoulders slumping in resignation.

Well, he could solve it if he decided to train his vocals, use them somewhere that could potentially make him profit, and then gain skill improvements from it, but he didn't want to do it because he felt embarrassed to do so. Just the thought of him sounding like a cute girl made the hairs on his spine stand straight, and he cringed.

"Uhuh..."

"And I just recalled you said something about wanting to be an anime voice actress, Cath. Do you want to be my first client? I already have a voice-over studio in my area!"

"... Huh!?"

He just dropped another bombshell.

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After a few hours of conversation, his friends were convinced. Mike would use Idle Power as his cash maker so he could invest in the development and maintenance of Cute Girls Academy. Catherine and Elmer knew about the idea of the game. They recalled Mike always talking about a community-driven game, even though it always made them confused about how it could possibly be done in real life.

After the conversation, they installed the game from witch.io to try it. Their reaction to it was much better than he was hoping for.

"Wow! This is amazing!"

"Two different game modes in a single game!?"

"This is so high quality!"

"Anubis!? Isn't that a straight rip-off of that game!?"

"I got a VTuber shark!"

"Who named their character Rose Garden Mary? That name sounded like a Stumblr OC!"

"Well, Rose is cute."

"Look at this character. Crystal Maiden's design is so gorgeous!"

"From this day forth, Klee is my waifu!"

"You lolicon!"

All of them exclaimed, and a few made some funny remarks as they had fun trying out the game. After the initial fun, all of them looked at Mike, the one who made this game.

"Did you really make this!?"

"Be honest. You have a team behind you, right!?"

"It can't be just done with you alone. There are basically two games inside this one!"

"What do you mean incomplete? It's already a complete game no matter how I look at it!"

"Mike, why is there no microtransaction? I need more Pages to roll!"

"Just finish the quest, Marco." Mike replied to the last one with an exasperated sigh.

Catherina stared at the game, looking at the characters she had collected at the time she played this game. Then she gazed at Mike after she was done with another session of mockup challenges.

"Mike... I really appreciate the offer, but I don't think I can voice act on this game." She said, scratching the side of her cheek awkwardly.

Just like Elmer, Catherine knew how much of a perfectionist he was. If she ever accepted his offer, then she felt she wouldn't meet whatever expectation he had of her. She liked his personality of always wanting the best, though at the same time she was scared of it. She doesn't want to disappoint this guy who had such a strong passion about making his own games.

"Don't worry. I'll train you."

She doesn't know why, but the way he said it made her heart skip a bit. Her cheeks heated up for a bit. His female colleagues who were sitting beside her also looked flabbergasted, and one of them even squealed in delight.

"Kyaa! Train her? That's so... Uwehehehehe!"

Those words made Catherine perk up and turn to the girl who said it unashamedly; then she raised her fist and smacked her in the head.

"Ow!?"

"Elly, behave!"

Elly nursed the back of her head; her grin was still there even as she lowered her head. Catherine sighed before turning her attention back to Mike, calming herself.

"Well, this is surprising. Do you know how to train voice actors?"

"Well, a bit. Don't worry, I will make sure you'll become a professional voice actress if you train in my studio!"

His words were resolute. She could see in his eyes that he truly believed what he was saying.

"The others too. I'd like to invite you to become the voice actresses for the students. I'll make sure to give you all the necessary training that even professional Japanese voice actors cannot compete against you!"

The three other women besides Catherine were shocked. They could see that Mike was very serious about it as he gazed at them earnestly. Elly stopped grinning like a loon and looked at them for a moment before they smiled at Mike.

"Well, if it's like that, then I don't mind. I always wanted to try voice acting."

"Right. If you're so serious about it, then we should try too, right?"

"Ahaha, if it's free, then I'm in!"

Some of them stared at the shameless Elly before they turned to Mike once more.

"Are you sure about this, Mike? It's a game that won't give you any revenue."

"It's fine, Elmer. This game is one of my dream games. I want to see it with my eyes."

Elmer could see that distant look Mike had as he answered him. It was a gaze that was looking beyond the present. Elmer shook his head helplessly.

"Well... if you need some help, just call us. We've got your back!"

After that, they talked for a bit more before something came to Catherine's mind.

"Oh right. Are we going to dub them in English? Or are you planning for us to do a Tagalog dub on the characters?"

All of them were intrigued. They didn't expect Mike to do other languages like Japanese because they didn't know that language. None amongst them have been taught Japanese, and those who had some knowledge about it could only speak simple words, as their knowledge all came from either visual novels, games, or anime.

"Huh? It's a Japanese dub, of course!"

As if it was the most normal thing in the world, Mike answered without any delay.

"... Eh!?"

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The next day, Mike visited the newly built voice-over studio near his residence. He was just done signing up everything and then paying for the lease, and now he could do anything he wanted to this place for at least six months.

He entered the room and looked around. It was very small. There were only four rooms. One was a mixture of waiting room and leisure room. The next was a small soundproof booth for vocal training, dubbing, or singing. Another room was for operations and a one-sided mirror that showed the booth. Then the last one was a storage room for other spare parts in the eventuality that some of the equipment got problems.

He checked everything, testing out the mics in the booth and even the synthesizer, sound amplifiers, and anything else in the operation room. He even took the time to look at the book he had filled with written tips for himself. All of these tips came from the tutorials and other helpful blogs from the internet so he would know at least the basics of managing this place.

When afternoon came, he heard the ping of his phone. He looked at it and saw that it was Catherine calling him.

["Hey. We're here. Where is it?"]

He quickly walked out of the studio and immediately saw his friend standing there, her car parked on the side of the road along with some of her friends. Catherine was looking at the large store sign above the entrance with a raised eyebrow before she looked forward to him.

"Really? You can't think of anything more creative than this?"

Mike just smirked. "Thanks for the voice of confidence." He gestured towards the entrance of his studio. "Welcome to Castro's Vocal Studio. Come, I'll tell you more about it inside."

Mike was excited. He was getting closer to what he was envisioning.