Late at night, Haruki drifted out of the system space.
For once, even his usually calm expression showed a hint of emotion. After reading Anohana, a lingering sadness welled up in his chest. Then he looked at Natsume's Book of Friends... and the feeling deepened.
"...As expected of the system," Haruki murmured to himself.
Although Anohana was classified as a B-rank work and Natsume's Book of Friends as S-rank, the actual quality gap between them was minimal. The difference lay more in their narrative style. Natsume's Book of Friends felt fresh and unique—no similar works had existed before it—and its longer length perhaps nudged it up to S-rank.
At first, Anohana had seemed a little dull. But as Haruki kept reading, it slowly drew him in, until the emotional climax left him almost unable to hold back tears.
Now came the real challenge—how should he serialize these works?
Part of the reason Haruki had chosen to attend university in Tokyo was to eventually break into the manga scene there.
In Tokyo's manga world, the "Seven Major Publishers" were the dream: Red Lantern Publishing, Gilded Lock Publishing, Echo Shroud Publishing, Graveleaf Publishing , Parlour Publishing, Hollow Anthem Publishing, and Chain Veil Publishing.
Among them, Graveleaf Publishing and Parlour Publishing mainly specialized in shoujo manga. Most of the top female manga artists serialized their works through these two houses.
Meanwhile,Gilded Lock Publishing and Chain Veil Publishing focused more on action and battle series.
Hollow Anthem Publishing, Echo Shroud Publishing, and Red Lantern Publishing, on the other hand, had more eclectic catalogs with no fixed genre focus.
Regardless of style, getting a serialization in any of these publishers' regular magazines wasn't easy. Most newcomers didn't stand a chance—submissions came mostly from artists who had already built a reputation in various regions. Without prior success, it was nearly impossible to pass the selection process.
Even top artists, like the winners of the Aurora manga Award, generally aimed to serialize in the regular magazines. Only a select few ever broke into the ace magazines—the flagships of each company.
Those flagship magazines had extremely limited slots—often only a dozen or so ongoing serials at a time. The majority were locked in by established long-running series, leaving only a handful of openings for new works.
Across more than forty regions of the country, how many promising artists had emerged over the past twenty years? Hundreds. Even this year alone, over a hundred entries had vied for the Award, including talents like Renji Takeda. The competition was fierce.
Given those odds, even with his recent Award win, Haruki couldn't be sure he could secure a serialization spot.
But it wasn't impossible. With his award-winning record and the high quality of his upcoming works, there was still a fighting chance.
The problem was... both Natsume's Book of Friends and Anohana started off quietly.
Neither had the kind of explosive first chapter that immediately hooked readers.
Natsume's Book of Friends maintained a consistent tone from the beginning—if readers liked the first chapter, they would stick around; if not, they probably never would.
Anohana was even trickier. It needed a dozen chapters to lay the emotional groundwork before reaching its full impact.
Trying to get a slow-burn story like that approved for an ace magazine serialization... Haruki honestly wasn't confident.
He pulled out the stack of business cards he'd received at the Award ceremony. There were over twenty in all, from editors at the seven major publishers and a few other prominent companies.
He immediately ruled out Red Lantern Publishing.
Given the tone of his two works—leaning toward shoujo—he narrowed his focus to Graveleaf Publishing and Parlour Publishing.
But now...
Haruki hadn't even drawn the manuscripts yet. For submission, he needed at least three chapters ready for each series!
With about 20 pages per chapter, and six chapters in total, even with the system having strengthened Haruki's manga skills, it would still take him more than three intense weeks of nonstop drawing to finish everything alone.
Sigh... If only Kotone were here. Haruki couldn't help but think of her at a time like this.
Back when they worked together, with Kotone's incredible hand speed and Haruki's near-photographic memory for panel layouts, they could have finished the workload in just two weeks, even if they had to pull all-nighters.
But now, freshly arrived in Tokyo, Haruki didn't know anyone well enough to recruit assistants right away. Even if he did, it was unlikely they'd sync with his rhythm immediately. In fact, it might slow him down compared to just pushing through on his own.
As for why he hadn't prepared manuscripts earlier in the six months after winning the Award...
He could only blame himself—his laziness and terrible procrastination had caught up to him.
Realizing this, Haruki didn't waste another second. He went to bed early, determined to start the new chapter of his life the next morning.
Over the next week, Haruki plunged into full-time drawing.
He would get up at 7 AM, order delivery for meals, and work until 11 PM every day without fail.
By the end of the week, when Haruki showed up for enrollment day at University, he looked absolutely wrecked.
His instructor, a man in his early thirties named Takeshi, did a double take when he saw him.
Dark circles under his eyes, nodding off while waiting in line to register — Haruki looked like he might collapse at any moment.
"Yuuki-kun, are you alright?" Takeshi asked with genuine concern.
"I'm fine, just... stayed up late a lot recently," Haruki mumbled.
"Staying up late? Playing... games?" Takeshi frowned, a little suspicious.
It wasn't a top-tier university, so campus rules were relatively relaxed. Still, most students didn't start falling into internet addiction until sophomore or senior year. Why was this first-year student already in such bad shape before classes had even started?
Takeshi began lecturing Haruki about maintaining healthy habits and self-discipline. It was surprisingly effective — Haruki, exhausted as he was, suddenly snapped wide awake.
Of course, he couldn't very well explain he had been pulling all-nighters to meet manga deadlines, so he could only smile awkwardly and endure the sermon.
A few days later, classes officially started — and with it came a grueling two-week military training period.
During those two weeks, Haruki's manga progress basically came to a halt.
After military training ended, Haruki tried to settle into a rhythm: attending classes by day and rushing through drafts at night. Thankfully, the freshman year course load wasn't too heavy. General education subjects like ethics, history, basic physics, and calculus were the bulk of it — and Haruki managed to skip most of them whenever he could to keep working on his manga.
This pattern continued for another two weeks.
Finally, a full month after starting school, Haruki completed the first three chapters of both Natsume's Book of Friends and Anohana.
By that point, Haruki had basically earned a reputation across campus as the "Internet-addicted freshman" of the Animation Department.
According to classmates, he had even rented an apartment off-campus to avoid the nighttime dormitory curfews — supposedly just to stay up all night gaming. In that month, aside from the first day's roll call, he hadn't shown up for history, ethics, calculus, physics, or any other general education class.
The instructors remembered him, alright.
And so did the entire freshman class — as that guy completely hooked on the internet.
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