The Elf Who Dreams of Sex with Orcs Is Frustrated Tomorrow Too (1)
This was seriously going to drive me insane.
Rosaria clearly hadn't seen this coming either. She stood there flustered, unable to get a single word out.
Orca had frozen solid on the spot like a statue, as if her brain had completely short-circuited.
"H-hey, Orca? You should pick that up before your bra gets dirty...."
"Cali, is it true? Are you really Artist Siu?"
At this point, I had no choice but to make a call.
Rosaria had already found out. I could either come clean to Orca as well... or tell her Rosaria was just mistaken and lie to her face.
One or the other.
But the atmosphere just now had been far too serious, and my own reaction hadn't exactly been normal either. Even Orca, who usually wandered around with her head somewhere in the clouds, would keep suspecting me no matter how smoothly I brushed this off. She was surprisingly earnest whenever anything related to "Siu" came up.
Rosaria knew that perfectly well. She was waiting to see how I would handle this.
What the hell was I supposed to do here?
...Well, even if I lie my way out of this, it wouldn't really mean much.
If anything, considering how Orca had quietly buried the fact that I was "Siu's disciple" just because I'd asked her to... it might be better to tell her the truth and simply ask her not to tell anyone else.
The one thing that still bothered me was how obsessed she was with the existence of "Artist Siu".... Things would probably feel a little awkward for a while.
"...For now, Orca, come in and sit down. Sorry, but let me finish talking with Rosaria first. Then we can all talk together."
"......."
Even in this situation, the moment I asked, she wordlessly picked up her bra and sat down in the chair. Lying to a girl this upright and kind really didn't sit right with me.
Alright. I'd explain everything to Orca later and tell her the truth. For now, I needed to finish the conversation with Rosaria.
"Alright, Ria. Why do you think I'm Artist Siu?"
"...I first heard that you were Artist Siu's disciple from Professor Londo."
That old maid, seriously. Last time I'd gone and told her not to say anything, she'd said she understood... she must have already told Rosaria before that. Well, it was my own fault for only thinking to plug the leak after the fact instead of sealing it from the start.
"Okay, but Orca already knows I'm Artist Siu's disciple. Right?"
"Yeah...."
"So why did that information suddenly make you decide I was the master himself?"
I had a pretty good idea of the thought process Rosaria had used to reach that conclusion. But having a guess and hearing it directly were two different things.
At my question, Rosaria closed her eyes for a moment to organize her thoughts, then began to explain.
"At first, I just wondered why Cali would hide something like that from me. As Orca knows, we were close enough last year that I always spent my vacations with him."
So Professor Londo had explained how she'd learned these things. But the more Rosaria listened, the less any of it matched the Cali she knew. The Cali who'd learned magic from her over winter break had supposedly been learning magic from a master in the early-to-mid part of last year. The stories simply didn't add up....
"Ahaha...."
Back then, I'd just said whatever came to mind to avoid being suspected of being Siu. Of course that part would have sounded suspicious to Rosaria. Well, at the time I had no idea I'd enroll here and become Professor Londo's student.
"But Cali did a lot of really suspicious things last year. Locking himself alone in his room without telling anyone what he was doing, working so hard."
"Yeah."
"Even so, since it was Cali, I figured there must be a reason and didn't push. I didn't want to force him to show me something he clearly didn't want to reveal."
But the moment she assumed I was Artist Siu himself, all those strange behaviors started making sense. She figured I'd needed that time to secretly work on Siu's manuscripts so I wouldn't get found out. Even the fact that I always only drew SD while Artist Siu only drew LD had been one of the suspicious points.
"Cali knew an absurd amount about manga, right? At the time I thought it was because he'd read a lot of them. But now that seems suspicious too."
Maybe he knew so much because he was Siu himself—the one who'd come up with the whole concept of manga. From the strange coincidence that Siu appeared right after I started drawing, to all the other odd things lining up perfectly... she couldn't help but suspect.
"...That makes sense. But that's all just circumstantial evidence, isn't it? When you spoke earlier, you sounded almost completely certain."
"There's one more thing I need to apologize for.... When I said I'd wait in your dorm room and went in for a bit, I secretly rummaged through your things."
"What!?"
Of all people it had to be Rosaria, so Nia must have left her waiting without any suspicion. In that time, she'd checked my belongings to see if I was really Siu. And it seemed she'd actually found something. I'd cleaned up pretty thoroughly for the most part, but there had been so many days I was working in a rush that I couldn't be sure.
"I found a manuscript in progress inside the copier. It's pretty hard to claim you were just delivering your master's manuscripts in that situation, right?"
"...Yeah."
I must have accidentally left a manuscript in there. I'd organized and hidden everything else, but I never hid the equipment itself. And of course there was a manuscript inside it, so I'd gotten caught.
"Okay. I get it. Yeah, and you're right. I am Siu himself."
"...Really? Is Cali really Artist Siu?"
"Yeah. I never intended to deceive you guys.... At first I just started working anonymously."
But then Artist Siu's art suddenly became insanely famous. People started assuming I must be some great archmage, and somehow I'd become this incredible figure. Suddenly saying I was that person felt a bit... off.
"So somehow I just kept going with the story that I was handling my master's work for him, and it led to this situation. It's less that I deliberately deceived you and more that you two were the only ones who found out."
"Th-then... The Elf Who Dreams of Sex with Orcs Is Frustrated Today Too was drawn by Cali? You thought of all of it and drew it yourself?"
"...That would be the case."
"Hauuu...."
Orca clutched her head and started thinking hard, looking thoroughly confused. Thankfully, since the situation had been explained reasonably well, she wasn't getting angry about being lied to. That was a relief.
Sigh. I'd never planned to deceive everyone forever, but I hadn't expected it to come out this quickly either. My feelings were all over the place.
"Wait a second. Then was Ria's whole meltdown about wanting a baby related to this too?"
"A little. Honestly, even though I'm closest to Cali right now, I thought I might lose out to her and Yuria. Just looking at Happiness Springs from the Chest from back then, you clearly love huge breasts way too much."
"Ah...."
Fuck. Looking at it this way, I was starting to feel like I really was the bad guy here. Of all times to draw a manga like that, why did Rosaria have to find out about it. Of course, it was true my tastes leaned heavily toward big breasts, so I couldn't really argue. I thought small breasts were fine and charming too, and I really liked Rosaria—but if I had to be honest, I preferred big ones.
"Well, with nothing but these massive milk tanks around constantly seducing you with their lewd bodies."
"Eh, ehh?"
"There's no way a secretly perverted Cali could hold out. And the uniforms themselves are pretty sexy too."
"Sorry for being a pervert."
"It's fine. I like you including that side of you."
With all the explanations and conversation finished, Orca quietly pulled out The Elf Who Dreams of Sex with Orcs Is Frustrated Today Too and started reading it. A strange silence settled over the club room, and since running away felt weird, I just sat there reading the room.
"Sorry, Cali. I have a lecture now...."
"Yeah. Go ahead."
I saw Rosaria off, thinking she was pretty impressive for having seduced me into sex before her lecture even though she had class. My semen was probably still inside her, and she was going to sit through a lecture like that. Pretty hot. Maybe I should draw something like that later?
"Cali."
"Yeah?"
Orca stopped reading the manga and looked at me with an incredibly embarrassed expression. I had no idea why she was suddenly acting so cute. Don't tell me she was treating me differently because she thought of me as Artist Siu instead of her friend Cali? That would be a little uncomfortable.
"Don't worry too much about me being Siu. I'm still just your friend Cali."
"I-I know that. It's just, um...."
"Yeah?"
"At first I was really shocked that Cali was Siu-nim.... But when I thought about it carefully, I feel a little relieved."
She was relieved that Siu-nim was as good a person as she'd imagined. And relieved that she didn't have to stop her feelings, so her convictions could stay intact.
...I didn't really understand the first part, but the second part made absolutely no sense at all?
"W-wah!?"
"Haa, haa...♡"
"H-hey, Orca?"
She suddenly tackled me and knocked me over, panting heavily, leaving me completely flustered. Why was she suddenly going off the rails again?
"I... I think I like Cali. But I'd decided to live for Siu-nim, so I was going to give up on that personal affection. But, but...! Those two are the same person?"
"W-wait a second, Orca?"
"Then if I just offer myself to Cali, everything gets solved, right?"
Someone please save me.
A crazy huge-breasted half-orc beauty is trying to rape me.