Cartoonists and their assistants

"Let's go up and take a look."

A few minutes later, the two found a mountain path nearby and started walking up the mountain.

Birdsong filled the air from time to time as the two walked through the trees, surrounded by fresh, invigorating air.

But after a short while, Eriri felt tired.

"Phew~ It doesn't seem like there's anything to see here. There's no 'secret base' here either. I should have known better than to come up here."

She leaned against a nearby tree, panting.

"I was obviously joking."

Shinji Kanzuki sat down beside him, dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves and falling on his face.

Eriri immediately rolled her eyes at him.

Then why did you even mention searching for a 'secret base'?

"Alright! That's settled then! I'm going to rest for a bit..."

She gave up struggling and sat down beside her.

"When the work is successful, someone might build a secret base here."

He said another thing.

"It might really happen!"

Eriri thought about it for a moment and inexplicably felt a sense of satisfaction.

The blue sky and white clouds stretch as far as the eye can see, while the city's buildings lie on the ground.

During this rest period, the two of them quietly watched the scenery in the distance for quite a while.

Suddenly, the girl glanced to the side and saw someone's profile. She suddenly realized that the climb she had just made wasn't entirely meaningless.

"Zhenzhi, what if one day our work becomes popular, and someone finds this place based on the content of the work, but doesn't discover any 'secret base'? Wouldn't they be very disappointed?"

"What do you want to say?"

"How about we leave a surprise for this fan? Consider it a gift!"

"Have we fast-forwarded to this point already?"

Mizuki Machi's expression was somewhat unreadable.

"Well, Zhenzhi, give me an idea!"

Eriri cast an eager glance at her.

"Hmm, let me think... How about this, we buy a box, put what we want to say inside, and bury it here. Maybe one day someone will dig it up."

He thought for a moment and said.

"It sounds so romantic, let's go with this one."

The girl readily agreed.

So the two of them went down the mountain again, bought the items they needed from the shopping street, and then went back up the mountain. They chose a relatively flat area, dug a hole, and buried the gift box containing the note inside.

Such actions are somewhat silly, and quite tiring as well.

But after completing all of this, the two felt a sense of accomplishment, as if they could already see a future reader of "Anohana" finding this "treasure" that they had hidden away.

Machi Mizuki is not very proactive, but he can still enjoy doing something that he finds interesting.

"Zhenzhi, what did you write?"

Eriri turned her head and asked.

"When someone makes it public someday, we'll naturally find out."

"Then let's keep it a secret from each other!"

The two looked again at the small mound of earth that was slightly raised on the ground and laughed.

......

On the tram I took home, the warm sunlight streamed into the carriage through the windows.

The golden afterglow shone on the girl's face, making her look even more radiant.

"With these materials, the upgraded original manuscript should be completed very quickly!"

Eriri scrolled through her phone's photo album, her excitement mingling with anticipation in her eyes.

"I need to make some minor adjustments to the story text."

At this moment, Mizuki Machi suddenly spoke.

"Hey? Are you sure you can handle this? You won't write anything worse, will you?"

"Do you think I'm as unreliable as you? I'll write it down for you to see later."

The girl listened with a mixture of belief and skepticism.

However, a few days later, she received the revised story text and chat conversation on her phone.

"Zhenzhi has evolved so quickly! It's only been a short time since I submitted my work..."

Eriri looked through the messages in disbelief.

She had already given her all just by correcting her own shortcomings to fit the original work.

Compared to her childhood sweetheart, her own progress has always been as slow as a snail's pace.

This was something that was really hard for the proud young girl to accept.

Am I hindering true knowledge...?

Her eyes flickered uncertainly.

Fortunately, the two were not in a competitive relationship, so she didn't get stuck on the details. Instead, she focused on working harder to complete the new manuscript, so as not to let down their efforts.

In the blink of an eye, a month has passed since the start of the school term.

The day the two had arranged with the editor finally arrived.

After contacting each other via email, they decided to meet at a coffee shop outside the company, which would be less stressful.

18 They are the real challengers

The feeling of being in the small room was very oppressive, giving Eriri the feeling of being interrogated.

When the scene changed to a coffee shop, she suddenly became more lively, but her heart was filled with a feeling of unease.

Looking back on these four months, she thought about the comic almost day and night, existing just for this moment.

Success or failure?

If you miss this opportunity, the next one won't come for several months.

She felt that if she continued to waste her time like this, the flame in her heart would eventually burn out.

Because young girls are not that strong, once they experience too many setbacks, they may become discouraged.

So she didn't want to wait any longer.

"It should work, right?"

The boy sat beside him, sipping his cold cola through a straw, thinking leisurely.

Thanks to their combined efforts, the revised manuscript was undoubtedly a step up from the previous one, with both the text and the visuals becoming more harmonious.

If the editor's previous comments were sincere, then this manuscript should be enough to satisfy her.

Despite thinking this way, the boy was also experiencing some inner turmoil.

At this moment, the two felt exactly the same way.

This time, Minamoto Matsumura spent more time reading than before.

“It’s really astonishing.”

The editor's expression remained relatively unchanged, but at this moment her mouth was slightly open, revealing a somewhat surprised expression.

Although the content is almost the same, the emotional impact is completely elevated by the details such as the storyboard and dialogue.

The original artist's inner transformation and the artist's adaptability are both indispensable.

"I didn't expect you to do it so quickly. Did something special happen?"

She looked up and asked curiously.

"Nothing special happened. We just went out to scout locations and then spent our days drawing with Eriri."

This was Mizuki Machi's answer, but she felt that something was being hidden.

Minamoto Matome didn't dwell on it, and his eyes changed to a serious expression as he said, "Originally, I didn't plan to let you participate in this competition because, in my estimation, Mizuki and Sawamura would need some time to unleash their potential. However... for real manga artists, it's quite normal for things to exceed the editor's expectations."

"...So, you have passed my test and you are now qualified to debut."

Her voice paused, then softened with congratulations.

Eriri's eyes widened, and she was speechless for a moment.

After a brief silence, the overjoyed girl could no longer contain her excitement and stood up, shouting, "That's wonderful!"

The sound was so loud in the quiet coffee shop that it drew the attention of other customers.

"Excuse me, sir, could you please not be so loud?"

A waitress came to the table and politely reminded them.

"I'm sorry... I understand."

Eriri was instantly embarrassed, scratched her head, and then sat down.

"Why are you so excited? It's just that you can compete with others, you haven't succeeded yet."

After the waiter left, Mizuki Machi said in a nonchalant tone.

"Zhenzhi, you're getting discouraged again! Getting this far means we have a real chance of being the final victors."

Eriri lowered her voice and said resentfully.

"I'm just reminding you not to be too proud."

He was simply managing expectations to prevent the girl from having too high hopes.

However, he overlooked one thing: the mindset of adults is different from that of middle school students.

If the girl hadn't had that drive, she wouldn't have been able to achieve this.

This is also why the two occasionally have conflicts.

"Ms. Minano, do you know who our competitors are?"

Eriri didn't argue about it; she was more concerned about her debut.

"After excluding those who are on vacation, there shouldn't be too many people eyeing this serialization opportunity, maybe around ten?"

Minamoto looked a little dazed and counted on his fingers.

"There are actually ten people!"

Eriri gasped.

This isn't some newcomer award; most of the participants have experience with serialization and can be considered true comic artists.

As a newcomer, having to compare myself to these people is terrifying to even think about.

"This is because the ending of Tsukimi-sensei's work was so sudden that many people had no confidence and chose to continue to develop their ideas, aiming for the next 'cancellation day'. Otherwise, the competition this time would have been even more intense."

Minamoto continued.

"Tsukimi-sensei, could it be Tsukimi-sensei Enma? Her works shouldn't be ranked below the cutoff line yet, right?"

Eriri's attention was drawn to the name.

Because this teacher was a newcomer who had only been in the industry for a little over a year, and I heard that he had just started university at the time, and was considered a genius, he was not unfamiliar to the two people who wanted to submit their work.

"Of course not. Her works are still ranked around tenth, which puts her in the ranks of mid-tier authors. She could easily continue serializing her work. It's just that she feels the story has reached its end and it would be too boring to continue drawing it. She doesn't want to continue and wants to focus on creating new works."

"Amazing."