Surviving a Shounen Manga

So Listen, Why Don’t We Cooperate?

I quickly skimmed through the results of the last chapter.

[Chapter 28 – The Battle for Ramirez’s Treasure (1) has ended]

[Hiro's character evaluation has been updated]

[‘Liar' has been added to the characteristics]

[An enormous amount of support from numerous readers followed]

[Awareness has increased by 100,000]

[Excess awareness is replaced with ‘level']

[Attracts the author's attention]

[The author's favourability has decreased by 90]

[Received fan art from 20 readers]

[The author's favourability has increased by 20]

[Reappearance probability has increased to 100%]

[State]

• Name: Hiro (Enigmatic Squatjaw)
• Characteristics: Very strong, Bluffing, Chatterbox, Secretive, Turned out he was a pretty boy?, Leadership, Spirit of sacrifice, Chivalry, Romantic, Frantic, Liar
• Awareness: 453,759
• Author's favourability: 52
• Reappearance probability: 100%

[Became the main propagator for a new race]

[Registered as a major record in the official character data of ‘Hiro’]

[Character's rank has increased significantly]

[Character's rank has increased significantly]

[Character's rank has increased significantly]

⁞

[The final evaluation of the character has been calculated by the author]

[Hiro is the subject of the next chapter]

[Character points paid 300,000p for the rise in awareness]

[Character points deducted 7,000p for the fall in the author's favourability]

[Character points paid 1,000p for the rise in reappearance probability]

[Character level has increased by 180]

[Character Level]

• Current rating: Supporting cast
• Current value: 896
• Experience: 77%
• Value to reach the next level: ?
• Preceding plot can be ignored: 2 times

Hmmm.

The result itself wasn't half bad.

Or rather, reaching the highest level of awareness and causing an overflow meant the chapter was a definite success.

Despite the leading point of view switching continuously, I’d managed to enter the stage almost every time, reminding the audience what was the main focus of this chapter and who therefore was the most important, and then I’d managed to cut the plot off before any new content could arise.

It hadn’t been easy, but the rewards were commensurate to my achievements.

But there were three things I found disappointing.

First, the huge drop in the author's favourability.

A fall of ninety points! If I hadn’t vetoed the penalties, the situation would’ve been even worse.

This wasn’t something to laugh about. The author's favourability was the most obvious ‘warning sign' about my place in this world that I could track.

Of course, I’d been predicting something like this ever since I’d committed to bringing in the goblins to blow the plotline up.

But that hadn’t been my whole plan. I’d had the idea that helping solve the issue of their appearance would soothe the author and also deepen the significance of my character.

Weren’t we still aligned with the big picture as far as the original plot was concerned?

I’d never imagined the author would come out swinging in the response like he did. Who could’ve expected a monster like Gronyan to appear and try to bury me six feet under?

Honestly, I didn’t actually want to be enemies with the author. Right now it was merely Gronyan, but who was to say it wouldn’t be the Seven Kings themselves after my head one day?

Anyway, it’d left me feeling shaky. The author had definitely acted a bit sulky this time. Hopefully the trend wouldn’t continue.

Second, my link to the goblins still remained tenuous.

I thought so because all I got was a ‘liar' characteristic.

This kind of a characteristic was more of a reader reaction than something defined by the author.

I’d shown off so many facets of my character, but I only got ‘liar’?

Presumably, the readers hadn’t thought anything of my relationship with the goblins apart from the fact that they ‘followed my orders’.

If the readers had recognized me as a goblin, the new characteristic wouldn’t have merely been ‘liar’, but something more along the lines of ‘turned out he was a goblin?’

And naturally this didn’t satisfy me.

I wanted to be recognized as a goblin. That way I could easily wave off all the suspicions about my character. My backgrounds, abilities, knowing the future, transforming, etc…

I’d even come out and said it, ‘I'm a goblin!' Several times, at that. But it hadn’t worked out.

It wasn't that I couldn't understand the readers’ reaction. Although the goblins had taken my form while wandering about, I myself had never shown ‘a separate ability that reminds you of a goblin', such as masquerade.

Maybe I should’ve tried transforming to my pretty boy form at least once? But that milk had already spilled.

Anyway, from the readers’ point of view, none of their questions had been resolved, and only more rice cakes had been strewn around.

So this too got added to my homework pile to solve eventually.

And third. The biggest issue.

I’d really overspent my points.

I could earn about 300,000 points at most in one chapter.

But in comparison, including all the items I’d used up this time, my expenditure was close to 900,000 points. There were still two ‘penalty vetoes' left, sure, but I wouldn’t be able to return them for points.

Besides, my original plan had been to use two vetoes at most. Not to use all vetoes except the last two.

"…"

Anyway, my current remaining points were 343,773p.

Most of it was from this time’s chapter rewards. And it would only let me buy three veto tickets.

The implications were simple.

I couldn’t rely on the character shop so solve my problems anymore.

"Then… what should I do now?"

As I perched on a high mound at the foot of a mountain, I looked down at Gibrante's smoky, damp industrial area.

Gibrante.

One of the big cities in the northern part of Westland, located on the Northland border.

The biggest battlefield in the Battle for Ramirez’s Treasure, where three chapters packed only with battle scenes were supposed to take place one after another.

It was quite a distance from Clone City.

It might take about ten days for all the main characters to converge here.

Of course, the fast runners might arrive somewhat earlier, but as long I kept an eye out for new arrivals, I thought I could proceed with that assumption.

Ten days.

This was the maximum preparation period given to me.

"… Just ten days, huh."

I slowly began to scan the whole city.

White smoke obscured much of my vision, but that wasn't much of a problem.

Because my purpose was not to closely examine the ‘outside' of this city. I just needed to figure out the approximate locations of the buildings.

In fact, the ‘appearance' of this city was just a façade.

None of the factories below were actually operating. The smoke rising from the chimneys wasn’t soot, but water vapour produced by some device, and the huge trash heap was just a model installed to attract the visitors’ attention.

The factory area was actually a silver screen to cover the ‘smuggling market'.

Gibrante had one aspect that set it apart from the other cities on the continent. Because it was geographically a ‘border area', smuggling was rampant.

And the main products being smuggled were Northland's ‘specialty' items, i.e. various mechanical weapons, technical weapons, robots, etc.. From here Northland products would spread widely to the whole continent of Westland.

In particular, the black market had a very ‘Northland style' atmosphere, to an extent even beyond the actual cities in Northland.

For example, even within Northland, different regions specialized in different fields, like ‘magic engineering', ‘cyberpunk', or ‘steampunk'; but here they all mixed together.

This was probably because the author wanted to show off the setting of the Northland side in advance in order to arouse reader interest for the future. There are very few areas in Northland itself the were like this city. Possibly only the most central city was like this.

In other words, this place existed to give an ‘authentic Northlander taste’ in Westland.

And a situation like this –

‘… How about getting some laser cannons?'

– Was definitely helpful for me. I could compensate for my relative lack of strength by using Northlander weapons.

As a reward for this chapter, my level had risen to 180.

It could be called large or small depending on your point of view. Although my strength hadn’t caught back up with my original level, it was almost at the halfway point.

However, I didn’t have a detailed grasp on my actual current strength. After all, I didn’t know how the level was calculated and how that correlated to strength.

What was clear, though, was that this level was no match for Gronyan.

I could feel that intuitively. I was still a long way off from reaching that man.

And Gronyan wasn’t the only problem either.

In the Gibrante chapter, four additional ‘Karl Zayed-class' strong people were slated to appear.

Capone the ‘Smuggler’.

Gelop the ‘Cyborg’.

Jimus the ‘Magic Weapon’.

Cormier the ‘Designer’.

In other words, I had ten days to find enough power to stand against them.

If I wanted to participate in the chapter where everybody was going to come after me, I needed to be strong enough for that.

I took a long breath.

"It’s not that big a deal."

I already had a few ideas, for example –

1. Equip a weapon.

2. Ready an army.

3. Set up traps.

But there was only one choice that I thought would definitely get me the result I wanted.

4. Get a ‘colleague' who could facilitate all of the above.

The problem was that my chances were slim.

The guy I wanted as my teammate was superior enough in ability that I had a ‘strong competitor’ in this arena.

Despite knowing all the nitty-gritty details of the setting and the future events, I could never be sure of victory against my competitor.

Because the man I wanted to be my ally now, was supposed to become Leo's colleague in the future.

In other words, my competitor was the author himself.

"Still… I have to give it a shot."

Because I couldn’t just give up.

I immediately got up from my seat and hurried my steps.

I already knew my destination.

"Now, how should I go about this?"

At a corner of Gibrante's factory area, there stood a shabby warehouse with no signage outside.

Bang–.

Bang–.

Jean finally lost his temper at the hammering sound that’d been going on since morning and roared.

"Ugh! You son of a bitch! You think this is a smithy or something? Why’s there so much noise?"

Since about 30% of smuggled goods were defective in one way or another, most smugglers had their own tools and facilities to repair them.

But none of them would hit the goods with a hammer like this guy. Because they were esentially traders, not blacksmiths.

Bang–.

Bang–.

"Damn it, you bastard! Stop it!"

But even as he screamed, Jean was feeling content inside. All his shouting, was basically to advertise and drive up business.

As Jean approached, the young man who was beating the hammer pretended to finally notice him.

"Oh, you’re awake?"

"You've been hammering like that since the morning, how am I going to sleep? Huh?"

"Ah, yeah, sorry. I suddenly got an idea last night…"

Jean glanced at what the young man was making.

"What is it this time? A weapon?"

"No, it's just… a combat aid."

At first glance, it looked like a mechanized device that could be attached to your arm.

"Tsk. Who uses mechanical attachments these days? They just slow you down."

"Haha, is that so?"

"You can’t survive just with crafting skills, you know? You need to have vision, and you need a brain, to understand if a product will sell. Who’d buy such a machine these days? The old farts around here might get nostalgic and buy it for a pittance. Special ability engineering is the trend right now; nobody would even look twice at any weapon or gadget that doesn’t have an ability installed."

Despite the blunt advice, the young man just signed and chuckled.

"Either way, we’re talking about a machine. Be it special ability engineering or something else, you still need to understand the metals, materials, and power circuitry to make anything useful. The principles don’t change, do they?"

"What principles? Tch, you sound like an idiot. What matters these days is the ability, the ability, you hear me? Not how well-made your gadget is. As long as it can infuse the ability you need, those principles don’t matter."

Jean, who was intimately familiar with the current market trends, clicked his tongue as he looked at the immature kid who only knew how to fondle gadgets.

When he’d thrown a few rice balls to a street beggar three months ago, he’d never thought the two of them would form a relationship like this. I’d just been a moment of fickle sympathy on his part.

It was embarrassing to admit, but if he was being honest with himself, the kid was interesting. Not only was he a dab hand at repairing defective products, the gadgets he made were quite astonishing, and he was definitely an expert in mechanical engineering – although Jean didn’t know where he’d learned it all.

That was why he scolded the kid like this more and more often. That he was an idiot.

The kid had talent. He shouldn’t let his skills rot here in this dirty little smuggling shop fixing broken products and fiddling with old-fashioned gadgets.

‘He should go to the heart of Northland and unleash his talent to the fullest…'

That was then.

Clangadangdang–.

A strange noise tickled his hearing.

Soon after,

"Here, huh?"

Some gigantic-looking fellow poked his head into the store.

With a really large jaw.

Jean instinctively sensed a feeling of danger.

"Who are you?"

As he spoke, he noticed several members of the gang in charge of this area lying behind the giant.

Jean gulped.

His little smuggling shop was no match against this guy.

Jean did have some pride in his own guts, but in front of this Squatjaw, he was feeling strangely numb. The sense of intimidation this guy exuded was at an unbelievable level.

"Ah, I came to meet someone. That’s why I’m here."

"Meet? Meet who?"

"Well, it’s not you… Oh, there you are."

Then he pointed to the young man behind him.

‘This…'

I knew it. Jean had guessed that the kid had gotten caught up in some kind of trouble. There was no way somebody this talented would’ve been in such a situation otherwise.

But he wasn't willing to just surrender. No matter what, didn’t the kid have a connection to him now? He couldn’t throw away his own responsibility, he had to see it through. To the end.

"Wait, wait… I’m in charge of this place. That kid works for me now. If you want to take him, you have to first go through…"

But the squat-jawed man had already passed by him.

"Hey, you, look…!"

That was then.

‘Huh?'

The expression on the kid’s face was strange.

He didn't look terrified at all.

Rather, he was sporting a soft, interested smile.

And in addition,

"So listen, why don’t we cooperate?"

The first words from that squat-jawed giant were also quite strange.

He didn’t come to catch the kid or interrogate him?

He came with a proposal for cooperation instead?

The young man shrugged his shoulders as if it was absurd.

"Hey, do you know who I am?"

Squatjaw answered.

And it was very absurd answer.

"Why wouldn’t I know? You’re ‘Designer’ Cormier. If we’re talking about your major achievements… you were the chief architect of Cormier City, one of Northland's most innovative cities; a pioneer in ability engineering, and the maintenance officer of the King's Road… right? Hey, you also designed the White Rain, didn't you? I rode that ship coming here. It was a great trip."

…

Jean gaped blankly.

And there was Cormier, whose mouth was gaping just as wide as his own.

"No, how…."

While he was busy being surprised, Squatjaw kept talking.

And it was the most absurd thing he had ever heard.

"What was it called again… that rideable robot weapon with multiple special abilities… that’s it! Yeah, that Multifunctional Armoured Cavalry! Could you please make one for me?"

Editor's Notes:

None for this chapter.

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