Chosen Evolution: I can load the protagonist template

Chapter 867 Nakano Broadway
Takeoff~Landing~
This was indeed Cheng Tian's first time overseas, but it was not his first time visiting an island nation.

Judging from Haneda Airport, where we landed, although more than 20 years have passed since the timeline of FATE that I visited before, the internal facilities... to put it nicely, they are well maintained; to put it bluntly, there's no need to gossip.

The others were a little tired, but Cheng was full of energy and immediately began his pilgrimage to the holy site as soon as he landed.

Since the exhibition officially started on the second day, there was still a lot of free time in theory. Cheng, who had already made a plan, started to sweep the streets according to the map routes of "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Time Traveler".

Cheng Tian's first stop was Nakano Broadway, a place that held a significant amount of his memories.

Cheng Tian keeps his Switch handheld console on 24/7, largely to play the Digital Farm in "Digimon Online: Cyber ​​Sleuth/Hacker's Memory." Nakano Broadway is the main place where players stay in the game. Whether it's finding Kyoko to drink mutated coffee or finding the charlatan Mirei to activate the farm function, it all needs to be done here.

However, compared to the game, the real-life Nakano Broadway forces one to return to reality.

The first floor of the game features a detective agency and a fortune-telling hut, which in reality is comprised of a watch and luxury goods pawn shop and a used ACG shop.

Moreover, from Cheng Tian's rather demanding perspective as an otaku, the ACG shops on this floor were ripping people off, clearly targeting laymen who were too lazy to explore the higher floors and preferred to just wander around on the first floor.

As someone who wasn't short of money, Cheng Tian only glanced around and, finding nothing he wanted, decisively left.

Then he went straight to the fourth floor, to the small arcade that left a very deep impression on Cheng Tian.

To be precise, this is a privately owned arcade called "Nakano TRF," run by an owner with a strong belief in preserving arcade culture, who shares a high level of enthusiasm with Cheng Tian.

Compared to XX Bear, the area and number of machines here are pitifully small, but Cheng Tian saw several special machines that were not even available in China, such as the first version of "Space Invader".

It's clear that in a time when arcade culture has completely declined, this TRF is almost entirely operating out of love and passion. The entire shop is basically maintained by the owner's hard work and crowdfunding from its sponsors. On the most prominent wall in the shop, Cheng Tian saw that the owner had printed and posted the names of all the sponsors.

After asking around, Cheng Tian was surprised to find that the place also offered support services such as arcade board repair and live data collection. It was professional and hardcore, something that ordinary enthusiasts could never do.

If Cheng Tian had known about the service beforehand, he probably would have gone to Tianjin earlier and brought over all the dusty stuff from that rich guy's warehouse to try it out—he'd save as many as he could!
However, it's not too late now. Cheng Tian immediately added the boss on LINE, noted down the phone number, and followed Little Bluebird, planning to come back next time when he was fully prepared and give the other party an outsourcing service of an exceptional standard.

Although Cheng Tian wanted to be a game collector, that didn't mean he wanted to take what others liked.

On the contrary, those who share Cheng Tian's mindset about preserving games can even be seen as kindred spirits. It is precisely because there are still old-timers in this world who love arcade games and all kinds of old games that these subcultures, which are destined to be eliminated, can be preserved in various forms.

Cheng Tian could feel the boss's enthusiasm, and his enthusiasm for old games was also passed on to the boss, unsurprisingly resonating with him as well.

When the older brother learned that Cheng Tian wanted to collect some old items and was even willing to offer a premium to help, he immediately took it to heart. Because Japan is a country where medieval culture is prevalent, many people are so conservative that they are unwilling to change anything, and even banks still use 3.5-inch floppy disks to store data—a rather peculiar country—there are quite a few people like the older brother who are willing to collect old game items. However, there are also quite a few fools who try to appear wealthy by putting on a show, taking on a heavy burden, even huge debts, in order to collect and preserve these old items.

Most of them cannot be as self-sufficient as Nakano TRF, who can also receive sponsorship from investors. They almost all have to work like crazy, or even take out loans and rely on their parents to support themselves. The burden they bear is unimaginable.

Buying is simple, but how to preserve it is the most important thing.

Just like when Cheng Tian made up his mind to collect, he immediately bought a house that could house the games. In Japan, how to store these items is also a big problem, and because land is so expensive, the price they need to pay is obviously much higher.

At the beginning and middle of the year, two separate incidents occurred in Japan and mainland China, one involving a fire and the other a theft, both targeting the game collection. These events shocked the indebted old men, who realized that if things continued this way, the situation would definitely become dire.

But when these people can't hold on any longer and want to sell, it's already very difficult to find someone to take over their losses.

The reason is simple: no one would take over all of their collections.

It all comes down to money and space.

While there is indeed a culture of collecting, spreading, using, and keeping as spares within the otaku culture, it is clear that there is no need to buy multiple of the same item. Unless one is truly wealthy enough to justify such a purchase, it would be completely unnecessary.

To put it another way, if these items were priced low enough, there would indeed be buyers. But these people are clearly unwilling to give up so much time and effort they've put in, only to sell them off in such a humiliating way.

Cheng Tian, ​​however, stated directly that he would not only accept the items in full, but would even pay a premium to acknowledge the value of these people's preservation of these items for so long.

"Cash on delivery, no delays."

After Cheng Tian once again expressed his opinion in an unquestionable manner, the older brother directly sent the information about Cheng Tian's intention to take over to the Zhonggu Laodeng LINE group.

After marking a location for collectibles, Cheng Tian left to continue his pilgrimage to holy sites and search for new secondhand game shops.

The next day, while Cheng Tian was attending the 10th anniversary event of Kojima, Nakano TRF sent him a screenshot on LINE.

After a night of preparation, the number of old login messages, which was originally around 10 per day, suddenly soared to 99+.

(End of this chapter)