At this moment, Alex truly felt the cruelty of life that was given to him and the harshness of reality even if it is a parallel world,
“Aren't the system supposed to help the user out? Why does the system I've read in novels and anime plots are better than this? is this karma? What the fuck?! My system not only did not give me a damn cheat, but it also limits my pathway of copying any damn works from my previous world?! This is so infuriating!”
Just as Alex was thinking about the sorrows of living in another world without his cheats, the sound of the system sounded again.
“The host has received a novice gift package that has not been opened yet. Would you like to accept the gift?”
“Right! A Free Gift! it's like those newbies pack in those many gacha games! The so-called novice gift pack! Hey, I got a free gift? don't mind if I do! Of course, I'll accept it! I'll accept this! It’s a relief that this system is still somewhat reliable.
“The User’s physical fitness is now +0.5, the physical fitness is 1,
The user can unlock a gift. A gift the " Manga" package.
Do note that there are many "Manga packages" out there in this world.
“Whoa!”
Alex exclaimed loudly, feeling like he had started believing in love and life again.
“A manga package huh? one of those Japanese manga packages?”?
Waiting for his heartbeat to calm down, what felt like a stream of cool water, was currently flowing into the body of Alex right now, whatever it is, it is making his body shake rapidly! In the next second, he clearly felt that his right hand was slowly recovering. It felt a little itchy but in a good way. And the most important thing was the countless number of books in “The Gift ”that were laid bare in his mind. Countless plots and adventures that he dared not to think about, were constantly entering into his mind!
In his past life, Alex had read countless manga and comic books, from the famous DCed the Marbel studios work to Japanese Kadoketawa, and the Studio Triggered. He was a self-proclaimed bookworm. But when Alex experienced this awesome “Manga package”, he knew that the knowledge gained in his previous life was shallow. These are intrinsic knowledge, real skills that were honed from countless amount of hours of practice, What he saw in his previous life was just the tip of the iceberg, those weren't his skills, he was merely an observer looking from the outside.
He couldn’t help but feel sorrow due to his lack of experience and skills, before real masters of the art, Alex was but a little fish in a small pool thinking he was a big fish in the ocean. With a huge sigh, he snapped himself back to reality. The skills that he had gotten from the gift package were very significant towards creating better works in the future. It was good that the system decided to lock his memories. He was only a fan back then, an admirer of the art. Now? to stand with the great talents of history and giants of his industry, he needs to understand their skills and method at a deeper level. he needed to become just like them.
A true mangaka artist.
“Seems like I only touched the surface of being a great artist, What an eye-opener, that was truly humbling."
After thirty seconds, the gift pack was finished and the system sounded again:
“Mission Task: User must use his ability to gain a
reputation in the manga industry within one month.
When the mission is completed, the system store will be opened to the user.
the reward for this task is the manga
"Kyoto Ghoul”
and an increase in 0.5 physical fitness will be given."
“Holy Crap! It’s ‘Kyoto Ghoul’!”
These three things made Alex burst into joy right at this moment. The most important is physical fitness, although he can hold the pen, the injury on his hand was not completely healed yet. Not only does his hand injury pose a serious problem right now, even his internal organs, especially his heart is in a bad shape! Alex could feel how bad it is due to the lack of exercise and constant depression had already felt how serious it was. If he did not improve his physical fitness in time, he would definitely have he would have some sort of high blood pressure.
“If I die, who will take care of my family? my cute little sister? and my single mother? No! As a man, I must restrain my feelings and persevere. I must take care of these two people as well as I can!”
In his heart, Alex decided to stop becoming a useless hikikomori bum and started living his life properly again.
“Alternate me! May you rest in peace! Seriously, bro, I got this! We Alexes of the world gotta stick together! It's okay fam! I got chu!”
Leave everything to me! Your Momma K and Sister Yukari, I will raise them well!
Suddenly a thought hit Alex really hard.
" Now how the hell do I get a small increase in my reputation in the manga industry in this sordid world?"
Although I was a comic artist and an editor in my previous life, it was a different ball game, a different industry. This is Japan! the manga industry works differently, but as a transmigrator who transmigrate into a body who hasn’t touched a pen in his life and his current life as someone who hasn’t drawn for more than who knows how many years, it is very difficult..’
“I haven’t drawn a single piece of art in this world at all! this kid never had any talent in the art I'm fucked aren't I?!”
Except for the original gift “The manga package” He really has nothing else for reference. Should he head out to the library and look for resources? or should he just start practicing instead? whatever it is, he only has a month.
Suddenly, a calm came over him as he seemed to wake up and felt a little excited about all of this. a calm? him? was this one of the personality traits of the previous Alex? it's quite handy. He's calm right now. Surprisingly very calm, it almost scared him for a moment.
He began to ponder for a bit.
Although he can’t draw any serious manga now, he could try and draw a poster! An anime poster or a cover! As long as I pick up some of my former works, it’s easy to earn a little extra income to overcome the current difficulties. what are those Deviantdarts posters used to call it? Commissions? I could do some commissions to build up my reputation. isn't there a site like Dumbler or Deviandarts around in this parallel world?
What's the Japanese equivalent to those sites back in my days? Pixieview?
With excitement, Alex immediately opened his second-hand laptop and stole some of the Wi-fi from downstairs using their password illegally. Within his own memory, Alex tried to imagine and quickly shuttled back and forth between the major websites to find out any work of this sub-outsourcing, Alex wondered if there's a site or a discord channel that would allow his art to freely prosper. Under normal circumstances, the poster would not be outsourced, and it is produced by the hobby-like community, but there are also commercial books.
Those are the ones Alex is targeting. Posters for commercial books, Novel covers, manga covers! getting paid to produce those high-quality covers is a boon to the industry after all.
In this alternate world, being an artist has become a gentleman’s profession. The book you create can not only be sold by the individual but also does not infringe the copyright of the original author. The original author would not mind his work being made into fan art. On the contrary, many original authors also hope that their own works could be made into fan art, which would improve their visibility. Visibility is king after all for new artists alike. it took Alex a whole two years of constantly doing art commissions back in his old world before he even gets noticed by any sort of publishing company for his art.
And so, in this world besides the amateur community painting posters and fan art, real Marketing Posters are being done by a professional company doing the same thing, albeit with better benefits of course. There is money to be made for original creators, One can simply earn a lot of money by taking subsidiaries to pay by doing cover art, Posters, and even marketing Web art. All of this can act as an intermediary for his presence. Anything is possible!
After all, anyone could be asked to create art for any work!
Although the price of each one would be much lower, it was still a very good way to finance Alex and his family. Alex filtered the information and quickly slid the oppai mouse pad. *Ahem* even in this world, there exist an oppai mousepad huh? very cool indeed. I can safely say the people of this world loves culture indeed Personally, Alex doesn't think this mouse pad is inappropriate. But with his mother and sister living together here, Perhaps it’s time to change into a normal mousepad- Oh! A recruitment notice came into view.
“This is a sub-outsourcing contract for a new project under JAMP magazine called ‘My World’ this is a theme-based competition in a fantasy-style setting. One either needs to submit a cover art or a novel work. This project requires excellent Cover quality! We wanted innovation! An Excellent plot in the story! think you're the next Oneshot king? Apply at once! Requires a 30-page manga for a draft on your one shot and three covers for the artwork. the project payment is 60 000 yen ( USD 500). Please bring three cover art to 203 Sapporo Hokkaido, Tanukikoji Shopping Street three for the preliminaries round within this week"
How much does it pay for??60k yen? isn't that about 500 USD? Not much, really not much, but I could work with it. I'm just a high school student, whether it is this world or in his previous life, it was already less. Everyone must know that every Art has a soul! All artists paint for the soul! not for money! but money certainly helps yep. No complaining here, plus it's a One-shot! not a whole series
Do students even get 500 USD a month? hell naw. they get chump change to spend at the mom and pops shop. fuck it. let's do this.
“So let's do this shit! A cover art! How can I not draw the thing? Do I let myself starve to death? No! Absolutely not! I can only draw, for now, I have no other choice!”
Looking at the time, it was already half-past ten at night. Mom is still not back from her work yet.
Slowly he stood up and walked into his sister's room. Alex never had a little sister, a small girl was sleeping like a ball on a tatami on the floor rolled up like a bun in the small room. it was very cute, she was already asleep. Although he was only eighteen years old right now and his current life was kinda a waste, at this moment, Alex felt a deep sense of responsibility. Gently walking over to the bed, he kissed the forehead of his little sister, took the blanket off, and properly cover her. she's sleeping like a bun right now because the weather is getting cold. Summer is ending soon and Fall is coming. The house is small and it's not in good condition. This is the life he is living right now. They need to move into a better place fast.
Alex went to sleep as he heard the front gate opening, I guess his mother is back, but his consciousness is fading, sleep took over him fast before he could react towards it. He wanted to see how his mother looke but he's too sleepy and dozed off.
.............................
The next day he woke up in the morning, I needed to go to school today or risked being expelled.
“Hey… Big brother? Yukari isn't that hungry today, these onigiri is for you to eat, I think it's a duck butt here, uhh...”
Yukari's own mouth was already wet, the clothes she wore were already wet around the collar. Alex's eyes turned blurry with tears, his younger sister was too kind for her age.
" You can have it, your big brother will eat at the school"
“Oh... that’s good...”
Her sister ate it fast and ate it hard. It disappears in a second. She must be really hungry.How poor is his family?! Holy crap
“Damn it! my little sister can't be this cute!”
He saw his mother approaching. his gorgeous beautiful mother. She's young. young looking anyway, In Alex's mind, she's a 40-year-old lady with the body of a thirty-year-old fit "ara -ara lady" vibe. Her mother made some Onigiri and didn't talk much. Blonde pale hair and purplish eyes. just like him. People would immediately call her gaijin. me? Even though my hair is naturally blonde, following his father's genes, Alex really looks like his mother but albeit a male version of her and her sister is the spitting image of her mother but smaller and cuter, both of us siblings are blessed with a Caucasian mixed blood on their visages. I can understand where Alex and Yukari got their beauty. It's definitely not from their father.
Alex has gotten up and wore his school uniform. His mother looked at him shockingly without saying a word, Alex looked at her and simply nodded, He wasn't very comfortable acknowledging himself as her son yet, even as an adult He needed time to adjust. She teared up as she saw Alex takinghia own sweet time wearing the school uniform and going to school. Yukari is headed to a Chugako, a lower secondary school for primary education
"I guess she's turning 13 next year so junior high school next?"
Alex looked back as his mother still watched him walking away to school with a smile, there seem to be a weight lifted from her shoulders at that moment in time, Alex could simply strengthen his heart and go to school. He needs to do what's right with the Cover art. If he could support them now? wouldn't that be better?
......
Alex closed the door and walked to his desk. The class mostly ignored him as he wasn't a popular guy, but some people still turned heads and whispered around when they saw him coming, he hasn't appeared here in two months, of course, they are curious. He cleaned up all the debris on a wooden box that was kept on his table and opened it. There were various tools in it, a ruler, a compass, Some A4 papers, this will be good enough to get him started, no one touched his tools while he was away, Everything else was there. Although it was stored for more than a few months, its condition was still very good.
After looking for his chair and cleaning up his desk, He took a pen and drew an outline of the cover art he wants to draw. this is just a testbed using an ordinary HB pencil. He doesn't have the proper tools needed to draw this stuff. he needed art supplies badly, art supplies that he cannot buy because he was broke.
Putting the HB pen on the draft, at least the ruler is a good size, to better capture the idea on paper, a manual knife is also placed on the table, this seems to be an inherent habit of Alex in this world. why does he need a knife for anyway?
After doing all the preparations, countless works in the previous world churned around him. With the gift package he received yesterday, his mind began to think of what to draw next for the cover art. He will do the drafting here in school. And finish it in the art room and borrow their tools to finish it.
" I needed to head towards the artroom later"