7 Chapter 7: Publishing the next chapter
Time passed, and the day quickly changed from Saturday to Tuesday.
During this time, David and Emily would occasionally meet in college, hang out, or chat on Insta.
After all, they liked each other's company and were officially dating.
Meanwhile, David's manga didn't have much moment and only increased by only a measly seventeen collections.
This was realistic as it had been a week, and most people disliked reading a manga with only one chapter.
David, who had finished the chapter last night, decided to finally look at his analytics and find what time most readers read.
He did this cause now he wanted to complete the mission as fast as possible as he tried to hit the challenge mission.
Looking over the blue bars with different percentages, David noticed that, as expected, the reading time was 10, 11, and 12 o'clock.
David released the last chapter at 10, so it made sense that most readers read it then.
The rest of the graph showed the same trend, which forced David to search for his query on Google.
Opening Google on his mobile, he typed, "What time are there the most readers on Shonen Jump."
He soon went through a few articles and found that the most optimal time didn't exist. As with a large user base came many people in different time zones.
He then targeted the US time zone as it was his home country. David found that the most optimal time for the US was 5 pm.
After finding the answer to his question, David decided to put a timer on his Manga chapter and clicked published.
Now the manga chapter would be published precisely at 5 pm, and David headed to college without further worries.
Time spun its wheel, and a new manga chapter was finally released.
Nate (POV)
Nate had just returned from work tired and was in the mood to read some manga to relax.
Opening up his Shonen Jump, he clicked on library and found that one of his manga had just been updated with a new chapter.
This manga was called "Shadow Realm."
Nate – "Shadow Realm? Ah, I remember it's that weird sci-fi horror I found last week. It was quite good so let's start with that."
Nate opened the manga and found the chapter's name.
"You can't see me."
The cover page was colored entirely black and had red outlines of various smiles and mouths that you could clearly make out.
It gave Nate a creepy vibe like the drawing was smiling and laughing at him.
The manga's 1st page started with presumably one of Andrew's co-workers reporting to an old man that Andrew had not shown up to work.
Old man – "All right, I will look into it. You can go back."
The man quickly followed the old man's orders and left the room.
The old man then taps twice on his floating metal chair, and the armrest for the chair transforms into a big metal desk with various buttons and switches.
Nate assumes this desk is a control panel of some sort.
The old man clicks on a green button, and a mic appears from inside the desk.
The old man then speaks into the mic, "Pull up Cctv footage of districts 128, 131, 133, 138."
A voice from the chair replies, "Retina scan required."
A green laser light then launches from the chair and scans the old man's eyes and face."
The voice then speaks, "Scanning complete. Match successful. Welcome back, Mathew Jones."
A blue holographic screen appears in front of the old man, showing four grids of different CCTV footage.
The old man is then shown touching the virtual screen and moving the camera around with his fingers zooming in and out, searching for any trace of Andrew.
The following four panels show a camera moving around in four different places.
The first panel depicts what looks like a massive cafeteria that is filled with countless people. It is drawn in detail and shows people talking and eating their meals.
The next panel shows a street filled with cars before a traffic signal.
The third panel shows a camera looking at the entrance of a massive building with a giant M logo on the top.
The fourth panel looks like the same corridor Andrew had walked through in the last chapter.
Nate –"Who is this old man? Why does he have complete access to all the CCTV footage? Is he the captain?"
"There is also the question of what the hell is Andrew's identity from the last chapter. I thought he was just a normal guy who became a victim of the monster that escaped. Now it seems like this assumption is wrong."
The next panel shows the old man saying, "He is not running late for work, then where is he? Computer search all the cameras for Andrew Jones, that stupid illegitimate grandson of mine."
The next panel shows the AI looking through various CCTV footage. It slowly becomes a whole panel of various small grids showing additional footage.
The AI soon finds its target, "Andrew Jones found sitting in the Jameson bar at district 195."
The next panel shows the footage found by the AI, which shows Andrew sitting alone in a bar drinking a glass of beer.
Old man – "What the hell is he doing drinking this early in the morning? He almost made me panic for a second there. This imbecile grandson, when will he learn."
"To think I was going to officially meet him as I thought he changed for the better after his father's death, but clearly, I was wrong. Once a drunkard, always a drunkard."
Nate – "What, how is he still alive? He clearly died in the last chapter. What is going on? Wait a sec, no way the monster disguised as Andrew to hide, did it?"
The next panel shows John looking out of a small window towards the vast endless space.
The panel then slowly starts to zoom out from John to how John is kept locked up in a highly guarded prison and the different security personnel monitoring him 24/7
Then the next panel further zooms out and shows that the prison is underground right below a massive city.
The next panel further zooms out and shows a gigantic spaceship that contains the whole city.
Nate – "Woah, this is not just some tiny spaceship but an entire freaking space city."
The manga finally comes to an end.
Author Note: Sorry that it was mostly background stuff. It's just I wanted to complete a more in dept world-building.
