The Figure Maker’s Spark
Seven. The seventh talent was opening up.
Handicraft
Handicraft
Rank: S+
Active Effect: The tips of the user’s fingers come alive with exquisite sensitivity.
It intuitively reads every surrounding detail, from the finest texture to temperature and material, and creates things to perfection in a state of complete absorption.
Passive Effect: Acquires a craftsman’s spirit.
(Craftsman’s Spirit: when making handicrafts, anything less than perfect is discarded.)
"This is my first S+ rank..."
Even the artifact appraisal talent that could distinguish national treasures only ranked at S.
And yet this was S+.
There’s no question this is on a completely different level from the other talents I have.
Sure enough, after reading through the effects, it was anything but ordinary, fitting for something with the status of S+.
At the very least, it looks like I can make handicrafts perfectly.
The problem was the passive effect attached to it.
It really is a craftsman’s spirit in the literal sense.
Maybe it was something like a potter smashing any finished ceramic that didn’t satisfy him, no matter how excellent it was.
Still, handicrafts, huh...
Nothing immediately came to mind.
Pottery is pottery, but I guess it could count as ceramic craft...
But even if I suddenly became a potter and made an incredible work of ceramic art, I doubted the world would notice.
Modern art had become a world where name value mattered more than the actual quality of the work.
As for other kinds of handicraft I could think of...
All I can come up with is sticking eyes on teddy bears...
Maybe if I’d ever actually lived a cultured life, I’d know better.
I was completely ignorant in this area, so I had no real sense of direction at all.
I should sit down and think it through properly.
***
The next day.
As soon as I got to work, Assistant Manager Park came looking for me.
“Kang Assistant Manager. You busy today?”
“No, just need to check my existing work. Why?”
“Then want to go out on a field assignment with me today?”
“Where to?”
“Japan.”
“......”
As soon as I heard that, I gave a dry laugh before I could stop myself.
“You idiot. That’s not a field assignment, that’s a business trip.”
“Is it?”
He snickered and jabbed me in the side with his elbow.
“Anyway, it’s two nights and three days in Tokyo. The schedule isn’t even that brutal, so I thought it’d be pretty good. You in?”
“If it’s work, I have to go. When is it?”
“The schedule’s tight. The flight’s this afternoon. Leaves at four.”
“......I’m not going.”
“Come on, this is a real opportunity.”
Assistant Manager Park kneaded my shoulder as he spoke.
“It’s called a business trip, but honestly, it’s basically a chance to go sightseeing while we’re there. I’ve got the whole route planned out.”
There was urgency in his voice.
From the look of it, this was one of those situations where...
“......You don’t have anyone to go with, do you?”
“Well, how am I supposed to find someone on short notice...”
He gave a helpless laugh and scratched the back of his head.
“It was decided in a rush last night.”
I could roughly tell what kind of situation this was.
In advertising, it wasn’t rare to get desperate calls from clients asking for things to be prepared at the drop of a hat.
“Kang Assistant Manager, can you do me this favor? I’m really asking.”
“Sigh—”
If it were anyone else, I’d refuse without a second thought.
But it’s Assistant Manager Park.
I decided to help him this once.
“I’d need to go home and pack first.”
“Oh, that’s fine. Even the director said I should tell you that.”
“It’ll be hectic getting ready on the spot, but... Japan’s close enough that it’s doable.”
“So you’re going?”
“Yeah. Buy me a drink sometime later.”
“Of course! Thanks. You saved me.”
He seized my hand with both of his.
“Then I’ll report that I’m going with you.”
“It’s just the two of us?”
“Yeah. I’m in charge, so you just need to support me without any pressure.”
“That sounds good to me. Let’s go.”
Ah, right.
I’d almost forgotten the most important question.
“By the way, what’s the work? Is it just the two of us handling it?”
As far as I knew, there wasn’t anything currently in progress in Planning Team 3 that required going overseas.
“If the trip was planned last night, then it must be something entirely new, right?”
“That’s right. I was pulling an all-nighter by myself when the director suddenly called and got me on it. But from what I heard, the executive director gave the order personally.”
“Then we do it, I guess.”
He was basically a victim too.
“The good thing is, this is my specialty, so it’ll be smooth as long as I have one partner. The director said I could choose who to take.”
“Ah, then you and I are perfect.”
I’d been stuck just supporting the other team members after returning from the TF team, with no real assignment of my own, so this was a welcome change.
“But what kind of ad are we talking about, anyway, if it’s your specialty?”
He grinned as though he’d been waiting for that question.
“Animation.”
He even lifted his eyebrows to emphasize it.
“It’s an ad for an animation festival.”
“Oh...”
“You’ve heard of manga markets, right?”
He pushed his glasses up and, before I could even answer, launched into a rapid-fire explanation.
“It’s similar. It’s a festival where fandoms for subculture, including animation, gather. Think fan signings with famous artists, official goods, and the sale of derivative works.”
“Isn’t there something like that in Korea too?”
“There is. But it originated in Japan. Korea’s been importing the format and holding its own versions, but this time they’re trying to reshape it into a proper K-festival. So they want us to handle the advertising side and promote it.”
“I get the picture.”
If you just copied a foreign festival outright, you’d have to pay royalties, and because it wasn’t the original, attracting tourists wouldn’t be easy.
This meant they wanted to reinterpret it and turn it into something new in a homegrown style.
With a recent K-pop-related animation becoming a huge hit, they were probably trying to row while the water was high.
“I’ll share the brief later. For now, we should go on the trip, get a sense of the local festival, then hold the main meeting and nail down a concept.”
“Got it.”
Still, pretending I wasn’t worried would have been a lie.
The planning itself sounds fun, but I haven’t watched manga or anime in ages, so I’m worried I won’t get the code.
“You haven’t cared about animation at all, have you, Kang Assistant Manager?”
“I don’t think I’ve watched any since middle or high school.”
At best, if a work became a hot topic and got a movie release, I might watch it once or twice.
That was about it.
“Don’t worry. Just trust me.”
Assistant Manager Park thumped his chest with confidence.
“I’m a complete expert in this field.”
As he tugged his coat open a little, an animation character on a pin peeped out between the zipper and smiled at me with a wink.
Right.
Just looking at him was reassuring.
This guy’s passport had, aside from business trips, nothing but entry and exit records for Japan.
And when you considered that even the phone case in his hand was an animation character, he was truly an expert among experts.
“I’m really counting on you.”
***
The flight to Japan.
As always, when ordinary office workers like me went on business trips, ninety-nine percent of the time it meant economy class packed in like sardines.
Still, I was satisfied.
Just being put on a full-service carrier instead of some cramped low-cost carrier was enough for me to be grateful.
Assistant Manager Park tapped my arm and said, “You got your ticket?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Every time I traveled on a company trip, using my personal mileage was one of the essential duties of an office worker.
“How much mileage do you have, Assistant Manager Park?”
“Around thirty thousand or so?”
“Oh, that’s a lot.”
“I deliberately go on a lot of overseas trips. If I save a little more, I think I’ll be able to round-trip in business class to Japan next vacation.”
“That’s amazing.”
Business class...
Just thinking about it made me feel warm inside.
They said if you flew overseas lying down, you wouldn’t feel jet-lagged at all, and might even not want to get off the plane.
I was curious how comfortable it really was.
My mileage is nowhere near that yet...
Since my trip to Shanghai had been my first time going abroad, I was still a long way from enjoying mileage tickets.
When the flight attendant walked down the aisle and I caught a glimpse through the curtain of the business cabin, I felt a twinge of greed.
Things were going well with my side jobs anyway, so should I try paying for one out of my own pocket sometime?
“How much is business class?”
“About three to four times economy?”
“Then for places like the U.S....”
“A one-way ticket is probably around four million won.”
“......That’s expensive.”
For the time being, I’d stick to economy.
“Still, Japan’s manageable. If you catch a discount at the right time, you can do a round trip for seven hundred thousand won.”
“That’s definitely worth aiming for.”
I was eating the fried rice served as in-flight meal when Assistant Manager Park snapped his fingers and asked, “Hey, did you hear that news?”
He lowered his voice and added, “Team Leader Han might be moving over to our department.”
“You mean Team Leader Han Su-a?”
“Yeah. The one we worked with in the TF team.”
“Really...?”
The first thing I felt was confusion.
“Why all of a sudden?”
“From what I heard, she’s on the shortlist for promotion to senior manager this year. But in Planning Department 1, there’s already a manager who joined before her.”
“Then the seniority issue gets messy.”
“Exactly. Compared to that, most of the people who’ve been promoted in our department are ex-job hoppers.”
“True. This side would actually be cleaner.”
“That’s probably why she wants to come.”
“I see. But if she doesn’t get promoted, doesn’t that mean she doesn’t have to come?”
“That’s true, but... there’s talk that the department transfer was already set before the promotion results, so she’d probably move over in advance. I don’t know the exact details after that either.”
Team Leader Han coming to our department...
Honestly, it sounds like the workload would get heavier.
Even so, taking that into account, she was such a good person that I thought working with her would be fine.
“By the way, don’t make it obvious to Team Leader Han.”
“Yeah, of course.”
Since a department transfer was such a sensitive topic, I had no intention of bringing it up first, even if I ran into her in the TF team.
“More importantly, what’s Tokyo like, I wonder...”
It was my first time going to Japan, and my excitement was starting to build.
***
Just as they say Japan is the birthplace of animation, everything felt different from the moment we stepped into the airport.
In Korea, there would probably be a promotional model on display, smiling beneath a sign saying Welcome to Korea.
“Japan really is welcoming us with characters.”
Animation characters were everywhere.
It really was the home of manga.
I pushed my suitcase along for a while before...
“Seo-jun...”
Assistant Manager Park called me with a pleading tone.
“What?”
“Sorry, but can we stop by that place for just a minute?”
Following the direction of his finger, I saw a shop.
Figure Shop
Right at the entrance, there were all kinds of products on display: figures packed in boxes, deformed-style Nendoroids, large Gundams, and more.
I checked the time. We still had some room.
“Fine, let’s take a look.”
It wasn’t like we had any work we needed to handle locally today anyway.
Once we went in, even more varieties of figures were displayed than the ones I’d seen outside.
Assistant Manager Park, who’d been smiling like a proud father from the moment he entered, started examining them.
Maybe I should look around too.
As I took my time browsing, I realized the prices were much steeper than I’d expected.
“Assistant Manager Park. Are these usually this expensive?”
“They’ve gathered some pretty high-quality stuff here, so the price range is up there.”
“Are they usually cheaper?”
“It varies wildly depending on quality. Cheap ones are in the ten-thousand-won range, but expensive ones can go into the millions.”
“Wow, that much?”
“Yeah. If a rare limited edition goes up at auction, it could easily surpass ten million won.”
“Seriously?”
“Of course. Figures vary hugely in quality depending on price, after all. But the people who want the expensive ones are a tiny minority, so they can’t make many. Then once they do make them, the rarity drives the value up.”
It felt similar to art in a way.
“Especially the ones made by master figure artisans who can’t be matched by machines. The quality on those is incredible.”
“......Really?”
“As far as I know, not long ago there was a master-limited edition Gundam plastic model, and it reportedly sold at auction for forty million won.”
“Oh!”
I’d had no idea, but apparently the figure market was huge too.
“Want to look at this one?”
Kang Assistant Manager carefully pointed to a figure displayed off to one side.
It was about fifty centimeters tall, and every detail, from the hair to the ornaments attached to the clothes, had been carved with painstaking precision.
“That one costs five hundred thousand yen.”
“......So that’s five million won?”
“Right. That brand is famous because a master makes each tiny part by hand.”
“Wow, that’s on another level...”
It was a market where handcraft drove up both quality and price.
“As far as I know, the most expensive limited item from that brand was one that a rich guy offered a hundred million won for, and they still wouldn’t sell.”
“......Insane.”
“Apparently because even the leather outfit the character was wearing had been made piece by piece.”
“That’s on a completely different level from mass-produced goods.”
“Exactly. There are a lot of things money just can’t buy.”
“Ohhh...”
“Want me to show you a photo?”
“Yeah.”
When I looked at the picture he searched up, the quality was no joke.
At this level, the hardcore fans would absolutely lose their minds over it.
Figure.
Figure, huh...
And then, like a flash of lightning, something struck me.
Wait a second.
Making figures by hand is a kind of handicraft too, isn’t it?
If I used my talent well, couldn’t this become a really solid side job?