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Just the thought that even some of her senior colleagues were looking at her with envious eyes made Sonoko Machida feel like she had peaked in life.
"..."
Even without being familiar with the inner workings of the light novel industry, Hitori Gotoh and Yukino Yukinoshita could easily guess from the conversation that Kai had written something, and its performance was apparently phenomenal.
"Kai-sensei, are you still there? Are you listening?" Realizing that Kai had been completely silent, Machida quickly called out to him.
"Uh, yeah, I'm listening."
Honestly speaking...
The novel's explosive success was entirely within Kai's expectations. After all, it was a masterpiece that had effortlessly sold tens of millions of copies in his original world.
Furthermore, it had achieved that legendary status in an era where literal titans of the industry clashed daily, conquering a market absolutely saturated with top-tier competition.
But in this crossover anime universe...
Genuinely good, genre-defining novels were exceedingly rare. In Kai's eyes, selling ten million copies probably wouldn't be the finish line—it was merely the starting point.
"Ahem. Anyway, I'll leave all the follow-up marketing and sales to your capable hands, Editor Machida."
He was only responsible for acting as the human typewriter—how the book was sold was entirely the publisher's problem.
"Please rest assured and leave it entirely to me!"
Machida spoke with unwavering seriousness.
After all, this directly impacted her own career trajectory.
If she truly managed to cultivate a god-tier author, she might actually secure a massive promotion. It was a well-known fact that in Japan's corporate culture, women faced infinitely more pressure and scrutiny in the workplace than men.
Climbing the corporate ladder required significantly more effort and flawless results. There was absolutely no way Sonoko Machida wasn't going to treat this like a matter of life and death.
"You don't need to worry about the sales at all. Kai-sensei, you just need to focus entirely on writing the subsequent volumes."
In reality, the main reason Machida specifically mentioned this was out of pure fear. She was terrified that Kai might turn out to be one of those chronic slackers who couldn't squeeze out a single word for half a year, always waiting until the final deadline to hand in their rushed manuscripts.
"Uh, actually, I've already finished the follow-up."
"F-Finished? You finished Volume Two??"
"Yeah. I just started the prologue for Volume Three yesterday."
And that was just the result of Kai working on and off whenever he felt like it. He was literally just copying a pre-existing text from his memory, so it required zero actual brainpower. His only real bottleneck was his physical typing speed.
"ABSOLUTELY NOT!"
Unexpectedly...
Hearing this, Sonoko Machida's emotions suddenly spiked in sheer panic.
"How can you possibly rush through such a top-tier masterpiece??"
Exactly. In Machida's seasoned editorial opinion, for Kai to pump out the subsequent volumes that insanely fast meant he was rushing the plot and sacrificing quality.
The terrifying thought that such a monumental, generation-defining novel could get axed because of a rushed, sloppy sequel sent Machida into an absolute frenzy.
Her entire career is on the line here!
"KAI-SENSEI, YOU MUST LET ME REVIEW THE DRAFT IMMEDIATELY."
"Uh, I'm currently at school. Classes haven't even ended yet."
"..."
In all the hype, she had completely forgotten that Kai was literally still a high school student.
"Then please email the manuscript to me the second you get out of class. Actually, no, forget it. I'll come over to your place personally. Please text me your home address. I'll head over there and wait for you to get out of school."
"Uh... alright then!"
Judging by Machida's frantic tone—
It sounded like if he refused, she would relentlessly hound him to the ends of the earth.
After a brief moment of thought, Kai gave up trying to argue and simply agreed, quickly texting her his home address.
After hanging up the phone, he turned to see both Hitori Gotoh and Yukino staring at him with burning curiosity.
"You wrote a novel?" Yukino asked, raising an eyebrow.
"THAT'S AMAZING!" Unlike Yukino Yukinoshita, Hitori Gotoh just purely felt that Kai was incredibly cool, almost as if he were completely omnipotent.
"Well."
He shrugged casually.
It wasn't exactly a classified state secret he needed to hide anyway.
"Didn't I mention it before? I'm living alone here in Tokyo. Juggling part-time jobs is way too exhausting, so I figured I'd try writing a light novel to make some easy cash. Judging by the reaction just now, it seems the results are pretty decent."
"..."
That absolutely transcends the definition of "pretty decent," doesn't it?
Just judging by the frantic, ecstatic tone of his editor over the phone, Kai's novel was clearly selling like hotcakes.
"What's the title of the novel?"
Even though Yukino Yukinoshita had literally never read a light novel in her entire life...
Since it was written by Kai, she genuinely wanted to give it a read.
"KonoSuba: God's Blessing on this Wonderful World!"
That title actually isn't too bad.
"I will make sure to read it thoroughly."
"Is that so?" Seeing Yukino acting so incredibly serious, Kai couldn't suppress the urge to tease her.
"In that case, once you finish reading it, make sure to write me a ten-thousand-word review essay."
"..."
She didn't say a single word, merely shooting him a sharp, exasperated glare.
————————————————————
"Whew!"
On the other side of town, having successfully secured Kai's address, Sonoko Machida finally breathed a massive sigh of relief.
She was already rehearsing the conversation in her head.
She needed to sit Kai down and hammer some sense into him later. She could not let a novel with such explosive, industry-shaking potential get ruined by poor pacing.
At the same time, Machida pulled up the sales data for another novel. Since she had signed both authors at the exact same time, she harbored a faint, inexplicable glimmer of hope. However...
"Not even a hundred copies?"
She felt a slight wave of disappointment.
But thinking about it logically, this was the brutally realistic sales figure for a complete rookie. Furthermore, it had only been three days. Hitting a hundred copies in that timeframe was actually considered a highly respectable start.
A debut like Kai's was nothing short of a statistical anomaly—an absolute miracle.
"The sales should hopefully pick up later on, right?"
Machida had a genuinely good impression of Utaha Kasumigaoka. If possible, she really didn't want to see the poor girl's novel get brutally axed after a single volume.
But right now...
This wasn't the time to be dwelling on that. After quickly packing up her desk, Machida prepared to leave the office early and head straight to Kai's apartment. For a high-priority emergency of this magnitude, filing a quick field-work report with the publisher was more than enough to easily secure the rest of the afternoon off.
————————————————————
"As expected of Scumbag-kun. It's no wonder he could write something exactly like this."
After school let out that afternoon.
Utaha Kasumigaoka made her way to a local bookstore. Driven by an intense, burning curiosity, she desperately wanted to see exactly what kind of novel Kai had actually written.
(Note: Utaha Kasumigaoka and Yukino Yukinoshita are distinct heroines from different anime series.)
And honestly, it was exactly what she had expected.
The content of KonoSuba undeniably leaned heavily into the harem comedy genre.
If Kai had known that Utaha was permanently stamping him with the "scumbag" label simply because of the plot of his book, he definitely would have cried foul. It was purely a coincidence—the System was the one that handed him this specific novel after all.
"Still, it really is incredible!"
Even though she was actively mocking the questionable themes of the book...
Utaha was forced to admit the cold, hard truth: the writing was absolutely phenomenal. It was better than hers. In fact, it was leagues ahead of hers.
A bitter wave of intense frustration and defeat inevitably washed over her heart.
Growing up, Utaha Kasumigaoka had rarely ever experienced the bitter taste of failure. And it stung even more knowing that the person who had completely and utterly outclassed her was a literal underclassman.
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