Once Upon a Time In Joseon by Aleksander Prętnicki

In a world where steam-powered railways cut through cherry blossom valleys, and gunslingers trade shots beside Shinto shrines and shamanic altars, one story is about to change everything, a story about a deer who was afraid of nothing.

Somewhere between the Wild West and the Joseon court, between a dusty frontier town called Sompolno and a palace where a prince has just been murdered by his own blood, a young woman with nothing but a satchel of ink brushes is running for her life.

She doesn't know that the bounty on her head will draw the attention of a goblin gunslinger with one glass eye and no known name. She doesn't know that a washed-up circus squirrel with delusions of grandeur is about to become the most persistent talent agent in the Republic. And she has no idea that the small, hand-drawn fables she carries, stories about a deer too stubborn to disappear, are about to invent an entire art form, spark a diplomatic incident, and become the only weapon standing between a dying kingdom and the dark that's coming for it.

Perfect for readers of Spinning Silver, The Poppy War, and Jade City, a genre-bending fever dream of spaghetti westerns, Korean court drama, and steampunk satire, where every chapter changes the rules and nobody, from kings to talking squirrels, gets out with their dignity fully intact.

Some legends start with a gunshot. This one starts with a single line of ink.