Happiness Springs from the Anal (3)
"So you're saying that... anal plug? Anal plug thing? You really think that could make money?"
"Yes. It overlaps perfectly with the concept that hot springs are good for you. We could establish ourselves as a massive tourist destination for women."
She kept pushing her plan at high speed, steadily wearing down the village chief's half-belief, half-doubt. In cases like this, as long as you could lock in the quality, the earlier you claimed the territory the better the results. Being first always carried a powerful image.
"It'll cost a lot of money, though..."
"I'll handle all of that. All you have to do is keep up with me."
"Haa..."
The chief looked like he would rather not face such a sudden upheaval, yet because of everything I had already done for them he couldn't bring himself to refuse outright and kept fretting. I was absolutely certain about this project, so I even offered to shoulder every failure cost myself and forced the matter through. In the end, the village improvement project began.
Thrilled, I threw every last day of this year's vacation into the village and poured all my time into the project.
"W-we're supposed to greet guests in clothes this revealing? Isn't that dangerous?"
"Don't worry. Most of the customers you'll be handling this time will be women."
"...What?"
They had clearly assumed that sexy outfits meant catering to men at a higher intensity. My words left them looking a little startled. Men could still come, of course, but solo male visitors would be extremely rare. I planned to accept only parties where at least one reserved guest could use Back-View Magic. Given that the majority of mages were women, the gender ratio would naturally skew female. Couples, though—those would probably show up now and then.
"For now, some specialists are going to examine your bodies a little. That's all right, isn't it?"
"Specialists...?"
"People who make various ornaments out of fiber. They're going to cast exact replicas of your ear shapes and tails for the decorations."
That was the core of her plan. The beastkin staff who already had ears and tails would greet guests in thoroughly charming outfits and let them enjoy the hot springs—while we sold headbands molded from those very ears and anal plugs molded from those very tails. Beyond that, we would stock the onsen with every other item related to anal training, turning the place into something like a holy land of anal masturbation. The staff themselves would not perform any sexual services; they would simply provide genuine hospitality and guidance while displaying their own beauty.
"You might see some unsightly sights. It could get a little dirty. But you've already been dealing with that ever since you started managing the hot springs."
"...Well, that's true."
"Honestly, from where I'm standing, every one of you in this village is gorgeous. You have every right to be confident."
Even the handful of people who still visited the onsen were mostly men who harbored ulterior motives toward the girls. In a real sense the village was surviving on looks alone. So what if we sold that beauty in a slightly different way?
"You'll be changing into all sorts of sexy outfits often. And we'll sell the clothes too."
"W-wait a second. So you're turning us into..."
Walking clothes hangers. That was the idea. With their pretty faces and the unique presence only beastkin could offer, they would inspire longing—make people want to look just as beautiful. Non-beastkin would then buy the outfits, headbands, and anal plugs to imitate them. That was the goal.
"Even if you're not a beastkin, you can still do something similar. But the fact that you are beastkin is what gives these anal plugs their special value."
A special anal plug you could only get here. And the design was based on a living, moving model. Anyone who had recently been living inside manga would find the situation impossible to resist. It would feel like being sucked into a comic, browsing the world inside it, then buying the merchandise and going home.
And to make them feel like they've stepped into the manga world, I have to make it seem as if anal masturbation is already completely normal and basic here.
Even after the manga Happiness Springs from the Chest became popular, there hadn't been this many nipple-play products right from the start of the boom. They appeared gradually because people needed them. We would claim that entire product space at the village level, preparing everything so it felt as if this manga world had always existed. Travel was about experiences different from everyday life. People seeing it for the first time would forget whether or not it had anything to do with Artist Siu and simply fall in deep.
Once word of mouth exploded and the place became a hit, even if real life later became saturated with anal play, this village would still be remembered as the original. Steady visitors would follow naturally.
"Th-this goes in the anus!?"
"Yes. But you must never recommend it to beginners."
Of course we stocked every anal dildo and anal plug that had appeared in the manga, plus a few variations I could invent myself. Even if the main attractions were the hot springs and selling the tail-style anal plugs, those "dead-serious about anal" details had to exist as a matter of course so guests could accept the village atmosphere without any sense of dissonance.
"Wow, the samples are really pretty."
"Y-you're saying we put this in our butts and use it like a tail? Why would anyone do that?"
"Because it feels good."
"...Not painful?"
The mere act of the tail swaying meant the plug was teasing the inside of the anus. Once properly trained, that produced pleasure rather than pain. Even without the pleasure, simply being able to wear a tail when your species never had one was, for humans who loved decorating themselves, a pretty appealing new option.
"Do humans really like decorating themselves that much?"
"You all like decorating yourselves too."
"We do, but we don't like designs that step outside our species."
"Your racial traits are clear-cut. Humans have the fewest of those traits, so they're greedy enough to think they can do anything."
"Ahh..."
I figured there was a bit of a mindset difference there. Honestly, I had spent a long time living among humans, but I wasn't human myself, so I couldn't be completely sure.
"Looks like everyone's getting the hang of it now. A little more practice to polish it, and you'll be ready to take guests."
While everyone practiced according to the guidelines I had set and learned everything needed for hospitality, I began drawing a manga to promote the village. I didn't draw all that often, but the experience I had soaked up over the years still produced something surprisingly cute.
"Phew. I'll put this on display and get it distributed as fast as possible."
Because I had drawn it in a rush, the story was very short and there was no color cover—just black and white. Still, it perfectly explained the village's transformed hot springs while naturally planting our goals. We set the first hundred copies free, then kept selling them at cost after that. With only the opening day we had already written into the work left to wait for, we refined every last detail of the preparations.
In a World Where Erotic Comics Are Legal
"Cali! Cali!"
"Huh?"
"Look at this. They're giving away free manga books here!"
"...Free? Ah, looks like the first hundred copies are free."
Calling it a manga book was generous—it was basically thin paper folded several times, the visual of someone pinching every last coin. In exchange, even after the free hundred the sale price stayed extremely cheap. Cheap enough that if you got curious while walking past, buying one wouldn't hurt at all.
"They won't make any money off the art like that. Trying to build name recognition?"
That didn't quite fit either; the quality of the drawings wasn't especially high. Decent enough art, and a story that seemed to borrow heavily from my latest work about anal...
Wait. Anal Onsen?
"Is this... a promotional manga for something else?"
"What's a promotional manga?"
"They want to sell something other than this comic. So they're practically giving the manga away as advertising."
"Ahh."
The address was printed right there, along with an opening date. The whole point seemed to be getting people to visit a hot spring called the Anal Onsen. But did that mean everything drawn in the manga actually existed—at that onsen?
...An absurd variety of anal goods sold as if they were the most natural thing in the world. Cosplay items so you can imitate the beastkin who work there. And those items are tail-style anal plugs.
Even as pure fiction the story would have been pretty unique. But if they had actually built it in reality and were only using the manga as promotion? Then they had created something truly extraordinary.
"Reservation condition: at least one person actually entering must be able to use Back-View Magic."
"Huh? Isn't that the magic from Cal— I mean, from Artist Siu's new work?"
"Yeah... these people are completely insane..."
If you wanted to visit their onsen, you basically had to go read my manga Happiness Springs from the Anal first. And from the promotional comic, it didn't look like a small hot spring—it looked like an entire hot-spring village. Had they literally torn a whole village apart and rebuilt it just to fanboy over my manga?
That was actually kind of terrifying.