[Saturday 14 April 2018]

[05:30]

Another morning for Kusanagi City residents. Because of yesterday's rain, the air was still humid as there was a thin mist in the surrounding area. It was the weekend and most people indulged in their sloth, unwilling to part with their beds. But at the same time, it was a busy day for some people, even busier than their non-weekend days.

In another place, Sakamura Kumi glared at the monitor in front of her. She’ll turn 22 this year and was currently working as an undergraduate teacher in Kusanagi Elementary School, teaching history as a requirement to complete her bachelor's degree.

Yup, she was Rimu and Riku's history teacher¹Look at Chapter 07 if you forgot..

It hasn't been long since she got her teaching assignment from college, thus making her nervous easily as she was still inexperienced in teaching students. Forget about teaching, Kumi got stage-fright easily during speeches. Even in front of the kids she couldn't help but stutter.

'When will this end... I want to complete my college and become a simple librarian, away from people. I choose this department only for this reason. But why do I have to teach people to finish college... this is unfair!'

Low self-esteem, timid, and easily agreeable with anything her students asked.

Is this woman okay to become a teacher?

She has piled up lots of stress after facing 6 classes almost every day. In her eyes, kids were nothing but nasty. They would occasionally prank her, laughed at her every mistake during class, and sometimes they blatantly slept or skipped her lessons (*cough* Rimu *cough*).

Though, there are a few exceptions. Some of the children are truly good kids and gives her a comfortable feeling. For example:

Nekomiya Riku from class 5-1.

'Class 5-1 is truly a good one. Although they often laugh at my mistakes, they learn fast. As expected of the elite, I guess?

But their class rep, Riku-kyun, is on a different level! Not only does he answer all questions correctly, but he has also unexpectedly memorized the entire textbook, even reciting it word by word in front of the class! I wonder if school is even necessary for him?

But... is he really a boy? He is prettier than all the girls there! Is the paper wrong? Or is the world wrong?

Ehem. I will be careful to call him Nekomiya-kun properly in front of the people, or else my life will be over!'

Arakawa Akina from class 5-2.

''Well, Arakawa-san is... taciturn? Except for answering questions, she never speaks. Usually, she just sits silently in the corner, avoiding any interaction with her classmates. I sense kindred soul within her!'

Mimasaka Mamoru from class 5-2.

'Mimasaka-kun is quite a thoughtful boy. He never causes trouble in my lessons, on the contrary, he helps me pacify the students in class 5-2 quite often. I rely on him a lot. He tries to befriend everyone, even Arakawa-san. Though, unfortunately, it's only a one-side approach. I think he has a crush on her?'

Class 5-3... Nothing particularly in mind. Oh, wait. All of them are scum!

Ritsuki Fumino from class 5-4.

'Class rep from 5-4, Fumino-chan is also a brilliant student. Although is slightly below Nekomiya-kun. What I didn't expect was that her class was very organized with her leadership. Like a military, with her at the center. Their class is the easiest one to handle. Also, she is tall. Are you really an elementary school student?

One day, I had asked her out of curiosity that with a clever mind like hers, plus her charismatic personality and the ability to lead others, why didn't she end up in class 5-1? She didn't answer. But I could remember her facial expression instantly sour.

Ah... I suddenly understood. This girl definitely has her share of troubles...'

Nakamura Nia from class 5-5.

'Cute, kind, sociable, also oppai. Are you really an elementary school student?'

Nekomiya Rimu from class 5-5.

'In my opinion, Nekomiya-san is the cutest girl in the entire class. As expected of Nekomiya-kun's twin sister if I could say. But... she is almost the opposite of Nekomiya-kun.

Blatantly sleeping in class, asking for an early leave every so often. Even as far as calling the teachers with their first names. It is as if the word respect doesn't exist in her dictionary. Also, extremely insensitive. Her guards with the opposite sex are almost zero!

Couldn’t she see those boys fidget when she casually talked to them with their first names? I doubt so. She doesn't understand her popularity with the boys.

But she is a good girl at heart and often helps me with the chores and stuff.'

Kousaka Kouta from class 5-5.

'Usually, Kousaka-kun doesn't cause any trouble in my lessons. But that changes if Nekomiya Rimu is involved.

Hey, couldn’t you be more obvious? I think the only one who doesn't know about it is the girl herself.'

Class 5-6... Same as class 5-3 but dumber.

'The hardest class to teach, and the most stressful class to handle. Why they didn't fail a grade is quite the mystery. It's as if I’m teaching a group of monkeys instead of human children.'

Thinking about those students, Kumi sighed.

"As I thought, the only haven for me is writing novels. Here, I can create my own world. My ideal world." Kumi mumbled to herself.

On the net, she has another identity, a persona she uses to relieve stress. With her huge group of fans supporting her work, she climbed steadily in the ranks as a web novelist. The web novel author, Kurumin!

Kumi, or Kurumin, logged onto her account and was instantly greeted by 402 new notifications. Most of the notifications were the new comments for her novels, new subscribers, new friend requests, and so on.

She filtered the notification, only showing the comment portion. Nothing interested.

Subscribers... ignore.

Friend requests... ignore.

And lastly, 12 new private messages.

"This is it... I hope there is an offer. Please, Kadokawa-sama, Dengeki-sama, Kodansha-sama...²She is talking about the name of light novel publishers, with -sama added. Please serialize my novel...!"

Kurumin had high hopes after she saw there are 12 PMs in her unread inbox. She hoped her novel is serialized, giving her more income to pay for her college tuition. Her salary from teaching elementary school kid aren't gonna cut it off. However, her hope was cruelly crushed after she finds out none of the PMs are from publishing companies.

"FFFFFUUUUU......!!!!!!!!!!! What the are you doing, publishers!!?? Why are you serializing those inferior harem-ecchi novels first instead of mine! Where in the heck my novel is lacking compared to that garbage, only made for -ing males to fap to!?"

Kurumin was enraged. If she had forgotten that her computer cost a lot of money, she might have punched it to smithereens. Her timid personality which she showed at the school was nowhere to be seen. It's as if Sakamura Kumi and Kurumin were two different people! []

She was the typical keyboard warrior³Urbandictionary: <link> who had bravery only in front of their keyboards.

This was actually not a rare phenomenon, you could find this type of person everywhere.

"As I thought... Popularity!! The only reason I lose is that their view count is high. I need more popularity to make more people notice my novel!" Kurumin mumbled to herself again.

'But the question is, how?'

For the story, she had done her best to make her readers feel satisfied. She had squeezed her imagination dry with each of the updates.

Create alt accounts to manipulate my view counts?

Currently, her novel was placed at rank 54 of the total rankings with about 50k views. To reach rank 50 or 40 would be no problem. It only required another 10k or 30k views, this was still affordable. But it would still be meaningless since her novel would still be placed on page 2 of the total rankings.

To be placed on the 1st page, she needed to reach rank 25 which was 3.5m views. This was quite unrealistic to her.

Besides, even if she successfully manipulated her rank, a sudden jump from rank 54 to 25 would surely cause suspicion. Many novel writers were removed from the rankings because they were caught committing this unscrupulous fraud.

"No. Fake popularity is not the way. It would only bite me back later." Kurumin shook her head.

Presently, her novel was ranked 6th in the weekly standings and was 28th for the monthly ones. Given time, she would definitely make her way up to the top. Getting the offer for a serialization would surely be only a matter of time. Or so she had thought.

After a full half a year, still... nothing happened.

There must be some condition that her novel didn't fulfill yet.

Sighing hopelessly, Kurumin decided to read the comments from her fans on her author's user page. Her current mood didn't allow her to write another chapter update for today.

"Hmm? What's this?"

Kurumin scrolled through the comments and found Rimu's post with an artwork of Claudia, the main character of her novel, [The Chronicles of Mad Villainess], with her private maid, Clara. Fully colored and complete with a balcony background.

Her impression of this artwork was... breathtaking!

The style itself was not that unique, but the level of work could be compared with a budgeted VN or an anime. The calm expression of Claudia and the stern look of the maid, all conveyed perfectly. Claudia's gown, the maid's uniform, the carpet, the interior of the manor, the garden viewed from the balcony were also drawn in great detail. Even the smallest details like the grooves in their clothes were perfectly outlined.

As if the characters themselves were really alive.

"Beautiful...!" Kurumin breathed out in exclamation.

Illustrations from fans weren't that unusual, every so often there would be someone out there illustrating the characters from all sorts of novels. Unfortunately, there was no one among her fans who could draw and give her any artwork.

But this level of technique far outclassed the other fan illustrations she had seen before on this site. Compared to it, others were as good as ugly scribbles!

"This Rym person must be a pro artist! I can tell that much from this person's artwork."

Suddenly, an idea appeared in her mind,

'This is it! If I could make this person draw artwork for me, my novel’s popularity would soar to the sky! I have to message him(?) immediately.' She still doesn't know Rym's gender.

Without further ado, Kurumin clicked the PM icon. From there, she saw that Rym had also sent her a PM just right around the time the artwork was posted yesterday. Curious about the message, Kurumin opened it and read carefully.

After she read the message, for a moment her face turned bright, before suddenly she went pale.

"I had expected this expert would be so kind enough to draw for free. But this person's artwork is not cheap!"

Rym didn't set the price per artwork, but per character drawn. One colored character portrait was ¥150 per character. While it seemed cheap at a first glance, this is a misconception.

It was no problem for casual novels with a small cast, but [The Chronicles of Mad Villainess] had a large cast of important characters. From Claudia herself, her big brother, the duke, and duchess, 8 important subordinates, and then the King and Queen, with 4 princes, 3 princesses, and not mention the heroine, 3 rivals, and 4 more capture targets, along with their families.

A total of 44 characters existed within her novel. This meant ¥150 x 44 = ¥6.600 alone to draw all of them, ¥100 x 44 = ¥4.400⁴¥6.600 = $62
¥4.400 = $42 for colorless. And this was just for the character introductions.

That was not to mention the backgrounds for each of the artworks. Another ¥1500 or ¥1000. She couldn't let the characters walk in the void, right?

And if she included the +18 option, another ¥2000. Though, she didn't have to consider this option. If one wanted to create NSFW (Not Safe For Work) novels, they had to go to the Nocturne, the Moonlight, or the Midnight⁵Nocturne = +18 section for males
Moonlight = +18 section for females, especially BL
Midnight = Place for novels with +18 scene but sensual is not the main purpose.. Leaving the main site only for SFW (Safe For Work) novels. Her novel, which were on the main site, couldn’t have any NSFW content in them.

"...This is too expensive! It's a daylight robbery! Why you didn't rob a bank instead? Who in the right mind pays with such a price for a mere drawing? I rather ask my friend to draw for me." She almost spat blood after realizing the true trap within the prices.

But... she looked again at Rym's artwork. Could even the so-called friends of hers draw this good?

"No no no no, Kurumin! Senpai once said that if you do something, either do it seriously or do nothing. This is an investment!"

However, Kurumin felt this price was quite reasonable. It's not like Rym's prices were expensive, rather, it was cheap. But her novel just had too many cast members.

"Let me think... Actually, it's not that bad, ¥6.600 is only for a one-time character introduction. It's not like I have to have a lot of characters on every piece of artwork. Most likely, it will be 2 or 3 per scene. One volume is roughly... about ¥19.500. Multiply it by 5, ¥97.500. This is still way cheaper than hiring a professional artist!"

Kurumin's eyes sparkled with excitement. With this level of illustration, her novel's popularity was sure to be heightened to a new level. She checked her bank account only to frown as there was not much money left in it. Forget about hiring, the money wasn't even enough to support her livelihood for the rest of the month.

Left with no choice, she opened the LINE app on her smartphone and messaged someone.

Never in Kurumin's wildest dreams could she imagine that the expert artist she was about to hire was just a mere elementary schooler loli. And was actually very close to her.