After taking a sip of the rib soup,
Kasumigaoka Utaha immediately widened her eyes.
Yummy~.
The sensation was so specific, it was hard to describe with words.
Kasumigaoka Utaha thought that if this were an anime about food, that bowl of rib soup would be sparkling golden.
Then, she would take a sip, and her clothes would automatically explode, plunging into some kind of illusion or something.
Huh... wait a second?
"You didn't put any aphrodisiacs in the soup, did you?"
Kasumigaoka Utaha asked, wary.
Yukima Azuma: ???
Yukima Azuma: Do you think I'm the type of person to do something like that?
Kasumigaoka Utaha: You tell me, why do I feel so stimulated after eating this?
...
Friday.
After school.
Today was club activity day.
So, Eriri went with Yukima Azuma back to his apartment.
Coincidentally, Kato Megumi also wanted to check out Shiratamaru, so she came along too.
And right in front of Toyogasaki School, Kasumigaoka Utaha was clearly waiting for them.
Thus, the three beautiful high school girls surrounded Yukima Azuma and walked back to the apartment together.
Sounds great, right?
However...
Utaha's gaze seemed like it could kill.
If it had only been Eriri, Kasumigaoka Utaha might have gotten into a fight with her.
But today, Kato Megumi was also there.
And because she was wary of this dangerous opponent, Kasumigaoka Utaha unusually refrained from teasing Eriri today.
As a result, when the three of them arrived at Yukima Azuma's apartment door,
They saw a shiny black expensive car parked in front of the door.
Yukima Azuma glanced at the license plate.
It was definitely Eriri's family car.
And in front of the apartment door,
A towering stack of cardboard boxes was piled up.
It looked like they were preparing to move.
"Oujou-sama, everything has been moved in. Since we don't have the keys, we could only temporarily leave it in front of the door."
The butler of Eriri's family reported.
"Sawamura-san, what are you planning to do?"
Kasumigaoka Utaha smiled sweetly, but her tone was so cold it could send a chill down your spine.
Eriri cleared her throat.
"Ahem, of course, I'm renting a room. I need to finish the illustration work for White Album before Comiket this summer. The deadline is too tight."
"To save time, I figured I'd directly communicate with Azuma for the most efficient results."
"So, I'll rent a room here at Azumam house. Whenever I have free time, I'll come over to work."
"There's no other choice. It's all for the sake of our club's game!"
Eriri's words grew more forceful.
In the end, she puffed out her chest, trying to appear confident.
Kasumigaoka Utaha coldly smiled, also puffing her chest out, but exuding a terrifying aura.
"I disagree."
Eriri felt as though she had been struck a powerful blow.
What did Kasumigaoka Utaha eat when she was growing up to have such a large chest?
However, despite being defeated, Eriri refused to back down.
"If you disagree, so what? You're just a tenant. The landlord is Azuma!"
"Besides, why can you rent a room but I can't? It's for the club, after all."
"Now that the club room is taken by the student council, we need to hold club activities at Azuma's place. Do you expect me to run back and forth every time?"
Eriri's reasoning had been carefully thought out long before she heard that the club room was taken over by the student council.
Kasumigaoka Utaha paused for a moment, unable to immediately rebut.
Yukima Azuma took out the key and opened the apartment door.
The butler of Eriri's family began moving Eriri's belongings in.
The boxes mainly contained drawing boards, documents, computers, and other materials.
Eriri's personal belongings took up only a small portion.
It seemed that Eriri was truly here to work.
"Place it in this room."
Eriri pointed to the empty room next to Yukima Azuma's.
"Move it to the second floor."
Kasumigaoka Utaha spoke, setting her limit.
The butler of Eriri's family looked at Yukima Azuma with an awkward expression.
He master, Miss Sayuri, had given him instructions.
In addition to obeying the young lady, the butler also had to listen to the orders of Yukima Azuma, the young man.
And, Yukima Azuma's orders took precedence over Eriri's.
So, in this awkward situation, the butler decided to look to Yukima Azuma for a final decision.
"Move it to the second floor. I'll show you the way."
Yukima Azuma made his decision.
It had to be fair.
The butler nodded.
Eriri was left stunned.
Why was my family's butler listening to Yukima Azuma like this?
Aren't we not even married yet?
— — — — — — — — — — —
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Chapter 77: Eriri Infiltrates Yukima Mansion
Yukima Azuma led everyone upstairs.
He arranged for Eriri's room to be right next to Kasumigaoka Utaha's room.
Coincidentally, two days ago, Yukima Azuma had bought a batch of nameplates.
Now, they could be put to use.
Yukima Azuma took a blank nameplate from the box.
On it, he wrote the words "Sawamura Spencer Eriri."
Then, he hung the nameplate on Eriri's room door.
"The Katakana is written so badly!"
Eriri looked at her nameplate and criticized it.
But even though she said that, the corners of her mouth couldn't hide a smile.
That smile was even harder to suppress than when using an 8x recoil grip with large machine gun.
It was almost about to stretch to the sky.
Yukima Azuma could only feel helpless.
He casually took another blank nameplate from the box.
Yukima Azuma wrote the words "Kasumigaoka Utaha" and hung it on Kasumigaoka's door.
Kasumigaoka looked at her nameplate.
Then, she looked at Yukima Azuma box of blank nameplates.
Without leaving a trace, she pinched Yukima Azuma's side.
Yukima Azuma gritted his teeth and endured.
There was no other way.
Sometimes, you had to pay a small price.
Kato Megumi, holding Shiratamaru in her arms, stood at a distance and quietly observed this scene.
After moving Eriri's belongings, everyone returned to the living room.
"The character designs and cover art are here, and one-third of the CG art for the game is already completed."
Eriri laid her works on the table.
Yukima Azuma took a quick look.
There was basically nothing that needed correction.
When designing the characters, Eriri had contacted Yukima Azuma via Line.
The two of them had made a few revisions.
With the original character designs in Azuma mind and Eriri outstanding illustration skills, the chances of errors were minimal.
The only issue was that the work still seemed a bit rushed.
Kasumigaoka Utaha also took out a stack of drafts.
"I've finished the script, but this is the first time I've written a script, so I might not recognize some problems myself."
Eriri and Yukima Azuma each took a copy and began to read.
Kasumigaoka's writing was sharp, and her style was unquestionable.
However...
After reading, Eriri furrowed her small brows.
"I always feel like something's missing."
Kasumigaoka paid no attention to her.
Instead, she looked at Yukima Azuma.
At that moment, Yukima Azuma had just finished reading the script.
"As for the story, it definitely meets the standard, and I would even say it's excellent."
"But since you're used to writing light novels, you may have accidentally overlooked a few things."
"For a game script, the details of the story should have many different choices."
"Through these choices, it will ultimately lead to different endings. This script would work well for a Good Ending role."
Hearing this, Kasumigaoka nodded.
Indeed, she was used to writing light novels, so she had overlooked this point.
"This is exactly what I mean!"
Eriri raised her hand high and loudly agreed.
"You dare to criticize when you haven't finished your own work?"
Kasumigaoka smirked and mocked her.
"Hey, the workload of an illustrator is huge!"
"The scriptwriting work isn't light either. In the end, it's a human issue."
"Illustrations and texts are not the same!"
"Then why don't you write the script?"
"You're so annoying! You evil woman in black stockings!"
The two of them started bickering again.
Yukima Azuma sat down next to Kato Megumi, who was standing on the sidelines.
Shiratamaru was curled up in Kato Megumi's arms, looking very content.
Yukima Azuma reached out and scratched Shiratamaru's chin.
Since the cat was in Kato Megumi's lap, he couldn't avoid lightly touching her leg.
However, it seemed that Kato Megumi didn't mind at all.
"Megumi, join the club as a game tester," Yukima Azuma suddenly spoke.
This tuberose girl, who was holding the cat and staying out of the argument, looked rather quiet.
Moreover, the club really needed someone for real-world testing.
"Eh? But I don't understand any of this," Kato Megumi seemed rather surprised.
"It's fine, actually, that's better."
"Utaha-senpai is a light novel writer, and Eriri is an illustrator. When they experience the product, it's hard to avoid them being overly critical of each other's work."
"And if they use their professional perspectives to evaluate our work, it will lose objectivity in testing."
"After all, when the game is released, our target audience is the general players, not professionals."
Kato Megumi blinked her eyes as if she was pondering, "I see, so that's how it is?"
"I can join, but do you think Kasumigaoka-senpai and Sawamura-san will agree?"
At that moment...
Kasumigaoka and Eriri stopped arguing.
Both of them looked at Yukima Azuma and Kato Megumi with meaningful expressions.
"Utaha-senpai, Eriri, so, Megumi will be our new member from now on, is that okay?" Yukima Azuma clasped his hands in front of his chest, looking as though he was pleading.
"You've already decided, why are you asking us?"
"Yeah, that's right!"
It was rare for Kasumigaoka and Eriri to agree on something like this.
However, even though they said that...
It was clear they didn't object to Kato Megumi joining.
If it had been someone else, they would likely have rejected the idea without hesitation.
Although they had only known Kato Megumi since the beginning of the term, somehow, they had already come to consider her a friend.
Megumi had a special ability like that.
And the fact that Kasumigaoka and Eriri considered somebody a friend was truly rare.
"Cheers! To celebrate Megumi joining the club, let's have red bean rice today!"
Yukima Azuma raised his hand and cheered.
"Lonely-kun, did you forget something?"
Kasumigaoka Utaha glared at him.
"What about the programming? Azuma, you're not just urging us to work while doing nothing yourself, are you?"
Eriri also took this opportunity to criticize him.
Yukima Azuma shook his head.
"How could I forget?"
He opened his laptop and showed the program.
It was a pretty complete game system, with the entire framework already built and able to run smoothly.
Next, they just needed to add the necessary content.
The game could officially enter the internal testing phase.
Looking at the game program on Yukima Azuma's laptop, Kasumigaoka Utaha furrowed her brows in confusion.
Lately, she hadn't seen Yukima Azuma write any code at all.
But the level of completion of this program
Even if there were seven or eight programmers working together, it would take at least two or three days to finish.
Eriri's mouth dropped open in amazement.
"When did you do this? Impressive! It's like outsourcing the work."
Yukima Azuma nodded in agreement.
"Of course it's like outsourcing, because it actually is outsourcing."
Kasumigaoka: "?"
Eriri: "?"
Seeing the confusion on their faces, Yukima Azuma couldn't help but laugh.
"A few days ago, I registered a company that specializes in developing our club's game, as well as preparing for future publicity and release."
"I set up the company, hired a few programmers, and gave them the job of programming the game."
After hearing Yukima Azuma's explanation, the three girls were stunned.
Normally, who would open a company just for the result of a school club?
Where did this idiot come from?
"Wait until the game doesn't sell, then we'll see if you stay obedient!"
Eriri muttered grumpily.
But deep down, she had already made up her mind.
When the game is released, she'll ask her mother to buy a hundred copies.
After all, she could give them to her friends in the otaku community for promotion.
The more copies she buys, the better.
As for Kasumigaoka Utaha, her thoughts were much simpler.
If the company made a loss, it wouldn't matter.
If Yukima Azuma went bankrupt, she'd just feed him.
(t/n: Rich lady with black tights, please feed me too)
....
That night.
Yukima Azuma really did cook red bean rice.
In Japan, red bean rice is also called Azuki gohan, symbolizing celebration.
This dish is typically made for special occasions like weddings, birthdays, or when a family gains a new member.
It represents care and has a strong symbolic meaning of bonding.
In the kitchen, Kato Megumi quietly helped Yukima Azuma prepare the meal.
Eriri was in the living room, playing with Shiratamaru.
"Come on, come here, Shiratamaru~"
Eriri waved her hand, calling the cat.
Shiratamaru was very clever and could now understand some simple words and respond to his name.
Hearing Eriri's call, the little cat elegantly walked over to her.
Finally, Shiratamaru jumped up and snuggled into Eriri's arms.
His tiny little paws gently scratched her leg, almost as if kneading dough.
Eriri tightly hugged Shiratamaru.
She looked provocatively at Kasumigaoka Utaha.
Kasumigaoka just glared back at her.
That silly Eriri.
She didn't even realize the threat from Kato Megumi.
And right after that
Shiratamaru jumped out of Eriri's arms.
The little cat ran around before leaping and landing in Kasumigaoka Utaha's lap.
