"It's been 15 hours since our shift started!" My co-workers groaned. "Why do us mangaka have to suffer so much.. If only we weren't born on Tokyo." They had a point. Being a mangaka is a practically nonexistent job outside of Japan. We all dreamed of being born into western families. Maybe not all of them are rich, but I doubt it could be much worse than my current situation.
Heck, even as a child things were not so great. I was born into the lower-middle class and my parents barely had enough to pay rent and buy the basic necessities. We couldn't afford luxuries, and I was picked on for being poor. My body didn't help much either. I was unathletic and weak, which made me a prime target for bullying. As a teen, I couldn't afford a smartphone and had one of those flip phones used only for calls. And as of now, my looks are average, I'm still weak and pretty short, and I work as a mangaka for a random medium-sized studio. My life was never that great. Despite all that, I never considered my life to be a hell. That was until they appointed my new boss, Sato. That asshole has gone above and beyond at every opportunity to make his employees' life hell.
I still remember the time he was directly supervising one of our projects. There was a scene where a character attacked the enemy with the hilt of his sword to display how strong the character was. Sato didn't like that scene. He told us to make it so that the character attacks normally. A higher up decided to check in at that time, and saw that we had went off script. Although it wasn't that big of a deal, he decided to scold us for going off script. We tried to say that we were following Sato's orders, but of course, he denied it and said that we "shouldn't throw the blame when we get caught doing our job wrong"
"I'm gonna punch that bastard Sato's teeth off one day..." I mumbled to myself. Just then, I heard an annoying beeping sound. A short, rectangular, blue panel had appeared in front of me. I pinched himself, rubbed my eyes, looked away and looked back, but no matter what I did, it wouldn't go away. I decided to read what was written on the panel.
[New Mission!]
Knock your boss' teeth out.
Time Limit: 2 days.
Reward: ???
Failure Penalty: ???
My face took on a confused, yet scared expression.
"Yeah, fuck this. I'm clocking out." Uttered one of the writers, followed by many "Me too"s.
Noticing my strange expression, Asuka decided to ask me what's wrong. I pointed at the popup and said, "Have you seen this before?" in a confused tone.
"Yeah, of course I've seen it. We're on the same project. Did you forget?"
I looked down, only to notice that the panel popped up right above my team's most recent project. However, her ignoring the weird floating blue panel only meant one thing. She couldn't see it. All of my other co-workers were acting indifferent as well. I realized that I was the only person who could see it.
As I started to zone out, trying to come up with a single explanation for this, I heard Asuka's voice. "Haruto. We're gonna go to a bar. You wanna come?"
"Nah, I'm too tired. Maybe next time." Of course, I was the furthest thing from tired, despite the 17 hour shift. After spending 2 years at this shithole of a company, I got used to long shifts and unpaid overtime. However, I was too distracted by this 'Mission' thing. They chattered and laughed as they walked off.
On my way back home, my eyes were glued to the game-like panel in front of me. I didn't understand how this panel came to be, or why only I can see it, but I pieced together that I should, rather, MUST knock my boss' teeth out. But I was just too much of a wimp. I'm a short 170cm at 20, and I weigh 60kg. I work out maybe 3 times a month, and even then I'm inconsistent. As I mentioned already, I wasn't an athletic kid, and I had no talent. Even at drawing, which is my job, I'm maybe decent at best. In comparison, Sato worked out 5 times a week, was huge, and was maybe 184cm tall. There was absolutely no chance i could pull that off. Wait.. Maybe, if I somehow caught him off-guard, there would be a chance? Well, it's getting late, so I'll just think about it tomorrow.