"It'd be so nice... if A-Xiao could borrow my abilities too."
Only after watching Chen Xiao and the others finish paying their price-a bit of intimate fun-did Ikuyo Kita, forced to watch it all happen right in front of her, finally breathe a sigh of relief and murmur wistfully.
Being the third wheel felt awful!
"Yeah, yeah..."
Nijika Ijichi nodded in agreement beside her.
"Come on! A-Xiao, give me money too! My introductory service will definitely be better than that armpit-baring shrine maiden's!"
Ryo Yamada simply held out her hand for money to Chen Xiao, who was sitting on the sofa with Jack the Ripper in his arms.
"Please don't do that, Ryo!"
Hitori Gotoh hurriedly tried to stop her.
"Ahaha... I'll borrow your abilities if I get the chance! Who knows, maybe someday I'll need to perform with an instrument~"
Feeling a little guilty, Chen Xiao made an empty promise for now, easing the four girls' disappointment somewhat.
Then they returned to Chen Xiao's bedroom and reverted to figurine form.
Just as they changed back, Nina Isari's figurine nearby couldn't resist moving closer to ask curiously about the performance at the Comic Exhibition.
The four members of Kessoku Band: ... (Sweating buckets)
Oh no! How were they supposed to explain their wildly successful debut to the little firebrand?
"Hey~! Don't ignore me!"
Seeing the four of them stay silent, Nina Isari grew increasingly uneasy, and her voice rose another notch.
"Maybe... Miss Kita wasn't the only one who sang onstage."
Momoka Kawaragi seemed to have guessed something and spoke quietly to Nina Isari.
"Momoka, you don't have to dance around it... obviously, their whole band performed onstage."
Tomo Ebizuka opened her mouth and delivered a critical hit straight to the soul.
Silence-
The little firebrand's voice abruptly cut off.
And Ikuyo Kita and the other three seemed to confirm the claim with their silence.
"N-Nina? Are you okay?"
Subaru Awa asked timidly.
"A-XIAO-!!!!!"
Nina Isari struck a pose like a Dragon Ball character powering up and roared at the door beyond the display cabinet.
"YOU COMPLETE JERK!!!!!"
Unfortunately, with all the materialization energy already taken by the others before her, the little firebrand couldn't materialize and could only rage helplessly inside the cabinet.
The other members of Togenashi Togeari: Sigh...
"I'm really sorry!"
Startled by the little firebrand's roar, Hitori Gotoh hurriedly apologized.
"It's okay, it's okay. This has nothing to do with you, Bocchi. Nina just feels a little hard done by. She'll be fine once she gets A-Xiao to make it up to her."
Rupa smiled and reassured Hitori Gotoh.
Such a gentle big sister.
Hearing that, the four members of Kessoku Band instantly warmed to Rupa.
"But I'm a big sister too..."
Momoka pouted beside them.
"Ah... achoo!"
Meanwhile, although he hadn't heard Nina's roar, Chen Xiao instinctively sneezed as she grumbled about him.
"Mommy! Are you okay? Did you catch a cold?!"
Jack the Ripper, nestled in his arms, jumped in alarm and quickly turned to look into Chen Xiao's eyes as she asked.
"I'm fine, I'm fine! My nose was just a little itchy."
Chen Xiao hurriedly explained.
Of course, besides his itchy nose, he also felt a little guilty.
He kept feeling as though he'd overlooked something...
Nina Isari: You're going to die too! (Sword-raising reaction.jpg)
"A-Xiao!"
Just then, an unfamiliar voice came from the stairs on the second floor.
Chen Xiao turned to see a black-haired girl in a black bodysuit waving at him.
"Over here! I've got something to show you!"
Since he'd created so many characters with long, straight black hair over the years, Chen Xiao didn't recognize her right away.
But when he saw the mechanical cat ears on her head, together with her bodysuit resembling an EVA pilot's plugsuit, he remembered that she was Tsugumi, the hacker girl from Guilty Crown!
But why had she materialized?
Surely she wasn't doing anything illegal behind his back?
"Okay, I'm coming."
Puzzled, Chen Xiao got up from the sofa and went upstairs with Jack the Ripper, meeting Tsugumi outside the computer room.
"A-Xiao, you do recognize me, right?"
Before they entered the computer room, Tsugumi suddenly asked him that.
"Ah! Of course I do! Miss Tsugumi, the head of intelligence operations for the Funeral Parlor in Guilty Crown!"
"Aye~! Great!"
Tsugumi clapped her hands happily at his answer.
Little did she know that Chen Xiao was secretly wiping away sweat. If Tsugumi's distinctive features hadn't stood out so much, he really might not have recognized her.
Then Tsugumi led Chen Xiao through the door. The room, originally meant for Elf Yamada and the others to write novels and draw in, was now empty, with only the computer at the main desk displaying what looked like a database interface.
"This is..."
Chen Xiao looked at Tsugumi in confusion.
"A-Xiao, have you ever considered that, as materialized figurines, we have no legal identities in this world?"
Tsugumi posed the question with a very serious expression.
"Ah, well..."
Chen Xiao really wanted to say he had considered it.
But the truth was that he'd been busy with other things lately and hadn't had time to think about the girls all being undocumented once they materialized.
"And then there's the issue of making money! I can understand that maid from another world, Ram, not knowing, but A-Xiao, how can you not know when you're a transmigrator?"
Seeing his reaction, Tsugumi sighed helplessly.
"Hackers aren't outlaws of the internet. We don't just do illegal things! There are tons of legitimate ways to make money! Patching vulnerabilities in internet companies' systems, for example!"
"..."
Chen Xiao really hadn't thought of that.
In his previous life, he'd been a computer novice who could barely get past the Cyber Confucius test. Playing games and browsing the web were pretty much the limits of his abilities.
At least he wasn't like a certain corpse collector who'd returned from abroad in his previous life, who didn't know what graphics cards or motherboards were, or even how to open Task Manager.
But to be fair, everything Chen Xiao knew about hackers came from American movies. He really knew nothing about China's Red Hackers, White Hackers, and the like.
"Anyway, let's put making money aside for now!"
As she spoke, Tsugumi walked over to the main computer desk and sat down.
"A-Xiao, taking Ikuyo Kita and the others to perform at the Comic Exhibition caused quite a stir. Add in that incident with [Today's Flower City Rich Boy] turning himself in, and the authorities are bound to collect information on everyone who was at the venue."
At that, Chen Xiao immediately understood the problem.
"Nijika and the others are still undocumented!"
"Exactly..."
Tsugumi smiled and nodded.
Then she pointed at the population database on the computer screen.
"So just now, I took care of all the identity information issues for Nijika Ijichi and the others. Aren't you going to thank me~?"
With that, Tsugumi lifted her chin proudly.
"Also, thanks to the AI system that Angeloid designed, altering the official population records was almost as easy as playing Tetris. I guarantee nobody will spot anything wrong."
Of course, if someone really decided to take the matter seriously and conduct an on-site investigation in Yingzhou Province, they would still find holes in the story.
Before you continue