--Re: Opening Act – Side Anemone--

It was a big venue

You can see a gathering of people as the glamorous lights light up the hall on a good weekend night. The stage was only a small are compared to the whole function room. At the sides were catered dinner, beverages, liquor. The event staffs handing out glasses of wine could be seen almost everywhere. As the scenery goes anyone can only think that this is an event only for those standing above the society. Middle-aged people wearing suits, young-looking women on glamorous dresses, jewelry, gold-plated watches, almost everything.

This was the same exact scenery a whole year ago at this same exact venue. But what was the party for?

Again, this event was the ‘Fresh Aspirants’ Oneshot contest. To give a quick overview of the competition, it was the same competition that Fred entered a year ago with his winning oneshot. That career path eventually led him to where he was right now. He might not know but the publishing company he applied held this event annually. But now that he’s already a mangaka he was not the star of the night. He was invited and could be seen within the crowd with his assistants (+Ingrid).

Among with the crowd too was Old man. He was acting strange like he was a worm sprinkled with salt or something. His irritated posture and his feet tapping the floor was an indication that he was about to explode in anger already.

“Sorry I was late.”

A voice called out at his back.

“What took you so long?!! You almost missed the entire purpose of this gathering!!”

“Fu fu fu! I see you are still reluctant to act appropriately in front of your master, my supposed-to-be faithful loyal servant.”

Those were the very few times traces of fear could be seen from Old man’s face. Alternating emotions from anger to fear to uncertainty then to anger again are being emitted from a middle-aged man who was weeks ago had less problems to think over than the problems he had at that moment.

“The Royal Palace have already kept you for a week already. I think it is about time you truly open up to me, your highness Queen of Dark—ouch ouch ouch!!”

Old man immediately rushed over Anemone and immediately squeezed his fists on both sides of her temples to stop her nonsensical statements. What Old man needed at that time was a professional speaker who’s overwhelming with talent as a mangaka, not a late teenager with an eight-grader syndrome.

“I’ve been telling you even a while ago afternoon to act appropriately! This is not your usual daily life event where you could act, speak and dress according to your eight-grader fantasies!”

Old man handed her down a hammer of judgment but she seemed not to care even a bit. She was holding her forehead due to intense pain from Old man’s fists. If they were a normal pair or strangers that were in public anyone who have seen the whole thing could report Old man to the police for assault.

“Besides…” Old man’s nerves started to be seen from his head again. “…What is that?”

“What do you mean?”

“That thing you’re wearing under your glasses.”

It could be literally seen. Anemone’s intent was to hide what she was wearing under her sunglasses (she really thought it was hidden well). She was wearing an eyepatch covering her left eye.

“WHAT!! MY COVER HAD ALREADY BEEN BUSTED!!”

SMACK!

“You’re not even trying for a millennium’s worth of deception!”

“Huh~~ Now that it comes to this!...” –She removed her glasses. “…That’s right! This is the power the Queen of Darkness had been storing at her left eye! My loyal servant, take a front-row seat, and you are about to witness… A LEGACY! A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF POWER STORED ABOUT TO GET UNLEASHED! With these many people around we would have enough harvested souls to awaken the Great Demon Lord—”

SMACK!

“Uuuuu… You didn’t have to do it twice!”

The forest-fire level of a disaster Old man was trying to put out: Anemone, was about to be extinguished when a nuke-carrying plane arrived at the scene: Fred and Co. Old man had considered Fred’s disaster level ways off from human-logic. Fred and his very selected minions also defied the natural laws and order of Earth. The great scientists, mathematicians and philosophers of the past centuries won’t even stand a chance proving that these uncertainties exists.

Exasperated, Old man wanted to escape from reality already and take a long vacation to a tropical island and sip a cold coconut juice. He held his forehead with his hand and started talking again.

“Give me a break already…”

But not even five meters away Fred started running while crying and jumped over to hug Old Man.

“OOOOOOLD MAAAAAAN WHYYYYYYYYYY!!!!”

“Get this doofus off me!!”

“I’m sorry Old Man but even we can’t contain him.”

“Seria!! Do your job as an editor and get him off of me already!!”

Old man talked to the fifth member of the ‘Fred Party of Uncertainties’ who just recently joined: Seria. She was assigned as Fred’s new editor after Old man accepted his assignment to Anemone.

“Whistling…”

Losing his last resort to get the parasitic unhealthy human clinging at his back, he readied his judo stance and threw Fred towards the ground. Groaning in pain, Fred continued to wail as he wanted explanation from Old Man.

Old Man Snapped

“COULD EVERYONE STOP MAKING SCENES ALREADY AND ACT NORMALLY!!!”

The shout echoed throughout the whole venue.

Almost everyone looked at them and just gave a laugh. That was a scene not really new to the ongoing event. Most of the staff who had several years of experience at these have seen worse, or better. Authors, Editors, technical staffs, even the regular individuals. They always knew that these sort of scenarios could always happen on author-related events.

Being afraid to be the pinpoint of Old man’s fury, Anemone straightened up her posture but did not have intentions of changing how she usually acts, while Fred stood up and started to talk some sense with Old Man.

“So, speak up. She’s the one you had to choose over me, huh?”

“Hey Fred you could have phrased the sentence better.” –Ingrid, clad with her usual white-slitted dress talked behind Fred.

“It’s fine it’s fine Miss Girlfriend, I know what he’s trying to say. We’ve been together for a whole year.”

“Oooh, well I’ve been with him for more than two years already, you could try and beat that!”

Old man shown an ‘excuse me, come again?’ expression as he tried to assess whether Ingrid was actually trying to protect Fred from being stolen by him or she was just showing an absurdly out of placed jealousy.

“Landlady I really think you are being overprotective of Fred… To the point that your protection even transcended the boundaries of gender.” –Ara tried to stop the childish Ingrid.

Old man cut the topic before it even gets worse and put it back where it safely belong.

“Aaaah quit it already. Yes, as I’ve told you a week ago, meet Anemone-sensei. She won this year’s ‘Fresh-aspirants’ Oneshot competition. I hope you get along as co-authors and live a friendly rivalry while keeping our company in good status with your serializations.”

“HAHAH!! This oddball you left here doesn’t even have a new serialization yet! Rich words coming from you, Old Man!! HAHAH!!”

Old man shrugged Seria’s out of place but had a point comment aside and continued talking.

“As to the reason why I’ve let go of being your editor, it will be too much of conflict with my responsibilities. You have to understand that you have grown already. Even with the guidance of editors other than me, growth is something permanent to you too. Like you, I also wanted to grow with my career and grab opportunities with other authors. Besides…”

He looked at Seria with an unconcerned expression.

“Her otherworldly jokes aside, Seria is a talented editor too. In fact, all editors in our company is. So I think I will have a peace of mind leaving you in her care.”

Fred looked at Old Man with a solemn expression.

“If you say it like that… I won’t have any chance to argue anymore…”

Ingrid tapped his shoulder and looked at him with relief.

Out of professionalism, Fred went towards Anemone who was standing and holding her left eye covered with eyepatch with her right arm. Still thinking hard about what Old man have explained to him, he just talked to anemone with impulse and his subconscious controlling his own body for a professional greeting.

“Nice to meet you, Anemone-sensei. I’m Maou Spence-sensei. I look forward to being co-authors with you.”

“Fufufu…”

The rest of them looked at Anemone.

“Fufufu…”

It was like all evil intent had gathered towards Anemone at that moment.

It was a sudden interruption. A huge bang on the speakers followed by a grand orchestra music interrupted them. The volume lowered after a few more seconds followed by dimming of the lights. A single one was left focused on the left side of the stage where a supposedly commentator can be seen.

“Ladies and Gentlemen! Once again this year we hope you are already enjoying our venue for tonight, first of all we would like to thank our sponsors….” –Another year, another endless flow of words and thanks coming from the commentator.

“And without further ado, let us announce the winner ‘Fresh Aspirants’ Oneshot contest for this year. Ms. Anemone-sensei! Everybody give her an applause.”

Once again lights suddenly turned off. A narrow one suddenly turned on to his direction spotting only Anemone within the entire area. She looked really proud and experienced… and weird.

“Fufufu… We’ll continue this when we see each other again… Maou Spence-…sensei.”

Anemone proceeded and walked towards the stage. Her shiny leather trench coat covered almost her entire body from body to toe. No one really asked why she was dressing like that, no one really wondered. Most of the viewers might be waiting for what she was hiding under to be revealed once she got up the stage.

The coat was closed, and her arms were not inserted on the sleeves, rather her whole body was covered with the coat, or she inserted her very self from the coat. Either ways it looked ridiculously weird at usual occasions but not tonight. An author could express his identity openly to the crowd and that’s what Anemone was trying to do.

She got up the stage. The only view was a form of human covered with trench coat and a head with a left eye covered with an eyepatch.

“Uhm… Anemone-sensei. For taking this year’s ‘Fresh Aspirants’ Oneshot award. What are you feeling right now?”

The MC tried to give her a mic to use but he had difficulty finding her hands.

In response to the MC, Anemone slipped her right hand out of her coat, avoiding the coat to fully open up like it was not the right time. Now holding a mic, she spoke up.

“What I’m feeling right now?...”

Something was about to happen by the way she spoke.

“Fufufu… Fuhahahahahahaha!!”

And final she suddenly opened up her coat and showed everyone what she had been hiding under it.

“Whiiiw, nice! So stylish!” –Ingrid commented from the sides.

“No, nononononono! Ingrid that’s way off from a normal clothing already!! Wake up from your senses!”

“AWAWAWA!! NOOOOO” –Ara(imouto) covered her eyes, regretting what she just saw

“Well I had a feeling… Nothing and no one’s going to stop her now.” –Old man just covered his face out of embarrassment.

What was underneath was almost nothing. It was a succubus outfit that only covered almost the entirety of the 10% of her skin. The tight straps covering the supposedly hidden parts were just enough to do their job and covered the most sensitive parts of her body. It did not lift the issue that the parts of the skin that supposed to be covered with normal undergarment were still clearly revealed.

Either she was a nudist or it was just adrenaline that was driving her revealing such revealing clothes (those are not really clothes).

What this absurdity did was put the crown on a massive cheering. Those middle-aged people who were able to see such a spectacle for the very first time on their lives. Those staffs and co-authors that had not seen such a display of identity for a long time, almost everyone were shocked and were cheering.

It was Fred’s group that was one of the few groups that were able to handle such sight. They were a mass of absurdities themselves already.

“I never knew these people existed here at Earth too…” –Fred was shocked with awe.

“Uhm… Fred?” –Ara pulled the sleeves of Fred’s polo.

“What is it Ara?”

“I was too focused on what was happening that I forgot to make a headcount… Fred we’re missing one.”

Fred, in shock, looked around and gave them a quick count.

“Old Man, Psycho-Hag, Ingrid, Ara, Me…”

The greatest element of wall breaking absurdity was not within them.

“Oh shit….”

Fred looked again towards the stage and tried to assess the silhouette of the individuals at the stage. He could see at his perfect vision only two, but there was someone climbing the stage at that moment.

“Could I borrow that mic for a second?”

Entering the light that was focusing the MC was Kyrie.

“Uhm… Excuse me, who are you?”

“You might want to retract that statement. Do you not really know who runs this company?”

Of course that was a bluff. Kyrie was just trying to extort the mic from the MC out of confusion of what’s happening. And it worked splendidly well.

“I’m so sorry… Here you go.” –The MC proudly gave the mic to her.

But instead of using the mic to speak, Kyrie took a targeting pose like one of those FPS games she’s playing while holding a throwing weapon: the MC’s mic (+10 critical).

“HUUUMUUU! BOMBS AWAY!” –Yes, she threw the mic towards Anemone’s ‘there is something wrong in this head’ head.

THUD!

A critical hit. A loud thud. And a static.

Anemone went down and landed on her knees while holding a portion of her head to check if there were any cracks in her skull.

“HOOORA!! WHADDYA’ THINK YA DOIN!!—” –she stopped ranting midway as she saw the Figure of the nemesis that threw a mic at her head.

“Well…”

The figure of Kyrie that approached her looked at her with fifty percent pity and fifty percent evil intent. What was supposed to be scaredy cat reaction were turned into a look of admiration. Anemone stuttered to completely say the name:

“Ky-Ky-Ky-Kyrie-schwenphai!?”