Omnibus Anime: Person in Music Anime, Relaxing and Happy

And the teardrop mole under her left eye added to her charm.

"Ryo, don't scare people like that! And what are you even doing?"

Nijika patted her flat chest, looking like she'd just gotten over a fright.

"I was planning to go on a trip far away, but as I was getting ready... I suddenly realized going out was way too much trouble, so I switched to camping in the yard."

"You idiot, don't underestimate camping!"

Nijika clenched her fist and jabbed at her.

Yamada Ryo's lips curled up.

Bai Qiu's mouth couldn't help twitching, because he spotted empty takeout containers next to Yamada Ryo's tent.

This girl really knew how to enjoy herself!

"Oh, right, these are the two new friends I told you about—this is Bai Qiu-kun, and this is Goto Hitori."

"Hitori's the temporary guitarist I found."

Nijika introduced them enthusiastically.

"And this is the bassist I mentioned, Yamada Ryo. Just call her Ryo!"

"Yeah, call me Ryo. Yamada's way too plain."

Bai Qiu actually found that pretty reasonable—Yamada was a really common surname in Japan.

Bai Qiu: "Ryo, nice to meet you."

Yamada Ryo shifted her gaze to Bai Qiu.

She paused on him for a few seconds.

"Have we met somewhere before?"

Bai Qiu was taken aback. "Probably... not?"

No way—how could he have met Yamada Ryo without knowing it?

"Hmm, interesting name. I like it."

Yamada Ryo complimented him.

"Bai Qiu-kun is a Celestial Dynasty Person."

Ijichi Nijika covered her face and explained.

Yamada Ryo didn't dwell on it, already turning her attention to Goto Hitori, who was hiding behind Bai Qiu.

Goto Hitori's expression was terrified.

Home—she wanted to go home... So scary, it felt like she was being stared down the whole time.

"I-I'm Goto Hitori, I'm so sorry for bothering you!"

Goto Hitori bowed with her guitar on her back.

"Hitori, don't be scared. Ryo just doesn't have much expression. If you call her a weirdo, she'll actually be happy."

"I wouldn't be happy."

Yamada Ryo twisted her body as she answered, but the corners of her mouth couldn't stop lifting.

She didn't look unhappy at all... the other three thought in unison.

Right after that, Yamada Ryo struggled to get out of her sleeping bag.

Yamada Ryo thumped heavily back to the ground.

"Nijika, help me..."

Ijichi Nijika handed the book to Bai Qiu beside her.

"Honestly, I've been so worried about you. You haven't come to school since the term started—if you keep this up, you'll get expelled... and you haven't shown up for your part-time job at the shop in ages..."

Even as she said that, Nijika's hands didn't hesitate, already fumbling with the sleeping bag wrapped around Yamada Ryo.

Yamada Ryo: "Getting expelled sounds great. I've wanted to be a working adult for a while now."

Bai Qiu took the book from Nijika's hands, a surprised look on his face.

Wasn't this the Light Novel he wrote!

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime—one of his copy-paste works.

As the title suggested, it was about the protagonist Mikami Satoru getting stabbed to death and reincarnating in another world as a cute blue slime.

Then he started building a monster kingdom, became a Demon Lord, and conquered the other world.

Even though only a few volumes had been released, it had gotten a good reception in the market.

He never expected Yamada Ryo to be reading the Light Novel he wrote.

Well, that was fine. Bai Qiu smiled.

He had plenty of confidence in his own work.

It seems Yamada Ryo has good taste after all—no wonder she fell so hard.

Oh wait, no... she's moved past the shadow of the band breaking up.

And with Ijichi Nijika's help, Yamada Ryo had already been rescued from her sleeping bag.

Yamada Ryo stood up.

Today, Ryo was dressed all in black.

A black long skirt, a black unisex short-sleeve shirt, and black cooling arm sleeves on her arms for sun protection.

"Who would wear something like that and lie in a sleeping bag?!"

Ijichi Nijika was speechless.

Yamada Ryo just gave a thumbs up.

"Speaking of which, Ryo, I came to ask you to help play bass today." Nijika spoke up.

"I see..."

Yamada Ryo let out a light sigh first.

"Sorry, Nijika, but the music in my soul has already died."

Nijika's eyes dimmed, and she bit her lip.

"It's buried right in here."

"Huh?!" ×3

The three of them were baffled.

But Ryo had already lifted the tent flap and said, "Come in."

Nijika followed right behind.

Just as Bai Qiu was about to step forward, his right eyelid started twitching uncontrollably.

As the saying goes, left eye twitches for fortune, right eye twitches for disaster.

This stirred a foreboding feeling in his heart.

"What's wrong?"

Hitori asked from behind, since Bai Qiu was blocking the way.

Bai Qiu shook his head and stepped inside.

Chapter 16: Two Funeral Portraits

The inside of the tent was a bit dim, but the computer monitor was lit, so the power was on.

A lot of items were scattered on the floor.

All kinds of light novels, manga, magazines, figurines, plushies, and other merchandise.

But there wasn't a single music-related item.

The three were amazed.

Goto Hitori couldn't help thinking that maybe living in a place like this wouldn't be so bad someday.

Bai Qiu, on the other hand, noticed that many of these light novels were his works.

Seeing them, he couldn't help recalling the glory days when he was copying and writing light novels.

Besides the slime one he'd just discovered, there were also classics like Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World, KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, and My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected—a whole series of long-running masterpieces.

But these works all had one thing in common: they only had a few volumes each, because Bai Qiu had only updated that many.

As for the later plots, he really couldn't copy anymore—he couldn't make them up.

Thanks to dabbling in many different genres of novels, Bai Qiu was known in the industry as the Hexagon Warrior.

Maybe his writing style wasn't top-tier, and he didn't have any cheat abilities back then.

He could only rely on his limited memory and his hard work in literature to recreate these popular works.

Only Nijika's face darkened—just how badly had these things corrupted Ryo?

Light novels, such a scourge!

Ryo had become a complete otaku now!

Yamada Ryo pressed her palms together, bowed her head slightly, and murmured with her eyes closed.

Bai Qiu and the other two were drawn in by Yamada Ryo's actions.

She was facing a small table in the center, paying respects to something.

But when Bai Qiu saw the black-and-white photo inside the funeral portrait frame, his pupils contracted.

No wonder his eyelid had been twitching nonstop.

So you're the culprit.

Yamada Ryo, do you even have a heart?!

The memorial photo was naturally not a picture of Bai Qiu himself, since he had never revealed his identity.

Instead, it was a photoshopped composite of Bai Qiu the Light Novelist's multiple works, with his pen name printed large across it.

Extremely eye-catching.

It was the pen name Bai Qiu used to publish his light novels.

"He" and "Fire" combined to form the "Qiu" character in Bai Qiu's name.

The last "Fire" represented Bai Qiu's firm belief that his works would definitely catch fire.

As for why he chose this name?

Actually, light novel authors in Neon had a few small requirements when picking pen names, unlike web novel authors in the Celestial Dynasty who could name themselves whatever they wanted.

At the very least, it couldn't be too casual or explicit.

Because well-written light novels had a chance of being physically published, and physical books naturally needed the author's pen name on them.

So publishers also hoped the author's pen name would be proper and normal.

Of course, if it was just a web version serialized online, it didn't matter.

So, don't think the name was ordinary.

This was something Bai Qiu had come up with after racking his brains!

Bai Qiu had no time to grieve. He wanted to say something, but found he couldn't get any words out.

Why isn't the person in the photo you, Kita...

This was supposed to be a hilarious classic scene, but when it happened to him, it wasn't funny at all.

"Ryo, what are you doing?" Nijika asked.

"Paying respects to this departed author. I bow every day."