[center][h2]Tachibana Masaru[/h2][h3]Branch-092 — Training Facility[/h3][/center]

Given that he had only "recently" been recruited to Sefirot, Tachibana Masaru still felt rather nominally out of place compared to everyone else who he seemed to be working with. He was by no means the youngest present, oddly enough, but in many ways he saw himself as the most normal—and, in a way, most [i]fortunate[/i] of them all. Would he rather have lived the rest of his life as a streamer, maybe transitioning into variety content once he grew big enough? Quite possibly. But given how much money Sefirot had thrown at him and how insanely persistent they had been up until he had ceded to their offer, that might have never been a possibility after his miraculous victory over that Warped all those months ago.

Unfortunately, Masaru was acutely aware that such what-ifs mattered little in the moment, and that his life now would be one of constant hunts and peacekeeping. In a way, that was [i]too[/i] far off from what he had done up until now; killing or capturing virtual monsters could be close enough to that line of work if one squinted hard enough. It didn't help in the least that the desire for self-improvement had more or less led to him talking himself into taking up the job, or at the very least played a meaningful role in the matter.

There was probably some irony to be found in the situation, but regardless of what had led him to this point, he was here now. Thus far, the Agent had not actually found himself deployed onto the field for any incidents, which meant that he spent a majority of his time loitering around base. Though that passed well enough the first few days, it didn't take long for Masaru to familiarize himself with the layout, and soon wandering turned to boredom. He was banned from streaming now, after all—too much of a hazard in multiple ways to do so—and though the hefty compensation they provided made up for the loss in income revenue, the overwhelming ennui over the next week led to him turning back to old habits.

In this case, though, "old habits" didn't mean anything inherently harmful to him, like tobacco or alcohol. No, in this case, it meant a return to what he was comfortable with: virtual hunts in a physical space. The training room was no Monster Slayer DX—though part of him [i]was[/i] tempted to ask the staff to set it up—but it [i]did[/i] have a bunch of data on some more physically destructive Anomalies that could be turned into simulations to go up against. A good number of them were meant for teams, of course, but the challenge to running into them whether or not anyone else wanted to join him was a good way for him to burn the day away if nobody had any plans for him.

For the moment, that meant slowly sweeping through the list of Avon-class Anomalies and bringing each one down in turn. The challenge seemed feasible enough in his head when he had first considered it, but the size of the roster left Masaru wondering how much time that task would take—doubly so given the number of entries added in by the day.

Hopefully not [i]too[/i] long; maybe he'd actually get sent out for something instead of being stuck in combat simulations for the whole day. At least nobody was pushing him to go train, given how much he was "technically" training already.