Rias and Blake. I had chosen these two to go to for advice because they knew about Naruko's hidden side very well and cared about her very much. Naruko also had to worry about her public image, so I had to use caution in choosing who to go to for help, so they were ideal. I was honestly grateful to have them.
In reality, there was one other person who met the prerequisites I had just mentioned. Akeno, If I could add her on as an ally in this matter, her help would be without equal, and she would go through hell and high water to help. But… I had an opportunity to talk to her just the other day… (She had called me when she heard that Naruko had collapsed from the flu. And for some reason, she gave me a huge lecture about letting things get this way even though she had told me to take care of Naruko…) And after that, she said this:
"Everyone here places great value on Naruko's work ethic, so it's honestly no big deal if she takes a bit of a break from work because she's sick… but I know Naruko, and I'm sure she's depressed about having to miss work because of something that was her fault."
And so, Akeno had talked with the office and magazines she belonged to, and had taken upon herself the modeling work that Naruko was supposed to do at the beginning of the year. She reasoned that if she did it, Naruko's sense of indebtedness would be minimized.
"That's why, I won't come visit Naruko."
"I got it. If she gave you the disease, you wouldn't be able to work in her place… how should I put it, umm… "
"Ah, please don't thank me. I'm just doing what I want to do."
Akeno was acting in her own way to help Naruko out of her dilemma, doing something only she could do. We weren't the only ones trying to interfere in this matter. So I'll leave that up to her, and as for this matter, we would do what we could from over here.
And so… I refilled Rias and Blake's drinks and treated them to some fries, and once again began to talk about this webnovel incident.
"Uh huh, Uh huh… "
"Hmph… "
Rias and Blake both sat there, listening to me quietly.
"And that's what happened, I really think that editor is a pretty suspicious person."
"Hm. I understand what you're saying, but… " While gathering her thoughts, Rias began to give her opinion on the matter in a heavy voice. "Would a mere company employee like that do something so risky? No matter how much faith he had that Naruru-chan's novel would be able to sell, once the theft became public, his own position would become pretty precarious."
"… And also, assuming for a second that the editor was the criminal, I don't understand what his motives would be for stealing the manuscript. He didn't need to go out of his way to steal her work, but could have just sold it under the author's real identity… in fact, announcing her as an 'active model bishoujo high school student author debut' and whatever would be flashy and would make the book easier to sell, and she could have face-to-face interviews, and it would be pretty easy to advertise the book in that case, right?"
That's certainly true.
"But well… even so, it's pretty hard to believe that this editor person had nothing to do with what happened."
"Haruto-chan, if you happen to have his business card, could you show it to me for a second?"
"Ah, here you go."
Accepting Rias's proposal, I took out the business card the editor had given to Naruko. On the business card was written "MediAscii Works Second Editorial Department Mobile Division, Morino Ibiki."
When I placed the business card in the middle of the table, the two girls leaned forwards and began to seriously scrutinize it.
"… Hmph, this 'Mobile Division' is the organization that manages the MyNovel i-Club, right?"
"To be honest, I've seen business cards from this company… and this looks genuine. It really doesn't look like a forgery. Even if it were just a really good forgery, whoever made it would have had to know everything about what the real thing looked like, or else they wouldn't be able to make something like this."
Rias said something that resembled something Naruko had said. And Blake was the next to make a comment.
"Did you check if this person actually existed in the editorial department?"
"Ah, I checked that personally after calling the reception desk so there's no mistaking that. They thought I was making a prank call though… "
"This is just hearsay, but every year there are many, many claims made to the editorial department by people who claim that their own work was stolen. Of course, in most cases, the claims are based on empty suppositions and assumptions… but the editorial department has to continue to listen to cases after cases of these things… Naruko's claim might have been treated like it was one of those claims…"
It was like the boy who cried wolf. Of course, it was easier said than done to tell them to separate the one genuine claim from the sea of false ones.
Blake picked up the business card in her hand, and squinted.
"… Under the editorial department's contact information, he wrote a cell phone number and a mailing address with a ballpoint pen, didn't he?"
"Is there something bothering you about that? He's often not in the office, so he was being thoughtful and gave her a direct way to contact him, right?"
"… How naive are you? Please be a bit more doubtful of people's intentions. Isn't it possible that he wrote this separate contact information down because it would be bad if she called the editorial department directly? It's just… oh right… taking into account what Rias had said just now… in my view, this business card itself is genuine."
"So you mean… "
"The person Naruru-chan met in Shinjuku was a fake who used Morino Ibiki's name and occupation to trick her… is that what you're saying? Blake-chan."
"Yeah." Blake nodded.
"Son of bitch! That asshole wasn't the actual editor himself!"
"That's what I think, neither of the things you said is actual solid proof that he actually worked in the publishing company. I mean, the meeting place was the lobby of the publishing company, right? And the place they had the real meeting was a local cafe, right? It's not like the building is locked, so anybody can set up a meeting in the lobby of the publishing company's building. And then to convince the target that he's the real editor, he hands the target a business card he had received from the genuine editor and pretends the card is his… it's a relatively popular method for committing fraud."
"That person who was pretending to be Morino Ibiki was probably connected to the publishing company in some way. If not, there's no reason he would have been able to get the manuscript he received published, and there would be no reason he would have had Morino Ibiki's business card."
Rias took out her cell phone, and handed it over so everyone could see the screen. On that screen was the homepage for the My Wing novel.
"This is just a hunch, but this 'Ruko' person is probably the person who stole Naruru-chan's manuscript. I don't know what position he's in, but for now, it's wise to assume that he has a lot of influence at the publishing company. First, at the start, Naruru-chan's novel was well-received at the webnovel submission site, and having honed in on that, Ruko used the real Morino Ibiki's business card and approached Naruru-chan, pretending to be an editor. Having received the manuscript from Naruru-chan, Ruko brought it into the editorial department as something he had written himself, and successfully carried the book to publication… how does that chain of events sound?"
"… For me, what I can't understand is why that… criminal, was it? Why that criminal set his sights onto that rape novel is a mystery to me. How did he read that thing and reach the conclusion that it could sell…?" Blake shook her head back and forth a number of times.
"It's because her webnovel reached first place on the monthly rankings, and in one month since submission had been viewed three hundred fifty thousand times. Even untrained eyes could see that Naruko would be able to write popular webnovels after this, right?"
"That's what I'm saying I don't understand. The kind of people who would read that garbage and would like it seem to me to have to be inhabitants of hell."
That's going a bit too far, isn't it? It wasn't just Blake's sense of rivalry with and jealousy of Naruko, but it also seemed that Blake had a bad opinion of webnovels in general. She picked up the cell phone that had been placed in the middle of the table, and after putting the My Wing prologue on display (it was the scene where the first boyfriend gets made into minced meat after getting hit by a dump truck. As always, the text was filled with line breaks), she calmly scrutinized the screen.
"… Hmph, just look at this giant pile of shit that starts right from page one. There's no way a dump truck would hit a person and then the sound effect would be 'bakawwn!' Ugh… I just have to glance at this and I can already see the author's smug smirk in my head, and I start to want to crush this cell phone."
"B-Blake-chan!? That's my cell phone!"
Blake grasped the cell phone tightly, causing Rias to cry out. Blake clicked her tongue, and returned the cell phone to the table.
"… So, there are people who would actually unabashedly make this crappy piece of writing into a book and sell it? The editors and the readers… they all don't have any aesthetic sense at all, do they?"
… Why was she so hostile towards editors? Did she have a past history with them?
With a "come on, come on," Rias tried to calm things down.
"At any rate, this Ruko is someone who really has an eye for things that could sell, and has an ability to deal with writers that would put real editors to shame. After all, he met with Naruru-chan in real life, gave her advice, and got her to agree with him easily. And then he got her work published… this is just the opinion of a novice… but from the outline of My Wing I can feel that it's going to be a huge hit."
"I guess. After the meeting was over, Naruko also seemed to have a lot of faith in him. She was really fired up about it, but it wasn't until they met in person that she believed everything he told her."
"… Hah, honestly, I want to say that it serves her right. I thought something like this would happen… do you want to know how much she bragged to me about this last month?"
… That's no surprise there. There's no way Naruko wouldn't go and brag to Blake about this…
Rias, seemingly deeply interested, asked a question, "Yahaha, now that I think about it, you two have been battling back and forth on SNS too. What do you use for direct confrontations? Instant messenger or something?"
"'Kyahaha, that's why you'll never be more than a wannabe! You should learn as much from me as possible! Ahh, but you can't, can you? You don't have enough skill!' That went on all night long over Skype… I definitely will not forget how much I resented her that night."
"… Ah, that's… sorry about that."
Being stared at by those crimson eyes filled with malice, I could do nothing but be apologetic. And even though she went through that, she still came here and is helping me help Naruko… she really is a softhearted person.
And like that, even though we were just making educated guesses, we slowly began to form a solid picture of what had happened. But even then, it was very unclear what we should do from here.
"I feel like I can see exactly what has happened, but… what can we do now? It's probably best to get them to realize that this webnovel was actually written by Naruko, but… "
"… That's definitely rather difficult, right?"
"Yeah, we don't have any proof."
"What about the original manuscript data…"
"The site on which that was originally saved was hijacked by the other side. The minute she told him her password, the password was changed, and she couldn't get into her own site anymore or something."
So, there was no longer any evidence that Naruko had been the original author of the novel. Not seeming to want to admit defeat, Blake spoke. "Is the manuscript data still on her computer? As a backup or something… "
"Blake-chan, even if Naruru-chan had left a copy on her computer as a backup, I don't think the situation would change much. The full text has already been made public on the internet. So even if we tell them that this is the original manuscript data, if they tell us that we had copied the text from the publicly available text online, we wouldn't really have a way to argue against that."
"… Hmph. Maybe he posted the text up as 'advertisement' but really intended it as insurance… he might have thought pretty far ahead as well."
He was one step ahead of us. If our reasoning was correct, then we were dealing with quite a sly opponent. Silence fell for a while. Myself included, we picked at the fries that had gotten cold and sipped our drinks, each gathering our own thoughts about the matter.
The first one who put these thoughts into words was Rias, "In the end, I think the only way to go about this is to explain the situation to the editorial department and get them to accept that Naruru-chan was the author. Of course, as Haruto-chan was kind enough to mention, if we try to explain this to them over the phone, they'll think we're making the same type of empty claim they get all day and won't take us seriously. So to avoid that, we'll need to directly contact the people involved with the publication of My Wing."
"… But, Rias-chan, How are normal high school students like us going to get in touch with people in the editorial department?"
"For now, I guess there are a few people I could talk to… "
"R-really?" I was surprised. Now that I think about it though, Rias did say something about having seen this company's business cards before.
"… Yeah. But, don't count on us getting too much help from my connections… I can't just go up to them and tell them that My Wing was plagiarized and that they should do something about it. Unfortunately, the best I could probably do is to get us an appointment with someone from the publishing company under some pretext. Morino Ibiki belongs to the Second Editorial Department Mobile Division… but it would be difficult for me to get an appointment there directly… I mean, I don't actually know anybody who works in the editorial department… "
"No, that's plenty. Thanks, Rias-chan. You're honestly, honestly a reliable person."
I extended my thanks from the bottom of my heart. I know it's pretty late to be saying something like that, but I felt bad about imposing on her so much. And they seemed like connections she didn't really want to use either…
As I deeply lowered my head, Rias stuck both her hands in front of her to get me to stop. "Haha… please stop that, you're going to make me blush." Rias embarrassingly rubbed the back of her head.
"Well. Assuming that I can get them to agree to meet with us, it's then just a matter of what we do from there."
"… I have some ideas in regards to that. Well, just leave it to me please… kukuku, if everything goes as planned, we'll have good enough reason to not only go to the editorial department once, but twice or three times… "
Hearing her words sent a chill down my spine. Because Blake's ominous chuckle resembled the one my sister had that time she had handed me a box full of eroge.