Tokyo: Earth Online Manga Artist

Eri Aragaki put the matter aside for the time being and decided to give it a try...

"Activate...Super Creation!"

She murmured a sentence to herself.

The moment the words left her lips, Eri Aragaki's pupils dilated slightly.

It felt like someone had gently pried her brain open from the middle.

Unlike the burst of inspiration she experienced when she initiated her super creative work in the past, this time it felt more like countless tiny electric currents were simultaneously flowing into her consciousness, illuminating all the memories that had been dormant deep within.

She could even feel a slight tingling on her scalp, as if invisible fingers were combing through every strand of her hair, or as if she were being pressed into a highly dense pool of mercury, surrounded by heavy, shimmering signals.

Those signals converged into an image.

At first, it was scattered and broken, like a stack of manuscript papers blown away by the wind.

Then they began to sort, piece together, and color on their own, at a speed that left Eri Aragaki almost breathless.

The passages from novels she had read in her previous life became incredibly clear at this moment, with each description automatically generating corresponding images in her mind.

She didn't even need to think about "how to draw this part", because the image had already grown out of itself, as if even the shadows and speed lines had been marked with their positions.

The boy stood in the rain, water dripping from the tip of his umbrella, practicing his drill...

The humble winner sat in the driver's seat, his hands on the steering wheel, but his face was full of unease...

The rain outside the car window washed the whole city into a series of old photographs...

These images were branded into her consciousness like red-hot iron, and she couldn't get rid of them.

Eri Aragaki's hands began to move.

She didn't even look down at the manuscript; the pen simply fell to the ground.

The moment the pen tip touched the paper, she heard that sound.

It was light, but fast, like the rhythm of raindrops hitting the roof of a car.

She wrote each stroke extremely quickly, with almost no delay between the image in her mind and the lines on the paper.

In the past, when she drew storyboards, she would think of one panel in her mind and draw one panel with her hand, with a very slight pause in between.

That pause is used for "translation," translating visual information in the brain into muscle movements.

But now that pause is gone...

The brain and hands become one, so much so that it's hard to tell whether the brain is controlling the hands or the hands are pulling the brain along.

Eri Aragaki felt as if she had been pulled out of her body and pressed a few centimeters above the drawing paper.

She could see her hand moving, the pen tip swaying on the paper like a live fish, and the lines growing out of nothing.

But she didn't feel like she was "painting" at all.

She was simply watching, listening, receiving, and releasing the images that surged from her mind through the tip of her pen.

That feeling was so strange.

It's like a person standing under a waterfall, with water pouring down on her head. She doesn't need to do anything; she just needs to stand firm and let the water flow over her body.

The level 7 super creation is completely different from the level 5.

At level five, she could still feel her own will, control her speed, and stop to think in a certain place.

At level seven, willpower is no longer needed.

The image comes to her on its own, the composition is determined by her own actions, and even the subtle changes in the characters' expressions seem to indicate that she has already thought of the answer and is just waiting for her to write it down.

When she drew the moment the boy looked out the car window, her pen suddenly paused.

It wasn't her will that made the pen stop.

Actually, the image itself stopped.

In that frame, the boy turned his head to look out the window, and there was a shadow moving deep in the rain.

Eri Aragaki knew what to draw there, but her Level 7 Super Creativity skill prevented her from drawing it directly.

It allowed her to see the shadow first.

She first saw that thing, darker than the night, and felt the chill in the boy's heart for a moment before she put her pen to paper.

This extraordinary creative endeavor forced her to experience things, rather than simply producing results.

She could almost feel the temperature of the rain, the oppressive atmosphere in the car, and the suffocating distance hidden in the silence between the boy and his biological father.

She could even sense the hesitation in the boy's biological father's eyes—a moment when he seemed about to speak but then swallowed his words back…

These feelings surged in from all directions, pressing down on her chest, so heavy that she almost bent over.

But at the same time, her hand was still moving.

The pen tip was still moving across the paper, and it was moving faster and faster.

This sense of separation caused Eri Aragaki both pain and excitement.

The body is bearing emotions that are not its own, and new images keep popping up in the mind, while the hand is like a precision instrument with a set program, transforming all that chaos into images.

One page, two pages, three pages...

The sound of turning over the manuscript paper echoed rhythmically in the dead of night.

Gradually, Eri Aragaki began to lose track of whether she was sitting in her studio or in that black sedan driving through the rainy night.

Besides the scratching sound of the pen tip rubbing against the paper, I could also hear the rhythm of the windshield wipers.

then……

Monsters appear, the mythical eight-legged winged horse descends, and there's also the one-eyed god king wielding the most powerful divine weapon...

A powerful and imposing entrance in the rainy night!

Amidst peril and despair, the boy escapes with his father's protection.

He also understood his father's hidden paternal love...

But it was all too late; he was filled with regret.

Eri Aragaki seemed to sense that deep-seated regret, as if it had been etched into her very soul.

And so, this state of being immersed in the experience while also producing highly efficient output continued for a long time.

until……

When Eri Aragaki put down her pen, she instantly withdrew from that super creative state that countless creators envy.

But right now she felt a tightness in her chest, her forehead was covered in sweat, and the back of her clothes was soaked.

At this moment, it was as if her mind and body had been completely drained.

"call……"

She leaned back in her chair, wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, and then skillfully reached for the drinks and food placed beside her.

She downed half a bottle of energy drink and popped a few pieces of chocolate into her mouth. The sweetness and sugar spread on her tongue, and she slowly felt herself come back to life.

The higher the level of super creation, the greater the physical strain, just like a supercomputer with maximum computing power often requires a huge amount of electrical energy.

So this cheat is actually quite scientific.

After recovering, Eri Aragaki looked at the storyboard on the table and was very satisfied.

The image on the paper was almost identical to what she had just seen in her mind, and in some places it was even better than she had imagined.

The boy's eyes, the boy's biological father's last silhouette, and the shadowy figures appearing and disappearing in the rain—all fell into their proper places.

She carefully organized the storyboards, put them in a folder, then took a shower and changed into clean clothes.

The next day, she came to the studio and said to Fujimoto Itsuki, Erina, Natsume Akane, and Kawa Ayano, "Next, we're going to draw a new short manga... This is the storyboard."

Eri Aragaki placed the folder on the table and opened it.

"A new short comic?"

This piqued Fujimoto Itsuki's curiosity. "Teacher... is this a short spin-off story about Attack on Titan?"

Popular manga usually release some spin-off short stories, and the current success of the Attack on Titan anime is enough to allow it to release some short stories to increase its popularity.

Attack on Titan does indeed have such a spin-off, titled "A Choice Without Regret".

but……

"No, what we're going to draw is a short prequel to my new long comic, a test story."

Eri Aragaki stated bluntly, "It's called... 'Night of the Raging Rain'!"