Michatsu woke to the quiet hum of his apartment, or maybe it was the distant train tracks again. Either way, it felt like the world hadn't noticed him yet. He groaned, rolled over, and knocked a stack of empty ramen cups off the nightstand.
"Great start," he muttered. "Welcome back to life, me."
The system immediately chimed.
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Good Morning, Host!] Rise and shine! Your journey to entertainment glory continues!┗──────────────────────────────┛
He slapped the side of his face. "Shut up."
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Reminder: Manga Jump Competition — 11 days remaining!]┗──────────────────────────────┛
Groaning, he swung his legs off the bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. For a moment, he stared at the pile of papers on the desk — his first thumbnails from yesterday's impulsive "Jujutsu Kaisen" download. His stomach twisted. The images were too vivid. They felt like memories.
I didn't draw this yet… but I remember drawing it.
The translucent green overlay blinked into existence above his desk.
The auto-assist interface had arrived. A smart, semi-see-through sheet hovered just above his sketchpad, shimmering faintly. He could see the pencil lines beneath it, and the system's light-green frame reacted to every stroke he made. When a line aligned correctly, the edges pulsed with a bright emerald glow — a "green flag." When he wobbled or misaligned a panel, it dulled to gray.
Great, now my mistakes can literally mock me in green and gray.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Auto-Assist Active] Functions:
• Panel Snap & Flow
• Perspective Guide
• Pose Projection
• Dynamic Composition Feedback
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
He propped himself on his elbows, squinting. The screen floated lightly, following his wrist movements. He poked at a corner, dragging an imaginary window, and the perspective grid rotated to match his table.
This is… actually kinda cool, he admitted, though he hated that he admitted it.
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Tip: Consider drawing with your eyes open, Host!]
[New Skill Unlocked: Basic Inking (Rank F)]
┗──────────────────────────────┛
"Very funny." He tapped his pencil on the pad experimentally. The green flag blinked instantly as the first panel snapped into perfect alignment. He blinked. That was… satisfying.
The system chirped again, impossibly cheerful.
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Reminder: Supernatural Manga — Submission due soon!]┗──────────────────────────────┛
Michatsu groaned, dropping his forehead onto the desk. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm working on it."
By mid-morning, he had a rough plan. The first page had to hit hard — demons, curses, some kind of immediate tension that would grab readers in ten seconds. Anything less would get him buried in the forum chatter he'd seen yesterday.
He sketched the first panel: a shadowy figure looming over a city street. The green overlay pulsed. "Green flag!" the system chirped like it had an actual voice. Michatsu rolled his eyes.
Fine. I'll take it.
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[Auto-Assist Suggestion: Add motion lines to increase dynamic impact]┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
He did, nervously dragging his pencil along the page. The green glow flared. He leaned back, impressed despite himself.
Okay, maybe this will work…
The translucent layer allowed him to see every detail, yet gave him guidance where his hand faltered. Panel composition, angles, character positions — the system reminded him of every tiny rule he'd ignored in his old life. And yet, with the green flag, it was… almost encouraging.
He scowled at the irony. I'm being motivated by green lights and a floating interface. Wonderful.
Around noon, hunger drove him to pause. He rifled through his mini-fridge. Nothing. Again.
Great. Maybe I should actually cook.
The system didn't help with that. It only pinged with a cheerful ding.
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Reminder: Eat to maintain morale!]
┗──────────────────────────────┛
"Fine," he muttered, grabbing his jacket. "Ramen it is."
The streets outside gleamed under the afternoon sun. Rain from yesterday had left puddles that reflected neon signs just beginning to glow. He walked past the same shops, nodding absently at vendors. Somehow, in a world without our manga, everything felt both familiar and strange.
The supply shop was quiet, stacked with pens, nibs, and a few tablets that looked functional but far from revolutionary. A clerk eyed him.
"Working on a supernatural series, huh?" the clerk asked casually. "Those don't sell well."
Michatsu raised an eyebrow. "Oh? That's convenient."
"Yeah," said the clerk, turning back to a shelf. "Better stick to cute school romances. That's what everyone reads."
He frowned, glancing at his translucent green overlay hovering in memory. Cute school romance? I don't think my curses and demons are going to fit there.
Still, he bought a few pens and cheap markers. He wanted something tactile. The tablet would come later — the system could project digitally if needed.
Back home, he set everything on the desk. The translucent green screen floated again, humming faintly. He stared at the first rough sketch of his protagonist. The figure was barely more than a shadow with dynamic lines suggesting movement, but it had… something.
It has the punch.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Skill Check: Basic Inking] Accuracy: 64% Composition: 71% Motion Flow: 55% Green Flag Count:
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Michatsu muttered, pushing his hair back. "This is… harder than I thought."
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Suggestion: Reduce motion flow errors by adjusting panel height and line weight]┗──────────────────────────────┛
He sighed, fiddling with the panels. Slowly, the green flags lit up. One, two, three — five.
"Finally," he whispered. A small smile tugged at his lips.
The first page felt… alive.
***********
Michatsu leaned back in his chair, letting the faint hum of the auto-assist system wash over him. The translucent green screen floated above his sketchpad, projecting faint lines, grids, and ghostly pose suggestions. The green flags blinked merrily every time his hand landed something correctly.
I swear I'm going to get used to this, he muttered, although he wasn't entirely sure if he meant the system or just the sensation of being bossed around by a hovering sheet of light.
He picked up the pencil again, flipping to the next blank page. This one needed more action — dynamic, explosive panels that screamed look at me!
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ [
Tip: First half of Chapter 1 should establish tension. Action panels recommended.]┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Michatsu groaned, dragging the pencil across the page. The translucent screen hummed and projected a ghostly 3D pose of his protagonist lunging forward.
Do I look like I care about lunging right now? he muttered.
The green flag blinked faintly. Not quite right. He adjusted the arm angle, tilted the torso, and suddenly the emerald glow pulsed brightly.
"Fine, fine," he grumbled, but there was a small smile tugging at his lips. "I'll admit it… that feels kinda nice."
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Skill Check: Dynamic Action Flow — 68%] [Green Flag Count: 4/7]┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
The translucent overlay shifted slightly as if nudging him forward. Michatsu swatted at it, only to see another hint appear:
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Hint: Use diagonal paneling for impact. Consider motion blur effects.]┗──────────────────────────────┛
He squinted at the suggestion. Motion blur effects? Sure, why not. He dragged the pencil in rapid streaks, smudging graphite across the page with reckless abandon. Another green flag flared, making a soft "ding" in his ear.
Okay, maybe this is fun, he admitted, hiding the small chuckle under a cough.
Hours passed in a blur of pencil strokes, system prompts, and intermittent ramen breaks. Michatsu began to notice subtle things about the world around him — little details he hadn't thought about before.
The cheap pens from the shop had tiny inconsistencies in line thickness.
The paper, slightly rougher than he expected, gave the shading a unique texture.
The sun's angle through the blinds cast odd shadows that inspired him to experiment with panel depth.
The auto-assist overlay occasionally became almost comically overzealous. Once, he tried drawing a simple alleyway, and the system projected five different perspective grids, three floating 3D figures, and a ghostly simulation of a crowd in the distance. Green flags blinked for some lines, gray for others.
"Relax!" he shouted, leaning back. "It's a sketch, not the Mona Lisa!"
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[System Note: Host humor detected. Mood boost applied.]┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Michatsu groaned, rubbing his temples. I didn't sign up for therapy.
Still, by late afternoon, the second page was coming together. Panel pacing started to feel natural — the overlay nudged but didn't force him. He realized that for the first time in his life, he could actually see how a story breathes. His protagonist moved through panels fluidly, the action felt alive, and for the first time, he was starting to care about how the reader would perceive it.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Green Flag Achieved: Panel Flow Mastery!] [Quest Progress: Chapter 1 Draft — 40% Complete]
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
He sat back, wiping sweat from his brow. Huh. Not bad for a day's work… maybe.
The room smelled faintly of pencil shavings, cheap ramen, and faint dust. The outside world hummed quietly — distant traffic, the faint whir of air conditioners, and a street vendor yelling a particularly enthusiastic "Ramen!" somewhere down the road.
The system chimed cheerfully.
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Reminder: Consider environmental storytelling. Background details increase immersion!]┗──────────────────────────────┛
Michatsu raised an eyebrow. Background details? Fine. He dragged his pencil across the next panel, shading the blinds' shadows and letting a sliver of sunlight illuminate the corner of the box he'd drawn in the first page. Dust motes floated lazily in the air, added instinctively, and the green flag pulsed brightly.
Okay… that's actually kind of cinematic, he admitted.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Skill Upgrade: Basic Inking → Rank D]
[Passive Bonus: +5% Focus Duration while drafting]
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Michatsu gave a half-smile. "Not bad for a lazy man."
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Quest Update: Chapter 1 Draft — 55% Complete]┗──────────────────────────────┛
By evening, he had roughly six panels fully realized. His hand ached, wrist sore from hours of rapid strokes, but the emerald green pulses of the overlay kept him motivated. He began experimenting with dialogue placement, thought bubbles, and sound effects — system suggested placement that wouldn't block key visuals, sometimes exaggerating the sound effects for comedic effect.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Green Flag Count: 6/10] [Note: Consider spacing for reader's eye movement] ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Michatsu leaned back again. He hadn't realized how much effort even one chapter could take. Even with the system, even with the green flags, it was… exhausting.
And yet… kinda satisfying.
The translucent overlay hovered silently, nudging him toward the final panels of the first chapter. Outside, the city's neon glow started to shimmer through the blinds. Somewhere, a train wailed faintly in the distance.
He picked up his pencil for the last few panels, determined.
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Hidden Quest Unlocked]
Complete Chapter 1 Draft Before Midnight
Reward: Random Skill Upgrade
┗──────────────────────────────┛
Michatsu let out a long sigh. "Midnight ink it is," he muttered. The green overlay pulsed faintly in affirmation, as if cheering him on. And deep in the corner of his room, the box he'd drawn on the first page seemed to wait silently for the story to continue.
********************************
The night had settled over the city. Outside, streetlights flickered against wet asphalt, and the faint hum of distant traffic blended with the low whir of air conditioners. Inside, Michatsu Kashimo's tiny apartment was lit by a single desk lamp, casting long shadows over the scattered sketches, ramen cups, and ink-stained pencils.
He hunched over his sketchpad, the translucent green auto-assist screen floating steadily above it. The interface had become a familiar presence, nudging him with suggestions, gently mocking errors, and rewarding correct strokes with the satisfying pulse of green flags.
Almost there… he muttered, hand trembling slightly from hours of drafting.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Quest Reminder: Complete Chapter 1 Draft — 2 hours remaining] [Green Flag Count: 7/10]┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
The system's cheery voice broke through his concentration.
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Hint: Consider foreshadowing a key plot point in the final panels. Tension boosts reader retention!]
┗──────────────────────────────┛
Michatsu groaned. Foreshadowing. He didn't hate it, but the idea of carefully planting subtle hints while maintaining the chaotic energy of action panels made his head ache. Still, he picked up the pencil and started sketching a shadow in the corner of the scene — something vague, a silhouette barely visible behind the protagonist.
The green overlay pulsed faintly. He tilted the pencil, smudging graphite to create a sense of movement. Another green flag flared.
Fine. That works.
Next came sound effects. The translucent screen suggested placement for impact: diagonal bursts of Japanese onomatopoeia floating over panels, perfectly aligned without blocking key visuals. Michatsu grumbled at the precise suggestions but went along with them, dragging thick, confident strokes that made the actions practically leap off the page.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Skill Check: Sound Effect Placement — 81%] [Green Flag Count: 8/10]┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Eight out of ten? He smirked. "I'll take it."
He continued, adding final touches to the protagonist's expression: narrowed eyes, tense jaw, subtle sweat drops for intensity. The translucent overlay highlighted the areas that could be adjusted, suggesting minor tweaks to eyebrow angles and lip curves. One final green flag pulsed for perfect alignment.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Green Flag Achieved: Character Expression Mastery!]
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Michatsu leaned back, staring at the page. For the first time, his manga felt alive. Every panel had energy, tension, and pacing that could hook a reader. He rubbed his sore wrist, feeling a strange mix of fatigue and pride.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Quest Update: Chapter 1 Draft — 95% Complete]
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
The translucent screen hummed, nudging him toward the final panel. He had already drawn the box in the corner, the faint dust motes drifting, shadows cast by blinds slicing the floor diagonally. Now he had to tie everything together — the protagonist's tension, the environmental storytelling, and a hint of the supernatural lurking just out of view.
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Tip: End Chapter 1 with a cliffhanger to maximize reader retention!] ┗──────────────────────────────┛
Michatsu sighed, hand shaking slightly from exhaustion. He began sketching the final panel: the protagonist frozen in mid-motion, eyes wide, looking toward the mysterious shadow he had foreshadowed. The green overlay gently aligned the perspective, suggested minor tweaks to motion lines, and highlighted empty spaces that could be used for tension.
Perfect… maybe.
He dragged his pencil across the page in rapid, confident strokes. Each correct move triggered the emerald pulse of a green flag. By the time he finished, all ten flags were lit.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Quest Complete: Chapter 1 Draft Finished!] [Reward: Random Skill Upgrade — Panel Flow Optimization Unlocked]
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Michatsu leaned back, hand over his eyes, and let out a long, exhausted sigh. The system chimed cheerfully, ignoring his fatigue:
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Congratulations, Host! Chapter 1 Draft is complete!] [Next Goal: Submit to Manga Jump Competition for maximum exposure!]
┗──────────────────────────────┛
He muttered under his breath, half-proud, half-irritated. "Fine… I did it. Green flags or not, I actually did it."
Evening bled into night. Michatsu glanced out the window, watching neon reflections ripple across puddles from the day's rain. Somewhere in the distance, a train wailed, and street vendors packed up their carts. The city's hum wrapped around him, steady and constant, as if urging him onward.
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Reminder: Take a short break before reviewing your draft.]┗──────────────────────────────┛
He ignored it. Who had time for breaks? The draft was done, and now he had a moment to think. To consider the story, the pacing, the world he was building through these panels.
Michatsu realized something: this world — the one he had been dropped into — had no real supernatural manga. No curses, no exorcists, no legendary sorcerers. His JJK chapters were the first of their kind here.
I could actually change the game.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[System Note: Host realization detected. Creativity potential increased by 10%.]┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
A small smirk tugged at his lips. The possibilities felt endless. But for now, he let himself rest, leaning back and watching the faint green glow of the translucent screen pulse softly over the sketches.
Tomorrow, he would revise, polish, and submit. But tonight, for a few blissful moments, he was just Michatsu Kashimo — lazy, tired, and satisfied with the chaos he had created.
The city outside whispered with quiet anticipation, and somewhere, far ahead, the journey toward becoming an entertainment god was just beginning.