"Before I begin, I would like to call that other female cla.s.smate over as well. Knight of Ice and Fire, how would you like to face her?"

"My name will be 'Hiyoko,' no, let's go with 'Reiko' instead! I'm an otaku girl that got to know you all on the internet." Yukari sent a sungla.s.ses-wearing emoticon, and changed her username that was shown in the chat group.

"Alright, let's go with that, then." Seiji agreed.

Then, he contacted Kaho, and invited her internet username, "Lavender", into the chat group, and introduced "Reiko" to her.

"h.e.l.lo, Lavender-san. You can just call me Reiko." Yukari greeted Kaho.

"h.e.l.lo… Reiko. You can just call me Lavender as well," Kaho responded.

"With this, everyone that's going is here. And, what I have to say is about a 'hidden character.'" Seiji sent this message in the group chat. "Actually, I have one more internet friend who wants to go to the doujins.h.i.+ convention together with me, but she doesn't want to go outside, so she asked me to stream the convention event to her, and she'll be the only spectator… She's going to go along with me in such a fas.h.i.+on.

"This internet friend is important to me, and I agreed to her request. Of course, you'll probably be on my stream and she'll see you all.

"I wanted to tell you about her ident.i.ty, but she doesn't want to let it be known, so… my apologies." Seiji also sent an apologetic emoticon.

A moment of silence fell between them.

"It feels slightly unpleasant to only have us being the ones watched," Chiaki said directly.

"I feel so as well, it doesn't seem so good," Mika agreed.

"I… don't think it's good, either," Kaho said.

'As I expected, they're not too happy with it,' Seiji thought to himself.

"Reiko, what do you think?" He sent Yukari a private message.

"I'm hiding myself as well, so I'm not in a position to say anything," was Yukari's response.

"Then, overall it would seem that this isn't a particularly happy thing for anyone, and I sincerely apologize." Seiji sent another apologetic emoticon. "This internet friend of mine is truly important to me, and I'd like for her to be able to go with me in this fas.h.i.+on. If you don't wish to be seen by her, I'll take extra care to make sure the camera doesn't show any of you."

"Rather than saying that I don't want to be seen, it's more that I'm not pleased about not being able to see her." Chiaki sent an emoticon of eyegla.s.ses flas.h.i.+ng. "If she doesn't want to go outside, that means she's probably a hikkikomori. And why is it that she's not willing to reveal her ident.i.ty?"

"I don't know; she only said that she didn't want to," Seiji responded.

"With this type of feeling, that means that her ident.i.ty is somewhat sensitive." Chiaki sent an emoticon that was adjusting its eyegla.s.ses. "More accurately speaking, she thinks it's sensitive, while you don't seem to mind so much… And you're saying that she's really important to you… And you're continuing to insist on doing this even if we're not happy about it…"

"I got it! Seigo, this hidden character that you view as important to you, is actually your relative!" Chiaki sent a sharp emoticon of 'I've deduced the truth!'

"A famous detective has appeared!" Yukari widened her eyes.

"Chiaki… is amazing." Mika sighed in exclamation.

"A relative… is that really true?" Kaho was curious.

Seiji was rendered speechless.

"I can neither confirm or deny." After remaining silent for a while, he responded like this.

"I understand. Now, I'll mention that I don't mind being seen on the stream, and it doesn't matter to me either if she knows my name and ident.i.ty." Chiaki smiled.

"Is that really fine?"

"Yeah, although I think it's rather regrettable to be unable to meet this girl that you think is so important to you, Seigo. But, it's fine to have her know about me first."

"Thank you, Chiaki."

"No need to be polite."

After Chiaki said so, Mika followed her lead said the same thing as well.

Yukari also indicated that she was fine with being shown on stream to this mysterious girl, but she purposefully didn't mention anything about her name and ident.i.ty.

After some thought, Kaho also mentioned that she didn't object to being shown on stream, but said that there was no need to mention her name or ident.i.ty.

Seiji thanked them all and breathed a sigh of relief.

Later that night, in Reo's soul realm.

Seiji inspected his system.

After he learned [Beginner-level Healing], his dating sim system gave him many new options, such as new spells, new items, and… new martial arts techniques!

Until now, he only had his special reward, [Demon Slice—First Form] that he had received before for killing an undead creature with a sword. Now, he had the two additional options of [Beginner-level Punching Techniques] and [Beginner-level Footwork].

After carefully reading through these options, Seiji felt that both of these were a priority for him to learn, since they were the basics after all.

Since his goal was to become a Yin-Yang Master, [Spells] were obviously the most important, but he wanted to learn proper [Martial Arts] through his system as well, at least to the extent where he didn't have any obvious weaknesses.

He didn't know if he would be able to use [Beginning-level Punching Techniques] together with [Lightning Strike]. In other words, he wondered if the [Martial Arts] category in his system could overlap with his [Fighting] techniques.

If it was possible to combine them, that meant even more possibilities as well as stronger power. That was what Seiji believed.

After that, he began cultivating the [Beginner-level Punching Techniques]!

The next day, Seiji modified the description of the antagonist in his story based on Demon Soldier Sensei's drawing and emailed the modified draft to Editor Yos.h.i.+zawa before concentrating on drawing.

Later that afternoon, Editor Yos.h.i.+zawa sent him the draft for drawing artwork for his own story. After he looked through it, he went out to have it printed, signed the contract, and mailed it to Editor Yos.h.i.+zawa.

Now that the contract was set, things only depended on his speed. The faster that he completed all the insert art and cover for his story, the faster that Brother Monogatari would be able to be published.

However, what Seiji didn't know was that the fact that he competed with Demon Soldier Sensei in order to take over the right to draw for Brother Monogatari had become a hot topic in Thunderbolt Literature!

When Saki contacted Demon Soldier Sensei about canceling his job to draw for Brother Monogatari, she reported this to her team leader.

Her team leader was astonished.

Since Head Editor Hattori viewed the story Brother Monogatari with high importance, the team leader decided to pa.s.s on the news, which astonished the head editor as well.

And so, Saki was called over to Head Editor Hattori in order to explain what happened.

This naturally attracted the idle bystanders… er, the editors' attention, and so they all tried to find out what happened, and in the end, everyone was astonished.

This was too ridiculously amazing!

The author himself stole the artist's job… a first-rate artist, at that, the author stole the artist's drawing job from him, which was basically unbelievable!

While there were some authors that indeed drew for their own stories, they were rather few in number. And, when a first-rate artist had been hired to draw for the story already, but the author suddenly saying that he wanted to draw for his own story and forcibly defeating the artist in a direct compet.i.tion in order to steal away the right to draw… had anyone here ever heard of such a thing before?

n.o.body had.

n.o.body in Thunderbolt Literature had ever heard of such an event happening! Including even the veteran Head Editor Hattori!!

This was quite eye-opening.

"An art compet.i.tion… Such a hot-blooded scene actually happened in real life."

"Demon Soldier Sensei is first-rate at drawing light novel insert art, and Sh.o.r.e Sensei actually won…"

"He's so good at both writing and drawing… isn't he still only a high school student?"

"That's right, he's indeed a high school student, and he's only in his first year of high school! I saw his information profile before, and it said that he was sixteen years old."

"Could it be fake? Perhaps the real person who drew wasn't Sh.o.r.e Sensei at all. Or perhaps…'Idle Dimension by the Sh.o.r.e' is only an alias, and the real person who's writing and drawing are both different people."

"Stop imagining ridiculous things! You must have read too many novels; wake up already."

"Such a scene, and an author that's like a main character… just wow."

The editors kept discussing and exclaiming at what had happened.

Idle Dimension by the Sh.o.r.e. This young high school author became a legend within the industry before he was even published.