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Utaha let out a breath she felt she'd been holding for ten minutes. The tension in her shoulders finally unspooled, replaced by a strange mix of relief and exhilaration.
She could understand Leo's logic. In fact, it was frighteningly sound. Compared to Aki Tomoya's strategy—which amounted to "trust me, bro" and vague promises of glory—Leo's approach was refreshingly transactional. It was a contract. Effort equaled reward. If you put in the work, you got paid. It was cold, sure, but it was honest.
More importantly, Utaha saw the strategic value in his offer. She wasn't just joining for the paycheck (though five hundred thousand yen a month was nothing to sneeze at). She was joining for him.
Leo Vance was a narrative architect. He excelled at the macro level—world-building, pacing, and high-stakes tension. He built engines that ran smoothly at two hundred miles an hour. But as he'd admitted, he lacked the delicate, microscopic touch—the emotional nuances, the subtle shifts in dialogue, the "purple prose" that made a reader's chest ache.
That was her domain.
By working with him, she could fill the gaps in her own skill set. She could learn how to structure a plot that didn't collapse halfway through volume two. It was essentially a masterclass internship, and he was paying her to take it.
Utaha reached up, tucking a strand of raven hair behind her ear—a nervous tic she rarely showed.
"Leo-kun," she said, her voice regaining its usual silky composure. "Your proposal is... impossible to refuse. I'll accept the position of lead scenario writer. But let's be clear: I'm doing this because I want to learn from you. The money is just a very persuasive bonus."
She didn't beat around the bush. With Tomoya, she had to navigate his fragile ego and his erratic enthusiasm. With Leo, she felt she had to be direct. He was a predator in a nice suit; if she played coy, he'd just eat her alive.
Leo stopped typing for a split second, a small, satisfied smile touching his lips. "If it's just technique you want, my door is always open. But honestly? I think you're overestimating me. My writing is functional. It gets the job done."
"Stop it," Utaha said, her eyes narrowing. "Humblebragging isn't a good look on you. It's annoying when geniuses act like they're just lucky. It makes the rest of us look bad."
"I'm serious," Leo chuckled, resuming his typing rhythm. "Hard work is the baseline, sure. But without talent, you're just grinding gears. I'm maybe halfway up the mountain. You? You're already higher up than me, Senior. You're just standing on a ledge that's about to crumble. I'm just offering you a rope."
Utaha suppressed a sigh. The guy was a master of flattery. But unlike the empty praise she got from fanboys or the polite nods from editors, Leo's compliments felt heavy. They had substance. He acknowledged her flaws—the "unstable path"—while validating her height. It was intoxicating.
She watched the white text cascading down his screen. He was writing that villain protagonist story again. The prose was sharp, violent, and laced with a dark, cynical humor that felt dangerously real.
"So," Utaha asked, leaning closer to the screen. "When are you submitting this? It looks ready to ship."
"I'll finish the volume first," Leo said, his eyes not leaving the monitor. "Then I'll send it to the publisher. But honestly? I'm treating this as a stress test. I don't know if it'll pass the censors. If the Digital Entertainment Oversight Committee flags it, or if the publisher balks at the moral ambiguity... I'm nuking the project."
"Nuking it?" Utaha blinked. "You mean rewriting it?"
"No. I mean deleting it. Trash bin. Format drive."
"What?" Utaha looked horrified. "That's... that's such a waste! Leo-kun, the quality of this draft is top-tier. It could win a newcomer award easily. Even if it needs edits, you don't just throw away a hundred thousand words because of a rejection letter!"
"It's not about rejection," Leo said, his voice cool and detached. "It's about market viability. I don't know where the 'bottom line' is in this country yet. This story is a probe. I'm poking the industry to see if it bites back. If it's too dark for the current climate, then there's no point in fighting an uphill battle. I'll just pivot. I'll write a fluffy rom-com or a standard hero's journey."
Utaha stared at him, stunned.
Most writers treated their manuscripts like their children. They fought for every sentence, bled for every plot point. Leo treated his work like a product prototype. If the prototype failed the safety test, he didn't cry about it; he just built a different model.
Internal Monologue: This guy is ruthless. He's not an artist; he's a factory. And the scariest part is, the factory produces art better than I do.
Leo kept typing. In his head, he was weighing the odds. Back in his world, Overlord and Saga of Tanya the Evil had pushed the boundaries of "evil" protagonists and found massive success. But this world was different. The DEOC was stricter. The cultural palate might be softer.
"If I cross the line," Leo said, as if reading her thoughts, "I don't apologize. I just change lanes. Times change, Utaha. What worked ten years ago—the heavy, dense political dramas like Legend of the Galactic Heroes—might not fly today. The audience is younger. Their attention spans are shorter. If I want to win, I have to adapt."
"You talk like a machine," Utaha murmured, half-impressed, half-disturbed.
"I talk like a professional," Leo corrected. "I'm not aiming for thirty million copies like Index. That's a statistical anomaly. But I want a million. I want my work in every bookstore from Sapporo to Okinawa. And to get that, I need to know the rules of the game before I start breaking them."
He hit the Enter key with a final, decisive clack.
"And that," Leo said, turning to face her with a grin, "is why I need you. You know the rules. You've played the game. You're my insider."
Utaha looked at him—this handsome, arrogant, brilliant American boy—and realized she was completely out of her depth. He wasn't just hiring her; he was acquiring her. And for the first time in a long time, she was excited to see where the story was going.
"Fine," Utaha said, a small, genuine smile touching her lips. "I'll be your insider. But don't blame me if I steal your techniques while I'm at it."
"I'm counting on it," Leo replied.