"External job...?"
Eli pondered for a moment, then shook her head.
"No, that's still quite far for us, right?"
"Eli-chi is right..." Nozomi chimed in with a grin. "At the very least, we can't think about that until we've completed our studies."
Homura suddenly smiled.
"Well, given how many works Another Dimension has, external jobs? You can only think about it."
Upon hearing this, the girls fell silent.
In all honesty, what Homura said made a lot of sense.
After all, they had heard about his first manga getting an anime adaptation soon, and there were plenty of other ongoing works, not to mention the works of Utaha, Muramasa, Elf, and Nayuta.
In addition, Mashiro was also working on her own manga. If all of them were to get anime adaptations, it wouldn't be enough even if they doubled the workforce!
After all, not only were they not full-time voice actors, but their primary focus was also on their studies. Furthermore, their free time outside of studying was mainly dedicated to various practice sessions.
If it weren't for Homura noticing their enthusiasm, he probably wouldn't have requested them to be his circle's voice actors.
In the end, he wanted them to be happy above all else.
Just like Elf, who tended to procrastinate when she lost interest in writing, he didn't plan to force her to complete it but tried a different approach.
—Feeling uninspired and don't want to write? Well, let me find a way to make it interesting for you.
Such was how he dealt with situations like this, as he had done with "Kill Me Dance" before.
If Elf was happy, would she still need reminding to complete her task?
Being forceful could only result in unwillingness and potentially a decrease in the quality of their work.
In other words, just let things flow smoothly!
===
The next day.
Homura was still on school leave, working with the male voice actors.
By morning, the others had completed their tasks, but Homura had quite a lot on his plate since he handled the two most talkative characters in the game.
It wasn't until the afternoon that all the recordings for male characters were finally completed.
Homura checked the time and realized he didn't have enough time for anything else, so he prepared his bento for the day and headed to another recording studio.
In the evening, the recording progress for the female characters had reached more than halfway, though Umi and Nanami hadn't even completed half of their tasks.
However, Homura wasn't in a hurry.
He calculated that with two more days, they could finish by Thursday.
In other words, tomorrow Wednesday, they could officially announce the game's release date!
===
Wednesday.
At this moment, Elf and Nayuta watched Homura's continuous bustling around, feeling completely lost.
They observed Homura, who was busy moving things.
What was he doing anyway?
A frying spoon, an iron pot, a steel bowl, metal chopsticks, an iron bowl, a mop handle, a towel, bedsheets, foam padding, and so on—he carried all these things into the music room.
"Nii-san, what are you doing?"
Sagiri asked while holding Haru and watching Homura's constant activity.
"Sound effects." Homura replied briefly.
"???" Sagiri was confused.
"..." Muramasa stayed silent.
"Whoa!" Elf's eyes lit up. "Homura... Is this for fighting scenes?!"
"Hou? You know your stuff." Homura replied with a smile.
It could have been done with musical instruments, but he decided to make it more entertaining because he wanted to have some fun.
"I want to see!"
As expected, Elf had a weakness for interesting things.
"Alright, no problem." Homura nodded. "Everyone can come in if they want, but you must remain absolutely silent. Can you do that?"
"Don't worry, Senpai! I won't make a sound, absolutely!" Nayuta assured, patting her chest.
Elf and Sagiri nodded vigorously, and even Muramasa showed some interest, clearly wanting to see what Homura had in mind.
===
In the music room, as Homura arranged various items, Sagiri and the others stood obediently on the side.
Before long, he began tapping different parts of the items with various objects.
"It sounds pretty chaotic..." Elf murmured softly as she held her phone, recording the sound she was hearing. "I wonder how he's going to handle it later..."
"Do you want it to sound like something?"
Without turning around, Homura asked calmly before continuing to make chaotic sounds.
Meanwhile, Elf felt a bit embarrassed upon hearing his question, as she had promised to remain silent but couldn't resist speaking.
When Homura finished manipulating the items and turned to look at Elf, she nodded and answered his question.
"Yup!"
"Well, wait a bit." Homura nodded.
To record various sounds, such as the earth cracking, Homura had to use unconventional items to produce sounds that couldn't be created naturally.
After all, he couldn't possibly crack the earth, right?
Following his skillful operations, the sound effects for the fighting scenes were soon ready for integration into the game.
Finally, a short piece of sound effects was created to meet Elf's request.
"Alright, you play it yourself."
Homura beckoned his hand to Elf.
===
Later, Elf posted the video she had recorded on her blog.
[Yamada Elf: Unexpectedly recorded sound effects! (Attached Video)]
[Comment 1: Yo, check out what I just found!]
[Comment 2: Looks kinda like what we found before.]
[Comment 3: Seriously though, isn't this just clickbait? I'm seeing a bunch of kitchen stuff.]
Five minutes later.
[Comment 4: ...Wait, are you saying all these sound effects were recorded like this?]
[Comment 5: No way! I can't take those epic battles seriously now. Just imagining metal chopsticks and spatulas clashing behind all those epic fights cracks me up, LOL!]
[Comment 6: LMAO, is Minamiya-sensei the only one doing this? Are any other pros up for the challenge?]
[Comment 7: Hang tight, I'll upload one for you guys in an hour!]
And so, the online discussion suddenly veered off course because of Elf's video.
Many people, like Homura, started creating all sorts of artificial sound effects, and some even streamed two people fighting each other with chopsticks and spatulas!
A short video sparked a wave of excitement and went viral.
Nonetheless, this wave of excitement provided Elf with a lot of amusement.
Meanwhile, as Homura was about to announce the game's release date, he noticed that many people were mentioning him, which left him a bit puzzled.
'Well, I just wanted to have some fun...'
Homura scratched his head, wondering if he should also post the video of himself using pots, pans, and ladles as drums.
...
[Minamiya: Seeing everyone having so much fun, I kinda feel bad for butting in. What should I do?]
[Comment 1: Hey! Minamiya-sensei is here!]
[Comment 2: Yo, didn't see that coming! Thought something huge was about to go down when you showed up.]
[Comment 3: Honestly, isn't our fun thanks to you? You started the whole trend, after all.]
[Comment 4: Yeah, don't play innocent. You were the one who kicked it off.]
Homura chatted with his followers for a while, and when it seemed that most of their attention was focused, he finally prepared to make an official announcement for 'Fate/stay night'.