112: Ignorance

The following day, at noon. ALKALOID is having lessons in the hanging garden.

Hiiro: Okay, everyone’s here. Now we can sort out Crazy:B’s proposal from yesterday.

We can’t put it off anymore, but I still want us to properly consider everything before coming to a conclusion.

Mayoi: Yes, they did say they would wait for our answer.

We’re in a vulnerable position where if we stumble even a little, it’s over for us. So we should think this over carefully.

Aira: Nnn... Honestly, I just want things to be easy again. I’m sick and tired of being kept endlessly in this state of half-dead, half-alive.

Tatsumi: Fufu. So long as we’re idols, I don’t think things will ever be “easy” until we’re dead and buried.

In any case, it turns out that Crazy:B will be holding a DreamFest called Idol Royale.

Aira: Yep. It basically looks like it’ll just be the same thing as Bon Festival a few days ago, where a bunch of idols get together and perform.

Not sure if this counts as a normal or standard kinda thing—but regardless of that, we should be able to handle it since we have experience from Bon Festival.

Worse comes to worst, we can just do what we did then.

Of course, we’ll have to make some adjustments to accommodate for our new songs and for the other performers and our time slot.

Mayoi: Fufu... For some reason, that Tsukinaga Leo-san gave us a lot of new songs through Madara-san.

So many that we can’t possibly use them all. They’re all really amazing works, though, so I wish we could use them on stage.

It seems he didn’t take into account our actual abilities at all, so it’d be hard to pull off anyway, since they’re all such difficult songs...

Oh, but if you say you want to learn them, I’ll do whatever I can to teach you.

But we don’t have much time before Idol Royale, so it might be impossible...

It would be such a waste of a treasure, though.

Hiiro: Hm. Who is this Roy Al?

I still haven’t quite grasped the meaning of idols, so adding more mysterious words to it just makes it harder to use context clues to understand.

Aira: Huh—? Nnngh... This is the twenty-first century; If you don’t know a word, just look it up on the internet.

Mayoi: Umm. It means the same thing as the “royal” in royal milk tea. It’s a French word that’s used to describe things related to a monarch, or perhaps a chief, and their family.

Aira: Mayo-san coming in for the save! You’re so smart! Ai love you ♪

Mayoi: Ngyahh, how embarrassing... I’m sorry for interrupting you.

But I think you’ll need to ask the person who named it if you want to know if there’s a hidden meaning behind it.

Hiiro: Hm. So then, the literal meaning of “Idol Royale” would be “the chief of idols.”

It does seem like a name Nii-san would come up with, but I would rather he become the chief of our village instead of idols, if I can be honest.

Aira: Ahaha. Or maybe it’s something like “idol championship” fits better? It has the same feel as Idol Royale.

Which, by the way, is in about a week, and they’re accepting registrations up through the day of the event.

So we can take our time to decide if we want to perform or not.

Tatsumi: We shouldn’t take too long, though. Personally, I’m a bit upset that it’s yet another week-long affair...

It’s all so rushed—scheduling I couldn’t have even imagined when I was active in CosPro.

Aira: Nah, even though Crazy:B’s affiliated with CosPro, I’m pretty sure they’re the ones organizing Idol Royale.

They seem like they’re cut from a totally different cloth than the other idols at CosPro.

Tatsumi: Hm? For some reason, it seems we’ve all received a message, rather than it coming through Glitter Mail...

It seems that Crazy:B is not the one hosting Idol Royale.

Rather, it’s a unit affiliated with CosPro, but I’ve never heard of them before.

Aira-san, you know a lot about idols—are you perhaps familiar with this unit?

Aira: Huh? It was Crazy:B who contacted me on Hallhands, so I guess we got it wrong.

There’s no name of the organizer on the proposal attached to the message—

...Umm? The name isn’t even Crazy:B online, either.

I’ve never heard of this unit before, or any of its members.

Tatsumi: If even you don’t know about them, then I can’t help but doubt their existence.

Aira: Wait no, I might be an idol stan, but it’s not like I know everything. If you go digging through the past you’ll find a ton of stuff I don’t know.

I’m just a hobbyist fan, so I only really keep up with the idols I already like.

Like us, who are so puny we’d get blown away in a tiny breeze... I probably wouldn’t recognize the name even if I were a hardcore stan.

Fans are cruel in how indifferent they are. They never care about us as much as we expect them to.

Hiiro: Hm, I guess that’s just how it is. Well actually, no one back home even knew what an idol was...

Even I had thought it was some sinister demon who corrupted Nii-san.

Aira: Uh, that’s because you and your hometown are super weird. It’s not even just a special case, it’s a different story altogether.

jp proofing: maximumcheese