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Haruto was currently in the backstage dressing room, sitting patiently as a makeup artist meticulously worked on his face. Despite the relative quiet of the room, he could already hear the muffled, restless roar of the crowd filtering through the walls as thousands of fans filled the stadium.
"Honestly, it feels exactly like an idol preparing for a massive sold-out concert," one of his assistants remarked with a wide grin, watching the bustle.
"Our boss really is a superstar now, isn't he?" the other assistant added, chuckling softly.
"It is alright, I suppose," Haruto replied with a calm tone. "Being a superstar isn't the point here. I don't particularly need them to love me as a person. What I truly hope for is that they love my work."
After all, he had never been one for excessive material pursuits.
Even if the total earnings for Edgerunners fell slightly short of Madoka Magica, its massive popularity ensured that the difference would not be significant. Madoka had earned him over ten billion yen, and Cyberpunk was on track to approach that staggering figure. When he factored in the cumulative income from his earlier works like Blue Spring Ride and To The Moon, plus the hundreds of millions from Initial D and Sword Art Online, his personal wealth was already immense.
Within the ACG industry, a top-tier series might cap out at a few hundred million yen annually. The ten-billion-yen year he had enjoyed with Madoka was considered the absolute ceiling of the entire industry.
The key difference was that Haruto was not merely a one-hit wonder; he had been serializing six or seven major projects simultaneously over the past few years. Between the royalties and licensing fees, he had effectively become an industry tycoon.
He had more than enough money to live ten lifetimes in absolute luxury. So why did he still work this hard?
The answer was simple.
He derived genuine, pure joy from his career.
Bringing the masterpieces from another world to life and seeing them embraced by the public was his greatest passion.
Haruto rose from the makeup chair. He was dressed in a sharp, pristine white suit, his hair styled with a slight edge.
Without wasting a second, Haruto stepped out of the room.
In the hallway, Yukino stood waiting, wearing a striking red dress with her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes lit up the moment she saw his finished look.
"Not bad at all. I feel like you're getting more handsome by the day," she said, stepping forward to adjust his collar.
"Naturally. I can't exactly let the visual standards drop when I'm your boyfriend," Haruto said, lacking even a hint of false modesty as he looked directly at her.
"One little compliment and you're already full of yourself?" Yukino teased with a smile.
"Alright, no more talk. There are thousands of fans waiting out there for me, and it would be bad form to keep them waiting any longer."
Haruto looked at Yukino, slipped his hand around her waist, and leaned in quickly. He stole a brief kiss from her lips before retreating just as fast, heading toward the stage entrance before she could even process what had happened.
"Wait! After the meeting, let's spend the afternoon enjoying Osaka before we head back to Tokyo tonight!" he called back over his shoulder.
Yukino had been dating Haruto for three months now.
Although they were becoming more comfortable with each other, her heart still raced every time he was this bold. This was the first relationship for both of them, and a certain level of shyness still remained between them. She pressed her hand to her chest, took a deep breath, and watched his retreating back with a soft expression.
As Haruto walked down the long entrance tunnel, the forty-meter passage echoed with the cheers from the stadium, growing louder and more deafening with every step.
When he finally stepped into the spotlight and onto the stage, the entire crowd erupted in an earth-shaking roar. The sheer volume of the sound was so intense that Haruto felt a momentary sensation of ringing in his ears.
While the TV ratings were showing a dramatic spike.
"Holy cow, is Haruto really that good-looking in person?"
"He could honestly quit writing tomorrow and just go star in idol dramas."
"He always had good features, but now that he has the money to hire top-tier stylists to design his look, he's on an entirely different level."
"Rich, talented, and handsome. Seriously, the universe is incredibly unfair."
"Are we just going to ignore the fact that he lost his family when he was a teenager and fought his way up this industry entirely on his own through sheer grit?"
"It's just a fan meeting for a movie Blu-ray release, but the scale is absolutely insane. Look at the people standing in the aisles on the TV broadcast. It's ridiculous."
"Haruto usually promotes his stuff through online videos. He rarely does offline events like this, so of course every fan within a hundred miles showed up!"
"Do you even know who he is? He's effectively the number one figure in the industry at this point. People used to argue about whether a certain manga artist was better than a novelist, or if an anime would have been more popular as a book. But the debate is over. His series are in the top ten for all-time sales, and his anime holds the record for Blu-ray sales. No one else can even compete with him. This turnout is just a standard baseline for a guy of his stature."
"I'm just waiting for his new manga and SAO to hit the number one spots in history. If he holds the top record in all three industries, he will be the undisputed GOAT."
While fans chatted away in online groups, Haruto began his presentation on stage, sharing various details about Cyberpunk 2077.
He wouldn't spoil the actual plot, of course, but he offered deeper insights into the world-building and the connections between the movie and the Edgerunners series.
He mentioned the "Easter eggs" he had carefully planted. In the parallel world's game, there was a news broadcast about an unidentified female body found on the surface of the moon. It was a haunting, chilling detail that implied Lucy might have died shortly after fulfilling David's dream. The production of Edgerunners had been a dark affair, with the original studio even trying to cut characters like Rebecca for being "too anime" for a gritty world.
Haruto had kept those dark undertones alive. He included several subtle links to the Edgerunners cast in the 2077 movie, leaving it to the fans to discover for themselves if Lucy had met a tragic end or found a way to survive the Arasaka's pursuit.
Finally, it was time for the Q&A session. A computer randomly selected a young woman from the audience.
"Haruto-sensei, I wanted to ask... will Lucy actually appear in 2077?" she asked with curious eyes.
It was a difficult, loaded question right out of the gate. Haruto paused for a moment to consider his answer carefully. "I'm afraid I cannot reveal that information just yet."
Next, a young man was selected. "Is the story of 2077 a tragedy or a comedy?"
"I believe it is a beautiful ending," Haruto said with a mysterious, knowing smile.
"However, I suspect many of you will accuse me of writing another tragedy once you actually see the finished product."
The fans laughed, understanding that he had to stay vague to protect the sales of the Blu-rays. If the mystery was solved before the release, it would lose all its value. One by one, more questions were asked by the fans.
"Will this be the last movie for the series? Or will we see a 2078 or 2079 to turn it into a massive, ongoing franchise?"
"Do you personally prefer Madoka Magica or Edgerunners more?"
"Is there a chance David could be resurrected? With Arasaka's technology, they can extract memories from a dead brain. Surely they could digitize David's personality, right?"
When that last question was asked, Haruto's expression shifted slightly. He broke into a wide, confident grin.
"Excellent question. You have quite the vivid imagination. In fact, that exact technology exists within Night City. And in Cyberpunk 2077, you will indeed see a character whose personality has been preserved in that very way."
He was referring to the legendary Johnny Silverhand, whose "Engram" was a central part of the story. His words sent an immediate wave of excitement through both the stadium and the live-stream audience.
He hadn't explicitly confirmed David's return, but he had given the fans enough hope to let their imaginations run wild.
Finally, it was time for the last question before moving on to the next segment of the event.
A girl cosplaying in Lucy's outfit was chosen. When her image appeared on the giant screen behind Haruto, many of the male fans in the audience let out a cheer.
"Sensei, right now, the data for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is slightly behind Madoka Magica in some areas. How do you feel about the people online who claim that Madoka was the absolute peak of your career and that you'll never top it?" she asked with a playful, challenging squint.
"That is a very tough one to answer," Haruto mused. He realized this was the perfect opportunity to transition into his planned announcement.
"The success of Madoka is indeed very hard to surpass, even for me. However, saying it's the absolute peak of my career... well, that's vastly underestimating me."
He looked at the dozens of cameras and the sea of expectant fans. "In fact, what I'm about to show you addresses exactly that sentiment."
He gave a small, sharp nod to his staff. Suddenly, the lights dimmed and a ten-second teaser played on the massive screen.
"To protect what is precious, one needs pure power," a deep, commanding male voiceover intoned.
The screen suddenly filled with images of massive humanoid machines floating in the sky, an endless tide of tanks on the ground, and armies clashing with high-tech weaponry.
A white, god-like mecha and a black, demonic mecha clashed in a fierce mid-air duel. Then, a beautiful girl with long green hair appeared, standing beside a man in a black cloak wearing a sleek, futuristic helmet.
"The world shall submit to me!" the man declared with absolute, unwavering confidence.
This ten-second PV was something Haruto had specifically ordered his team to rush for this event. In this world, the mecha genre was virtually non-existent.
There was no Gundam, no Evangelion, nothing of the sort had ever been produced.
The first five seconds of the aerial mecha battle left the thousands of fans in the stadium in stunned silence. Even those watching at home felt a sudden surge of adrenaline.
What were those giant robots? How could they look so incredibly cool? The fact that this world lacked a mecha genre didn't mean there was no market for it; it simply meant no creator had thought of the concept yet. But giant robots are a universal romance.
The fluid aerial choreography and Lelouch's arrogant declaration of world domination held everyone's gaze. This teaser didn't reveal a single plot point, but it established the vibe perfectly.
If Madoka Magica was a deconstruction of the magical girl genre, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion was destined to be the founding father of mecha warfare in this world.
"This is my next work, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion," Haruto announced softly to the silent crowd. "It will begin airing next April. And I believe the results it achieves will surpass even those of Madoka Magica."
This was the true purpose of the entire event. He was using the massive popularity of Cyberpunk to launch the marketing campaign for his next masterpiece.
"The series hasn't aired yet, but the first part of the Cyberpunk 2077 movie Blu-ray, which drops the day after tomorrow, will include a limited-edition, high-quality art print of the heroine, C.C. There are only ten thousand of them, randomly inserted into the boxes. It will depend entirely on your luck."
"What about the protagonist?" the girl in the cosplay asked instinctively.
"Lelouch's limited print?" Haruto smiled brightly. "That will be included in the second part of the movie Blu-ray releasing next month. Also limited to exactly ten thousand copies. It's all down to the luck of the draw."
With that, Haruto had fully achieved his goal. He had teased the ending of Cyberpunk to drive sales and seamlessly linked it to the hype for his next big project. As the fans finally snapped out of the shock of the ten-second teaser, a deafening cheer shook the entire venue. Haruto's promise that this could surpass Madoka, combined with the chance to get early official art, was the ultimate bait.
Haruto really knew exactly how to play his audience like a fiddle.