26 Beautiful Girl Cards are Popular Among Otaku
In this world, there are naturally booster packs too.
However, their publishers are varied –
regular companies, card research labs, or mysterious organizations of unknown origin.
The latter two seem rather odd, don’t they?
The birth of cards in this world has a slightly occult aspect to it.
It’s not as simple as designing cards at a printing company and having them printed in the previous world.
Well, we’ll skip over those details for now as it would get too long.
I’ll probably touch on it another time.
Since this is a card shop, it goes without saying that I sell them.
And if new booster packs are being released, that means there’s a release date for the new set.
Today’s story is about the release date of a new booster set.
The day a new set comes out is exciting, isn’t it?
You get to obtain new cards to strengthen your deck, and since they’re usually released on Saturdays, you can battle right away.
There’s even the thrill of opening booster packs –
in a sense, that might be the most fun part.
“Manager, I’d like to get a booster box of the new set.”
“Coming right up, Yato-chan, just a moment.”
As soon as the shop opened that day, Yato-chan said that the second she walked in.
She didn’t pre-order, so if we’re out of stock, she’d have to give up.
But of course we’d have plenty in stock right when we open.
I take a sealed booster box from the cardboard case under the counter and hand it to her.
She promptly buys it, looking satisfied.
“There’s just something exciting about buying a whole box, you know?”
“I agree.”
Yato-chan hugs the box happily.
“By the way, who are you gunning for?”
“Who else? The Archangel Michiru, of course! Or rather, isn’t everyone?”
“Could be.”
Yato-chan points at the packaging on the box,
which depicts multiple beautiful monster girls.
The one she’s pointing at is the angelic girl in the center.
There are many kinds of packs.
While we call them all “boosters,” there were mainly three types in my previous world:
One was the Regular Pack –
There are various ways to say it, the main pack for that game,
the pack is featuring ace monsters used by the protagonists and rivals if it’s tied to an anime.
It’s an essential staple pack that you can’t start without.
Then there were Reprint Packs
The pack that reprinted older powerful cards to make them more accessible.
They had less demand than Regular Packs since no new cards were included,
but they were still needed periodically, like once a year.
Finally, there were Others –
any packs that didn’t fit the above categories.
They’d include monster cards unrelated to the main game, or collaborate with other franchises.
Among them, there are “packs focusing on bishojo cards”.
The set released today belongs to the “pack centered around beautiful girl cards” category
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT GADGETIZEDPANDA.COM
a veritable otaku’s slobberfest,
collecting all the lovely bishoujo cards from this world. Our shop has lots of otaku customers who love this stuff, like Yato-chan and Erea, so we have several cartons’ worth behind the counter right now.
Well, one of those cartons is already sold out, actually.
We’ve got some real box-buyers here.
There’s this girl Erea who buys them by the carton.
“Alright, I’ll be back later then.”
“Coming back?”
“I can’t very well open beautiful girl card packs around elementary school kids. It would kill what’s left of my shame.”
I get where she’s coming from.
Since today’s shop tournament is in the afternoon, she’ll open the packs at home and return once it starts.
After Yato-chan left, more customers came to buy boxes or two of the new set.
Then a woman wearing a mask and sunglasses entered the store.
She looked around suspiciously, seemingly confirming no one else was there before relaxing a bit.
She quickly headed to the counter and called out to me.
“Hello there, Manager.”
“Hello, uhh…”
“Just think of me as Customer A for now. Don’t mind me.”
“Oh, right. You must be here to get your pre-order?”
It’s Haku-san, of course.
Instead of her usual casual outfit, she’s rocking an exposed midriff look today.
Trying to enjoy exposing some skin while hiding her face, I guess?
Her mask and sunglasses combo looks completely out of place though. Should I point that out or not?
Well, she’s a valuable pre-order customer for today’s set, so I’ll just hand over the boxes without comment.
Four boxes total –
the biggest purchase so far today,
aside from Erea who’s staff so doesn’t count as a customer.
“Thank you. Fufufu, just you wait, Michiru-chan. Fufufufufu…”
“That laugh is kinda creepy…”
So Haku-san is aiming for Archangel Michiru too, just like her sister.
Well, she is the featured chase card on the packaging after all.
Various other people visited the shop to buy the new boosters too.
One surprising customer was the detective, who nonchalantly said
“I’m interrupting you, Manager. I need to buy one box of the new set”
and just bought it without hesitation.
Quite the manly…no, un-otaku-like attitude there.
But I respected his boldness and just normally checked him out,
putting the box in a paper bag since plastic is see-through.
Daia also came to get his three boxes.
Like Haku-san, they were also pre-orders.
“Manager, I’m here for my pre-order of the new boosters.”
“Got it, you’re gunning for Michiru too?”
“I exercise my right to remain silent.”
Unlike Haku-san though, he openly purchased them without any hesitation –
not that his usual beanie and shades don’t already make his look suspicious in the first place.
I felt sorry for him in case he was reported to the police, so I handed him a paper bag.
I did a good job, though.
Ah, gotta take this call…
What? You want an extra whole carton on top of your pre-order?
No can do, we don’t have that many left after filling all the pre-orders.
If you take another carton, we won’t have enough for other customers.
Staff privileges don’t override this,
give it up.
“I’m baaaaaack!”
That night,
right before closing up shop.
A loud voice rang out in the now empty store.
It was Erea,
who had apparently just returned.
Yelling like that would normally be rude, but it’s fine – there are no customers around to disturb, just me to hear her deafening shout.
As a former scout, Erea checks for any remaining customers before entering anyway.
This beautiful girl-loving ex-scout looked utterly drained as she lugged a large bag on her back.
Physically energetic, but mentally exhausted.
“What happened? You rushed out so quickly earlier and now you’re back this late…”
“Listen, Manager! You gotta listen!”
Erea marches right up to me
until we’re face-to-face, our noses almost touching.
close, very close, Too close.
“The Archangel Michiru has a dismal 1 per case pull rate!”
“That’s terrible.”
“I can’t build a full power deck like this!”
Yikes, a 1 per case ratio is just evil.
This world’s packs sometimes have crazy low pull rates,
but that’s still over the top –
only permissible for things like Secret Rares in the previous world.
“So that’s why I ran around town buying up more of the new set.”
“I see…”
“Two whole cases worth! Surely I’ll pull her with this many packs!”
Not literal cases then, just accumulated booster boxes from multiple shops
since she couldn’t pre-order whole cases.
Erea must have gotten overconfident thinking one case would net her enough copies to build a full Michiru deck.
She had to go to various stores and buy a few boxes from each store.
“Anyway, I’ll be livestreaming my pack openings from these! Wish me luck!”
“Good luck then. Want me to make dinner?”
“Already ate, but thanks for offering. Dammit, I shouldn’t have eaten!”
That eager for a home-cooked meal from me…?
I can only really do simple stuff though.
We had some leftover pasta, so it would’ve just been spaghetti.
In any case…
“Here goes, Michiru-chan! Fufufufufu, uhfufufufu…”
With a determined laugh, Erea headed upstairs to start her stream.
“…Hm.”
Watching her go…
New set releases sure are lively affairs, aren’t they?
The shop gets multiple times busier and noisier than usual.
It makes me want to experience that new set atmosphere too.
I glance down at a lone booster pack left from behind the counter.
one of the boxes we were selling individually
Why not? I’ll buy and open this one pack too.
Probably no chance of pulling the Archangel Michiru, but…
“Huh, this is…”
As I think that and pay for the pack at the register,
I end up pulling a certain card from it.
Not Michiru, but still…
I find myself staring at this card for a little while.
…Meanwhile, despite opening two whole cases’ worth, Erea was unable to pull a single copy of Michiru, suffering a complete bust.
Also check out my friend Localizermeerkat for more LN translations!
BUY THE SOURCE MATERIAL TO SUPPORT THE AUTHOR !!!
Kindly click on the green button above and contribute to filling the green bar if you’re interested in having another LN from the request page translated. Also, every donation is being used to purchase the source material and to fund more English translations.
Please consider joining my Ko-Fi membership. By becoming a member, you’ll also gain access to 2-10 additional chapters of all of the novels from this site translated into English. Last but not least your support will also assist me in upholding the translation quality and speed. For more information, please follow the link.
Donation for faster release is always welcome
Additionally, I am now accepting translation requests.
