Chapter 45
Chapter 45
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 45
Chapter Title: Is the Author Omnipotent?
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It would be simple enough for him to handle the coloring himself.
But if he did that, he'd end up doing the same work every time going forward.
From Taeseong's perspective, who wanted to establish a proper system, that wasn't ideal.
‘Guess I'll just show them the real thing.’
He found an unexpectedly straightforward solution.
Taeseong paused the coloring on the hamburger illustration.
Then he stopped by the café on the first floor.
“You want to borrow the kitchen?”
“Yeah, just for a bit.”
“Go ahead.”
Since it was a request from Taeseong, a regular, the café owner readily agreed.
“Thank you.”
He quickly swung by the mart, bought some ingredients, and returned.
Then he got to work making hamburgers in earnest.
The episode in *Otherworld Chef* stemmed from Taeseong reaching the pinnacle as a chef and starting to cook himself because he couldn't stomach the awful food in his next life.
All the dishes that appeared in the novel were ones Taeseong had made himself.
Recreating them wasn't difficult at all.
Taeseong whipped up the hamburgers in no time and packed them separately.
He handed one over to the café owner.
“I made plenty. Have one.”
“Oh my! What a treat. Thanks, I'll dig in.”
“Thanks for letting me use the kitchen.”
With a word of thanks, he left the café.
Left alone, the owner brought the hamburger to his mouth as soon as Taeseong was gone.
“I was getting hungry anyway.”
He took a bite, and juicy meat juices flowed out, coating his tongue.
“Whoa—!”
Even just one bite drew an exclamation.
“Is he a chef, not a writer?”
The flavor was so good it made him question Taeseong's profession. He stared in the direction Taeseong had gone for a good while.
* * *
The reaction in the office was just as enthusiastic.
If he hadn't made plenty of hamburgers, they would have all vanished before he could even use one as a model.
Oh Jung-sik, who was in charge of coloring for *Otherworld Chef*, dove straight into the work as soon as the tasting was over.
“Representative! File's uploaded!”
His voice brimmed with confidence.
Taeseong logged into the cloud server and checked the uploaded file.
The hamburger illustration was now even more mouthwatering than before.
The coloring was so well done that he could practically taste the food just by looking at it.
“Great. Please keep it up like this from now on.”
“Uh... but Representative, I think we'd do even better with more of your food!”
Oh Jung-sik's words prompted cries of “Me too!” and “I agree!” from around the room.
It felt like the workload was about to increase.
* * *
Taeseong focused mainly on the roughs for each project while devoting himself to writing *The Sword Immortal's Return*.
Juggling multiple projects had slowed his writing pace considerably.
This month in particular, he'd been away from the office for Japan promotions, so it was definitely slower than his previous works.
Even so, he was currently working on volume 12.
The serialized portions had passed volume 5, meaning he had a stockpile of 7 volumes.
The slowdown was strictly by the standards of the author Jeong Taeseong.
‘Fortunately, the paid serialization response isn't bad.’
He'd been tense since it was a wuxia genre.
But it wasn't bad at all.
To Taeseong, his competitors weren't other works anymore—they were his own previous ones.
The market compared his current work to his past ones, not to others.
He was that unrivaled.
Bzzz—!
Just then, his smartphone buzzed.
It was Representative Kwon.
To avoid disturbing the other employees, Taeseong headed to the break room to take the call.
“Yes, Representative.”
—Author, we got a call from Grape Books. Looks like Baikcent has made a contract offer.
The call he'd been waiting for had arrived.
* * *
Grape Books headquarters.
He seemed to be visiting more often lately.
Normally, an author wouldn't come here frequently.
But Taeseong was different.
As the head of his own company, he collaborated as an equal partner.
Grape Books classified Jeong Taeseong as a vital figure both as an author and a partner.
And indeed, all the projects they'd undertaken thanks to him had yielded great results.
Figures were a prime example, and recently, user numbers for Grape Books Japan had surged dramatically.
As he entered the building lobby, a familiar man greeted them with two others in tow.
“Haha! Author, long time no see!”
“Director Choi!”
It was Choi Young-min from Grape Books, who had volunteered as their escort during the China trip for Baikcent's invitation.
The reason the head of the novel division had come out himself was simple.
It was connected to Baikcent.
He oversaw novels in general but focused more on fantasy and wuxia specifically.
That's why they hadn't crossed paths much before.
He was an incredibly busy man, after all.
“I've been hearing all about your exploits through reports. Our staff are amazed—wondering if you're really a writer!”
“Thanks for the praise. How have you been?”
“Great, aside from being busier than ever thanks to you. Come on in.”
“Yes.”
The three headed to the conference room.
Once drinks were set out in front of them, Director Choi got down to business.
“When the manuscript for *The Sword Immortal's Return* came in, I thought, ‘This is the one!’ So I sent it to Baikcent.”
“It wasn't even translated. Was that okay?”
“They have Korean speakers on staff, so no issue.”
“What was the response?”
Representative Kwon asked.
“Extremely satisfied. They said it was the best wuxia novel we've tried exporting so far. They even praised how it captured the true essence of wuxia.”
Wuxia originated in China.
To get that kind of praise from there as a writer was the highest compliment.
“China's seeing more fusion wuxia than pure traditional stuff these days. One of those is your story blending modern elements with wuxia. Baikcent believes serializing it there won't face much backlash.”
Taeseong was already aware of that.
Before contracting *Return of the SSS-Class Hunter* with Baikcent.
He'd browsed their site and read various novels.
Most of the top-ranked ones were wuxia.
Surprisingly few were traditional wuxia.
At the time, it was just surprising, but it became valuable reference material when writing *The Sword Immortal's Return*.
“So we'll serialize in China through Baikcent.”
At Representative Kwon's words, Director Choi nodded.
“Exactly. And Baikcent has another proposal.”
“What is it?”
“A film contract.”
“A film contract?!”
Representative Kwon asked in surprise.
It was unexpected for Taeseong too, so he looked at Director Choi.
“As you all know, China is at the forefront of content creation right now. They're using massive capital to infiltrate even Hollywood, the world's top film industry.”
It was common knowledge.
A prime example was the acquisition of Legendary Entertainment.
Legendary was a storied Hollywood production company.
But in 2012, it was acquired by a Chinese group and restructured as a subsidiary.
That wasn't all.
China was currently the biggest investor in Hollywood.
That's why Chinese actors flooded certain films and China served as a backdrop.
“They've featured China in Hollywood films multiple times, but they want their own original worldview.”
China was undoubtedly dominating content swiftly.
But rather than overtaking Hollywood's deep history overnight, they were gradually building influence through it.
The problem was the backlash.
Global audiences were growing resentful of the quality dips in capital-influenced films, plus the unrelated Chinese actors and settings.
Aware of this, China was scaling back.
And shifting strategy.
They needed to conquer the world with their own content.
Hence the focus on investment alongside original productions.
“So they want to bundle a film contract with *The Sword Immortal's Return*.”
“Of course, that's just speculation. Baikcent just made the proposal.”
Even as speculation, it came from Director Choi.
It was likely true.
He was close with Baikcent, fluent in Chinese, and an expert on all things China.
He wouldn't say it lightly.
Taeseong fell into thought.
Turning his story into a film was undeniably appealing.
Producing it as a visual medium rather than a novel would let him share it with far more people.
But.
“I'll pass on that for now.”
“Yes?”
Representative Kwon blinked in shock at the unexpected reply.
Director Choi watched Taeseong quietly before speaking.
“So ‘for now’ means you're holding off?”
“You could interpret it that way. But I won't hand film production over to Baikcent.”
“Sounds like you have something in mind.”
Taeseong nodded.
“I'm thinking of producing it myself.”
It was a bombshell.
* * *
Taeseong sat in a café with Representative Kwon.
Their conversation was a continuation of the one at Grape Books.
“Film production? When did you start thinking about that?”
“You know how *The Black Knight's Girl* drama hit a snag, right, Representative Kwon?”
“Yes, I do. They overextended the episode count, lost the story's focus, and the whole thing dragged.”
“Exactly. That's when I realized: the person who knows my stories best is me. And that holds true no matter the format.”
“So that's what made you decide to produce yourself?”
“Yes. Even when we adapt to other content via OSMU going forward, I plan to be directly involved in production. Of course, I'm not jumping in right away. Consider it prep stage.”
The first thing that came to Representative Kwon's mind was money.
But he shook his head.
‘No way Jeong the author is short on cash.’
Just the settlements from YK Books exceeded ten billion won.
Add in drama and other payouts, and it was an astronomical sum.
What Kwon didn't know was that Taeseong was also investing in stocks.
His investments had already risen 500%, yielding massive profits.
‘Even if short, we can always take investments.’
Film productions rarely had the producer front all the cash.
Usually, major distributors invested, plus funding from many others.
Money wouldn't be a big issue.
The question was whether Taeseong could actually make a film.
Production involved more than money—plenty of hurdles.
And whether it would succeed was a huge unknown.
Realistically, it seemed ‘pretty tough.’
‘But with this author...’
From what he'd seen of Jeong Taeseong so far...
It felt like he just might pull it off.