Chapter 10

The House of the Witch is a horror puzzle game. The story is about a little girl named Viola trying to escape from the witch's mansion. At the end of the story, the witch is shot dead by her father, which is a cause for celebration, indeed, a cause for celebration.

—But there is another layer to this story.

In fact, the main character controlled by the player is the real witch. The witch, who was originally seriously ill, had swapped her soul with Viola. In the end, the father killed his own daughter. The entire story is very dark and sinister, truly heartwarming.

The story itself is quite good, but Morika knows that this kind of game is quite niche nowadays.

But what does it matter? The House of the Witch was something Morika agreed to do to meet his senior's needs.

After Morika finished summarizing the story, his senior's eyes sparkled, and his first impression of her as a "three-no girl" was completely shattered. She was simply unwilling to waste words on things she wasn't interested in.

What a carnivorous girl...

The senior was very interested in the story Morika told, but unfortunately, the class bell soon rang. As students of a prestigious school, the two of them naturally couldn't skip class and had to obediently return to the classroom.

"Hey, Morika, what did your senior tell you?" As soon as they returned to their seats, Kiriya-kun from behind leaned over.

"Nothing much, just about joining the club... By the way, didn't you say you wanted to join the anime club too? If we three can find two more people, the club won't be disbanded." Morika suggested.

Kiriya-kun's eyes lit up instantly: "Then your sister—"

"—Forget it, I won't let my sister get close to you, thank you."

Morika mercilessly pushed Kiriya-kun away.

"..." Kiriya-kun, who wanted to say something more, obediently shut his mouth when the teacher arrived. Although he had yellow hair, he was actually a law-abiding good boy.

For the entire afternoon, Morika was lost in thought, his mind filled with the story of the House of the Witch.

He couldn't afford to take this lightly.

While it's true that interesting novels can be published, it's not that simple in reality.

Popular novels in Japan have a common point: good illustrations.

Illustrations are an important part of light novels because they significantly influence the reader's first impression of a novel. This is why many mediocre works sell well. In 2015, there was a light novel called "Oreimo" (My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute). The author,丸户史明 (Maruto Shimoku), admitted that a large part of the novel's success was due to the illustrator, 深崎暮人 (Fukami Kure).

Oh, right, speaking of which, Morika suddenly felt that 千羽千佳 (Chihaya Chihaya) somewhat resembled 霞之丘诗羽 (Kasumigaoka Shizuka) from that light novel.

Cough, cough, that's not the point. The key is that you need connections to get good illustrators to draw for you.

Simply relying on your work to become popular, even if you plagiarize "Suzumiya Haruhi," the probability is only 50-50!

Of course, if you insist that your writing is exceptionally strong and your story is incredibly engaging, and you can crush it without illustrations... Congratulations, you don't need to write light novels. Go straight to publishing serious literature; you'll earn more, and you might even win a Nobel Prize. As for Morika, he has self-awareness. He knows that his level in light novels is actually quite good, but his language and writing style are rather casual, and he is not particularly proficient in Japanese writing, so serious literature is a no-go.

Since Chihaya Chihaya can connect with the editors of the publishing house, she naturally has the necessary connections. Hiring a mature illustrator versus a newcomer will definitely produce different results. After all, no one likes a Haruhi Suzumiya with a face like Hanamichi Sakuragi—except for certain special preferences.

It was 4:00 PM, and the location was the anime club's room.

Because his sister, Yuki, was joining the kendo club, the siblings wouldn't go home together. At this time, Morika was sitting face-to-face with Chihaya-senpai at a table in the anime club.

In front of them were some initial clues and ideas for the House of the Witch game.

While these elements are important in game design, Morika's job was just to mimic.

The story clearly delighted Chihaya-senpai.

"The script for the story will be up to you, and I'll handle the programming. This should work out fine."

After deciding on the story, the next step was to assign tasks, and Chihaya-senpai looked very excited.

"Wait, just the two of us? What about the character design?" Morika asked.

Chihaya-senpai had a look of everything being under control and said proudly, "Don't worry about that. I have a friend in the art club, and I'll get her to help. Your type of characters is right up her alley."

Morika felt like he was about to encounter something very bad, but it didn't seem right to say it out loud.

"In that case, the club will have three people, but we still need two more, right?" If the club is still like this by May, it will be disbanded—by the way, Japanese schools start in April.

"But this story is so good. Isn't it a waste to just make a game?" Chihaya-senpai thought for a moment and seemed to have a new idea.

"What do you mean?" Morika asked.

"How about writing it as a novel? I think we could publish a novel." Chihaya-senpai extended a finger.

"A novel?" Morika thought about it. If he didn't water it down and tried to be as concise as possible, he could write a script of 200,000 to 300,000 words based on this story. However, if it's a puzzle game, it might conflict with the game.

As for the content, that wouldn't be a problem. Morika hadn't wasted his time this year.

"Um, let's write a 'Witch's Diary.' With some adjustments, we can probably write one book, which would be perfect for sales." Morika said, "What do you expect the sales to be like?"

"For the fan event, I plan to make about 100 copies. But this is just a start. In the future, we'll aim for a broader market!" Chihaya-senpai had lofty ambitions.

"But," Morika pointed to the empty table, "first, I think we need two computers, and I can type faster on a computer."

"No problem, we can borrow them from the computer club." Chihaya-senpai smiled.

"The computer club will lend us computers?" Morika was surprised. This sounded like a script from an anime.

"Yeah, it's fine to use them," Chihaya-senpai's face showed a strange smile, "Their president can't refuse."

Morika wisely didn't ask further.

"As for printing and CD production, I can contact some manufacturers at a low price, so there's no problem. We can start making it from tomorrow." She was full of energy.

"Okay."

In short, Chihaya-senpai already had her own plans, so Morika didn't say much more. He planned to organize the story tonight.

I believe that when people play the game, they will be able to feel its warmth...

...

It's just that there are a lot of complaints. Don't force it to be a light novel =.=

A new day, ranked seventh, please recommend, and if it reaches 3000, I'll post a character illustration of the senior.

\(^o^)/~

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