by Sakon Kaidou
When criminals got on a country’s wanted list, they could no longer use its save points. Save points were places such as the fountains here in the Kingdom of Altar, and they existed in all the cities, towns, and villages of all the seven countries. After getting a death penalty, players respawned at a save point they’d already “marked.”
Getting a death penalty while not having any available save points would have the player respawn at the gaol.
I found that to be completely reasonable.
We Masters could get the death penalty, but besides that, we were completely immortal. The system needed a way to deter players from repeatedly committing crimes every time they respawned.
Mind you, for the wanted lists to work, the tians had to know the offenders’ names, faces, and crimes. Also, even if they were put on a wanted list of one country and died there, players could always respawn in any other country, provided they had marked save points there. Such “escaping” was currently being used by Goblin Street — the clan responsible for besieging the west side of the capital, and the only group that had gotten on the wanted list because of it.
From what I’d heard, strong Masters who were criminals in some countries were sometimes kept as potential soldiers in case of a war by the other ones.
Now, some crimes were so grave that they got players on the wanted lists of all the seven countries at once, banning them from all the save points everywhere. Such cases were extremely rare, and few people had to worry about that happening. However, being someone who’d seemingly kidnapped royalty, I was now one of those “few.”
Oh, what am I to do? I thought as I looked at the princess as she continued eating the cotton candy.
“Hm? What is it? Why are you staring at me so? Do I have something on my face?” she asked.
“Just a bit of cotton candy,” I answered as I took it off her cheek and ate it myself. It really is sweet.
Anyway, for now, she was under the effects of my Disguise and Illusion combo. It wouldn’t be easy for people to notice that she was the princess. I could’ve also used Presence Manipulation to make us stand out less, but that might’ve had the opposite effect due to stronger people realizing that something was off, so I refrained.
All right, now why did the princess wander about the city all by herself? I thought.
From the fact that the guards were searching for her, it was safe to assume that she had sneaked out for some sightseeing.
Well, that would be another way this situation is similar to the one in Roman Holiday... I wonder if this city has a Mouth of Truth. I’d do what they did in the movie, put my right hand inside and...
No. I’m a tremendous liar, so it’d instantly get bitten off.
“You haven’t said anything for a while. What are you thinking about?” asked Elizabeth.
“Oh, nothing,” I answered. “Just some things that might be slightly comedic to the audience.”
“Comedic?”
All right, now back to why the princess is here, I thought. At this point, talking to her seemed like the best way to find out.
“Oh, we’ve yet to introduce ourselves,” I spoke up, being careful not to make it obvious that I knew who she was. “I’m Marie Adler.”
“I see! So your name is Marie! I am Elizabeth, the second princess of this country!”
...She actually had no intention of hiding it.
Why the mask, then? Did she just want to wear it?
“Umm, why were you in the streets, princess?”
“I was told that Gideon is an exciting place!” she declared. “However, my attendants did not let me go outside, so I escaped to have a pu-pleasure jaunt!”
And thus, it was confirmed that she really was just sightseeing. Not only that, but she’d done it without even trying to hide her identity, like any normal child just walking out to play.
How bold of her.
“That must’ve been quite the great escape,” I said.
“Indeed! Timing it was hard.”
Would the timing really have been enough for her — a princess — to successfully slip through? Should I be worried about this country? I thought. Well, I obviously should, considering it’s been on a decline ever since the war....
“Today, I intend to spread my wings! However...”
“What is it?” I asked.
“When you found me, I was actually lost... Thus, I would appreciate it if you guided me around...”
It now made sense why she had been in that back alley.
As for her request...
If I stayed with the princess, they might assume that I’d kidnapped her and arrest me. However, the idea of leaving this adorable, socially-unaware girl all by herself was far more worrying to me than getting arrested. I also felt that there was more to this than it seemed.
“Why, certainly. I’ll guide you around,” I said.
“Really?!” asked the princess.
“Yes. I never lie.”
Apologies. That line itself was a lie.
When asked about what kind of places she wanted to go to, Elizabeth said simply, “Anywhere that’s riveting!”
As was natural for duel city Gideon, the most popular tourist spots here were the arenas, but I was quite apprehensive about bringing a little girl to a place so thick with the reek of blood.
Well, it wasn’t like the arena barriers let any smells reach the audience. Also, no matter how severely damaged the participants were, they would come out completely unharmed once the battle was over.
The barriers sure are useful and convenient, I thought.
According to the setting, the barrier-equipped arenas hadn’t been made by the kingdom’s tians. All thirteen of them had been there since ancient times, and a city had merely happened to be built around them.
A barrier that could make the most critical of wounds simply disappear was extreme tech for both magic and science, and being able to replicate it would cause far too many people to take advantage of it. That was surely the reason why the devs had made it into a lost technology that no one could copy.
The barriers weren’t the only pieces of such tech, either. There were the relics from the pre-ancient civilization and Granvaloa’s underwater ruins, among many other things.
Anyway, with the arena being out of the question, I decided to bring the princess to the nearby plaza.
Just like on the main road, stalls were placed all across the area, but that certainly wasn’t all. I could see street performers such as musicians, artists, and fortune tellers, as well.
“Wow! Is this a festival?!” the princess voiced her excitement.
“Many people with various impressive skills gather here,” I answered.
There were the staples such as jugglers and people balancing on balls, but I could also see Masters entertaining people by using their Embryos.
What I found particularly eye-catching — or, rather, ear-catching — was the musical ensemble. It consisted of four people — no, one person and three creatures. A man wearing a bird-like hat was swinging a conductor’s stick, a centaur was playing a violin, a cat sìth was blowing into a flute, and a kobold was hitting a drum. Quite a peculiar band of performers, indeed.
What was even more peculiar, however, was the fact that, despite there being only three creatures playing, the resulting music was like that of a large-scale orchestra. Their act enchanted not only the passersby, but some of the other street performers, as well. Indeed, the music was downright beautiful, especially once you got over the fact that it was an orchestral arrangement of a classic super robot anime opening.
I felt like I was listening to an elementary-to-middle school orchestra contest or a Koshien cheering song.
“Such a powerful melody,” said the princess.
“Indeed it is,” I agreed. It’s Mazinger Z, after all.
“Are those monsters and a horse-man?” she asked.
“No, I believe it’s a Type Legion Embryo,” I answered.
“‘Legion
’?” she asked.
Legion was an Embryo type that evolved from the base category of Guardian. Its main feature was the fact that it was basically multiple Guardians in one. That multiplicity was exactly what made the type interesting.
For example, you could have an Embryo that was basically a “We are the Something’s Elite Four!”-kinda thing, where they were few, but strong. You could also have an Embryo that was hundred-strong swarm of weaker creatures. They both would be categorized as “Legion.” Quality and quantity meant nothing for this type.
This band was definitely focused on quality.
My Embryo — Arc-en-Ciel — was Legion, but I wasn’t quite sure what it was focused on. It could go both ways, honestly.
“So that is an Embryo,” said the princess.
“Yes,” I nodded.
“I always thought that Embryos were only meant for fighting.”
“Embryos are based on their Master’s minds, so they’re not always created with battle in mind,” I said. There were actually quite a few Embryos that didn’t have a single fighting-related skill.
It wasn’t particularly surprising, really. After all, they always reflected people’s personalities and experiences. However, with that considered, I couldn’t help but grin in self-derision at the fact that my Embryo was so battle-focused and what it implied about my mind.
The band was done performing, so after we gave them their due applause and money, we went to do other activities.
That included eating ice cream and scooping goldfish-like monsters, both of which were common things in the Japanese festivals I was familiar with and didn’t seem the least bit special to any common citizen here. And yet, the princess looked like she was having tons of fun, as though these seemingly meaningless activities were a true treasure to her.
“Let’s go to the painter next! I want to be drawn!” she squealed.
“Don’t you get portraits regularly?” I asked in response.
“I do! But they look too serious! Also, they don’t look like me! I’m not that scary!”
Apparently, the little princess had a little trauma going on.
I guess that’s how most portraits appear to children, I thought. That Beethoven in the music room is a good example, but let’s not get lost in thought again.
“I can draw you, princess,” I said. In fact, I was the only one that could. She was under the effects of my Illusion skill, so if we let a random street artist draw her, the person on the result wouldn’t even be her.
“Hm? You can draw?” she asked.
“Yes. Not only that, but I’m quite confident that I’m better than the average Painter.” That was a non-battle job that had Drawing within its skill repertoire. Its effect was technical support that helped Painters draw lines to form pictures as they desired. However, people who already had the skill in real life didn’t need any support from such skills. I was one of them.
Skills such as Drawing and Cooking, ones that players could replace with any technique and flair they had in reality, were called “sense skills.”
Another example of this would be the Detective job’s “Inferring” skill. It allowed the user to understand the tricks, clues, and evidence surrounding various incidents. But people who were skilled detectives in real life had no need for it.
Not like I was aware of any such players, but still.
“Anyway, you can trust my drawing ability,” I said confidently. “I’ll make you look very cute!”
“Very well! I shall believe you!” The princess sat down on a bench in the plaza and straightened her back. That bearing made her seem truly princess-like.
“And you are very right to do so,” I said as I reached into my inventory to take out a sketchbook and my drawing equipment.
The sketchbook was opened on the page with a shirtless dog-eared Ray sketch.
...The princess must not see this, I thought as I skipped a few pages.
I put a lot of effort into drawing her, so it took me about ten minutes even without coloring, but I was quite satisfied with the result. It had to have her likeness, but since she didn’t seem to like proper portraits, I avoided making it too realistic and just used my usual art style.
“Well, what do you think?” I asked as I sat down next to her and showed her the sketch.
“Wow! It’s so cute! Is this really me?” she cried.
“Yes.”
With the original being so adorable, making the drawing cute was easy, and the result had come out very naturally.
“Marie, you’re amazing! You beat scoundrels! Run on walls! And can even draw!”
“Oh no, I’m really not that impressive.”
“Are you able to do this because you’re a Journalist?”
“Ah, no. My drawing ability has nothing to do with my job.”
“Why can you draw, then?”
The reason for my artistic ability? Well...
“I used to be a manga artist on the other side.”
◇◇◇
Nagisa Ichimiya
I began drawing manga — or, rather, simple illustrations — when I was in the later years of elementary school. It all started when a friend invited me to join an illustration club.
Naturally, the club had books that described the proper ways to draw manga illustrations, so I began reading them and put the knowledge I received to the test. As I repeated that, I eventually became able to draw manga in a proper format.
At first, I tried drawing a story that was far too grand for a newbie such as myself, and I ended up giving up after about three volumes’ worth of pages. Two of those volumes were actually nothing but setting descriptions...
Despite my first work being so shoddy, I didn’t give up on drawing manga, and after learning from my mistakes, I began drawing ones that were complete with just single chapters.
The only people who saw them were my friends in the illustration club, which became the manga association when we entered middle school. However, as I continued drawing those shorts, I eventually became good enough to have my friends suggest that I send my works to a contest.
Figuring I had no reason not to, I sent one out, and though it didn’t make the cut, I didn’t stop sending my contributions.
This continued for about five or six years, until the winter of my second year in high school, when a certain award chose the work I submitted.
It was the first shonen manga I’d ever drawn. My previous works had all been shojo manga heavily focused on love, and this shonen work had merely been something I’d drawn on a whim.
It had gotten put in a certain magazine as a non-serialized story, and, supposedly due to good ratings, the editorial department had approached and invited me to ask whether I’d like to serialize it. At first, considering that I’d drawn it on a whim, I didn’t actually think that I could continue it. However, when I gave it a try, the drawing went so smoothly that I felt as though my pencil was moving on its own.
The story continued without a hitch, and by the time I graduated, instead of going into higher education, I decided to become a manga artist.
I was worried whether I’d made the right decision, but my parents were fully supportive of my choice. They told me to live the life I wanted and offered to help me whenever I needed it.
That moment made me cry a bit.
Thus, I became a manga artist with a series in a monthly magazine.
At first, there were a lot of things I wasn’t used to, and adjusting to them was quite a challenge. I even had to do research for my work by getting into martial arts and buying airsoft guns. When my parents happened to visit me, they said that I was being very boyish, but that was one of my very dear memories now.
The serialization went smoothly for more than two years. My work was pretty popular, too. Not enough to be the magazine’s flagship title, but definitely in the top five. I even had hopes that it could get adapted into an anime after a year or two.
And that was when the magazine’s publisher went ba
nkrupt.
The cause was a business failure in divisions besides the one responsible for manga. And yet, the magazine was canceled, forcing my first series to end with its first part.
I was absentminded for a long while after that. There were entire hours... days... when I was just lying around and whispering, “What do I do now?” to myself.
However, there was a silver lining, as I got approached by an editor from a different magazine, offering me to continue my manga there. With the publisher’s bankruptcy, other magazines began competing for the newly-unemployed artists and their works, and my manga happened to be among those.
I asked the editor to give me time to think, but definitely not about the answer to the offer. The answer to whether I wished to continue my series was a resounding, “Yes! Of course!” But I had another major problem I had to consider.
It was the fact that I could no longer draw it.
I had simply become unable to continue my manga series.
Right after the forced end of its first part, my vision of the work’s protagonist, Marie Adler, had gone completely still. No matter how hard I tried, drawing her just didn’t feel the same as before. She seemed to have become completely inanimate. Forcing myself to draw her made me feel as if I was a puppeteer using strings to move a corpse.
I was going through a so-called slump. As though I’d forgotten something I could do as easily as breathing, I became completely unable to continue drawing my manga... Marie’s story.
Eventually, this extended to any other stories I attempted, rendering me incapable of completing the simplest of one-shots.
I’d spent my entire life being absolutely serious about manga. I’d drawn my works with all I had. And yet, that had gone away in a flash.
I did everything I could to try and regain my touch. Thinking that it would help me gain a new perspective, I used my money to travel the world and made attempts to gain new skills, like cooking, handicrafts, and koryu. However, all of that failed me, making me more than aware that I could no longer draw stories as I was.
“Oh, God. Please give me a possibility that isn’t my own. Let me draw her story... Help me understand her,” I prayed.
