Taihei Doma once again felt the full force of his own cleverness. Mashiro couldn't come up with a plot, could she? Then she could draw four-panel comics! As long as she could somehow force the plot to make sense, she could call it a nonsensical four-panel comic...
But as it turned out, Taihei had oversimplified things. Even four-panel comics were beyond Mashiro's understanding. Every story was about a male and female lead meeting...
The four-panel comic plan failed.
Taihei had no choice but to settle for the next best thing. He hoped Shaqiang could fill in the gaps in Mashiro's common knowledge. At the same time, he tried getting her to read some light novels. After all, manga adaptations of light novels were still manga... Ahem. To start with, she could learn how to draw illustrations and what techniques to use to convey the characters' emotions.
If Mashiro could learn that from light novels and understand how the characters felt, then she'd have grown as an artist.
Of course, that meant they needed a guinea pig. As it happened, there was a light-novel author right by Taihei's side. After seeing Mashiro Shiina's artwork, Utaha Kasumigaoka had already been stunned by her talent. When she learned Mashiro wanted to illustrate her book, her eyes widened. Th-the world-famous artist Mashiro Shiina wanted to illustrate her book! How much should she pay? Asking online, urgent!
She had no idea she was the guinea pig.
Although Utaha was being treated like a guinea pig, she didn't know that. To her, Mashiro was a world-class artist. With Mashiro helping her, why would she look for another illustrator? That'd be absurd!
Tomoya Aki had chosen the wrong bait.
Watching Utaha Kasumigaoka walk away, Tomoya panicked. "Ms. Utako Kasumi, your autograph..."
"Um, sorry, I'm very busy right