Chapter 16 [The Beginning of a New Costume]

Honoka had been in her apartment when she had gotten a notification for a link for the draw generator, this was the first time being a part of a group that was gonna be doing a themed cosplay group and not just a "cosplay any character you want".

This draw was to prevent the members of the said group from arguing when it came to who cosplays who, aside from making things interesting.

A draw, huh? I don't have much luck with things like these...

I just hope I get a character that has a outfit that's not that hard to make...

But, Will I have time to make it though?

She started to worry about her schedule getting busy once her editor tells her to start working on the next volume, unfortunately for her, none of the admins of the group chat hasn't announced the date of the group cosplay as of yet.

Yuuki only had announced that there's gonna be one soon and didn't specify a given date for when they were gonna be doing it.

Should I post about this on my SNS...?

But then again... I might get kicked off of the group for that...

Honoka hesitant to post about the upcoming event online couldn't do so for the sole reason of her being removed from the group and group chat as it was against the set rules.

Should I draw now...? Or do it later?

I guess I should since Yuuki already posted it...

*tap*

She opened the link to a webpage that has a menu that looks like a gacha menu of a japanese mobile game, this was "pretty cool" she thought as she pressed the "draw" button on the said menu.

In an instant... Her draw result was now decided...

She got a character that's obviously female, that has a spear with blonde hair that's styled into pigtails, blue eyes, wearing armor that makes the said character have the appearance of a knight from the middle ages.

Oh... Looks like I'll have to learn how to make cosplay armor now...

Her excitement disappeared the instant she saw her character assignment. With no knowledge on making armor that's meant for cosplaying, she now had to learn from online tutorials and ask help from the members of the group chat like usual.

I heard that I needed a heat gun for forming the foam into shape but...

How much will one cost...?

Her first search was about the retail price of a heat gun, all of the search results that she got ranged from the cheap to the most expensive, from the not-that-well-known to the famous brands.

Which one should I get...? Maybe I should refer to a tutorial first before I spend money on one of these...

A wise decision-- Her decision to not spend money first and look it up later was wise, she was better of doing this than regretting it later on.

Let's see... EVA Foam... Razor knife, a hot knife... a hot glue gun, some velcro... a heat gun, some nylon straps and bukles... and a marker for marking... a metal ruler and some spray paint... and lastly... a rotary tool?

Woah... That's a lot... This is gonna suck... I can tell already...

This new costume of hers will be costing

her quite a bit of money if she wasn't careful about buying the materials that was needed.

This was prooving to be challenging to her as she started to work on the said costume...

Her hand would often slip when she was handling the rotary tool, resulting in unessesary mistakes...

The mistakes that she had made were also obvious when she started to paint the finished armor pieces.

Her process of crafting this time was a fun and new expierence for her... With every cut she had made on the EVA foam, she slowly finished putting the armor pieces together using some of the velcro and nylon straps that she had ordered online with the hot glue gun before she added to add the details afterwards using a combination of the rotary tool, the hot knife.

This process was the tricky part... One slip and her costume would be ruined and she would have to start over.

This part is making me nervous... The people on the group chat to take it slow but...

She thought, already thinking of the mistakes that she could potencially do in the middle of carving the details onto the said foam armor.

This process could take from three hours to even more depending on how much time she had to work on it.

*Vrrrr*

Still with an ounce of hestation, she turned the rotary tool on after she finished putting marks for the detailing process on the surface of the eva material.

Little by little... The area that the said tool touched would slowly be cut away, like it was a piece of butter.

*riing*

Her smartphone rung after an hour of working on the armor, interupting her.

That could be Shigure... She usually calls me around this time of the month to tell me about the sales results of my light novel.

She turned off the rotary tool before she put it down on the table and picked it up her phone.

"I've got good news and bad news, which one do you wanna hear first?"

Sure enough, the person on the other end was actually her editor- Shigure.

I really hate it when both news are present... Why is there bad news this time...?

She felt her heart sink as the words "bad news" come from her smartphone's front speaker.

The sound of it always meant that there was something that she had to do in order to continue working for her publisher.

"I'd like to hear the good one first..."

"The sales quota for your latest volume has been reached as usual.

As for the bad news..."

Oh god, here we go... Please don't be a book signing...

Honoka braced herself as Shigure slowly broke the news to her.

"You're gonna be getting a book signing event."

Damn it! Why?!

"Oh... Ok..."

Oh whatever... Atleast my publisher isn't asking me to rush to finish the current story arc...

Giving up on attempting to argue with Shigure, Honoka decided to give in to the sudden news.

She felt rather relieved that the higher ups wasn't asking her to do something hard like rushing the story.

***

A couple of days has now passed, Honoka had also finished most of the detailing on the armor; she had now reached the point where she can almost start applying the paint to it.

With her sales quota reached, she can now move on to planning out the next volume without any worries, her free time to work on the armor had also decreased as she received the OK to proceed with the next volume.

[To be continued...]