Compared to most high school students who drifted through life without knowing what they wanted to do in the future, she had to count as a genius, right? Utaha Kasumigaoka thought so and gave herself an affirmative answer. She was a genius!
However...
Sogo Doma's appearance had nearly made her question her entire life.
Although the failure of her second book had taught her that surviving in this world was not so easy, Utaha Kasumigaoka could still take pride in herself. As a high school student, being able to publish the stories in her heart was already enough to set her above her peers. Even if she faced cancellation, she had still accomplished something most people could never achieve!
However...
She had met Sogo Doma.
Never mind that he had already been published in middle school, and in detective fiction at that—though that alone made him difficult for Utaha Kasumigaoka to catch up to. After all, light novels and detective fiction...
No matter how one looked at it, a detective novelist could crush a so-called bestselling light novelist. This was not her being self-deprecating; it was simply the common perception in this country—
Setting that aside, the book review he had written alone was enough to make Utaha Kasumigaoka realize that she was not as much of a genius as she thought. Or rather, compared to a true genius, she was still far, far behind.
Of course, it was precisely because she had realized this long ago that she had managed to edge out Yukino Yukinoshita in the Tokyo joint exams.
In fact, if she had not met Sogo Doma and wanted to surpass him in some way, she...
Although Utaha Kasumigaoka slept in class as well, she spent far more time studying than she had in the past. Otherwise,