I'm way late to the party, and not too far in...
And have skipped past everyone else's comments as a result.
So I'm sure there's little new in what I'll say, and some will turn out in error.
Someone back in Japan has clearly been thinking.
Hikaru is clearly a more socially adept otaku.
She appears to be a talented Cosplayer from performance, design, and fabrication perspectives.
She's got a good eye for what looks good on people.
She's got a good eye for potential raw materials and their uses.
She's good at helping folks find a common ground.
Shinichi is already wondering how things would have gone down if she'd been selected rather than himself as the initial representative.
That's a valid question.
I do wonder about that, myself.
After all, what if everything we've seen of her so far is just an act?
Or even if true, what are her true loyalties?
Would she take a stance in opposition to an invasion by Japan, as Shinichi has?
Flipside, would she have a good enough relationship with the Empire that they'd take steps to protect her against Japan if need be, as they did with Shinichi?
It's cynical, I know.
But everything we've been shown concerning the upper level Japanese governmental officials involved, their desired end goals, screams that their selecting her and sending her with no advance notification was not done out of altruism but with the intent to further their own agenda, so you've got to wonder what her instructions really were and why they think she'll side with them and not turn out like all the other otaku they've dealt with to date.
I mean, clearly they intend for her to supplant Shinichi.
Their only valid complaint concerning Shinichi is that he doesn't toe the line when dealing with them.
What he's been doing will result in a good trade partner, but that's not what they actually desire.
Once she makes beautiful accessories from the lizardfolk's cast off scales, proving a market for them...
What's she going to offer in trade for an ongoing supply?
Because she hasn't said anything from that perspective as of yet.
Which is fair, at this point it's at an initial evaluation stage, but if they pan out as being of use?
And there's the question of what else could be created using them as a raw material...
If the publicized use for them is of less value than the unpublicized use, and the price is fairly negotiated based upon the publicized use...you're still taking them for a ride.
It'd be nice if she turned out to not be intended to be an agent of this kind.
But it'd go against everything we've been given to understand so far.
Which side she'll end up on after she's interacted with the locals for a while...
The ones selecting her seem confident concerning that.
Welp.
Back to reading.
Ah.
OK, so Hikaru is actually a guy.
That's a good thing.
Makes me feel less guilty about thinking of him as a right bastard.
Hikaru is a Team Player for those seeking economic conquest.
The friendliness and everything could even be kinda genuine, but he still sees all of the folks on the other side of the passage as "sheep for the shearing."
He's precisely what they'd wanted from the start.
Doesn't seem to have any qualms of conscience about it at all.
And having finished the volume...
Man, Hikaru has a nasty back story.
Makes his distancing himself emotionally understandable.
But he wasn't really a monster.
When reality shoved itself in his face, when platitudes became irrelevant, without pausing for thought he attempted to do the right thing.
Which proved that he wasn't as cynical and jaded as he made out to be.
All those skills and abilities he's developed, which he denigrated when talking with Myusel…
He still has those.
But he now has an active conscience as a result of seeing Evil in Action first hand.
In a way, those who selected and sent him shot themselves in the foot again.
There does seem to be a certain commonality among the functional otaku they've been selecting.
Because these are the ones who can function in society.
The ones who represent the upside of otakudom.
I'm pretty sure Minori was no accident; they knew her background, that she was "rotten" and such.
Shinichi? Hell, yes, they knew his background.
Hikaru had to have been even more carefully investigated, you would think, given that Minori and Shinichi weren't behaving as expected.
They understand otaku culture poorly enough to not recognize their own trope.
Nor have they an awareness of The Evil Overlord's List.
Add to that a misconception concerning Eldant and its reality; if they can achieve the same ends using magic that we achieve using technology, are they really less advanced?
Knowledge gaps can be erased, and that's precisely what their otaku education system is doing, erasing the knowledge gap.
At which point...it's a competition between equals.
And the folks in charge of the Eldant Empire are actually pretty savvy, they aren't a bunch of amateurs; if they were, they wouldn't have survived the last succession crisis.
There's another item they may still be overlooking.
Matoba isn't as on-board or obedient as they think he is.
He's just very good at playing the game, just like Hikaru, except they haven't twigged to it.
And unlike pre-reform Hikaru, he's had a conscience all along.
I don't think they realize how much he's assisted Shinichi & company from a slight remove.
