Saori Makishima was the administrator of an online community called [Otaku Girls Assemble!], and her screen name ID was [Saori Bajeena].
The reason she used the "Bajeena" surname was because it came from Quattro Bajeena, a character from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam.
In other words, Saori was a hardcore Gundam fan.
Kuroneko was an online friend she'd met through those circles—another anime and manga nerd—and Saori had even gone out of her way to track her down in person.
And then, out of nowhere, Kuroneko-shi had posted a completely outrageous video.
It was honestly hard to believe Kuroneko had the connections to get footage like that.
It wasn't that Saori looked down on her. It was just that this kind of thing didn't feel like something a normal person could obtain.
And now?
Kuroneko-shi had just done something right in front of her.
Kuroneko had closed her eyes… and when she opened them again, she stared at Saori's laptop—and an icon had appeared on the desktop out of thin air.
When Saori opened it, it was a folder.
And inside the folder, a video file had manifested out of nowhere.
How was that even possible?
Don't tell her Kuroneko-shi had hacker skills—this didn't look like hacking at all. It looked supernatural.
Saori stared hard at Kuroneko until Kuroneko's face started sweating, then calmly pushed her glasses up.
"Kuroneko-shi, did you… like in those novels… get some kind of system?"
After she asked that, amused, Kuroneko-shi's reaction was priceless. She couldn't meet Saori's eyes at all—her gaze kept drifting all over the place.
"Th-that… um… this is actually me, like… that… yeah, I secretly used a special program to send it to your computer ahead of time, and then…"
"Kuroneko-shi, don't you think you're acting way too guilty right now? You can barely get the words out. Besides, what if I ask you to demonstrate it again?"
"Ugh…"
"So what system is it?"
Saori leaned in close, watching Kuroneko until Kuroneko turned her face completely away.
"Oh, right. Before, you mentioned something called the Super-Dimensional Channel."
Saori remembered that day—Kuroneko had brought up something that sounded incredibly chuuni. They'd talked about weird topics before, sure, but that conversation had felt… different.
And as Saori said it, she saw Kuroneko's small body go stiff. Her face was already turning into a waterfall of sweat.
Bingo.
No way.
If what Kuroneko had said about the Super-Dimensional Channel was real, then this… this wasn't unbelievable anymore.
"So this video was sent to you by one of those cross-world friends, right?"
Faced with that question, Kuroneko pressed her lips together and stayed silent.
Back then, when she'd told Saori about the Super-Dimensional Channel using the "I have a friend" excuse, it was because she genuinely thought she'd broken her brain with her chuuni nonsense—and she'd needed to vent to someone.
"So, Kuroneko-shi, you're planning to take works from other worlds and upload them in this world? Become an uploader?"
"No."
"Hm?"
"Let me calm down first."
"Okay."
Kuroneko took a deep breath, then exhaled. Keeping up the act was pointless now.
"Saori… can I trust you?"
Kuroneko's voice was painfully serious.
She was still just a junior high student, but she already understood that some problems were way beyond what a middle schooler could handle alone.
"Do you think I'm not trustworthy?"
"I trust you."
"Then trust me. Come on—we'll go somewhere else. Come to my place."
"Okay."
Not long after, Kuroneko and Saori took a taxi to a high-end residential district, arriving in front of a three-story house.
"Don't be nervous or stiff. I live here alone."
"You live alone?"
Kuroneko was stunned. A house this big, and Saori lived here by herself?
"Yep."
Saori led her up to the second floor. In the spacious living hall, glass display cases lined the room—packed with figures.
Robots were the majority. Gundam models dominated.
There were so many that Kuroneko couldn't help clicking her tongue. This giant girl was absurdly rich.
As for what Saori's family did—her surname basically answered that. A massive family enterprise, the kind that made your jaw drop.
It was hard to imagine a young lady from that kind of household being a hardcore otaku.
"You can talk now, Kuroneko-shi."
Saori sat properly, her expression unusually serious.
"Before, I told you about a 'friend' writing a novel, and the setting was the Super-Dimensional Channel. Most of that was real."
"Mm."
"And we've confirmed that some of the members are people who exist inside works from our world. They're the protagonists."
"W-what works?!"
Saori immediately lunged forward and grabbed Kuroneko, eyes blazing.
"Any Gundam?!"
"Calm down."
"Ah, sorry. I got excited."
"One of them is Saeko Busujima, from the recently serialized manga Highschool of the Dead."
Saori knew that one.
Which meant this was real—there really was a world where a zombie outbreak had happened.
"One is A2, from the NieR game series."
"Huh? I haven't heard of that—wait, hold on. Kuroneko-shi, you mean she's a character from the third NieR title, right?"
Saori pieced it together from the NieR game Kuroneko had borrowed from her before.
"Yeah."
Saori wanted to demand every detail immediately—but she forced herself to hold back. Kuroneko clearly wasn't finished.
"Next two are heavy hitters."
Saori tensed.
"Asuna… and Magical Girl Madoka."
Saori's serious expression instantly cracked.
"R-really? Asuna, the heroine from Sword Art Online, and Madoka from Puella Magi Madoka Magica?"
As she blurted it out, Saori spun around and walked straight to a display case. It was filled with magical girl figures, and the Madoka set took up a huge portion.
So they really existed.
Then Saori suddenly thought of something—and her face went white.
"T-then… what about their situation?"
She couldn't help it. These weren't fictional characters anymore. They were real people.
"Asuna and Madoka only joined two days ago. Asuna had just been trapped in SAO. As for Madoka, she hasn't met Kyubey yet…"
Kuroneko explained more about Madoka's situation.
"An exploit on the wish? A battle of wits against an entire civilization… that's…"
This was bad.
Really bad.
"Finally, there's one more member. The only male in the group—and he joined earlier than Asuna and Madoka."
That had to be the key person.
Right. The only male.
That phrase alone made Saori immediately realize who it was—especially with how oddly "high-class" the framing felt whenever that male lead showed up in the footage.
"I don't know what work he's from. He hasn't given any details. But he seems to know everything about all of us."
"Hm? Everything? Meaning… he knows who you are too? So you're also someone from a work he's read—some character in a story?"
As Saori said that, her expression shifted again.
"Don't worry, Saori. He said the 'work' we belong to is a youth, school-life romantic comedy type."
Kuroneko saw exactly why Saori's face had changed, and her shoulders loosened a little as she reassured her.
"And now…"
Kuroneko went on to explain the intel about [Cross-World Invitation] and the energy coins.
She also explained that the video she'd uploaded seemed to work like this: the more views it got, the more popularity it gained, the more her own energy bar increased.
So if she kept uploading this kind of content, and she didn't have anyone backing her up, she was going to be in trouble.
With videos of this quality, people would absolutely come "recruiting" her—pushing business collaborations, or trying to pry into whatever filming or production method was supposedly used.
And once that happened, Kuroneko would be the one getting crushed.
But if Saori—who looked like a ridiculously wealthy young lady—helped her, then they could keep uploading more series from those cross-dimensional friends' worlds.
And in doing so, they could also help the ones who were in truly desperate situations right now.
So the two of them began talking as if they were building a short-video studio together.
Kuroneko would supply the footage.
Saori would handle operations.
(End of Chapter)
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