Kroon
Kroon
A Dog of Flanders was one of the picture books that stayed with me most.
For a children's picture book, it dealt with everything from wealth inequality to the prejudice born of people's distorted gazes.
It was a work with a far stronger social-critique edge than a fairy tale.
To deliver the shock I'd received to readers in this other world, I focused on drawing it, even changing my art style.
Especially the sacred painting by 'Rubens' that the protagonist Nello wanted to see one last time before he died.
I poured everything I had into drawing that highlight of the work.
The sight of radiant light descending and gently enveloping the goddess.
The people kneeling in prayer beneath that goddess.
And finally, Nello, dying with Patrasche in his arms as they gazed up at the massive painting containing those images.
To draw a single scene that would remain in everyone's memories, I had to burn myself up too.
The more beautiful the Rubens sacred painting I created anew, the more wretched the protagonist and Patrasche would look in contrast.
After coming to this other world and starting to create the works I'd known, I'd felt a kind of debt, and I wanted to repay it through this work.
It wasn't a grand goal. I simply wanted to repay, in some small way, what had allowed me to pay off my family's debt and live by making the manga I wanted.
To help create the slightly happier world for children that the great authors had dreamed of when they made their picture books.
I just wanted to contribute to that, even a little.
"And this one will probably make people cry in a different way."
The storyboard work for volume 2 of Iron-Blooded Alchemist, which I'd been working on alongside A Dog of Flanders, was also nearly finished.
I'd cut it off at just the right spot, so I was already excited at the thought that people would be dying to see what came next.
When I was young, the only way to read manga was renting them from a manga rental shop.
I remembered how popular manga volumes had special reservations for regulars before a new release.
To think I could share that experience of desperately wanting to read the next part as soon as possible with the people of this other world.
'Though drawing Patrasche and then having to draw a dog in Iron-Blooded Alchemist too does feel a bit off.'
How was it that I was drawing two dogs and both had unhappy endings?
『"You'll come play again tomorrow, right, Ed?"
"Yeah, Nana. I'll come again tomorrow, so wait for me."
"Okay!"』
Looking at the final scene of the volume 2 storyboard, it was truly devastating.
Perceptive people would probably feel a sense of dread, but even so, predicting the next scene wouldn't have been easy.
Even I, reading this scene, honestly couldn't have imagined 'that scene.'
***
"This isn't it! Looking at the moving parts here, it's clearly made by twisting dozens or hundreds of thin iron strands together to form the joints."
Kroon had been holed up in the village smithy for days, working on an object shaped like a human hand.
At first, the local blacksmith was dumbfounded when Kroon barged in asking to borrow the forge, but he'd allowed it, secretly wanting to see the dwarven craftsmanship he'd only ever heard about.
From that day on, Kroon had hammered away like a mad dwarf, obsessed with recreating the Golem Prosthesis.
The manga didn't show its detailed operating principles, but its appearance was drawn in detail.
He'd attempted the work thinking he could figure out roughly how it moved, but the difficulty was higher than expected.
"Damn it, if only I had slightly better equipment and materials."
Kroon didn't want to blame his environment, but the quality was so far below the furnaces and tools dwarves used that it gave him a headache.
If he had his way, he'd return to the Dwarf Kingdom right now and make it, but Sena weighed on his mind.
He hadn't yet properly repaid her kindness, and dwarven pride wouldn't allow him to just leave. Besides, volume 2 of Iron-Blooded Alchemist was coming out soon.
He also really wanted to see it.
It was made by a human, but he couldn't recall anything in recent memory that had excited him as much as that manga volume.
Beyond simple entertainment, it was an incredible work with something that awakened his inspiration.
'The Golem Prosthesis.' It was a magical item that existed on the continent, but the one in the manga looked completely different from the existing ones.
Ordinary Golem Prostheses only let people hold simple objects or walk if they'd lost a leg.
But the Golem Prosthesis in this manga was different. It looked just like a real human arm or leg, didn't it?
Among his fellow dwarves, there were often those who lost limbs in mining accidents or battles with monsters.
Those dwarves could no longer mine minerals—the very reason dwarves lived—or work as blacksmiths, so many lost their will to live and became shells of themselves.
His close friend 'Keron,' a promising artisan, had been one of them.
Keron, who lost his left arm after being crushed by rocks in a mining accident, could no longer work as a blacksmith, and after that he spent every day drinking his time away.
If he could create this new type of Golem Prosthesis, he could give hope to Keron and to his other disabled kin. With that thought,
Kroon had worked day and night for days, but something was still missing.
'The author might know something.'
The operating method, structure, and materials used in this new Golem Prosthesis.
There were many parts too elaborate to be made up as simple fiction. Which was why he'd been inspired to attempt making it in the first place.
'No, the manga said it was a secret technique of the dwarven clan, so there might really be a dwarf with the author.'
Dwarves generally didn't leave their kingdom, but monster attacks while working in the mines occasionally caused disappearances.
He himself was one such case, so one of those dwarves might be with the author.
Surely the author had heard about the glass coffin from Snow White or the Golem Prosthesis from Iron-Blooded Alchemist from that dwarf?
Kroon decided he needed to meet the author.
But—
"What? You want to meet the author?"
"Yeah, kid. That guy definitely knows something."
At Kroon's words, Sena told him what she knew.
"They say the author is a noble from the southern region."
"A noble?"
"Yeah! So commoners like us might not even get to meet him if we went—we might get in trouble!"
Sena truly believed that.
Even Viscount Haksen, the lord of the Stolvar Territory where she lived, would drag her parents and the villagers into dangerous work at every opportunity.
On top of that, he raised taxes every year for all sorts of reasons, and if the territory's residents complained, he punished them brutally.
If she went barging in on the young master of a count's house, someone of even higher rank than Viscount Haksen, something truly terrible might happen.
"Tch, humans really are disgusting! How can those in power commit such outrages?!"
"Dwarves don't do that?"
"Well..."
Kroon had nothing to say to Sena's question.
Because the Dwarf Kingdom honestly wasn't much different.
There was no noble class, but powerful families existed in the Dwarf Kingdom, and they were called the Twelve Families.
The tyranny those Twelve Families committed felt similar to what Sena had just described.
The hard and dangerous mining work was done by dwarves not affiliated with the families.
But the best ores and tools went to the Twelve Families.
Many dwarves were dissatisfied with this situation, but their power and influence were so immense, and it was a tradition passed down since the kingdom's founding, that in the end everyone resigned themselves to it.
"Anyway, the author is the only one who can answer my questions about this Golem Prosthesis, so I'll go find him."
"But you need money to go find him, you know?"
"Huh?"
"Our Stolvar Territory is in the west of the empire, but Goldpool Valley, where the author is, is in the south."
"What does that matter?"
Sena answered Kroon's question with an incredulous expression.
"The empire is huge! If you walk from the west to the south, it might take months."
"That's a problem..."
"To go, you'd use the Magic Tower's Teleportation Circle."
"Teleportation Circle?"
"Yeah, I've only heard about it too, but they say if you use the Teleportation Circle inside a Magic Tower, you can move anywhere in an instant, no matter how far!"
Kroon was thinking he could simply use that when Sena added one more thing.
"But it's super expensive!"
After that, rumors spread from a village smithy in Stolvar Territory that weapons of incredible quality—unseen even in the imperial capital—were being sold.
***
"I trust you deeply, but this is not something for you to step into."
Jorge couldn't help trembling at the imperial princess's tense expression, the first he'd seen since being selected for the imperial family's covert guard.
Covert guard.
Unlike the knight orders that protected the imperial family in the open, these were people who hid in the shadows.
Handling the imperial family's secret affairs, they took immense pride in being the imperial family's hidden sword.
Jorge's heart still raced when he recalled being selected for the covert guard after graduating from the Imperial Academy with excellent grades.
Secret missions. Honestly, they were far cooler than ordinary guard duty.
After being trained as a covert guard and assigned exclusively to the imperial princess, Jorge felt great pride.
The imperial princess, called the Flower of the Empire, was honestly more worth serving than the Crown Prince, the heir.
That imperial princess had been troubled for some time now, so he'd pleaded with her to entrust him with any task, without hesitation, if he could be of any help.
But the imperial princess refused, saying she couldn't drag him into such a matter, and that only made Jorge burn hotter.
"Your Highness! I am prepared to follow any command from you, whether a trivial errand or a mission that stakes my life!!!"
"Please, just give the order."
Jorge sensed it. This was the mission that would begin the grand epic he'd been waiting for—one that would stake the fate of the imperial family.
'Could she be thinking of surpassing the Crown Prince and taking the position of Crown Princess?'
No, that didn't suit Her Highness.
Right, maybe she'd noticed some covert force targeting the imperial family and was preparing for it.
Countless flights of imagination unfolded in Jorge's mind, and at last, after checking her surroundings once more, the imperial princess spoke in a tense voice.
"...May I truly ask you for a personal favor?"
At last, the imperial princess had answered Jorge's earnest request.
"Entrust me with anything! That is the only thing I desire."
"Then I shall ask. Obtain for me the limited edition of Iron-Blooded Alchemist Volume 2 that comes out next Friday!"
"Excuse me?"
And so, the first secret mission of Jorge of the imperial covert guard was decided.