"Aoyama-sensei!"
Ayumi called out, knocking on the bedroom door. "Are you ready in there yet?"
She looked at the closed door with a hint of anxiety. Today was the scheduled date for their face-to-face meeting with the animation production studio.
Ever since the last incident where Aoyama had completely forgotten about the New Creator Award ceremony, Ayumi had chosen to personally visit and remind him of every major itinerary item.
Since she was accompanying him today anyway, stopping by his apartment wasn't an issue.
But Ayumi hadn't expected... Aoyama had indeed forgotten about it again.
He wasn't even dressed or standing by the door looking to depart.
"Almost ready, almost ready! Just give me a few more minutes, a tiny bit longer!"
Aoyama's frantic voice filtered through the wood, confirming Ayumi's suspicions perfectly.
But there was nothing she could do besides sit on the sofa in a slightly puffed-up, annoyed posture, waiting for the lock to turn.
Pochita, sensing Ayumi's annoyance with its incredible canine intuition, walked over to her side on soft paws.
Woof, woof~
The dog nudged its head obediently against Ayumi's slender calf, offering a comforting nuzzle.
Ayumi's annoyance melted away instantly.
She giggled as she scratched Pochita behind the ears. "Hehe~ You are the best, Pochita-chan. So sweet and well-behaved~"
---
Inside the bedroom, however, Aoyama was standing in a position of complete panic.
He was staring directly at a virtual display screen that only he could see, muttering under his breath:
"System, you old geezer! Drop the card already!"
"Come on! Pull some weight here, old man!"
"Give me a Diamond... no, I'll settle for a Platinum at this point!"
That was right. Aoyama was currently locked into a gacha system roll cycle.
When Ayumi had mentioned the meeting earlier, it had sparked a memory in his head.
Animating Edgerunners shouldn't be a difficult task in itself.
As long as the studio replicated his sheets,which he'd adapted meticulously from the original show,and added some polish, it would replicate correctly.
But there was one component Aoyama cared deeply about.
The soundtrack.
That heartbreaking, hollow theme song had to be inserted correctly into the animation sequence, or the entire emotional weight would collapse flat.
But while Aoyama could easily hum the melody, he didn't possess the technical capability required to write a formal musical score.
Consequently, he needed the System to grant him a music composition skill.
Unfortunately, the rotating System Shop didn't currently list any titles containing that category.
Forced into a corner, Aoyama had to launch into his nightmare: the 500-credit-per-roll gacha cycle.
Remembering how the System had practically rained Diamond modules on him during his last rolling session, Aoyama set his expectations high.
But this time...
* [My Face Is Average (Platinum)]
* [Emperor Engine (Gold)]
* [King of Rhyming (Gold)]
* [I'm Just an Aging Middle-aged Man (Platinum)]
* [Must Listen to Logic (Gold)]
* [The World Learns Internet Slang (Diamond)]
* [Ancient Survival Guide (Platinum)]
* [Hair Gel Hand (Silver)]
"AAAAGH! System, you old geezer!"
Aoyama gritted his teeth, his eyes turning bloodshot. "That is pull number thirty-eight! Are you pulling my leg?!"
Thirty-eight consecutive pulls at 500 points a pop. He'd just watched nearly 20,000 credits evaporate into thin air in seconds.
And zero musical abilities in sight.
Aoyama felt as though his chest was bleeding imaginary blood.
He had raised his balance to 70,000 points recently, but that didn't justify this kind of burning rate.
[The gacha algorithm operates independently of the administrator. Please continue your efforts.] the System replied with icy indifference.
Aoyama bit his lip. Backing out wasn't an option anymore.
He didn't believe that out of dozens of pulls, he couldn't secure a single music index.
"I am pulling to fifty! Fifty pulls has to offer a pity rating, doesn't it?!"
Aoyama calculated correctly.
On the fiftieth pull, the virtual display flashed into a bright, blinding light:
[Legendary Musician (Diamond)]
Aoyama's eyes lit up with relief. Finally...
Right as the module downloaded, Ayumi's voice called out from the living room:
"Aoyama-sensei!"
He immediately replied, shouting toward the door, "Coming! I'm heading out right now!"
---
In the downtown district of Metropolis, inside a high-end corporate office tower, the sixth floor was a hive of design stations.
Above the entrance reception desk, a prominent, polished sign read: [Trigger Animation].
People unfamiliar with the industry might not recognize the name instantly.
But for dedicated animation watchers and ACG professionals, the title held weight.
Founded within the last decade, the studio had built a reputation for delivering high-tempo, hyper-stylized content with exceptional production value and high sales returns.
Relying on that track record, Trigger Animation had quickly broken into the ranks of the top ten production houses in the Federation, standing as a true industry leader.
They had established cooperation agreements with Manga World, processing dozens of serializations for broadcast every year.
The sixth floor housed their core division: the animation production department.
Currently, the atmosphere inside the floorboards was locked in heavy, tense anticipation, with workers pacing back and forth.
The atmosphere was dense enough to spark curiosity in other departments.
"Hey, Yuki, is there some massive board meeting scheduled for today? Why does everyone look so tightly wound?" one observer asked, pulling a female worker aside.
"The author of Edgerunners is coming in today," the woman answered with a heavy sigh.
"He's going to be acting as the Animation Supervisor for this project. This is his first visit to our headquarters, so President Sugimoto is treating it with prime priority."
"Edgerunners!" the observer immediately nodded, understanding perfectly.
He was a fan of the comic himself. Edgerunners was fantastic,innovative, dense, and fresh.
Simultaneously, it was tragic.
But its influence was massive. The comic was built on top of a mountain of existing support.
If the animation succeeded, it would generate staggering quantities of financial returns.
On the flip side, if the production fell flat, the studio would receive biting backlash from millions of grief-stricken readers looking for an output valve.
In industrial setups, a title with this much pre-existing hype was an asset standing significantly above its risks.
And generally speaking, as long as a studio didn't actively sabotage the source material, adapting a masterpiece into failure was rare.
Of course, a few historical outliers existed,studios that wildly drifted the narrative, demoted the original female lead into a background prop to elevate a support character, and drove the rating into the concrete.
But avoiding major structural drifts usually kept the status green.
"I have to get back. The author is arriving soon, I need to look busy," the woman said, shaking her head as she rushed off.
In less than thirty minutes, two silhouettes emerged from the elevator door, stepping into the department corridor.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]