"What is Saori-nee doing here?"
Hinata recognized her sister's friend immediately. After all, Saori and another blonde girl had visited their home several times before.
Through these visits, Hinata and Tamaki had become familiar with both Saori and the other girl.
Hinata had even casually learned from Saori where she lived.
Saori's home was located in Kaite Town, North Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, while the Gokou family resided near Higashitenuma Town in Chiba City.
The two places were quite far apart, so it would be unusual for Saori to appear in the neighborhood.
Hinata also knew that when her sister hung out with Saori and the blonde girl, it was usually around Akihabara in Tokyo.
Since Eriri and Ruri had said they would stay nearby that day, Hinata couldn't help but ask.
"Saori's family came over to handle something, so she tagged along to hang out," Ruri explained casually.
Seeing her sister's nonchalant attitude, Hinata didn't press the matter. Besides, she had a favorable impression of Saori.
Dinner was prepared by Ruri again. Around 6 p.m., Ruri's parents returned home one after the other.
Ruri had mentioned Eriri several times before, so although they were surprised to see her, they greeted her warmly.
...
The next morning, after a simple breakfast at the Gokou residence, Eriri and Ruri set out for Tokyo.
Their destination this time was Tokyo Big Sight.
Today was the day of Winter Comiket (Comi), and in addition to being an illustrator, Mrs. Izumi also drew r18 doujinshi, so she would surely attend to sell her work.
Sagiri Izumi might also be attending to help her mother, and Eriri's goal was to get to know Sagiri through a coincidental encounter.
Even if Sagiri wasn't there, she could still meet Mrs. Izumi and get introduced that way.
While Eriri could just teleport directly into Sagiri's home, she thought this approach would be more fun.
Of course, this trip wasn't only about meeting Sagiri.
Last night, Eriri had asked Arifureta to send over both her recent doujinshi and some older, more serious yuri manga via the chat group.
Naturally, all her works were yuri-themed—she refused to draw anything else.
So her other goal in attending Winter Comiket was to sell her work. Money wasn't the focus; she simply wanted to spread her creations within the Oreimo world.
Who knows? Maybe her pen name, "Eri Kashiwagi," which was already famous in the Saekano world, would start gaining traction here as well.
Ruri had a similar idea.
Even before joining the chat group, Ruri enjoyed writing and drawing, though her stories rarely performed well due to overly complex worldbuilding and exaggerated descriptions.
After becoming a supernatural being, her ability to control her body improved dramatically, which helped enhance her drawing skills.
She was already fairly skilled, but with this new level of physical precision, her art reached the level of a professional manga artist.
With a bit more training, she might even surpass full-time pros.
Of course, when it came to both novels and manga, the most critical aspect was the story and plot. So even with her improved art skills, Ruri's manga still didn't shine much due to its heavy and complicated worldbuilding.
But Ruri wasn't about to give up so easily. She decided to bring her manga to Winter Comiket and give it her best shot.
To avoid causing a commotion at the venue and disrupting the event, Eriri did something rare—she wore a face mask to conceal her stunning beauty.
As for using supernatural power to disguise her face? That was out of the question.
Wearing a mask was already her maximum concession.
Eriri and Ruri didn't take the train or bus, nor did they use teleportation or flight to get to Tokyo. Instead, Eriri drove her signature pink sports car.
Though Ruri also owned a sedan gifted to her by Eriri, she had never once used it. It remained stored in her inventory space, and today was no exception.
As for issues like license plates and driving permits—for Eriri, such trivial matters were hardly worth worrying about.
Even if she were to speed at 200 km/h through the city, not a single traffic officer would stop her.
When Eriri and Ruri arrived at Tokyo Big Sight, there were still over thirty minutes left until the event officially began at 10 a.m.
Eriri casually stored her sports car in her inventory space, right out in the open, and then grabbed Ruri's hand as they walked toward the entrance. The people nearby didn't even seem to notice, continuing on their way as if nothing unusual had happened.
Neither Eriri nor Ruri was surprised to see the long line of people queued at the entrance.
Whether it was the Saekano world or this one, doujin conventions always drew massive crowds.
Still, Eriri had no intention of queuing up like everyone else. She quietly brought Ruri along and teleported them directly inside the venue.
Although the event hadn't officially started, there were already quite a few people inside.
These were all staff, company representatives, doujin circles, and individuals getting their booths ready.
They needed to have everything prepared before the floodgates opened to the public.
The appearance of Eriri and Ruri instantly drew attention from those within the hall.
Ruri was dressed in a black Gothic Lolita outfit—a cosplay of her "Queen of the Nightmare" persona. She even used a bit of power to change her violet eyes to red.
With her more refined appearance compared to the original, she was already extremely eye-catching.
But Eriri still outshone her.
Eriri wore a black-and-white Lolita princess dress. Her hairstyle was the same as yesterday's.
A large, adorable mask covered the lower half of her face, decorated with a cartoonish mouth and three pink blush stripes.
Even with only the upper half of her face exposed, her beauty sparked endless imagination.
Eriri paid no attention to the stares. Instead, she scanned the venue with her thoughts, but didn't sense Mrs. Izumi anywhere.
Unbothered by the result, she simply led Ruri to two adjacent, unoccupied booths and sat down.
She had no idea who originally reserved them, but now they belonged to her and Ruri.
As for hijacking someone else's space, Eriri felt absolutely no guilt about it.
It wasn't like Eriri had deleted anyone else's booth reservation. She had simply reassigned the original owners to other available spots.
In fact, she had even reserved the booth to her right for someone specific.
Seated behind their booth tables, Eriri and Ruri began pulling out their works from their respective storage spaces.
Ruri had come well-prepared, having printed 200 copies of her manga in advance. When she laid them out, they covered half the table.
Eriri, on the other hand, had only decided to participate the night before. She only had the batch of works Arifureta had sent her via the chat group.
Still, that wasn't a problem for Eriri. She placed two of her serious yuri manga and two doujin yuri books on the table.
Then she casually pointed her finger at the four sealed manga volumes. In an instant, they duplicated upward in a vertical stack, each pile rising more than two meters high.
Creating physical matter was a simple feat for Eriri.
Still, she didn't make too many copies. She conjured 100 copies of each work, totaling 400 books.
It wasn't that she lacked confidence in her sales; she just couldn't be bothered to deal with more. A hundred per title was plenty.
After that, she moved the stacks off the table and placed them by her feet, leaving only five copies of each book on display.
Ruri did the same.
Once everything was set, the time was 9:32 a.m.—less than half an hour before the start of C81 Winter Comiket. Less than 1% of the booths remained unoccupied.
...
As time passed, more and more doujin creators arrived to set up, and the number of empty booths continued to dwindle.
Just as there were only about ten minutes left before the event began, an urgent-sounding voice came from Eriri's right.
"Phew... just made it. I almost showed up late."
Hearing the voice, Eriri looked up from the manga she was reading and turned toward the source.
There, a woman who looked to be in her early twenties leaned on the table with her right hand, clearly out of breath from running. Despite her disheveled state, a look of relief and satisfaction filled her face.
Still, her slightly flustered appearance didn't diminish her charm—in fact, it added to it.
She was a gentle-looking, classically beautiful woman with silver, medium-length hair tied into a single ponytail over her left shoulder. A red ribbon secured the end of the ponytail.
Seeing her, a smile naturally appeared on Eriri's face.
This woman was the person Eriri had been waiting for today: Sagiri Izumi's mother—the original Eromanga-sensei.
Eriri wasn't at all surprised that her booth was right next to hers.
She had arranged this ahead of time. The spot to her right had been reserved for Mrs. Izumi specifically.
Whether or not Mrs. Izumi showed up, no one else would be able to use that booth.
If she did attend, the system would automatically reassign her original booth to this one, resulting in the current situation.
However, Eriri was slightly disappointed to see that Mrs. Izumi had come alone. There was no sign of Sagiri.
Watching Mrs. Izumi quietly arranging her works, Eriri decided not to greet her just yet. She figured it would be better to wait until the woman finished setting up.
So she turned her attention back to the manga book in her hands.
The manga Eriri was reading was Ruri's, while Ruri held one of Eriri's serious yuri manga, reading it with equal focus.
Judging from Ruri's calm expression, this wasn't her first time encountering yuri content. In fact, she seemed quite familiar with it.
Any girl unfamiliar with the yuri genre would likely blush at Eriri's work—unless they were completely indifferent to such things.
Clearly, Ruri was not indifferent.
Ruri's manga told the story of a girl adventuring in another world.
The art style was competent, and the protagonist was drawn quite adorably.
The only issue was that the heroine's background was overloaded with complex lore—former Queen of the Nightmare from the demon realm in a past life, six-winged fallen angel from hell in an earlier one, archangel from the heavens before that, and so on.
Her epic lineage and powers were all packed into her current life. Just explaining her backstory took up a massive portion of the manga.
It felt less like a comic and more like a chaotic character setting manual.
This made Eriri somewhat concerned about how well Ruri's manga would actually sell.
Just as Eriri was about to turn the page, she suddenly felt a gaze locked firmly on her from within a one-meter range.
She looked up from the book and turned to her right.
"Stare..."
Mrs. Izumi, having finished setting up her booth, was now leaning over the table and staring intently at Eriri's face. She was even making a cute little humming noise.
Eriri put down the manga and turned slightly toward her. "Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?"
Mrs. Izumi didn't answer the question directly. Instead, she exclaimed in awe, "You're so cute, little miss!"
"Oh? Well, I am incredibly cute, that's true. But how can you tell? You haven't even seen my full face," Eriri replied, pointing at the cute mask that still covered the lower half of her face.
"Even though most of your face is hidden, I can tell just from the part that's showing—you're definitely super cute. As an artist, I can vouch for it!" Mrs. Izumi nodded earnestly, speaking with the confidence of a professional illustrator.
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