Those Who Walk Upon Time (1)
"Thanks, Orca."
"For what?"
"You didn't tell your parents that I was Shiura or anything like that."
"If I had, all hell would have broken loose. I've got that much sense, you know!"
So she did.
Of course, I already knew Orca was surprisingly good at reading the room more often than not. It was just that when she went into full rampage mode, that kind of consideration never crossed her mind — or that she often didn't even realize she was supposed to be reading the room in the first place.
"So when are you going to put me down?"
"I'm planning to carry you all the way to the dorm like this."
That would be a little embarrassing.
Though to be fair, the fact that she wasn't piggybacking me the way I'd hoped but had me in a princess carry instead made it even more embarrassing. Still, being held like this meant I could bury myself against Orca's enormous breasts. And watching her jump and get all flustered whenever I casually brushed her nipples was pretty fun.
"You don't have to go this far, you know."
"You said it yourself, Cali. That we look out for each other. So I wanted to do this too."
Unlike you earlier when you couldn't even walk, I can walk just fine, so it's a little different, isn't it?
Anyway, I'd already gotten my fill of selfish pleasure buried in her chest in that position, so I was satisfied.
Ha, fuck. Next time I get the chance, I want to tell her not to pump her milk in advance and just come over so I can suck her dry. Honestly, the way Orca completely loses it while spraying milk is insanely hot...
"Want to do it?"
"Huh?"
"You keep playing with my chest. And you're hard down there, so I figured maybe you wanted to."
"I'd be lying if I said no, but if we don't get back soon, we're going to have to write incident reports for breaking dorm curfew."
"That's a shame..."
Besides, we both had roommates. Doing it in the dorm wasn't really an option. Last time with Rosaria had only been possible because Senior Furia had deliberately made herself scarce.
It was a little disappointing, but better to set a proper date later.
"Ah, Cali, you're ba— wait, huh?"
"I'm back."
"...Did you get hurt? Are you okay?"
"Ah, no, I'm not hurt. I carried her on the way there, so she said she'd return the favor on the way back."
After we arrived at the academy, everyone who saw our reversed male-female pose shot us looks that basically said what the hell is that, but Orca's breasts were more important than that kind of embarrassment.
I also figured people would just write it off as the magic department guy and the swordsmanship department girl thing. Though lately there had been rumors spreading that the comics club was basically my personal harem...
Can't really argue with that one. It's a fact.
Regardless of how seriously we all loved comics, the truth was that all three girls in the comics club had developed that kind of relationship with me. What I found unfair was how the rumor had escalated into "any girl who joins gets conquered as his." That made me sound like some blond, tanned playboy thug.
"Phew, so you're not hurt anywhere, then?"
"Yeah. Thanks, Orca."
"I should be the one thanking you for coming with me today."
After sending Orca off and stepping into my dorm room, Nia — who hadn't been able to ask for the full story while Orca was still there — carefully inquired about what had happened. I explained that while her father's health had taken a turn for the worse, it wasn't as serious as it could have been.
Though when they'd actually contacted the academy, his condition had probably been genuinely critical. Orca's father had tried not to mention it too much with her there, but thinking about how he'd said it would have been dangerous if the response had been any later, it must have been pretty bad at the time.
"Still, it's a relief he recovered so quickly."
"Yeah. And Orca got better fast thanks to that, too."
But as Orca herself had probably realized, this was only the opening skirmish.
For Orca's father — a man said to possess Sword Master-level skill — to end up in that state just from sharing a bed with his wife... It meant the limits of his lifespan were starting to put a direct strain on his body. It was a warning shot that similar health scares could come for any number of related reasons down the line.
Lifespan, huh...
Hearing about Orca's father collapsing this time made me realize there was a part of this relationship I'd completely overlooked.
Whether you looked at the common sense of this world or the standard settings of fantasy novels, orcs were usually depicted as muscle-bound, hypersexual characters with permanently angry cocks. And underlying that setting was the racial trait of short lifespans and rapid breeding rates.
So a short-lived orc falls in love with an elf, a race famous for their long lives. I had never once considered what kind of ending that would lead to.
Then again, it would be stranger for a work that started from wanting to draw elf-and-orc sex scenes to be packed with that much existential angst.
But for this sequel...?
I'd already wanted to include a serious episode for the final stretch of this sequel. Somehow, I felt like tackling the subject of lifespan in that episode would be perfect.
The concept I'd been pushing in this work was the passage of time, shown through Half growing up. It fit that concept while properly capturing the kind of worries an elf and an orc would actually face. It seemed like a great theme.
"Okay, then. We'll push that section with that material."
In that case, it would be best to start planting related foreshadowing little by little after Half becomes an adult. I'd gradually apply changes to the orc's appearance so he looks a bit older, and include light expressions of health warning signs like what Orca's father went through this time. Of course, nothing as dramatic as collapsing — just light anecdotes of him struggling a bit.
"Hmm. I've got the basic flow of the work figured out now."
Meaning it was time to start on the actual manuscript. The detailed plot would need more adjusting, but some of that only came into focus once you started drawing, so I should begin with sketches.
"And..."
There were a few things I was still mulling over separate from the main story itself. Namely, I wanted to offer some solid merch or pre-order bonuses for this work too.
I'd honestly had so much fun selling the womb tattoo merch last time that I wanted to make something that fit this work just as well.
"The cover's already done, so I want to make something with a different atmosphere from that."
The cover featured the orc and elf as the main focus to show it was a sequel to the previous work, with a composition showing the whole family including their daughter Half's adorable childhood self. That was enough to make it clear what story would continue from the previous work while instantly conveying the healing atmosphere of the early chapters.
So for the merch or pre-order bonuses, the natural approach would be to touch on the darker content from the later parts.
After thinking it over for a bit, I figured out how to express that. The biggest problem was that I had no way to actually implement it.
"Hah. Should I just give up on making it as merch?"
To realize the idea I had in mind, a single image needed to look like two different things. The technique we'd used in a previous club project was optimized for that kind of picture — drawing in black and white on transparent glass and swapping out the background color.
But while that would let me express what I wanted well enough as an exhibition piece, the fact that I couldn't make the merch I'd been most hoping for was a real shame.
Wait, weren't there other techniques for making one picture look like multiple things? Besides the lighting and background swap method?
...Hold on. There was that.
As if on cue, the printing technique called lenticular floated up in my mind. A method of printing so that different images appear depending on the viewing angle.
I'd sold merch before that used it to make cards with a slight holographic feel. It was a fairly advanced technique that I couldn't reproduce as-is here. More precisely, I realized I could use the principle behind the technique rather than the technique itself.
Lenticular works by placing something like a transparent lens over the image so that, depending on the viewing angle, the light bends through the lens and only certain parts of the picture become visible. In simple terms, it uses the convex shape of the lens to hide parts of the image without it being obvious.
So if instead of hiding it seamlessly, I just hide it in an obvious way, I can implement it just fine.
The obvious-hiding version is basically just drawing a picture on a staircase. When you look from above the stairs, you only see the continuous image on the floor portions. When you look from below, only the wall portions of the stairs connect to complete a different image.
If I rotate that concept so it changes depending on whether you're looking from the left or the right, that should work.
Same picture, but it looks different depending on where you're standing.
If I set up the exhibition space carefully, I should be able to pull off the expression I want reasonably well. The downside is it looks a lot less clean than other methods, but the upside is I can draw it in full color.
And the most important thing is that this method requires no special technology at all — it's just a picture folded into a staircase shape. Print a clean copy, fold it, and you can reproduce it in miniature.
Which means I can sell the exhibition piece as small-scale merch?
And since the exhibition can be done with large-scale copies rather than the original, I can give people in every region an experience close to the real thing.
"The more I think about it, the better this sounds."
And for the pre-order bonus, I'd give out something like a viewing ticket for the exhibition. Since people wouldn't just throw away a free ticket, it would naturally encourage them to go see the show.
And if I design that ticket cutely enough to use as ticket-style merch later, I can even take pre-orders based on that design...
This is a genuinely perfect plan where everything locks together.