"How did you... end up making eroge?"
Sawamura Eriri had just wanted to kill some time with the famous Gaming Stigma, but after entering, she saw a familiar name.
She probably hadn't expected to run into an acquaintance here.
Kasumigaoka Utaha felt like she could no longer show her face in public.
In the early days, she could still interact with Eriri as a light novel author. Plus, with her status as an upperclassman, they could still maintain a semblance of harmony.
But not anymore.
Kasumi-fatty had fallen on hard times. It was like seeing her old underling while begging on the street.
She felt the urge to pack up her stall and run away.
Unfortunately, she couldn't escape. This place was the main city designed by the Blank siblings; combat and skill usage were not permitted.
She closed her eyes and explained, "It's not eroge! It's just for advancing the plot and allowing for normal development of interactive immersion. Otherwise, how else can you show the complex emotional entanglements between characters?"
Eriri knew about this type of game. They were like using a pre-made 'game engine' created by the owner of this Stigma Space to build a story script with sufficiently intelligent interaction, and then exchanging it with consumers for points.
Eriri looked at this 'friend' she had fought with for so long with a complicated expression. She didn't know how to face the current situation.
Now that their roles were reversed, Eriri truly felt a sense of melancholy.
"What about you? Didn't you go off to become some kind of artist? What are you doing at my eroge stall?"
Kasumigaoka Utaha had already given up on herself. Eroge it was, then. The content was indeed like that anyway.
"This won't do... And things are starting to change." Eriri explained, "In the current era, people's spiritual needs from the old industrial age have been completely satisfied. They haven't yet found a sufficiently new direction for their spiritual needs. Although you can rely on these traditional spiritual needs to bring people happiness for now, the nature of stories will soon change drastically. Fewer and fewer people will want your stories."
What Eriri was talking about was the mental state of people within Academy City.
In short, in an era where everyone was striving upward, believing they could achieve anything with effort, things related to spiritual needs would shift. Kasumigaoka Utaha's light novels might have been popular two years ago, but now...
What's that? I want to pursue greater Stigma power!
An overly powerful path of material reality would sweep everything away.
"Our experience from the past ten-plus years is useless. You have to observe the changes in the lives of people throughout this era. When the time comes, people will look at what you've written and exclaim: Wow! Why is this so complicated? Why not just use an android to solve the problem?"
Eriri explained in detail some of the troubles she had encountered during this time. Her artistic creation was an accident in the first place, and it mainly served His Majesty the Emperor's needs regarding tentacles.
She was mostly just using that connection to go to school and study, not like Kasumigaoka Utaha, who had unluckily stumbled into Academy City to make interactive games.
Eriri's way of speaking was very different from before. Kasumigaoka Utaha hadn't expected this girl to have grown so much after leaving her family.
The thought that she still had to work so hard on production to exchange for points, hoping to one day awaken her own Stigma through study and training...
Kasumigaoka Utaha thought of something and asked, "Have you awakened your Stigma yet?"
Eriri shook her head. "I tried taking a shortcut twice, but the results weren't very good. In the scope of traditional human experiments, you just need to soak in high-concentration Honkai Energy and survive to have a high chance of obtaining a Stigma."
"But this kind of Stigma power is very dangerous and prone to rampaging. A single misstep could lead you down the path of a pseudo-Herrscher. I asked a friend to help me try twice. Although I didn't succeed in getting a Stigma, I can already use Honkai Energy at the fourth stage."
"It's just..." She pointed to her head. "My mental state isn't very stable, so I was asked to take a vacation to properly ease my consciousness crisis."
'Your life in Academy City is that exciting?!'
Kasumigaoka Utaha was shocked. She never would have expected that timid, tsundere, blonde girl to think of experimenting on herself.
"That kind of experiment is very dangerous. You shouldn't think of doing it either. Academy City can indeed prevent physical erosion, but mental problems will arise with forced Stigma enhancement, leading to schizophrenia. The newly born Stigma's Will is very likely to take over and erase your original consciousness."
"This is the consciousness crisis of forced Stigma awakening. It's best to follow the Stigma stages planned by Academy City step by step. At least your consciousness will still be your own."
Eriri explained her mental state. She had wanted to experiment like this because she yearned for the past glory of the Valkyries. But two attempts had nearly shattered the little girl's mind. It was thanks to Academy City's superb medical abilities and a friend at St. Freya Academy pulling some strings that she was saved.
Thus, the results of this experiment were temporarily sealed away in the research institute.
The fourth stage was a level Kasumigaoka Utaha didn't even dare to dream of. Making her go to the Purgatory Association to fight and kill people was already a considerable torment.
Kasumigaoka Utaha just wanted to one day awaken her own Stigma under the guidance of one of those Stigma Battlesuits that didn't require personal combat strength, and she would be satisfied.
She had never thought Sawamura Eriri would dare to go to such lengths.
Sawamura Eriri hadn't wanted to either, but at St. Freya Academy, she had met Yukinoshita, a battle maniac, and Raiden Mei, who had a Herrscher's consciousness. These two friends were wilder than the last. Their mental states weren't exactly crazy, but one could say they were quite transcendent.
Eriri gritted her teeth, stomped her foot, and participated in the joint experiment at the research institute.
The final result was that she had rapidly leveled up her stages within the Kaslana Stigma.
The side effect was that every time she slept, a terrifying Stigma's Will with rebellious characteristics would appear and clash with her.
Eriri couldn't say whether she regretted it more or was happy about it more.
It wasn't without its benefits. Her Stigma's Will fully reflected the mental state within the Kaslana Stigma Space.
After incorporating content about her Stigma's Will into her own works, Eriri's artistic attributes had not only not decreased but had been further enhanced.
After hearing Eriri's story about her growth, Kasumigaoka Utaha also let go of some of her past burdens.
She had figured it out. She greeted her, "Let's go. Since you're here, I'll put my work aside for now and entertain you, my friend."