Chapter 231. Old Thief Masato Is Teacher Xander!
"Ah? How did you know??"
Xander Masato propped himself up in surprise, leaned over to look at Bronya, and spoke in a startled tone.
However, Bronya didn't answer that question and instead curled her lips and raised a brow: "You still have strength?"
At those words, Kaguya's hands paused mid-comb, her gaze drifted over as if by accident, and Seele, hugging him from behind, quietly tightened her arms.
"????"
His face fell at once, and he flopped back down into the soft center. With one hand he caught Seele's starting-to-be-naughty little hand, and with a pitiful tone said, "Don't, don't, I really can't. Let me rest a bit."
Give his "second brother" a vacation already—draining the pond to catch fish is not sustainable!
"Look how scared you are."
Bronya laughed, wrapped her arms around her lover's neck, and gently patted his head.
She did love his forceful side, loved that feeling of being conquered, but switching it up occasionally to this weaker look was pretty nice too—gotta balance the flavor~
Xander didn't dare move recklessly. He held Seele's small hand and gently squeezed it. Seeing her little gambit fail, Seele could only settle for second best and offered up her other hand too, letting her big brother knead away.
"Alright, I won't tease you. Let's go back to what we were talking about."
Adjusting her posture so Xander could pillow his head more comfortably, Bronya answered his question.
"It's easy to deduce. Because unless you leaked it yourself, there was simply no other possibility."
Summing it up first, she then slowly explained: "Back when you were making those eroge, aside from Mrs. Izumi, you basically didn't interact with anyone else. Even afterward, except for you two, all the other illustrators were contacted by Mrs. Izumi. And Mrs. Izumi wouldn't dare blab about your matters."
"As for your sales channels, if I remember right, that outsource company was provided by Mom Cocolia, wasn't it?"
Xander nodded. The movement of pressure sent a tingle through Bronya's chest; she exhaled softly before speaking again.
"Well then, there you go. You really think anything arranged by Mom Cocolia would let ordinary reporters trace the vine back to you?"
"Think it through—every possible avenue of investigation has already been blocked. Other than you leaking it yourself, I can't think of a second possibility."
Lowering a hand to pinch Xander's cheek, Bronya said with a smile.
Xander grunted twice, a bit unconvinced: "If ordinary reporters can't dig it up, couldn't it be Schicksal deliberately messing with—my affairs? After all, the games I made really impacted their AR-glasses strategy."
"Schicksal, heh~"
At that, Bronya couldn't help but snort: "If they wanted to target anyone, targeting Mom Cocolia would be more likely than targeting you. Isn't that right, our Schicksal Overseer's grandson-in-law~"
"Ahem… th-then what about Shencheng Technology…"
"That's enough. Mom Cocolia was just laughing with me a few days ago, saying Shencheng Technology is begging them to let Pokémon data be imported into Shencheng's VR pods. How could they choose this moment to rub you the wrong way? They're practically worshipping you!"
"..."
Bronya wasn't wrong. The fact that the Pokémon exclusive to Anti-Entropy's AR glasses could carry over saved data on every VR pod was one of the key conditions of the three tech companies' collaboration. Given Pokémon's current scale and heat, if it still only ran on Anti-Entropy's VR pods, most of the market's customers would flow under Anti-Entropy's banner.
Schicksal and Shencheng Technology simply couldn't accept that. So this condition was placed directly among the major terms of cooperation. Even now, the three sides were still haggling; through this, Cocolia had squeezed a lot of resources out of Schicksal and Shencheng Technology.
She also knew this condition had to be agreed to. Otherwise, she would only force the other two to quit the partnership. Then Anti-Entropy's virtual-world plan would be heavily discounted, if not stalled altogether.
Anti-Entropy, after all, was only one of the three tech companies. If we're being honest, the long-standing Schicksal was the undisputed number one. If you want to hog the meal, you'll only be targeted by the other two. Even Anti-Entropy might not be able to take the heat.
Thoughts turning, Xander blinked and shook the notions from his head.
These things were better left to the professionals. He could just focus on making games.
"Alright, alright. It really was me taking the initiative to leak it."
With a sigh, Xander resigned himself.
"Then why did big brother decide to say it out loud? Wouldn't keeping it secret be better?"
Given big brother's current stature in the games industry, even if he'd made eroge before, people wouldn't say much—at most a few jokes. But with that kind of thing, shouldn't you keep it secret if you can?
"Probably to promote the new game."
Kaguya's voice floated over.
She finished combing her hair and returned to the bed, sitting down and moving her husband's head onto her lap as she knelt.
Bronya, for her part, rubbed her slightly reddened chest, rolled over, and hugged one of his arms.
"Promote the new game?"
Even Bronya didn't know this part, and asked curiously.
"Kaguya, you figured that out?"
He didn't resist her at all, and lay contentedly on her full, springy thighs.
He rolled over and looked toward Bronya: "I forgot to tell you both. I'm planning to announce the new game in Gensokyo."
"You're going to release an eroge in Gensokyo???"
"What are you thinking? It's all-ages!"
Cutting off Bronya's astonishment, Xander said helplessly.
Seeing that Kaguya had no reaction, Xander looked at her curiously. She smiled and explained: "Earlier, when this concubine was playing with Griseo, she told me about it."
Oh, that explains it.
As for why he didn't look to equally calm Seele—because Seele had never meddled in these matters.
She would only think that if big brother did it this way, he must have his reasons, and believe in that completely.
"I see. No wonder, tsk."
Having learned the news, Bronya quickly put two and two together. Xander followed: "Right. Even if I didn't say anything, once we start promoting the game in two months, it wouldn't stay hidden anyway."
Even if he used his name as the scenario writer for CLANNAD, that alone would raise suspicion. After all, his and Eromanga-sensei's art styles were unique in the industry. Plenty had tried to imitate them over the years, but no one matched Eromanga-sensei and her two little disciples for refinement.
"In the end, everyone would guess it anyway, so I might as well break the news myself. And if I do it proactively, it's easy to funnel the heat straight onto the game that's about to release. But if we wait till after launch for players to figure it out, the heat will sit on me, not on the game."
"That's true."
Bronya nodded, then smiled: "Looks like you've got a lot of confidence in the new game~"
"You bet. I can only say that just in terms of the story, it's not inferior to To the Moon."
"Um??!!!!!"
This time Bronya was truly shocked. Even Kaguya's lips parted a little.
"Are you serious?"
"Why would I lie to you? The script's sitting in my inbox. Want a look?"
"I… forget it, I'll wait for the game."
A story on par with To the Moon—Bronya's heart now felt like a cat was scratching at it.
"I've also contacted an animation studio. It'll be split into two parts and released alongside the game."
"Then I'll be looking forward to it. Any hints—what genre?"
"Oh, youth campus, heart-warming slice-of-life. The kind that can make you laugh."
"Really?"
"Guaranteed!"
Once they'd said enough on that topic, the conversation drifted. The three snuggled together and chatted for a while. When that post-event feeling finally faded, Kaguya and Bronya got up one after the other and headed downstairs. It wasn't even dark yet. What they'd just done was, well, that daytime declaration of… ahem.
The room was left with just him and Seele.
Leaning against the headboard, he lazily cradled Seele and fished his phone out from the side.
The adorable girl obediently reclined in his arms, letting big brother's two arms slip under her armpits and rest across her soft chest.
Her two little hands pawed at his forearms, and she lowered her head to curiously watch whatever was on his phone.
Xander paid her little antics no mind, lowered his chin to rest on her delicate shoulder, and let her see—there was nothing to hide on his phone anyway.
Breathing in the faint fragrance on Seele's body, he opened his blog, untouched for a day. Skipping past the familiar "99+" comments, he scrolled into the replies on the latest post.
Sure enough, it was full of people asking if he was Teacher Xander.
He'd been planning to just come out and say it, but suddenly felt that was no fun. After a moment's thought, he reached over to grab a tablet from the headboard.
"Seele, help me hold this."
"Mm~"
Softly acknowledging, Seele took the tablet and steadied it in front of her.
Xander picked up the stylus and opened his drawing app.
What to draw…
Wuzhi?
No, not Wuzhi.
As popular as Dengluzhui was, she didn't quite fit either. In the end he still chose the very first one, the protagonist who ran through all five entries.
Lianhua.
His long-honed skill let him sketch out a rough silhouette in a few strokes. Under Seele's curious gaze, a gentle, adorable kimono-clad figure blossomed on the canvas.
"Big brother is amazing~"
Before he'd even saved, Seele's voice of worship chimed in.
"This one's simple—hardly any detail. What's amazing about that?"
Smiling, Xander began compressing the image.
"It is amazing. With simple lines you made Lianhua look this cute. That's really hard!"
"You do know how to flatter."
Being admired by his little sister figure felt great, to be honest. He dipped his head to reward her with a peck on the cheek—ticklish, making Seele giggle.
"Alright, time to upload this."
Murmuring to himself, he dropped the image into the editor and typed a single line.
"In the blink of an eye, it's been five years~"
...
These past few days could be called Wenwen's most triumphant stretch. Every morning when she walked into the office, that sea of staring eyes made her lift her chin with pride.
The massive traffic around "Old Thief" had fed her full—she'd even hit trending topics several times, something she'd only ever dreamed of before.
All of this stemmed from that anonymous email.
Its contents were a shock to her.
She herself had barely believed the wild speculation—who knew it would be true!!!
But excitement aside, she didn't have the guts to publish it. It was entirely Xander's private information. If he wanted to hold her accountable, Wenwen knew she wouldn't get away.
Just when she was heartsick at the thought of letting the biggest scoop of her life slip through her fingers, the contact number at the very bottom rekindled a spark of hope.
With a touch of expectation, Wenwen dialed.
The call connected quickly. Before she could speak, a warm voice came through: "Hello, and you are?"
"Ah? I-I'm a reporter from Wenwen News. About that email in the inbox…"
Her voice was a little tense as she spoke slowly.
"Is that so? Sounds like you've read it through. If there's no problem, then go ahead and break the story."
"B-but, about Old Thief Masato…"
Did she want to publish it? More than anything. But she didn't dare!!!!
The person on the other end suddenly laughed—a laugh like he'd just noticed something very interesting.
Wenwen didn't continue. She simply waited quietly.
Not long after, the laugh stopped, and that warm voice spoke again: "Forgot to introduce myself. I'm Xander Masato—mm, the very Old Thief Masato you're talking about."
In an instant, Wenwen's eyes went wide.
After only a few lines more, the call ended. Wenwen could no longer hold back her excitement. She shouted with glee, hopping around the office. Yu-li rushed over, thinking Wenwen had been possessed.
Over the next few days, Wenwen was like she'd been injected with chicken blood. Very soon she posted another article on the connection between Old Thief and Teacher Xander.
It was still mostly conjecture inside, with very little hard info.
Then came a third piece, a fourth…
As time went on, one article after another rolled out.
At first, players treated it as a joke. But seeing it every day got a bit annoying.
Just as the curses mounted, Wenwen finally posted a photo.
In the shot, Xander Masato and a mature woman sat across from each other at a restaurant table, chatting and laughing.
The woman's identity wasn't hard to trace. Mrs. Izumi had attended quite a few Comiket-type events to sell books. Netizens quickly dug her up.
Now, even the disbelievers were half-convinced.
So Old Thief Masato and Eromanga-sensei really do know each other, huh. And who in the gal-game scene doesn't know Eromanga-sensei is Teacher Xander's exclusive illustrator? With this photo out, it was only natural to read into it.
Once the big leak started, Wenwen had no intention of stopping. Very quickly, one photo after another, one tidbit after another, burst out.
By this morning, after the company publishing Kaleidoscope was shown to be linked to Old Thief, everyone was starting to believe it.
Eromanga-sensei's blog was overrun in an instant. That's why she made the hurried call.
She didn't leave the curious players waiting long. Near dinnertime, Old Thief posted a little Lianhua illustration, along with that one sighing line that was practically a smoking gun.
Old Thief Masato is Teacher Xander!!!
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