[It's hard to tell how much blood and sweat went into it, but there's no doubt a ton of effort was spent.]
That was what Tanaka Masao thought to himself.
Out loud, however, he said:
"This is just a personal hobby for me. I don't really feel like it's hard work."
Hearing that, Eriri clicked her tongue and couldn't help but fire back, "Calling this a hobby… you're seriously beyond saving."
Eriri's snark earned her two pairs of deadpan stares.
Tanaka Masao & Sawamura Sayuri:
[Drawing doujinshi is your hobby too, isn't it?]
A single, indiscriminate attack— directly hitting two and a half people present.
Why two and a half?
Of course, it's because the author is Kuro— …ahem.
No, of course it's because Tanaka Masao doesn't produce doujinshi—he's just a porter moving other people's works.
Faced with their looks, Eriri's cheeks flushed red. She muttered under her breath,
"D-drawing doujinshi isn't… that bad…"
...
After the brief little interruption, Tanaka Masao and Sawamura Sayuri returned to business.
Regarding the matter of publishing the doujin, Sayuri expressed her willingness to help.
Tanaka could entrust the whole thing to her.
The initial printing costs would be covered by Sawamura Sayuri.
Once the book went on sale, after deducting costs, the remaining profit would be split evenly between the two of them.
Tanaka accepted without hesitation.
After all, forget about later sales—he couldn't even afford the upfront printing costs himself.
Handing everything over to Sayuri also saved him a great deal of trouble.
After finishing the discussion about publishing, and at Sayuri's warm insistence, Tanaka stayed a little longer before finally taking his leave.
He still had to head back to Chiba Prefecture, after all.
...
"Tanaka-kun, come visit again next time."
After seeing Tanaka Masao off, the Sawamura mother and daughter returned to the living room.
Eriri plopped down onto the sofa, picked up the manuscript pages on the table, and was about to continue reading—
Only for them to be snatched away by Sawamura Sayuri.
"Mom, what are you doing?"
Eriri looked completely confused.
Sayuri put on a very educational expression as she replied,
"You're still too young. This kind of manga is something you can't handle yet. Let your mother review it first."
Before Eriri could even react, Sayuri gathered up all the manuscript pages, marched straight back to her room, and locked the door behind her.
It took Eriri a solid two and a half seconds to process what just happened before she exploded in protest,
"Mom! How can you do that?! I want to read it too!"
...
Meanwhile, completely unaware of the Sawamura household side skit, Tanaka Masao was already riding the train back home.
Running into Eriri today had been a pleasant surprise.
Going forward, there was a good chance he might also run into Kasumigaoka Utaha, or even Katou Megumi.
"Wait… the name of my school is Sōbu High University?"
Earlier, when he'd just received these memories, he hadn't thought much about it.
But now that the familiar name surfaced—
Possibly due to the world's rules, the original school had become Sōbu High University instead.
He himself was already a college student, an adult.
Aside from that, there weren't many major changes— which immediately made him think of a certain anime.
My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU.
Thinking carefully, his former year did have several famously beautiful girls.
The unreachable flower on the peak, the icy mountain beauty—Yukinoshita Yukino.
And of course, the ever-familiar Shizuka-sensei was also around.
Though, unfortunately, she didn't teach his class.
Tanaka Masao tried recalling more, but realized that because he'd been way too much of a shut-in before, he didn't know many people.
So he wasn't sure whether there were characters from other anime present as well.
Still—
There was no doubt this was a multi-series crossover world.
Tanaka resolved to go out more often from now on.
After gaining a better understanding of the world, he turned his attention back to his system.
Today, from the Sawamura mother and daughter, he had gained a little over ten points of Corruption Value.
The system shop—which had previously been grayed out—had changed.
Tanaka opened the yellow shopping cart icon.
The shop interface was extremely simple.
Only two items were displayed.
[Random Talent ×1 — Price: 100,000 Corruption Points]
[Random Item ×1 — Price: 10,000 Corruption Points]
He had obtained both of these before from the beginner gift pack.
The former had granted him a fairly decent talent.
The latter had given him an item that helped generate Corruption Points.
"System, why does the shop only have these two items? Are there no others?"
[Host, of course there are other items. As the system levels up, a wide variety of goods will gradually unlock.]
Tanaka nodded. This was exactly what he expected.
Although both current items were random, random also implied infinite possibilities.
It meant the system's inventory was vast—and sooner or later, specified talents and items would appear.
Of course, it was also possible that the system just had a lot of junk lying around and felt embarrassed selling it directly—so it bundled everything into randomness.
Randomly dumping trash meant you could only blame your own bad luck, not the system's lack of stock.
For now, Tanaka Masao's plan was simple:
Wait for Sawamura Sayuri to publish his doujin and see how much Corruption Value it earned.
As long as it exceeded 10,000 points, he could keep exchanging for random items and form a positive feedback loop.
If it didn't reach that threshold, then he'd have no choice but to earn Corruption Value through other methods.
Having sorted out his thoughts, Tanaka washed up and went to bed early.
Tomorrow, he planned to properly explore Sōbu University.
...
Late at night, inside the Sawamura family villa.
Because her husband was a diplomat who frequently traveled abroad, Sawamura Sayuri was once again sleeping alone tonight.
On quiet nights like this, being alone in one's room always felt a bit lonely.
Before going to sleep, Sayuri usually read a book to pass the time.
"Tonight… I'll read the manuscript Tanaka-kun gave me," she murmured.
"I'll give it a proper review and see just how good it really is."
...
At the same time, the soundly sleeping Tanaka Masao was suddenly jolted awake by the system's notification chime.
[+1]
[+1, +1...]
The sudden, continuous stream of Corruption Points left Tanaka completely stunned.
"Why are there suddenly so many notifications? Who is it?"
At the moment, aside from himself, the only people who had come into contact with system-related items seemed to be the two Sawamuras.
But the notification sounds were honestly a bit too loud.
If more people started reading in the future, notifications this frequent would drive him straight into neurasthenia.
Tanaka quickly started figuring out how to mute the alerts— otherwise, he'd never get any rest again.
Just as he found the option to disable notification sounds, an extremely rapid series of alerts rang out.
[+1, +1...]
[+10!]
After the final system notification sounded, the system quieted down on its own—without any input from Tanaka.
"This…"
The system was silent.
And so was Tanaka.
Looking at the Corruption Value, which had increased by dozens of points in a single night—
"Looks like getting rich overnight isn't far off. System-made products really are reliable."
After turning off the system notifications completely, Tanaka Masao finally drifted back into his dreams.