Chapter 118: The Publication of Rush
Chapter 118: The Publication of Rush
And on one side of the cover, there was a large illustration of the famous spirit Pikachu. Gamers had mentioned it before, but it seemed the Spirit Stone manga really was included.
He wanted to open it and read it immediately, but his lunch break was not long. Standing around reading a magazine in such a crowded bookstore would inconvenience both the customers and the store, so he restrained himself and headed to the counter.
That evening, Tulupan was tired from working all day and being harassed by his superior, but the thought of reading Rush inside his bag put him in a good mood. This was one of the reasons he bought manga during lunch breaks.
Of course, even after work, the ordeal of being crushed by the crowd inside another packed bus still remained.
After barely reaching the apartment where he lived alone, he felt utterly exhausted. At the same time, he felt light and relieved at the thought that all he had to do now was rest without any more hardships.
He passed through the old stairs and hallway before reaching his door. After unlocking it and stepping inside, the room was as cold as the hallway, but familiar enough to draw out a sigh of relief.
“Ahh!”
He immediately took off his uncomfortable dress shoes and changed into slippers, then roughly tossed off his outer clothes. After gathering his indoor clothes, he first went in to take a shower.
A little while later, having changed into comfortable clothes, he threw himself onto the sofa and finally took out Rush.
Somehow, just looking at the unrealistic art style of manga seemed to soften his mood.
He was usually the type to search for the manga he liked first, but since this was a new magazine, he simply began turning pages slowly from the first page.
“Ah. This is that art style.”
The first work was a heroic tale set in a medieval background.
Its protagonist was a boy with monstrous strength, and the art style looked familiar. Soon, he realized it belonged to a work that had appeared in Gamers’ manga section.
Tulupan slowly turned the pages.
It was not bad.
No, it was fun.
It was only the first chapter, but the way the protagonist swept away approaching hardships with overwhelming strength was truly satisfying.
He wondered how it would develop from here.
He would probably keep reading this one.
The other works were also good.
The subject matter and art styles felt somewhat different from existing manga, but rather than feeling alien, they felt fresh.
There was also quite a bit of science fiction. The story about building a giant robot to stop an alien invasion felt unrealistic, honestly, but it was interesting.
If this were a novel, I probably wouldn’t read it, but seeing it drawn makes it different.
There was also a gag manga, and the way the exaggerated characters and story clashed chaotically was perfect for laughing without thinking.
As he ate snacks and drank Zail, he kept chuckling.
He liked this gag manga the most.
It felt like his stress was melting away.
But since it was only one chapter, it was not very long, so he turned the page again with regret.
“Ah. This is it.”
Next was the Spirit Stone manga advertised on the cover.
It did have a separate title: Tomorrow’s Grand Spirit Master.
But the atmosphere was somewhat different from the game.
The game’s protagonist felt motivated and idealistic, but the manga’s protagonist seemed slightly sloppy from the art style alone.
And the actual content was the same.
In the first battle, the protagonist kept making mistakes and got beaten up by the spirit for a while. Then the spirit pitied the protagonist and simply let itself be captured.
After that, the protagonist became smug, thinking it was because he was amazing. The scene was expressed so comically that Tulupan actually laughed out loud on the sofa.
It was a kind of comedy with a different rhythm from existing manga.
After finishing it, Tulupan admired it enough to return to the first page and check the author’s name.
Verna?
It was a name he had never heard before.
He seemed to be a newcomer.
Tulupan was delighted.
Since such a talented newcomer had appeared, he felt like the artist would draw many entertaining manga in the future.
No, he decided not to get too greedy.
He only hoped that Verna would at least keep drawing this Spirit Stone manga steadily.
And so, Tulupan spent an enjoyable time lying on the sofa.
The editorial department of Rush.
This department, spun off from Gamers, was located in a small building near Gamers’ office. If Ras’s building had been completed, it would have moved there, but the building was still under construction, and the magazine had been launched because of the Spirit Stone manga issue, so they had no choice.
The editor-in-chief, Rumproll, was a young man who was only thirty.
Though because he naturally looked older and had recently stressed himself over creating the inaugural issue, he looked about forty.
In any case, he was sighing in relief.
That was because he had heard that reactions to the inaugural issue of Rush were not bad.
Because of his somewhat timid personality, the pressure had been immense, so rather than feeling happy, he felt relieved that he had not ruined it.
“Please relay this to the authors as well. They must have been anxiously waiting too. And take good care of them so they can submit their manuscripts for the next issue without any problems.”
Being timid did not mean he could not do his job.
No, he handled his work with his own particular attentiveness.
That was also why he had been selected as editor-in-chief.
Meta Soft’s development room.
The launch of Rush was also a topic of conversation among the other companies under Meta Soft.
Of course, games and manga were different genres. But perhaps because both were means of enjoying leisure, many people who liked games also liked manga.
And the Graphics Team in particular was even more interested because they were also people who drew pictures.
Pana, especially, had originally aspired to become a manga artist, so her attention had been focused on it ever since rumors of the launch began circulating.
At first, she had briefly wondered whether she should participate as a manga artist too.
But when she thought about both development work and drawing manga, she could not even imagine handling both.
Of course, if her identity as a manga artist had been stronger, she could have quit game development and joined as a manga artist. But by now, her identity as a game graphic designer had already solidified.
I’ll think about it later if I ever leave this place.
After that vague thought, Pana read the manga magazine with a lighter heart.
“This is surprisingly fun.”
Garazt said that to Aspa while showing him the Spirit Stone manga.
There were relatively many people interested in manga, but this was still a game company, and Spirit Stone was something they had developed, so most attention naturally gathered on Tomorrow’s Grand Spirit Master.
“Right? It was pretty funny.”
At first, the atmosphere was so different that it felt somewhat strange.
But as they read further, it was funny, and it felt as though they were seeing the world of Spirit Stone from another perspective, giving them more room for imagination.
It somehow felt like that world had become broader.
In this way, both Rush and the Spirit Stone manga were able to make a good start.
This manga was definitely effective in promoting Spirit Stone.
After all, computer games were enjoyed by only a limited group in this world.
But manga had a much lower barrier to entry, so despite being a manga in a newly launched magazine, many people came to recognize the Spirit Stone IP through it.
“Do spirits like this really exist?”
Clement, a third-year elementary school student, had been reading the manga for a while when he spoke to the friend beside him.
His friend had already finished reading it first and was now reading another magazine.
“Come on, it’s a manga.”
“That’s true, but we’ve never seen real spirits anyway.”
“Hmm. That’s true.”
His friend had learned that manga was not real, but he did not know exactly in what way it differed from reality, so Clement’s counterargument quickly left him speechless.
In any case, it was truly fascinating.
If one had that Spirit Stone, one could have spirits as friends, though honestly, they seemed more like subordinates than friends.
Still, one could have them.
On top of that, raising spirits to defeat enemies was appealing too.
Physically weak children naturally admired strong power.
That was especially true for boys like Clement.
“By the way, did you know this has a game too?”
Clement was blankly imagining the world of spirits when his friend suddenly said that.
“Huh? Really? But I didn’t see it at the arcade.”
For children, which came first did not matter much.
The important thing was that something this fun as a manga also existed as a game they could play directly.
Clement often went to arcades.
Because of that, he knew all the many games in the arcade.
He searched through them one by one in his mind but could not recall any game similar to Spirit Stone.
“Of course. It’s not an arcade game. They say you play it on a computer. It’s a role-playing game, like Myth of Salvation.”
“Ah…”
Clement nodded as though he understood.
Now that he thought about it, Spirit Stone did feel somewhat unsuitable as an arcade game.
No, if it were a versus game, maybe it would be fine.
Go! One Million Volts!! Something like that.
Clement, who liked the idea of battling with spirits, immediately imagined spirit battles.
He did not know such a thing actually existed through the network.
Then he soon remembered that his house also had a computer.
It was complicated to use, and the game his eldest brother played had such strange graphics that he had not been interested in it.
But if he could play the Tomorrow’s Grand Spirit Master game on it, he thought he might ask his eldest brother to let him try it.
A few days later, Clement excitedly chattered to his friend.
“Hey! Spirit Stone is really fun!”
“What’s that?”
“You know, the game for Tomorrow’s Grand Spirit Master.”
His friend widened his eyes and asked again.
“Huh? You played that? What’s it like?”
“Well, the drawings aren’t great, but you really capture spirits with Spirit Stones, raise them, and fight. Oh, and you can fight other people over the phone too!”
“The phone?”
His friend tilted his head, wondering whether players made phone calls and shouted skill names at each other to fight.
“No. It’s like, if you connect the computer and the phone, you can connect to another computer. You know how versus games at the arcade are connected to other machines?”
“Ah! Like that? Wow. But you connect to another house’s computer?”
“Yeah!”
His friend could not quite imagine how that worked, but for a child his age, the world was already full of things he did not understand.
Because of that, rather than worrying about the principle behind it, he first imagined how fun it would be to connect to another house’s computer and play together.
So the friend went home and began pestering his family relentlessly.
In this way, many children ended up getting computers and Spirit Stone.
The Republic of Smite was a wealthy nation.
Because of that, families with reasonably decent incomes could manage to acquire a computer if they strained themselves a little.
And it was not only young children.
There were also office workers who learned about the game through similar routes and bought computers.
In truth, computers were considerably expensive.
However, the Republic of Smite itself was a place without any particular crises, so rather than having a strong tendency to save money in preparation for emergencies, the country had a strong optimistic mood of, “We can earn more later anyway.”
In other words, people were not especially cautious about consumption.
So if they were genuinely interested, there was no reason they could not spend a large sum.
Without even realizing it, Ras was once again greatly raising the computer penetration rate.
In any case, as he watched Spirit Stone’s sales climb rapidly, Ras was pleased that his strategy had worked.
And he looked forward to seeing what kind of response the soon-to-be-released spirit bread would receive.
However, he had as many worries as expectations.