CH 7

DRAWN MOCHI VOLUME 1 CHAPTER 7: STRANGE HORSES AND POACHERS*1

I did it. I really did it. I finally got my hands on some blue paint.

I was made to eat bad-tasting nuts, I got sick from them, I was made to keep the eggs warm, and all sorts of other things, but all’s well that ends well. I was able to draw birds and even the chicks.

And above all, I have blue!

The blue eggshell of the giant bird’s giant egg! They gave me a piece and I was able to use it to make blue paint!

Now I have red, yellow, and blue, for the most part. I also got some green, purple, and orange, so I should be able to paint a lot of pictures now.

Now, what should I paint…?

I walked back to my tent. It’s been a while. After all, I’ve spent two nights in the bird’s nest. …What am I going to do, I wonder?

Oh well. The first thing I make is a “color sample.”

I colored some sheets of paper with paint. I also record what each color is made from and how it was made.

This is like a backup in case I lose the paint tubes. As long as I have the color swatches, I can use them to make a new tube of paint. If I have a note of how I made the color, I may be able to make it again.

I will continue to keep color swatches, or rather backups of colors, on a regular basis. It’s not like I’m always going to be able to get blue eggshells.

Well. Now that I have blue, I can paint a lot of things.

First, I draw fruit trees. Because I don’t want to draw food all the time. I wanted to paint a variety of things, so I wanted to be able to supply food without having to rely on drawing materialization. Especially, at least fruits.

So, a number of fruit trees were to grow near the spring.

The temperature was not that low, so I thought it would be early summer, but I was not sure of the season, so I drew some pears, grapes, peaches, and so on, at random, without really thinking about anything in particular.

Then when they ripen, I was able to pick the fruit and eat it. I got carried away and grew tomatoes, cucumbers, and potatoes. They grew. I also grew edamame (soybeans) because I simply love them. This also grew.

…This should be enough food for the time being. I think I can cook meat and eat it from time to time.

Once the field is ready, the next challenge will be the house.

…However, I don’t want to pass out like the time after the spring, so I decided to do it little by little.

First, I need to build a foundation. I built something made of wood, on stilts… well, like a wooden deck.

This alone was pretty exhausting, but I didn’t pass out anyway.

The next day, I made the posts and beams. In short, the framework. This was also a bit tiring, but I didn’t pass out.

…and the next day I made the walls, and the next day I made the roof.

On the 5th day, I finally made my furniture… In this way, I was able to build a house.

“…this is so nice.” (Tougo)

That night, I finally slept in my bed.

I had slept on the ground or in a bird’s nest, so the fluffy feel of a bed was a breath of fresh air. It was nostalgic, I guess.

…Come to think of it, half a month has already passed since I came to this world.

As for what I was doing during that time…I was drawing most of the time…

Well, it can’t be helped that something so strange… as the materialization of pictures has happened. In fact, I could say that I am alive because I was able to draw. If I had not drawn, I would have starved to death long before… Yeah. So, it can’t be helped.

… I have to draw in order to live, but this situation is also a very happy situation for me right now.

After all, I can draw as much as I want. It is difficult to get the right colors of paint, but I can get whatever I can draw. I can use as many expensive art materials as I want.

And I can use them as much time as you want. And because there is no school, I can draw all the time I want. And most importantly, I can make art all the time because I don’t have my parents watching me.

… I wonder if my parents are worried about me not coming home. I’m sure they are. They are like that. That’s the kind of person my parents are.

But even if I find a way to return to my original world right now, I wonder if I will return to my original world immediately… Hmm, I feel like I’m at a loss.

Because if I stay here, I can paint.

For me, being able to paint is the most important thing, so in that sense, this world is much more comfortable than my original world. If anything, I would like to stay here forever.

What I regret about my original world is that I must have worried my parents and other people.

I’ve thrown out my schooling and everything, so that’s it.

And then… My teacher.

MY teacher is a hard person to explain… He is an adult, but he is very different from other adults. I have never seen anyone else like him.

He is like a “teacher” to me, but at the same time, he is probably a friend.

He is the only person who understands me, and I think I am probably somewhat… someone who understands him, I think. I’m not very confident int that.

Unfortunately, I am a high school student, and he is an adult, so there was a clear difference in power (financial power and so on), and I am sure that I am indebted to him, and I am sure that I am causing him trouble, but I think that …… He enjoys the care and inconvenience there. Thankfully.

Well, anyway, he is that kind of person. That’s why I miss him.

Even if I could have stayed in this world and painted as much as I wanted… I would have to find a way to go back to my former world because he is there, I think.

I’m sure my teacher would be amused by the fact that I’ve been in another world for a year or so and disappeared. So, I don’t think I have to hurry so much.

As for my parents… yeah, well, not that sorry.

The day after I slept in a bed for the first time. I slept so well that I slept until noon… Beds are so comfortable to sleep in. I didn’t feel that tired that I was surprised. It was amazing.

Now, let’s see. Today, the day I slept the most soundly since I came to this world, I decided to paint another spring.

Because I wanted to separate the water for daily use and drinking water.

And because the spring for domestic use was used as a birdbath.

… The giant bird seems to have taken a liking to me. Maybe it was because it realized that I was not its enemy, or maybe it was because I incubated its eggs.

It’s rather scary to be pecked by that huge body, but the bird didn’t care and came to me while raising a cooing cry.

The bird seemed to have decided to use the fountain I’d put out as its bathing spot.

“Good morning.” (Tougo)

It was here again today. A huge bird was flapping around in the fountain.

I watched it and started washing clothes next to it. It would be nice to paint clothes… but it is faster to wash them than to paint them. So, I decided to at least do the laundry so that I would have time to paint.

When I am washing clothes next to a bird bathing, I naturally get wet too. I knew that.

So, I took off my clothes, washed the ones I was wearing, and bathed myself. Somehow, I felt that it would be bad if soap got on the bird, so I bathe in the creek where the water flows from the spring. The bird bathes upstream, looking like they own the place. I feel somewhat at odds.

Once I am clean like the bird, I change into the clothes I have prepared and quickly draw another spring.

The spring I will draw this time will be closer to the house than the original spring. I will give the original spring to the bird, but I want to make another spring for my drinking water and watercolor painting.

I don’t want the birds to use this one, so I will make it a little more artificial and smaller.

I will put up marble pillars to keep the birds away, and on top of that, a roof to keep the birds away and the rain away. Inside, I will build a well-maintained spring made of stone. It ended up looking more like an altar and a fountain than a spring. But that’s okay.

The reason I used marble this time is that I would like to do a sculpture someday, and this is a practice to get the marble out for that. …At the moment, it looks like a marble-like stone. I don’t think it is suitable for sculpture. The texture is coarse. …Well, that’s OK. I’ll practice more and get better.

Then this time, I made a discovery.

That is the discovery of “how to get tired when materializing a picture”.

This time, after making a spring again, I found out.

It seems that I get tired when I try to make something “big”. It was the same with the house, but I get tired when I try to make something bigger than myself.

…and even more, tiring is the “water”.

Again, the most tiring part was when I drew water into the spring and materialized the water gushing out. Although it was much smaller than the first spring, it was still very tiring. To be honest, it was more tiring than the house. The house is many, many times bigger than the spring.

The mystery of this phenomenon was immediately clear to me.

Because I had served both “barley tea” and “water” rather early on.

It wasn’t such a tiring job to get it out of the cup. If I had been bad, it might have been easier than paint.

I think the reason for this may be that the amount of water was small, but more than anything else, I think it was because I wasn’t making the “water gushing mechanism itself”.

This may be natural when you think about it. Because a “spring” is a “mechanism that continues to produce water semi-permanently”. It is not the same as a glass of water. Of course… a spring is a hell of a lot more than a cup of barley tea, or even a house, for that matter. It’s even affecting the groundwater and that kind of thing under the ground.

If you think about it, this must be quite a big deal. I just wanted to materialize a large amount of water and materialized the spring without thinking about anything in particular. But I wonder if it was a good idea… No, it’s too late now.

…whatever. If something goes wrong, I’ll just rethink my actions. I can’t help thinking about it now. Yep.

So, I made another fountain and thought, now I can get water for watercolor without disturbing the birds, and that day I roasted meat and ate fruit. Then slept for the night.

…The next morning.

“They’re increasing.” (Tougo)

Birds were bathing in the first spring. This is good because it’s already happened.

However, I don’t understand the strange horse drinking water next to it.

The strange horse had a pure white coat and a golden mane and tail. It was a picture-perfect horse, but I could see its wings flapping on its back as it bent over to drink water.

Wings.

On the horse’s back.

…What is that?