episode_0137

Since the topic came up, I jumped right into execution.

“First, let’s start by drawing the blueprints.”

“Can you actually draw them?”

“Of course.”

I was the infamous yajjal master…

…Well…

I used a different username when uploading yajjal, so it’s only natural Dark doesn’t know.

No need to bring that up, though.

Middle school chuunibyou might be an embarrassing past,

but yajjal master is a whole other level of cringe.

In some ways, it’s more devastating than the chuunibyou phase.

Why?

Because in this world, chuunibyou just makes you a magic researcher,

but a yajjal master? That’s straight-up a perverted bastard.

So I downplayed it like it was nothing.

“I used to have a hobby of drawing back then.”

Sketch! Sketch!

Quickly roughing out the frame with a light sketch.

Sshhhhrrrrk!

Shadow clones burst forth and swiftly completed it.

“Ta-da!”

I showed it to Dark.

The blueprints for the Black Flame Dragon 5-Stage Transformation Combination Robot.

An illustration of the Black Flame Dragon 5-Stage Transformation Combination Robot.

Of course, I drew the Black Flame Dragon robot.

Black Eagle – A black eagle. Black Tiger – A black tiger. Black Ox – A black ox. Black Wolf – A black wolf.

I meticulously drew each of the four black animal robots as well.

The combination process was illustrated,

and so was the combined form.

Fliiiiip!

By mass-producing drawings and flipping through them rapidly, I even created a pseudo-animation.

As expected of my clones.

Since they churned out artwork like a stamping press, the quality of the work skyrocketed.

Nice.

This is an extremely satisfying piece.

“Whoa…”

“How is it?”

“You— wow… how can you possibly make something like this here—?”

Thump!

Dark grabbed my hand and said:

“Let’s start an animation business together!”

“An animation business?”

“Yeah!”

Dark’s eyes sparkled as they spoke.

Dark and I are the type who got our chuunibyou from watching anime.

Hell, Black Flame Dragon itself came from an anime,

and stuff like Dark Organization or Ultra-Cool Mafia all originated from anime too.

We’re just otaku who couldn’t not love anime.

So what happens when you show a pseudo-animation to someone like that?

An animation—in a medieval fantasy world where they thought they’d never see one again?!

Their mind was bound to be blown.

But.

There’s no need for me to painstakingly create animations or comics myself.

Why?

Poof!

Because I can just summon them with the Holy Grail of Sacrifice!

“Huh?… Wha—?!”

“You liked this series, right?”

I handed Dark a manga.

[Lone Enforcer – Volume 1]

A dark hero-style enforcer manga about a man who operates under the name Black Wolf, solving various underworld cases.

It’s Dark’s favorite manga.

“Lone Enforcer?… Wha—how?…”

“If I use the Holy Grail of Sacrifice, I can summon modern objects.”

“The… Holy Grail of Sacrifice?!”

“Yeah.”

Before any unnecessary misunderstandings arose, I quickly explained.

You don’t need to sacrifice a comrade.

You can just offer semen instead.

“Se… semen?!”

“Yep.”

The formula applies,

so even a single load of semen is equivalent to sacrificing about 100 million people.

“That actually works?!”

“The downside is you can’t use miracles as powerful as when you sacrifice real people, but—”

“But just the fact that you can summon modern items risk-free makes this a mythical-grade artifact!”

“Exactly.”

“Whoa… I had no idea the Holy Grail had that kind of function…”

“FYI, you can summon kimchi too.”

“!!!!!!”

“It’s an item that can summon anything I know about.”

Stuff like computers are a no-go, though.

The more complex or magically potent an object is, the more summoning energy it requires.

Conversely, the simpler and less magical an item is, the easier it is to summon.

“So that means…”

“Modern objects have zero mana, so that alone drastically lowers the summoning difficulty.”

“And if it’s something simple…”

“Aside from electronics or complex machinery, you can summon pretty much anything.”

From a life scientist’s perspective, living organisms are as complex as computers.

Apples, pears, grapes, lettuce, cabbage, etc.—

All lifeforms are intricately structured from hundreds, thousands, billions of cells.

However.

The Holy Grail ignores all that and treats them as “simple” objects.

So?

What does the Holy Grail consider “complex”?

Things with lots of parts. Things with complicated manufacturing processes. Things that take an absurdly long time to produce. And so on.

It recognizes things that require significant human effort or skill as “complex.”

“What about manga?!”

“It treats those as simple.”

I’m an artist myself.

I know exactly how grueling it is to draw a manga.

But.

The Holy Grail considers manga “simple.”

Why?

Because the Holy Grail is a magical tool that replicates existing things.

The hard part of manga is drawing it from scratch,

but scanning and printing it? Even an elementary schooler can do that.

Hence, it’s classified as simple.

Creation is difficult,

but replication is easy.

“So you can summon other manga too?!”

“Shouldn’t be a problem.”

Selena has turned into a manga otaku and regularly offers them as sacrifices.

So.

All I have to do is copy Selena’s manga and gift them to Dark.

Summoning new volumes requires energy,

but replicating already summoned manga is something shadow clones can handle.

Making an extra copy while at it is all it takes.

Easy enough.

…As I said this, I casually waved another volume.

“Th-That’s!…”

“Yep. It’s the fresh-off-the-press Lone Enforcer – Volume 17, released after you got isekai’d.”

Dark last read up to Volume 16 before being summoned.

Volume 17 was out of reach.

“Ghhooaaahh?!”

Again, Lone Enforcer is Dark’s favorite manga.

They watched every episode of the anime,

and even bought every volume to read.

But they never got to see the ending.

Why?

Because they got isekai’d before it concluded.

However.

I was the last summoned among all transmigrators.

I got to see Lone Enforcer all the way to its finale before coming here.

“You… read the whole thing…?…”

“Yeah.”

“Th-Then…”

“That means I can summon all the way to the ending for you.”

“The entire ending?!”

“It’s a 20-volume series. Summoning three more wouldn’t be hard, but… these things only hold value if you have them from start to finish, right? Might as well get all 20 for you now.”

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Using the Holy Grail of Sacrifice, I summoned every volume of Lone Enforcer.

“Ah… While we’re at it, I’ll go ahead and make the copies right now.”

I summoned shadow clones to replicate each manga one by one.

Shk! Shk! Shk!

Time taken to produce copies: 1 minute and 20 seconds.

The shadow clones made 60 volumes in total—storage copies, reading copies, and evangelism copies—for Selena.

“Wow… That’s crazy fast…”

“This much is nothing.”

“Then… my manga too…”

“Should I make three sets for you too?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!”

“Gimme a sec.”

The shadow clones swiftly copied the manga.

“Here.”

“Whoaaa… I can read Lone Enforcer to the end now… And having copies for storage, reading, and spreading the gospel…”

Thump!

Dark grabbed my hand again.

“You’re my best friend!”

“Only at times like this?”

“No! You always were! You still are! You’ll always be my best friend!”

“Even back then?”

“Yeah! Because you were the only one who understood me!”

Well…

I guess that tracks?

Since the dumb crap we flung around online wasn’t the kind of thing we’d pull in real life.

All that insanity stayed online,

and I was probably the only one who indulged in that nonsense with them.

So naturally, I’d be the sole person who got—

“I acted the same way at school too!”

“Wait, what?”

“So I had no friends.”

“Is that something to brag about?!”

“Whatever! I don’t need friends who don’t get me anyway!”

“With looks like yours, guys would’ve pretended to ‘understand’ just to hit on you.”

Kim Min-ah, the girl who aced the national exam, was a stunning high schooler—

beautiful enough to rival Prophet RPG’s heroines.

With that face and body, plenty of guys would’ve humored her chuunibyou just to get close.

…Or so I thought.

“It was an all-girls middle and high school. No guys around.”

“Then—”

“I died right after finals. The only men in my life were my dad and you.”

“Are you scripting this?”

“Heh. I did plan to meet up with you after finals, y’know? If we’d both lived, we might’ve even dated… married?”

“Do I get a say?”

“You wouldn’t refuse a pretty girl throwing herself at you, would you?”

“I probably wouldn’t… but you saying that with your own mouth is kinda wild.”

“Online, I was the beauty. ‘Marry me.’ ‘I wanna smash.’ I got all kinds of thirsty comments.”

“You—”

“Hearing that stuff made me happy, honestly. Meant my looks really worked on guys.”

Dark laughed as they spoke.

For a second there, I actually worried—what a fool I was.

Thinking about it, there was no need.

The Prophet RPG forum Dark and I frequented was already a cesspool among cesspools.

Hell, Prophet RPG was nicknamed Hentai RPG.

Obviously, it was flooded with NSFW content,

and Dark was a notorious user who enthusiastically spewed garbage there.

A little dirty talk was nothing to them.

“Still, it’s better to be careful. If some guy actually jumped you, it’d be a disaster.”

“You think a girl who mastered ninja training would lose to some rando?”

“Ninja training?”

“Yep.”

“What kind of life did you even live back on Earth?”

“By day, a normal office worker… but by night, a noble assassin who prowls the shadows, punishing evildoers—or at least, that’s what I dreamed of!”

“An assassin… in modern society? Are you insane?”

“If you don’t get caught, it’s fine.”

“In Korea, the CCTV capital of the world? Good luck with that.”

“I’d just dodge them all.”

“Pfft—”

One look at Dark’s smug face told me:

They were dead serious.

Which made me think:

‘Maybe dying was for the best?’

Back on Earth, playing vigilante would’ve ended with them either dragged into a dark alley for certain events or arrested.

But here? They can actually live out their righteous assassin fantasy.

This world is a million times better for someone like them.

“So how did you die?”

“There’s no dodging a crash when you’re inside the car.”

“Oh. That’s rough.”

“If I’d been outside, I could’ve avoided it! …Well, dying did bring me to this awesome world, so—totally worth it!”

“If you say so.”

“So what’s your answer? If I confessed now, would you say yes?”

“Well, if you were genuinely serious, I might consider it… but why does this feel like a joke?”

“Heh. Because it is.”

“Fair enough.”

“If we were still in Korea, you’d be the only one who got me… So I would’ve gone for you… But now? I’ve met someone else.”

“Someone else?”

“Yeah.”

Dark spoke slowly.

Right after transmigrating, they struggled because they couldn’t forget me.

But since we could never meet again,

they resolved to move on and find someone new.

And then.

They found another amazing guy who understood them—just like I did back then.

“Had I known we’d reunite, I might have chosen differently… But I’m the true love type, so… choosing you now would just feel… wrong.”

“You didn’t even reject me, so why do I feel dumped?”

“Heh-heh!”

“Anyway, the gist is: Forget the past, focus on your new love?”

“Yep! And I’d love help with that!”

“Help how?”

“The guy I like? It’s the Archmage Merlin.”

“…Uh, Merlin? That I can help with.”

“Really?!”

“I can help, but…”

“Yeah?!”

“How about we think it over while building the Black Flame Dragon Robot?”

“Deal!”