The reply sat in Haruki’s draft folder for nearly forty minutes. Not because it was complicated. Because it felt important — very important. Mizuno Rei’s email stayed open on one side of the screen, his unfinished response on the other, and the gap between the two windows felt strangely symbolic. One represented the industry. The other represented whether he was actually ready to enter it.
He reread his message.
Hello Mizuno-san,
Thank you for reaching out. I would be interested in discussing the series and hearing your thoughts. Please let me know what time works best for you.
Best regards, Haruki Amamiya
Simple. Professional. Reasonable. His finger still hovered over the send button. A week ago, nobody in the industry knew he existed. Now he was exchanging emails with an editor. The transition felt unreal.
Eventually he clicked send. The email vanished, and the decision became real.
A blue screen appeared.
[Creator Observation: Action Taken — Professional Communication]
Result: Progress
Haruki shook his head. "That’s barely advice." The system disappeared, apparently offended.
He went back to Chapter Three — the safest place, the familiar one, where things made sense. Stories had rules. Pages had rules. Panels had rules. People, unfortunately, did not.
The Chapter kept taking shape. Ren’s discovery of the second black thread opened up entirely new questions — if another thread existed, another anomaly existed, and if another anomaly existed, Ren wasn’t alone. The moment that clicked, the story expanded. The world got bigger, the mystery got deeper, and most importantly, Ren gained something to search for. A goal. Movement. Purpose. The Chapter improved immediately, his stylus moving faster, ideas connecting on their own. The excitement was back.
Then his email notification appeared again. He froze — there was no way. He checked the clock; only fifteen minutes had passed. Nobody replied that fast.
The notification said otherwise. Mizuno Rei had responded, immediately.
Hello Haruki-san,
Thank you for replying. Would you be available for an online meeting this Friday? Nothing formal. I simply want to learn more about your plans for Threadless Gate and discuss potential growth opportunities. I’ve attached a few discussion topics so you can prepare if you’d like.
Best regards, Mizuno Rei
Haruki stared. Friday. A real meeting with an editor. The situation suddenly felt far more serious. He opened the attachment — a short list of discussion topics: future story direction, update schedule, long-term plans, target audience, creator goals.
One line caught and held.
Long-Term Plans
The phrase lingered, because he didn’t actually have any beyond the next Chapter. Readers asked about Chapter Four. Editors asked about the future. Very different questions.
His phone buzzed. Yui, predictably.
He answered.
"Editor meeting?"
"Editor meeting." The information network stayed terrifying.
She sounded pleased — not excited, pleased, and the difference mattered. "That’s good."
"I think so."
"You sound worried."
He looked at the discussion topics and sighed. "I don’t know how to answer some of these."
"Such as?"
"Long-term plans."
She laughed softly, not mockingly, knowingly. "Haruki."
"What?"
"You’ve spent ten years planning your life."
He blinked, then blinked again, because she was right. At three he’d gained memories. At five he’d planned academics. At ten, physical training. At fifteen, graduation. He always planned. His problem wasn’t a lack of plans — it was assuming plans needed perfect certainty before they counted.
"You don’t need to know everything," she said.
"I know."
"Then tell the editor what you do know." Simple, again. Always simple. Somehow always effective.
After the call, Haruki opened a notebook and started writing. What did he actually want? The question looked easy and took an hour anyway. Create stories. Improve. Build an audience. Eventually publish professionally. Maybe, one day, make something people remembered. The goals weren’t grand yet, and they didn’t need to be — ambition could grow. A creator didn’t need to start with an empire. They could start with a Chapter. The thought settled him.
The afternoon moved quickly. Work resumed, and the final pages of Chapter Three came together — Shiori uncovering evidence linking the black thread to a decades-old Bureau investigation, while Ren followed clues toward another anomaly somewhere in Tokyo. Two active mysteries now. A dangerous number, but manageable, as long as answers eventually arrived. The challenge excited him.
A platform notification interrupted him.
Readers: 382
The increase wasn’t dramatic — what surprised him was the discussion. More comments, more theories, more arguments.
The second thread changes everything.
No. The real mystery is why the Bureau is hiding information.
A third reader disagreed, then a fourth, then a fifth. Haruki watched the thread unfold. The story was starting to build communities — small ones, but real. That felt more valuable than raw numbers ever could. Readers returning mattered. Readers talking mattered more.
Evening settled over Tokyo, lights filling apartment windows across the city, traffic flowing under a sky slowly turning orange. Inside a small apartment, an eighteen-year-old creator looked at an upcoming editor meeting, a nearly finished Chapter, and an audience still growing one reader at a time.
The future remained uncertain. The rankings still existed. The competition still existed. But now another challenge waited ahead — not creating a story, but explaining where it was going.
For the first time, someone from the industry wanted to hear his answer.
And on Friday, Haruki would have to give one.