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The classroom droned with the monotonous hum of a history lecture, chalk tapping rhythmically against the blackboard. To the outside observer, Leo Vance appeared to be in a daze, staring blankly at the back of the student in front of him.
In reality, his mind was running at redline RPM.
Leo had discovered a new application for his enhanced intellect. He called it "The Preview."
His brain had evolved into a high-end operating system. He could create virtual "folders" in his mind, storing data, images, and text strings for instant retrieval. By combining his heightened memory with multi-threaded processing, he could run simulations—essentially "rehearsing" creative work before his hands ever touched a keyboard or stylus.
Currently, he had three separate threads running simultaneously in his mental workspace:
Thread 1: Writing. He was drafting the second volume of his light novel. The words flowed in a continuous stream, filling a virtual document in his mind. He was editing sentences, adjusting pacing, and refining dialogue in real-time.
Thread 2: Illustration. Shinazugawa Bunko was pushing for a release in ten days. They wanted to capitalize on the buzz generated by the promotional art. That meant Leo needed to produce nine to ten high-quality interior illustrations in just over a week. For a normal artist working in a heavy impasto style, this was a death march. For Leo? It was a file transfer. He was "painting" the scenes in his head—visualizing the brush strokes, the lighting, the texture of the armor. Once the image was rendered mentally, transferring it to the computer later would take him only forty minutes of pure mechanical copying.
Thread 3: Game Concept. He was sketching the UI layout for the strategy game, calculating the resource economy and the layout of the "Demon King's Castle."
Efficiency is terrifying, Leo thought, organizing the mental files into their respective folders. I'm not smarter in terms of raw IQ—I can't solve a Rubik's cube in two seconds like a savant—but my ability to parallel process makes me a production machine.
He was a human printer, waiting to output the data.
After School: The Club Room.
The late afternoon sun bathed the Audio-Visual Room in a warm, dusty orange glow. When Leo, Megumi, and Tomoya arrived, the room was already occupied.
Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.
The aggressive, rhythmic sound of mechanical blue switches echoed off the walls.
Kasumigaoka Utaha was seated at the main table, her fingers flying across a heavy, external keyboard connected to a massive Alienware laptop. The setup looked like it belonged in an e-sports arena, not a literature club.
Leo smirked. Most people saw Utaha as a delicate literary genius. Leo knew her secret: her F-drive was full of Steam games, and she prioritized frame rates over portability. That five-pound keyboard was just the price of admission for a good typing experience.
"Afternoon, Senior," Leo said, sliding into the seat opposite her.
"Leo-kun," Utaha acknowledged without stopping her typing. "You're late."
Tomoya, sensing the aura of "geniuses at work," quietly retreated to a corner desk by the window. He opened his modest notebook, brow furrowed, diving back into the labyrinth of his game proposal.
Megumi, unsure of her role in this hierarchy of productivity, sat two seats away from Leo. She pulled out her phone and began scrolling, perfectly content to be the room's silent observer.
Leo unzipped his bag and heaved his own laptop onto the table. It was a thick, battered machine that wheezed slightly as he pressed the power button. The fan spun up with a sound like a dying jet engine.
The noise drew Utaha's attention. She stopped typing, the sudden silence of the blue switches deafening. She stared at Leo's laptop with a mixture of pity and confusion.
"Leo-kun," she asked, eyeing the scuffed chassis. "How old is that relic? Carbon dating might be required."
"It's almost five years old," Leo said unbothered, logging in. "She's seen some battles."
He opened his media player, queuing up an anime in a small window while opening Photoshop in another.
"Five years?" Utaha raised an eyebrow. "In laptop years, that's geriatric. The performance must be bottling your workflow. I'm surprised it can run World of Warships."
"It struggles," Leo admitted, typing a command to clear the cache. "I have to play on Low settings. If I bump it to Medium, the thermal throttling kicks in and I could fry an egg on the keyboard."
He sighed. "Russian optimization is a joke. The game has a memory leak issue. After an hour, the spaghetti code clogs up the RAM, and I have to restart the client. Your Alienware can probably brute-force through the unoptimized code, but my old girl here needs a break every few matches."
Utaha looked at him, genuinely puzzled. "You just signed a contract with a 15% royalty rate. You have ten million yen in liquid cash for the club. Why are you torturing yourself with that junk? Just buy a new rig."
"I will, eventually," Leo said, tapping his stylus against the tablet. "But I'm picky. I want a specific configuration, and I hate the Japanese keyboard layout. I'm planning to import a system or build one myself later."
"Suit yourself," Utaha shrugged, returning to her mechanical keyboard. "Just don't blame me if you lag out during a ranked match and I have to carry you."
"I never lag where it counts," Leo retorted with a grin.
He glanced over at Megumi, who was watching them with mild interest, and Tomoya, who was muttering to himself in the corner. The room was filled with the sounds of fans whirring, keys clacking, and the scratching of a stylus.
It was a strange, disjointed harmony. But for a "Game Development Circle" that hadn't actually made a game yet, it felt surprisingly productive.