Kingdom of Ice
Kingdom of Ice
"How many months has it been since I drew manga?"
It had been a long time since I'd drawn specifically for manga rather than illustrating a picture book, and I couldn't hide my excitement.
Since I'd become a webtoon artist in the first place because I loved manga, drawing manga got me so fired up that it didn't even feel like work.
First, while the artisans researched and developed the materials and tools, my job was storyboarding.
Manga is a genre where text carries extremely little weight. Because of that, the basics are to drive the story with dialogue and character actions alone, so what people commonly call panel distribution was important.
The work of laying out and arranging how to distribute the panels of such a manga while setting up the composition is called storyboarding.
'Reading from left to right is the most natural.'
As the first step of that storyboarding, I needed to decide the direction.
It differs for each type of manga, but it's best to plan on the premise that it's basically read from left to right.
That was because of how the language was written. This world's script ran horizontally, just as most writing systems on Earth did.
The one country that uniquely insists on vertical writing is Japan.
Because of that, manga from Japan—the country you could call the home of manga—had the peculiar structure of being read from right to left.
'People reading manga volumes for the first time really struggled because of this.'
In the first place, people prefer reading from left to right, so it couldn't be called a good method.
Once the reading order was set, I had to decide how to divide the panels.
A page can occasionally have more than 10 panels, but that's unusual; around 8 usually makes for the easiest reading.
I was free to make all 8 panels the same size or vary them however I wanted.
Whatever you do, as long as it isn't uncomfortable to read and it's fun, it doesn't matter.
That was one of the biggest reasons I loved manga.
A genre pared down to the extreme for one purpose: entertainment.
No matter how good its content is, if it isn't entertaining, it will be poorly received.
Even if there's no particular content, if it's just fun, then it's a masterpiece—that was the world of manga.
'Panel distribution like this... no, here I should narrow the spacing and show an overlapping format....'
This was one area I was confident in. My paneling ability was one of the reasons I'd been chosen by a publisher in my past life to adapt The Imperial Family's Youngest Son into a webtoon.
The process of taking scenes that came to mind while reading a source novel or watching a film and putting them down on paper.
As I did, the right panel layout came to me almost automatically.
Apparently my paneling had been pretty good; people had praised how smoothly my webtoon read. That skill hadn't left me.
But I was weak at creating original stories, so I'd also been described as an artist particularly suited to adapting existing works into webtoons.
'Even after possessing someone in another world, inspiration I never had doesn't come gushing out.'
Even the fucking Monkey's Paw didn't give me any talent for creating stories.
I had no choice but to create Kingdom of Ice, which had a source, instead of creating something from nothing.
'That doesn't mean I can just copy the source story word for word.'
Picture-book stories were already established classics, so changing them however I pleased would have felt more like disrespecting the originals.
For the manga Kingdom of Ice that I was going to draw this time, making it exactly like the original wasn't right.
I needed to preserve the basic framework while adapting the details.
'The dual-protagonist aspect is charming, so I'll leave it as is, and I'll have to adapt the setting to fit this world.'
It seemed workable. Elza and Hanna were appealing because their personalities contrasted with each other, so I would keep that. And since magic really existed in this world, an ice witch's curse would be plausible.
Elza, cursed by an ice witch to freeze everything, and the king and queen who confined Elza out of fear that she would harm people.
Hanna, who knew nothing and only believed Elza was dead, in a situation where she would inherit the throne.
'I'm honestly curious where the limit of this body's drawing skill is.'
While storyboarding, I found myself marveling all over again at just how unfair Rupert's drawing talent was.
Ordinary picture-book illustrations and manga art were different beasts. Manga art had to simplify the drawing as much as possible while still making each character distinctive.
Yet his drawing ability handled even that perfectly. At this level, the art really was worthy of a manga god.
In no time, I had settled on manga-friendly designs for the characters and begun storyboarding around the plot.
***
Lately, the Somerset artisans had been horrified by Rupert covering the workshop windows with blackout curtains so sunlight couldn't get in.
'Sunlight? Are you kidding? People only need water and bread. We're not plants. I can get all the sunlight I need after the work is finished.'
Rupert's remarks made them wonder whether Master Rupert had become a vampire, but unfortunately that suspicion vanished when they saw him gulp down Vitality Potions made by the Order as if they were water.
The artisans were terrified every time Rupert drank a Vitality Potion as if it were a fine wine.
They were people too, so when they were tired and worn out, they had marveled at the existence of the Vitality Potion that helped them regain energy and had drunk it without knowing any better.
'Uh... why is my head spinning? Blegh!!!'
The dizziness and nausea that hit after a while were so awful that one dose was enough to make them never want to touch the stuff again.
To the artisans, Rupert was an incomprehensible monster for drinking the stuff like water.
He was also particularly picky about product quality.
'Hm... there's a big problem with this paper.'
'What?!'
'The problem is that paper like this has only come out now!'
'Right? We really made it all night.'
'If I'd seen this earlier, I wouldn't have let you leave work last time. Again!'
Did Rupert know that the paper artisan's knife had flashed behind his back after he turned away?
Still, the reason the artisans hadn't revolted so far was that the person working the most in the workshop was Rupert.
They would leave work with him still sitting at his desk drawing, then return to find him in the same place still drawing. It was enough to destroy their sense of time.
Even while drawing, he constantly checked the other artisans' work, gave feedback, and discussed business with the company head.
The surprising thing was that he did all of that while playing with Rupert's younger sister, Ada.
With their superior—and a noble at that—taking the lead in working, there wasn't a single artisan shameless enough to say they were too tired.
"Here, this month's wages."
"Master Rupert, this is more than last time. There must be some mistake...."
The artisans checked the amount in the wage envelopes Rupert handed them and immediately pointed out what they assumed was a mistake.
Their wages were already generous even by the standards of artisans in the capital.
This month's pay was even higher, so they were sure something had gone wrong.
"It's not a mistake. There was especially a lot of overtime this month, so I included all of it."
"Master Rupert...."
The artisans actually had no intention of complaining even if they were paid far less than this.
From what they heard of other territories' situations, tax increases happened every year without fail, and there were countless cases of people being called out for the lord's private work, suffering, and not even getting paid.
On the other hand, Count Bradley Somerset, the lord of the artisans' territory, had never once raised taxes even though the financial situation had greatly worsened after the war.
He never exploited the artisans for private work either. That was why the Somerset household was poorer than other noble families, but the people of the territory respected the count more than anyone.
Even if Rupert, the heir of the count they respected, worked them hard, they had intended to endure it as a way of repaying the count's kindness.
But since he instead took care of them like this, they couldn't possibly have complaints.
"Well then, since we got our wages today and we're in a good mood, let's do an all-nighter for the first time in a while!"
"What? We did one yesterday too, didn't we?"
"It's been a whole day. That's a long time. We've got too much new work to waste time arguing over unimportant words."
But when they saw him say only what he wanted to say and then run off, they sometimes felt something surge up inside them.
Still, the artisans, already accustomed to this situation, suppressed that surge and quietly returned to their places and began hammering away.
***
"You've been working hard, Master Rupert. This time I spoke directly with the imperial chief steward and secured the funding."
"That's a relief. At least they didn't try to fob us off with something like a plaque of appreciation again."
"Master Rupert, I hardly think an imperial plaque of appreciation qualifies as "something like that"...."
A plaque of appreciation that I couldn't sell and couldn't eat was nothing more than an anti-counterfeit sticker to me.
"The funding for an additional latest-model Magic Tower printing press for mass production, along with the research expenses, has all been approved."
The company head walked me through the purpose of each grant and the itemized expenses.
"You really did sneak things in."
"Of course. I like spending other people's money too."
Among the usage details, items for our merchandise business were mixed in here and there, wrapped up in plausible wording.
The necessary equipment and tools weren't just one or two, and if we tried to acquire all of them, we'd have to spend all the money we'd saved up so far.
So I'd discussed it with the merchant company head and decided to buy them with the imperial household's support funds.
Since all of it could plausibly be used to make manga, nothing looked suspicious on paper. We could raid the imperial treasury with a perfectly straight face.
Just looking at the list was satisfying. It felt like I'd finally paid back a little of my grudge over the elf-made fertilizer.
"But the outcome of all this depends on your work, Master Rupert."
"That's right. No matter how much we put the Imperial Princess out front, since we received this much support funding, if things go wrong there's room for us to be held accountable."
"Still, I'm certain of it. The manga you're creating, Master Rupert, will have an even greater impact than the picture books."
Our original plan had only been to produce a text-heavy book in picture-book form and distribute it under the Imperial Princess's name. The reason we'd expanded the project this far was—
the company head had seen my manga manuscript.
Convinced the manga would succeed, he had proposed taking advantage of the opportunity to secure a huge amount of imperial funding.
He confidently argued that using it to cover the merchandise operation would let us move much faster, and I agreed.
"By the way, how far has the work progressed?"
"It's about 70 percent done now, and once the artisans develop the necessary tools, it's almost finished."
"The speed is remarkably fast."
"No, I'm still unsatisfied. It's just that the artisans look so exhausted that they can't recover even with Vitality Potions, which is a shame. Do you happen to have any Healing Potions?"
"Master Rupert, Healing Potions regenerate wounds. If a healthy person drinks one, it will only make them hungry."
Tsk. So there were areas that even this world's mysteries couldn't handle. Wait, then what about the Order?
"If we brought a priest from the Order and had them perform healing, wouldn't we be able to go without sleep?"
The company head stared at me as if I had just said something monstrous, and I hastily withdrew the suggestion.