Chapter 229. Ying Party Canceled???
In the dim room, the pale glow of the screen cast the face before the computer a ghostly white.
"Old Thief Masato and Teacher Xander..."
She carefully scrolled through the players' joking back-and-forth in the comments section, an unlit cigarette dangling from her lips, and began to think in earnest.
At first glance, it sounded wildly unreliable. A game designer who created two top-ten IPs in the world back to back, and you're saying he makes adult games—who would believe that?
Although the story in Kaleidoscope counts as decent within nukige, nukige are still nukige. Within galgames, they're the lowest tier. Put that next to Old Thief Masato, who stands at the top of the food chain now, and it's bizarre however you look at it.
It's like someone in a past life saying the Xiaozhou Sisters were drawn by Old Thief Miyazaki. Just thinking about it is absurd.
But—she's a paparazzo who stirs the pot for clicks. Isn't this narrative tailor-made for her?!!
"Shocking! Old Thief Masato actually forced a young girl to sell videos!"
"Unknown secrets from Old Thief's past~"
"Old Thief is actually in the adult industry?"
"..."
In an instant, inspiration gushed like a burst dam, and countless "great" headlines surged through her mind. She couldn't help opening a new document and setting both hands on the keyboard.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to disgrace myself!
But just as she was riding that high and ready to conquer the field, the tightly closed door turned, followed by the click of a switch.
With a snap, the entire room flooded with bright light.
"Ah, my eyes, my eyes!!!!!"
The wicked grin vanished at once. She clutched her eyes in pain, writhing in her chair.
"Bunbun, why are you sitting in the dark again?"
A cute girl stood at the door, brown hair combed into twin tails. She frowned, baffled.
"You know nothing!"
After a moment, the girl named Aya Shameimaru recovered and immediately scolded, "What paparazzo stands under the sun? This is called matching the vibe, get it?"
She clearly looked like a pretty black-haired, shoulder-length beauty, but that brash manner made it hard for anyone to feel even a hint of interest.
On that note, she snorted and continued, "No wonder your Fruit-and-Flower Gazette can't beat my Bunbun News. You can't even do this right."
"Do you think everyone's like you, writing baseless gossip every day?! I actually report things as they are, okay!!! Seriously, have you even studied journalism!!"
The girl at the door stamped her foot in frustration, but Bunbun just snorted in disdain. "Journalism, heh~"
Then she waved lazily at the girl in the doorway, Hatate Himekaidou. "Go fiddle with your journalism by yourself. I'm starting my gossip."
Bunbun's attitude only made Hatate more upset. She couldn't help saying, "You used to clearly..."
Both of them were members of the Tengu Group, assigned after graduation to an in-house social-media paper as editors. Each ran a separate media account. At the beginning, they were like-minded friends. But, well, Bunbun went downhill rather quickly...
"What do you mean, used to? Writing the same serious, boring stuff as you? I'm telling you, enough already. Most people go online to have fun. Few have the patience to read your dry text."
She had indeed started with real reporting. Unfortunately, hardly anyone read it. By contrast, thanks to a chance gossip post about Old Thief Masato, her clicks multiplied a thousandfold. In that moment, she attained enlightenment.
"..."
Hatate took a long, deep breath. She wanted to slam the door and leave, but remembering why she had come, she forced herself to endure and slowly walked to Bunbun's side.
She glanced at the screen, then sighed helplessly. "Writing more gossip about Old Thief Masato again, huh."
"Can't help it if he brings the views~"
With the candy cigarette in her mouth, Bunbun replied offhandedly, "Besides, I've got Old Thief Masato's temperament figured out. Online, as long as you don't maliciously smear his games, stuff like rumors and gossip, he can't be bothered to care. Sometimes he even jokes about it with fans."
"These clicks are always there anyway, so why shouldn't I be the one to eat them?"
Hatate didn't answer. Instead, something else caught her eye. Staring at Bunbun's mouth, she asked, puzzled, "You're smoking?"
"Tch, it's just candy!"
With a crunch, she bit the tip off, chewed, and swallowed.
"All right, stop bugging me. I still need to do research."
"You do research for gossip?"
"Three parts truth to seven parts fiction, you know? If it's all fake, people won't bother reading. Only when truth and falsehood are mixed will everyone argue about it, okay?"
Impatiently firing back, Bunbun decided to stop talking. Hatate likewise stood quietly by her side.
Silence settled over the room, broken only by the clack-clack of typing.
After a long while, Bunbun's hand on the mouse froze. She stared at the data on screen and made a small sound of surprise.
"What a coincidence?"
She frowned at the monitor. It listed the release dates of every one of Old Thief Masato's and Teacher Xander's games. Among so many titles, not a single date overlapped. Moreover, in chronological order, Teacher Xander's speed of releasing new works grew slower and slower.
According to what she found, in the early days of Kaleidoscope, Teacher Xander—like Eromanga-sensei—handled illustration CGs. But the later it got, the less he drew. In the end, he was only responsible for the script, while Eromanga-sensei and other artists handled the art.
As Teacher Xander's workload in the adult-game scene dwindled, Old Thief Masato began to ramp up on the surface side.
Most crucially, there were several times when Old Thief Masato released a new game, and right after that Teacher Xander announced a teaser for his new work. Wasn't that a bit too coincidental?
She still felt like she was forcing connections, but could she hypothesize that Teacher Xander put galgames aside precisely to go legit and get busy making other games?
Make bold assumptions—Bunbun knew that well.
As for what comes after—"carefully verify"?
Mm, what's that got to do with her?
Bunbun's eyes shone brighter and brighter. Under her hands, a half-true, half-made-up draft flowed out, leaving Hatate beside her blinking in confusion.
Reading the piece, Hatate actually felt like Bunbun's writing made a bit of sense.
Hiss... That shouldn't be right. Did Bunbun just rile her so much she got fuzzy-headed?
"All right, done!!"
She finished the draft in one breath. As her pen flew off the page—in spirit—Bunbun felt a thrill from head to toe, tightened her slender legs, and stretched hard.
After a quick typo check, Bunbun glanced at the time and posted the piece to her Bunbun News account with hundreds of thousands of followers.
"Shocking! The relationship between Old Thief Masato and Teacher Xander that must be told!"
Under the clickbait title, she attached a collage of Pokémon and Kaleidoscope.
Once everything was done, Bunbun was about to stand and loosen up when she noticed the slightly dazed Hatate behind her. On reflex, she asked, "Why are you still here?"
"Ah?"
Bunbun's voice jolted Hatate back to herself. At last she found a point to refute. "When the Kaleidoscope series first came out, Old Thief Masato wasn't even of age, right? This is an R-18 game. How could he possibly be the author?"
Hearing that, Bunbun rolled her eyes. "The rule says under-eighteens can't buy, not that under-eighteens can't draw. Why do you care so much?"
"..."
Crap, she couldn't counter that!!
True, under-eighteens aren't allowed to buy. But no one said under-eighteens aren't allowed to draw!
Hatate's brain blue-screened.
A tribute to the legendary doujin artist—Sawamura Spencer Eriri.
Very quickly, the article was pushed to the home pages of all her followers.
She had amassed hundreds of thousands of followers by writing gossip about Old Thief Masato. Naturally, these people were players of Old Thief's games—there to have fun, while also peeking at Old Thief's own "fun."
"Shocking! The relationship between Old Thief Masato and Teacher Xander that must be told!"
"As expected of Editor Bunbun, the titles are always so flavorful. It's a shame UC's Shocking Department didn't poach you."
A fan saw the push notification, chuckled, and clicked.
"Let me see what you made up today~"
It was just for fun anyway—who cared about the truth.
But as he scrolled, his eyes gradually widened.
The entire article used a timeline as its spine, carefully sorting the works of Old Thief Masato and Teacher Xander. At a glance, it even felt quite convincing. That was Bunbun's skill.
He hurried to get serious and read it attentively from beginning to end.
Sure enough, full of holes.
He swiped down. In barely over ten minutes, there were already hundreds of comments below—a sign of how hot the post was.
"Editor Bunbun is fabricating rumors again, how about you take a break?"
"What? Kaleidoscope is actually Old Thief Masato's work? I like it even more now.jpg"
"Wait, why do I feel like she has a point? Could Teacher Xander actually be Old Thief Masato? That would be some real fun!"
"Hey you upstairs, look where this news is from!"
"Ah, Bunbun News, then it's fine."
"At a glance it seems reasonable, but a careful read shows it's riddled with errors. Take White Album alone—its text volume is a full million characters, with feelings portrayed so delicately. No way that was done in a short time. Could Old Thief Masato really make games seriously while also writing such an excellent script at the same time? He's human, not Superman. How is that possible!"
"Upstairs is right. Agreed!"
"Even though it'd be hilarious if they were the same person, let's drop this rumor-mongering."
"..."
Watching the long comment he'd just posted get pushed to the top by a flood of likes, the fan smiled, tucked away his phone, and hid his merit and fame.
Meanwhile, Hatate was scrolling through the comments as well.
"Bunbun, lots of people are saying you're spreading rumors."
"Mm."
Bunbun lounged lazily, replying with a casual hum.
"You're not mad?"
"Why would I be? I am spreading rumors. Can't people say it?"
"..."
Maybe she would never, ever grow Bunbun's kind of thick skin.
But...
Seeing the view count climb past tens of thousands in mere minutes, a faint envy glimmered in Hatate's eyes.
How nice, to be noticed by so many people.
...
That night, while Bunbun scratched her stomach and pondered what big news to break tomorrow, her work inbox suddenly chimed with a new email.
Thinking it was some collaboration request, she casually opened it—only for the contents to make her eyes fly wide.
"Want proof Old Thief Masato and Teacher Xander are the same person?"
With a single short line, her breathing turned heavy in an instant!
...
A few days later, after touring three cities, Xander Masato and Elysia finally returned home under repeated urgings from Bronya and the others.
After handing out the souvenirs they'd brought back for everyone, just as he and Elysia were about to head upstairs to unpack, Bronya suddenly stopped him.
"What is it?"
"Xander, I'll go up first~"
Seeing Xander held back, Elysia grinned, making no move to help. She grabbed the luggage and slipped up to the second floor.
This girl...
He grumbled about Elysia in his heart, then looked at Bronya. "If it's about the ring, I..."
"That's not it!!"
Bronya hurriedly cut him off and shot him a glare.
No matter how anxious she was, she wouldn't bring up the ring now. How could you give a ring so carelessly? When he gave one to Elysia, he got Rozaliya and the others to help, even did a magic trick. Where did your romance cells go?!!
Seele and Kiana beside her blinked. Hearing Xander mention a ring, the two nearly jumped with excitement, already planning to line up and collect theirs. But once Bronya interrupted, both of them shrank back sheepishly.
"Then what is it?"
His bewildered reply made Bronya rub her forehead. With a sigh, she said, "That little island. I don't think we can go together."
"Ah?"
"The Ying party's off?!"
Xander asked quickly, "What happened? Didn't we already make plans?"
He'd been looking forward to it for so long. How did it vanish all of a sudden?
"Let's just say we were unlucky."
Before Bronya finished, Seele stepped forward to pick up the thread. "This isn't Cocolia-mom's fault, okay? When she heard we wanted to vacation on the little island, she readily lent it to us."
"Then why? Something urgent came up?"
Bronya spread her hands and continued, "No, just pure bad luck. Weather at sea changes fast. Who could know a typhoon would suddenly hit around the island? It ripped up the facilities and the villa. It's a pity—Cocolia-mom even hired Shencheng Technology's World Serpent company to install some entertainment facilities for the island so we'd have fun. But before they even finished, one typhoon blew it all away."
"Everyone's okay?" he asked, worried.
"They're fine. Just a small leader named Raven got blown into the sea. Thankfully the rescue was timely. She's okay—just swallowed a bit of seawater."
"Wait, huh??? Ra—Raven??"
Xander gaped.
World Serpent??? Raven?????
Dude, seriously?
"You know her?" Bronya asked curiously.
"No, it's nothing. Just that going to a little island with that name on the team is, well... not exactly auspicious."
In his mind, he saw a gray-haired beauty pacing, flopping, and crying.jpg. Xander spoke through a twitching mouth.
"What are you even saying? Nonsense."
Bronya muttered, about to continue, when Xander's phone rang.
"Hang on, I've got a call."
He signaled to Bronya, fished out his phone, glanced at the caller ID, and picked up.
Mrs. Izumi? Why'd she suddenly call?
The moment he put the phone to his ear, her anxious voice burst out. "Boss, we've got a situation!!"
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