The Sequel
The Sequel
"Sister, are you really going to do this?"
"Yes, I really am."
The Third Imperial Prince, Edric, was frustrated. He wasn't asking for anything unreasonable—he'd simply asked for the illustrations.
He hadn't expected his sister to refuse so coldly.
"I'm not asking for the book itself, am I? I'm only asking you to share the enclosed illustrations."
"You're the one who doesn't understand. If that were the case, people would buy the hardcover edition. Who would buy the limited edition?"
Edric was struck speechless by the Imperial Princess's scathing rebuke.
He couldn't argue back, because he had been too ignorant.
'What? The limited edition coming out this time includes illustrations drawn by the artist himself!'
When Edric heard the news about the <Kingdom of Ice> limited edition, he had thought he absolutely had to get his hands on it.
There was no way Elza would be missing from special illustrations the artist had drawn exclusively for the limited edition. Better yet, they were illustrations by the artist's own hand.
'Elza, just wait a little longer. We'll meet soon.'
For Edric, who hadn't been able to escape thoughts of Elza ever since reading the manga volume, this was an opportunity he absolutely could not miss.
But his assumption that fifty copies would be plenty had been his undoing.
On the day the limited edition went on sale, he had sent a servant to buy the book, and was shocked to hear that the waiting line had already exceeded two hundred people.
He had sent the servant at the crack of dawn just in case, and he couldn't believe that had still been far too late.
But there was still hope.
He had come straight over after hearing that his older sister Iolin had succeeded in purchasing the limited edition.
She clearly had no intention of yielding the illustrations.
His sister normally had no material desires, and she readily yielded her possessions to him, the youngest, so he had assumed this time would be the same.
That had been a ridiculous assumption.
"Mine is a limited edition with a single-digit number that I secured by sending my personal attendant a full two days in advance."
Watching Iolin flaunt the limited edition against her chest as though deliberately taunting him—when she had no intention of sharing it—made Edric seethe.
The number engraved on the limited-edition book: No. 7
For a custom-made edition, he could have simply ordered a separate one made for the imperial family, but this limited edition was numbered up to exactly fifty copies and sold on-site.
Even as a member of the imperial family, his only option was to purchase it in person.
"Damn it, why did the artist only sell fifty copies? It would have been better to just sell a few hundred."
The Imperial Princess Iolin Bell, who heard Edric's furious outburst, thought to herself.
'If he had, you wouldn't be longing for it as desperately as you are now.'
Iolin had been purchasing picture books for a while now, so she knew how fierce the competition was.
Especially this time, she had prepared as soon as she heard the information that sales would switch to first-come, first-served for fairness, so she had been able to buy the limited edition.
Without even looking at her fuming younger brother as he retreated, Iolin admired the limited-edition <Kingdom of Ice> once more.
The picture books had been good, but this thing called manga suited her tastes even better.
Because the story unfolded through pictures, everything was immediately easy to take in. She found that wonderfully refreshing.
'What kind of work will he create next?'
As anticipation for the next work grew, she wanted to summon Rupert right away and talk about this manga and the sequel.
'No more! Absolutely not, Your Highness the Imperial Princess!!!'
But she was blocked by the desperate opposition of Aiton, the head attendant, who insisted that visiting or summoning an unmarried young male noble would only spread unsavory rumors, and begged her to restrain herself.
So Iolin swallowed her disappointment and was about to read the book again when her departing younger brother suddenly turned around and spoke to her.
"Ah, now that I think of it, our eldest brother was heading to the imperial palace audience chamber this morning. Do you know what it's about?"
Her brother? Iolin tried to recall if anything had happened recently, but nothing involving the Crown Prince came to mind.
However,
"If he went to the audience chamber, he'll be in a foul mood for a while again. Be careful for the time being."
At Iolin's words, Edric quietly nodded and left the residence.
***
"Have you no shame? Your younger sister Iolin's project to eradicate illiteracy among the people of the empire has achieved remarkable results."
"Is this not the sort of work you should have undertaken as Crown Prince?"
Under the Emperor's pitying gaze and frustrated tone, Crown Prince Alex could only bow his head and keep his mouth shut.
At first, anger had welled up.
That Iolin—if she wasn't going to take the right of succession, she should just stay quiet. Why did she keep creating incidents that made him look like a fool?
Why did his father, the Emperor, keep him in the position of Crown Prince and tell him every day that he could succeed, despite knowing he was unfit to be Emperor?
Who would ever want to be born as the Crown Prince? If he had his way, he wanted to escape this position dozens of times a day—it was maddening.
Today as well, he had assumed that the project his younger sister the Imperial Princess was running was clearly aimed at mocking him, and had gone to his father the Emperor to nitpick the literacy eradication project, only to be scolded instead.
And so now, nothing but resignation remained.
The emotion of anger only springs up when there is something left to burn.
Crown Prince Alex no longer felt anything even when he heard reprimands.
He simply bowed his head and repeated "I apologize" like a parrot.
"Ha... It seems the burden is too great for you. Take some time to cool your head and tour the provinces to see the state of post-war recovery."
"...Understood. I shall take my leave now."
Alex bowed politely before his father, who was pressing his temples as if he had a headache because of him, and turned to leave.
He had thought he had no anger left to burn, but facing his father's pitying expression again today made his chest feel tight.
In his eyes, this thing was clearly an object the Imperial Princess had created to humiliate him.
Why was it that the people around him, even his father, were frustrated, asking how he could not see what a great achievement this thing was?
A name flashed through the Crown Prince's mind.
The man who had answered the warning letter Alex had sent while trying, at least, to preserve appearances.
'Rupert Somerset.'
As he recalled the formally worded yet astonishingly rude letter, which had essentially told him to take any complaints to the Imperial Princess,
the Crown Prince found a target for his pent-up anger.
"Very well. I'll meet the creator of this manga in person and see just how impressive it is."
The poor bastard had simply been unlucky enough to catch the attention of a Crown Prince whose reputation could hardly get any worse. Still, he had brought it on himself, so there was no one else to blame.
"Attend me. There is a place I intend to visit soon."
"Your orders, Your Highness."
"By order of His Majesty the Emperor, I am to tour the provinces. We shall begin with the southern region."
"I shall prepare as ordered."
Imagining the face of that insolent fellow contorting seemed to improve the Crown Prince's mood a little.
***
"Damn it, what rotten luck—of all things, to run into a Tunnel Snake!"
The dwarf Kroon felt wronged.
Of all the things to encounter while mining, it had been a Tunnel Snake—something said to be as rare as a dragon in the western mountains.
His fellow dwarf miners had already all scattered and fled from the mine in every direction.
Kroon had also fled frantically from the Tunnel Snake and ended up on the surface, and even after that, he had run desperately to escape the Tunnel Snake's vibrations.
"Where in the world am I?"
Underground, a dwarf like him could find his way with his eyes closed. On the surface, however, he had trouble keeping his bearings.
The entire west was mountainous, and he didn't even know which mountain held the mine where they had been working. After wandering for ages, he had exhausted himself completely.
'My legs hurt, I'm thirsty, and if I could just have a glass of dark beer, I'd have no other wish.'
The Tunnel Snake had also grazed his thigh. The wound bled even when he was still, and all that frantic running had torn it wider until he was losing a dangerous amount of blood.
With the thigh wound, thirst, and hunger combined, even the hardiest dwarf found it difficult to stay conscious.
'Ah... no, if I collapse here...'
The underground was the domain of dwarves, but the surface was the domain of other races.
If a monster found him, he would become dinner. And those damned pointy-ears? They'd check whether he was dead and finish the job if he wasn't.
'Humans? They're the most dangerous.'
Humans were worse still—the most numerous race on the surface.
Humans were the race that had once kidnapped dwarves and used them as slaves.
He'd rather die than be dragged off as a slave and forced to make weapons—that was horrifying.
Fortunately, after the Great Race War, laws had been passed banning the enslavement of other races, so incidents were rare these days. Even so, dwarven distrust and resentment toward humans remained deeply rooted.
"Damn it, is this as far as I go?"
His vision began to spin. The strength was gradually draining from his entire body, and it was now hard even to stand.
"Oh! It's one of the Seven Dwarfs!!!"
The last voice he heard before losing consciousness.
It sounded like a child's voice, so he turned to look, and there was a human girl smiling brightly at him.
"N...no, humans are..."
But that was the end of Kroon's consciousness.
***
Recently, Amelia had developed a hobby of sitting on the terrace and reading books whenever she had free time.
Of course, every book she read was by the same artist.
<Kingdom of Ice>
It was the latest book she had been reading. This strange thing called a manga volume consisted almost entirely of drawings by Rupert, whom she liked.
But every time Amelia read it, her thoughts became hopelessly tangled.
'Why does every story seem to point to me?'
Amelia felt that she could sense Rupert's feelings in this book.
Elza, the older of the protagonist sisters, who handed the throne to her younger sister and stepped down.
It mirrored her and her younger sister—the two sisters of the Bluewell Ducal House—perfectly.
It seemed as if he was telling her to cast off the heavy shackles of a ducal house and be with him, but then she stopped her delusion, thinking it was just her imagination.
As Amelia read the manga volume, she envied Elza, who left without hesitation.
Because she could not do what Elza did.
Her younger sister Evelyn was only five years old, and she could not place the heavy burden of a ducal house on such a young sister.
Suddenly, she remembered when they had met at the last banquet.
The sight of Rupert greeting her with a bright smile.
The bright smiling face of someone she had thought was cold looked unexpectedly affectionate.
Was it too presumptuous to think that smile might be only for her?
'The Academy... if only at the Academy.'
She knew these feelings could never have a proper ending. Even so, the academy would be the last stretch of freedom she was allowed.
Could she share this feeling with him, even just then?
She remembered Rupert's answer that he would also enroll in the Academy, and her heart fluttered again.
It was winter.
***
"Achoo!"
It was winter, so I hadn't gone outside because of the cold and had just been holed up in the studio—had I caught a cold?
A sneeze suddenly burst out.
"Ah, even I can see it's really well drawn."
My worry about the cold was brief. I looked at the completed pattern and felt satisfaction.
I had been agonizing over how to improve the existing alchemy transmutation circles because they lacked flair.
The Rune Script I had noticed in the Fundamentals of Magic book Ada had been carrying turned out to be exactly what I needed.
Mixing a few Rune Script characters into the plain Transmutation Circle produced a design that looked convincing at a glance.
Of course, since I was a complete novice who knew nothing and just drew it to look cool, it would have no actual effect, but what mattered was that it looked awesome.
Moreover, since I had properly mixed both the transmutation circle and Rune Script, even someone knowledgeable in both would probably find it plausible on the surface.
"Now if I just draw the characters and settle a few setting details, I can start working right away, can't I?"
I was excited at the thought of creating a new work with alchemy as its motif, but I was also suddenly afraid.
If I were drawing the manga that served as the motif for this new work exactly as it was, that would be one thing.
But would a new work recreated to fit this other world based on my meager memory actually be popular?
Moreover, while all the works I had made so far had been wrapped up in a single volume, this work was something that absolutely could not be finished in one volume.
It would be my first series.
I had no choice but to suppress my worry and anxiety and keep working.