Morning hit Michatsu Kashimo like a wet noodle to the face. His apartment smelled faintly of ink, ramen, and the lingering aura of exhaustion. His wrist still ached from the five chapters he had drawn the day before, but the translucent green interface floated above his desk, humming softly, ready for the next onslaught.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Good Morning, Host!]
[Reminder: Submit final Chapters 6–7 for complete Manga Jump volume] ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Michatsu groaned, rolling over in his chair. Great. Just what I needed… more suffering.
Yet, deep down, there was that twitch of excitement. Five chapters were already submitted; initial reactions were positive, green flags were glowing, and a few rival mangakas had taken notice. The translucent overlay pulsed softly, almost like a heartbeat, encouraging him to continue.
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Tip: Chapters 6–7 — climax and foreshadowing critical for reader retention]
[Hint: Include new supernatural elements to maintain intrigue] ┗──────────────────────────────┛
Michatsu rubbed his temples. New supernatural elements… sure. Why not add a talking shadow or something ridiculous?
He began with Chapter 6, staring at the blank page. The first panel needed a punch, a hook, an immediate grab for the reader. The system projected a faint outline of the protagonist leaping into a dark alley, a mysterious supernatural figure looming overhead.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Auto-Assist: Green Flag Projection Active]
[Suggested Motion Lines, Panel Flow, Perspective Grid]
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Michatsu traced the lines carefully, following the overlay. Each correctly placed stroke triggered the satisfying pulse of a green flag.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Green Flag: Chapter 6, Panel 1 — Achieved]
[Skill Check: Motion Flow — 74%]
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Fine. Not terrible.
The next panels introduced a new minor character — an enigmatic figure with flowing robes and glowing eyes. Michatsu smirked, imagining the eventual reactions. "Whoa, this character is epic!" — maybe someone would actually say that.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Tip: Minor character entrance — balance visual impact with mystery] ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
He drew, corrected, adjusted panel spacing, and watched as the green flags blinked. This is actually kinda fun, he admitted quietly.
******************
By late morning, he moved to Chapter 7. This was the final chapter of the first volume, meaning climactic battles, tension peaks, and setup for future volumes. The system nudged him:
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Hint: Increase panel variety for climax. Consider diagonal, overlapping panels for chaotic effect.]
┗──────────────────────────────┛
Michatsu groaned, dragging his pencil across the page. Diagonal, overlapping… okay, yeah, chaos it is. The translucent overlay hummed approvingly, projecting ghostly 3D versions of his protagonist mid-motion across panels.
Green flags flickered with each stroke.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Skill Upgrade: Action Composition → Rank C+]
[Passive Bonus: Panel Tension +5%]
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Not bad for a lazy man, he muttered.
The chapter's climax involved the protagonist facing a supernatural entity he had foreshadowed in Chapter 1 — shadows from earlier panels coalescing into a towering figure. Michatsu leaned into the chaotic energy, exaggerating motion lines, emphasizing facial expressions, and letting the translucent overlay suggest camera angles like a digital cinematographer.
By evening, both Chapters 6 and 7 were drafted. Michatsu rubbed his sore hands and consulted the overlay. It suggested minor tweaks:
Adjust the protagonist's wrist angle in Chapter 7, Panel 3, for readability
Increase shadow contrast in Chapter 6 final panel
Fine-tune dialogue bubble placement for pacing
Each correction triggered green flags, and the system chimed cheerfully.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Green Flag: Chapter 6–7 Adjustments Complete]
[Quest Update: Final Chapters Ready for Submission]
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Michatsu leaned back, exhausted but satisfied. He could submit the final two chapters, completing the first volume.
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Reminder: Maximum five chapters per batch — Chapters 6–7 will be second submission]┗──────────────────────────────┛
Simple enough, he muttered, already dragging files to the upload portal.
Submission & Initial Reactions
He clicked "Submit." The translucent interface pulsed, the system's cheerful tone filling the room:
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Upload Complete: Chapters 6–7 Successfully Submitted!]
[Initial exposure: 8,000+ readers preview]
┗──────────────────────────────┛
Michatsu leaned back, feeling his eyes cross. "Wow… done. Finally done."
The system immediately started highlighting reactions:
"The final chapter's climax is insane!"
"Loving the shadow foreshadowing from Chapter 1 — consistency rocks."
"These panels are… so dynamic, I didn't know supernatural manga could feel this alive."
Green flags lit up above each comment.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[Skill Check: Reader Engagement — 95%]
[Green Flag Count: 100/100 across all chapters]
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Michatsu smirked faintly, almost delirious. "Not bad… even for me."
He leaned over to peek at competitor submissions flagged by the system. Some were decent, some mediocre, and a few were downright over-the-top attempts at action drama. A small thrill ran through him — rival mangakas were noticing him now.
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Alert: Competitor Awareness — Peak Interest Detected]
[Hidden Quest: Rivalry Seed Planted]
┗──────────────────────────────┛
Michatsu rolled his eyes. "Rivals, huh? Let's see how long they can keep up."
The translucent overlay pulsed softly, almost like a pat on the back. For the first time in weeks, Michatsu felt a combination of exhaustion, accomplishment, and anticipation.
The city outside gleamed under neon lights, reflections bouncing off puddles and wet asphalt. The air was quiet, but alive — distant traffic, faint trains, and the soft hum of electricity from nearby billboards.
Michatsu leaned back, exhausted, smudges of graphite on his face and hands. He glanced at the interface one last time.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
[System Note: Host has completed first volume submission — Chapters 1–7]
[Reader Engagement Positive]
[Competitor Awareness Rising]
[Reward: Panel Composition Mastery + Special Skill — "Rapid Draft Optimization"] ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Michatsu grinned faintly, though his body ached. One volume down. One step closer to becoming an entertainment god… or maybe just surviving this insane system.
Somewhere, deep in the shadows of his sketches, the box from Chapter 1 waited silently. And for the first time, Michatsu realized — this story, this world, and this system were just beginning to test him.
One chapter at a time. One green flag at a time.
And maybe, just maybe, he'd survive.
FLASHBACK NO JUTSU
The system timer pulsed faintly in the corner of Michatsu's vision.
Numbers climbed, froze, blinked again.
He stared at them until they blurred into a static haze.
It's really happening, he thought. People are actually reading it.
For a moment the green overlay dimmed, and the hum of his computer fan bled into silence. His eyes unfocused, drifting, and the world bent backward into the memory of how all this started.
Flashback 1 – The Upload
That night had been sleepless.
The rain outside his window was soft but persistent, tapping like a metronome.
He sat cross-legged in front of the system's translucent panel, cheeks hollow, mind dull.
"Anonymous submission recommended," the system chirped. "Do you wish to conceal your personal data?"
He rubbed his temple. "Obviously. I'm not suicidal."
┏────────────────────────────┓ [Identity Shield Activated] - IP masked - Data rerouted - Alias required ┗────────────────────────────┛
He typed Karma on impulse. It felt sharp, balanced, detached — like someone who didn't care about winning, only about seeing what would happen.
Alias accepted.
Karma — status: unpublished, unknown.
The profile screen unfolded: a blank avatar, a bio line blinking.
"Ugh," he groaned. "What am I supposed to write? 'Just a guy who draws curses'? No."
He ended up leaving it blank.
Mystery looked cooler anyway.
Now came the terrifying part — the upload.
Seven chapters, each file stamped with the system's watermark, each panel he'd spent days tweaking until the green flags finally aligned.
He hovered over the Submit button.
"Hey, System," he muttered, "what happens if I crash the servers?"
[Probability: 0.0004 %. Proceed?]
"Comforting."
The progress bar crawled. 1 % … 4 % … 10 %.
The system projected faint numbers in the air: Estimated Upload Time — six minutes.
He chewed the inside of his cheek, legs bouncing. Every tick of the bar dragged another doubt to the surface.
What if they think it's copied? What if it's too weird? What if no one cares?
He snorted softly. "Too lazy to back out now."
At 97 %, the panel flickered.
Then —
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ [Submission Complete!] Title: Jujutsu Kaisen (Vol. 1 – Ch. 1-7) Author: Karma ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
He exhaled like he'd been underwater.
No fanfare, no applause, just the quiet glow of the screen and the rain easing outside.
"Guess that's it," he whispered.
And maybe, somewhere under the fatigue, he smiled.
Flashback 2 – The World Reacts
[Viewpoint 1 – The Reader]
Rika Tanabe sat on the evening train, scrolling through Manga Jump's contest feed.
Her thumb hovered over thumbnails until one caught her eye — a stark cover, a boy with black hair and hollow eyes standing under a torii gate. Title: Jujutsu Kaisen — by Karma.
Weird name, she thought. She tapped it.
Panels flashed by, sharp, confident, alive.
She forgot the noise of the carriage, the conductor's announcement, even her stop.
By the time she looked up, the train doors were closing behind her.
"…Crap," she breathed, grinning. "Totally worth it."
She hit the comment section.
@RikaDraws: who tf is KARMA and why is this so good??
Likes exploded beneath it.
[Viewpoint 2 – The Critic]
At 2 a.m., columnist Daigo Seno was half asleep over his coffee when the trending list refreshed.
New entry: Karma – Jujutsu Kaisen.
He clicked it out of boredom, planning to skim.
By the end of Chapter 1, he was sitting upright.
By Chapter 7, his mug was cold and forgotten.
He opened a new draft for his morning column:
"An anonymous submission shakes the foundation of this year's competition.
'Karma' demonstrates professional-level panel economy, cinematic pacing, and an unsettling emotional core.
Whoever they are, they've already outgrown the 'rookie' label."
He hit publish. Within an hour, his article topped the Jump Buzz feed.
[Viewpoint 3 – The Rival Mangaka Chat]
@RyoSensei: anyone read that new supernatural thing??
@MeiArt: you mean Karma's? yeah. makes me wanna quit lol
@RyoSensei: dude same. who draws like that on a debut??
@Kenji: rumor says pro disguised as newbie.
@MeiArt: then I'm doomed 😭
Screenshots of the chat leaked to a fan forum.
By morning, "Karma is a Pro" trended at #2.
[Viewpoint 4 – The Editors]
At Manga Jump's Tokyo office, two editors argued over the projection table.
"Look at these stats!" one shouted. "Seven chapters overnight and five hundred thousand reads!"
The older man crossed his arms. "It's suspicious. The line work's too refined for a beginner."
"Suspicious or not, the public loves it. Comments are through the roof."
They glared at each other.
Finally, the senior sighed. "Fine. Run a background check. If Karma passes, shortlist it."
"Already on it," the younger said, grinning.
[Viewpoint 5 – The Timeline]
0 hours – Upload posted.
2 hours – First hundred reads.
5 hours – Viral thread on JumpTalk.
8 hours – Critic column released.
12 hours – Top 5 ranked manga in contest.
24 hours – Views: 523 , 406.
Likes: 87 , 122.
Comments: 15 , 000+.
The feed scrolled endlessly with fan art, memes, theories.
A random user joked, "If Karma doesn't win, the judges are blind."
Thirty thousand likes.
Return to Present
"…huh."
Michatsu blinked back to his room.
The numbers on his real screen matched the ones in his memory, only higher.
The system chimed softly.
┏──────────────────────────────┓
[Quest Progress Updated]
• Publish 3 manga – 1/3 complete • Views ≥ 50 , 000 – Achieved ✔
• Bonus Reward: Skill 'Panel Rhythm E'
┗──────────────────────────────┛
He leaned back in his chair.
Rain tapped the window again, faint but rhythmic.
"Guess they liked it," he murmured.
The auto-assist overlay flickered, flashing a single bright green flag above his desk.
He smirked, eyes half-lidded.
"…Green flag."
The system purred.
[Acknowledged, Host Karma.]
And the chapter closed on that quiet glow.