Knock knock knock!
A sudden knock came from the door, followed by a gentle female voice from outside.
"Utaha, want to go out for a walk together?"
"Not today!"
Kasumigaoka Utaha replied while putting on her headphones.
"In that case, we're heading out."
"Mm!"
After the footsteps outside gradually faded away, Kasumigaoka Utaha adjusted her headphones and pressed play.
After a brief pause, a melodious tune suddenly flowed through the headphones.
Deng deng deng deng...
Even though she had already heard it once at Yorushi-sensei's place, hearing it again still made her feel that the song's intro was refreshingly unique, faintly stirring something inside her.
Kasumigaoka Utaha listened to the intro with shining eyes. After the short prelude, the singing began.
"From the gaps between drifting clouds growing distant..."
"The falling light illuminates someone..."
"Carrying the remnants of summer as it takes flight..."
This voice sounded vaguely familiar, like the voice of one of the members from the Light Music Club.
A figure gradually surfaced in Kasumigaoka Utaha's mind. It was someone who, like her, had long straight black hair. Although they shared the same attribute, the feeling they gave off was completely different.
Long straight black hair was a fairly common trait, but every person's personality was different.
So she was herself, not someone else.
Leaning against the soft backrest of the chair, she slowly closed her eyes and quietly listened to the music flowing from the headphones.
The female voice carried both clarity and gentleness, as though a young girl stood upon a flower-covered hillside, slightly raising her head to gaze at the distant sky, watching the trail left behind by an airplane.
The mountain breeze brushed past, carrying a faint chill.
Loneliness was usually used to describe autumn.
Yet within this song, she heard a kind of summer loneliness. If she had not read the project proposal, she might not have been able to imagine the emotions it was trying to convey.
But now she understood very clearly.
It was a story that took place in summer, and its ending was far from good. There was no warmth of summer to be felt, only endless coldness.
This summer did not feel warm at all...
Before she realized it, the song in her ears had already ended, but it took Kasumigaoka Utaha quite a while to notice.
She straightened herself from the chair, lightly furrowing her brows as she recalled the story that had formed in her mind moments earlier.
Suddenly, her gaze fell upon a document on the desk.
It was the game proposal Sato had sent her yesterday. For convenience, she had printed it out. There was a small printer in her house, one she had bought long ago so she could print manuscripts more easily.
Picking up the document and reading through it once more, her brows gradually knit tighter and tighter. She leaned back against the chair again, her gaze sweeping line by line across the proposal before her.
Time quietly passed second by second. The girl's room remained incomparably silent, with only the soft rustling of turning pages.
Kasumigaoka Utaha herself did not know how long she had been reading the document in her hands, nor how many times she had reread the thin stack of pages during that time.
But she knew that she was wavering.
As a creator, her mind was now overflowing with inspiration. All she wanted was to write down the story forming in her head.
It was an overwhelming urge to write this story no matter what!
This made her furrow her brows involuntarily. Then, a somewhat bitter smile appeared on her face as she lowered her head and murmured at the document in her hands:
"Miyabi-sensei, you really are a devil..."
Over the past few days, she had also familiarized herself somewhat with the galgame market. Compared to other galgames, this proposal did not differ much overall. Whether it was the romance routes or the setting, there was nothing especially novel about it.
The only true explosive point was the taboo romance between Kasugano Sora and Kasugano Haruka.
Even though she felt a faint sense of resistance toward the proposal, she had to admit that this very point elevated the entire game!
Especially after pairing it with the music she had just heard, that feeling had undoubtedly become even stronger!
Right now, her mind was filled with the taboo love between the siblings. It was a pure love that felt disgusting and revolting, yet also pitiable, leaving one with unbearably complicated emotions.
"Sigh..."
Kasumigaoka Utaha's faint sigh echoed through the room.
Feeling somewhat irritated, she suddenly looked at the headphones resting on the desk before her. Pressing her lips together, she put them on once more.
As the melodious music began to play again, she felt herself gradually calm down.
Yet at the same time, a faint melancholy lingered in her heart. This was not merely a simple eroge game, it was also a depressing one.
That night, just before going to sleep, Sato received a call from Kasumigaoka Utaha.
Her voice carried traces of exhaustion, along with a somewhat resentful tone.
"Miyabi-sensei, you win."
Hearing the voice on the other end of the phone, Sato froze for a moment before revealing a smile.
"So, how does it feel now?"
Kasumigaoka Utaha took a deep breath and said seriously:
"I suddenly feel like what you said might actually be true."
"Which part?"
"Leaving behind a bold and unforgettable mark in the history of galgames."
"That's inevitable."
Sato replied with a faint smile. It was something inevitable, because history had already proven it.
"I'll begin working on the script."
"Mm, got it."
The brief conversation ended.
After hanging up, Sato fell into thought. In the end, he shook his head with a smile. As expected, the emotional power of music really could not be underestimated.
Just like that famous animation film master from his previous life.
People often debated whether he or the musical genius he worked with had made the other successful, but even more people believed the two were simply a perfect match, that neither could be missing.
With that thought passing through his mind, Sato lowered his head in contemplation.
Now that Utaha had agreed, the next issue would be the illustrators and related matters.
But that was only a small problem.
After all, he held two, no, three trump cards in his hand!
Kashiwagi Eri, the first-generation Eromanga-sensei, and the second-generation Eromanga-sensei...
As long as he revealed the names of those three, would there really be any need to worry about the game's illustrations?