ch 270
Became a Swordsmanship Instructor at the Academy
Chapter 270
Rain is violently lashing against the window.
SPLASH!
Just like outside the window, my stomach is crying out for food, but I don't want to move.
In this pitch-black dark room with no lights on,
I really don't want to do anything at all.
Even up until I made my wish, I had held onto a glimmer of hope.
Given the constraint that Lumiel had told me about, I would go to the afterlife.
Then couldn't I meet Yama again and make another wish?
It was a futile expectation.
Contrary to my expectations, I didn't go to the afterlife.
The first thing I saw when I regained consciousness two days ago was an unfamiliar ceiling.
A completely unorganized, very small and shabby studio apartment.
I had become Lee Min-chan, a third-rate writer.
I wondered if death might come for me again soon and I'd go to the afterlife like before, but I soon realized.
The date I had died had already passed.
At the same time, emptiness and helplessness found me.
The wealth and honor I had as Kang Shin-hyeok, as well as martial arts and magic, had all disappeared, but that's not why I fell into emptiness.
It's because now, no matter what I do, I can never see everyone again.
Of course, this was something I decided and chose, and I hadn't been naively optimistic about it....
But when it became reality, it was too cruel.
It feels like my heart has died.
I haven't done anything for the past two days.
I haven't washed, haven't eaten, just lay there.
I really don't want to do anything.
I thought it would be nice if I just died like this.
Though there's no guarantee that the same luck as before would come again.
Ding dong!
"102 bachelor, please open the door."
KNOCK! KNOCK!
"102 bachelor!"
I wondered who it was, but it seems to be the landlord.
Come to think of it, wasn't yesterday the day to pay rent?
No matter how much I want to die, I don't think I should cause trouble for others.
She's been very understanding when times were tough, so this wouldn't be right.
I went to the entrance and opened the door, and as expected, it's the landlord lady.
"You were home. I called and texted... did you just wake up?"
"Ah, yes."
"You don't look well... are you feeling sick somewhere?"
"No. You're here about the rent, right?"
"Yes. The day before yesterday was rent day, but there was no deposit. I texted and called yesterday, but your phone was off."
It was the day before yesterday, not yesterday.
"I was working intensively and only slept for about two days.... I'm sorry. I'll send it right away."
"If you're having financial difficulties, you can pay slowly, but please let me know in advance next time...."
"No. I'll charge my phone right away and deposit it. I'm sorry."
My finances aren't abundant, but I shouldn't be so broke that I can't pay one month's rent.
I sent the landlord lady away, connected my phone to the charger, and turned it on.
The clock in the room was broken so I didn't know the time, but it's already 10 AM.
I knew it was morning because it was light outside.
Looking at the bank app, I still have about 2 million won in my account.
If I die here like this, that would also be somewhat inconsiderate.
If rent is overdue like this time, the landlord will come looking, so discovery wouldn't be too late, but would the remaining 1.7 million after paying rent be enough for funeral costs?
No, if I'm going to die anyway, why am I having such thoughts?
Thinking it was pointless, I deposited the rent and lay down on the mattress.
RING! RING!
The phone is ringing.
It rings a few times and stops, so it's not a call but a text. Is it the landlord?
It's probably a confirmation text that she received the rent. I was about to ignore it, but when I checked the phone, it wasn't the landlord.
[Author, do you have any next work in preparation?]
It's the manager I worked with on two previous works.
A next work proposal when I spectacularly failed both works....
Of course, this company didn't contact me out of loyalty.
From the company's perspective, the more writing there is, the better it is unconditionally.
They say there are writings that can't even recover the cover cost or advance, but when combined with secondary distribution and rentals, most are recovered.
I had never received an advance while working with this company.
Moreover, even though I'm a third-rate writer, I'm not so bad that I can't even recover the cover cost.
I can see right through their intentions.
If they were really interested in me and wanted to work together, they would have made a next work proposal before the previous work ended, not contact me now....
I threw my phone away and lay back down.
The guy who was thinking about just dying until a moment ago, what next work....
I lay still for a long time, but eventually got up again.
I turned on the laptop on the desk in the corner and ran a word processing file.
I thought everything had disappeared, but there's still one thing left for me.
Memory.
The memories I spent with everyone remain intact.
I don't particularly want to show it to anyone specific, but I wanted to record it in writing.
Because if I die like this, nothing will really remain.
Of course, the world I visited is another writer's work.
Moreover, 'I Became a Delinquent Inferior Student at Hunter School' is a work that was a huge hit, so I can't monetize it.
Even though it progressed differently from the original, the worldview and characters are the same, so I'd be 100% caught up in plagiarism disputes.
But it doesn't matter.
Even if it's free,
Even if not many people read it,
I don't want to leave my memories, everyone, as a story only I know.
***
I don't know many writers, but usually web novel writers write one episode a day, and fast writers sometimes write two or three episodes.
I'm definitely not the fast type and rather struggle a bit with even one episode a day, but this time I wrote 270 episodes in three months.
That's about 90 episodes per month.
Since I wasn't planning to monetize it, there was less pressure, and since they were all stories I had experienced, there were no parts where I got stuck.
Most of all, it was because I was desperate.
For me, who had fallen into emptiness and helplessness, writing this was the only reason that kept me alive.
I reduced sleep, ate roughly, and focused only on writing. The only thing that could be called a distraction was crying when I remembered the kids while writing.
If there had been fewer such days, it would have been faster.
I haven't started serializing it yet.
If it's not for commercial use, most derivative works seem to be allowed, but in principle, you need permission from the author.
I was afraid they might not give permission, so I finished writing first.
Even if they were going to refuse, seeing how much I had written, they might give permission seeing my sincerity.
With slightly nervous feelings, I accessed the novel site where I had read the work before.
I clearly remember the title, but I don't know the publisher.
Once I know the publisher, I can ask writers I know from the same company.
If that doesn't work, I'll have to google and find an email at least.
I immediately entered 'I Became a Delinquent Inferior Student at Hunter School' in the search box and pressed enter.
[No corresponding work found. Discover other interesting works on the Honey Honey Page home.]
What?
For a moment I thought I had entered the search term wrong, but that's not it.
This is definitely the place.
It was even featured on the main page for a completion event.
Finding it strange, I tried other novel sites, but the original work couldn't be found anywhere.
Not even on portal sites.
It was quite a popular work.
When I searched on the site before, there was even an author interview.
I remember being very envious because it was said to be their first writing in their early twenties, but I have no idea how this happened.
I went around all kinds of portal sites searching and looked through works with keywords like Hunter School, delinquent, inferior student, but no work was the same as the original I knew.
After some thought, I started serializing.
I thought long about what to title it and decided on 'I Became a Swordsmanship Instructor at the Academy'.
Because the trigger that made me, who was frustrated thinking I was deceived by King Yama, accept and seriously embrace a new life was the job text from Hunter School.
I was going to call it Hunter School, but since academy is trendy these days, I changed it to academy, and I thought instructor sounded better than teacher, so I changed that too.
I didn't have such ambition at first, but after completing it, I thought it would be nice if even a few more people would read it, so I uploaded up to episode 10.
After that, I scheduled one episode per day.
Since I had already written everything to completion, I thought about releasing it all at once, but if it goes up daily, even one more person would read it.
Most of all, if I finish the serialization quickly, I feel like I'll be consumed by helplessness and emptiness again.
So I finished scheduling up to episode 270 and lay down on the bed.
As soon as I lay down, sleepiness rushed over me instantly.
I hardly slept at all to finish it.
I thought I'd rest a bit and closed my eyes.
***
How long did I sleep? It doesn't seem like long since I lay down on the bed, but my phone keeps ringing so I can't sleep at all.
It's not an alarm, and it's probably spam saying there's great information or coins are surging, but I really need to give them a good scolding.
Huh?
It's already 2 PM.
I completed the scheduling around midnight, so I was out for almost 14 hours.
I must have been really tired.
But what surprised me wasn't the time.
The phone that kept ringing isn't an unknown number but the number of the publisher contact I worked with before.
Why did they call?
Even when we worked together, they were extremely business-like and never called first like this.
Did they deposit royalties incorrectly?
I pressed the call button.
-Author, good afternoon. Have you had lunch?
"I just woke up, what's the matter?"
-I'm sorry. Since it's this time, I naturally thought you'd be awake....
"I went to bed a bit late yesterday."
I see. I left several messages and texts but got no response, so I was anxious and called like this.
"Messages and texts? As I told you, I just woke up so I couldn't check, what's the matter?"
-Author, I contacted you after seeing what you posted on the serialization site yesterday. The response is tremendous.
"What?"
I threw the phone and immediately turned on the laptop.
I accessed the site to check my writing and was really surprised.
The 10 episodes I posted yesterday, with today's episode 11 scheduled for noon, making it only 11 episodes total, but episode 1 is approaching 50,000 views.
Comments range from 1,000 per episode at most, with over 300 even on the latest episode.
Real-time rising rank 1.
What on earth is this.... Did I get caught up in plagiarism disputes?
Yesterday when I searched so thoroughly, there was nothing... No, if such disputes had arisen, the company wouldn't have called like this.
-Author? We can offer really good conditions this time....
"I'm checking now, so I'll call you back later."
I hung up and clicked on episode 1 to check the comments.
[The absorption is crazy. I thought it was just another common academy story, but once I started reading, I couldn't put it down.]
[Guys, don't read this. You should wait for more to accumulate. I read up to episode 10 and only 1 episode came out today, so I almost died waiting. Author, if you don't want to die, serialize consistently.]
[This is the advance team. Really nuclear fun. You can keep going as is. As additional info, if you search by the author's pen name, you'll find several previous works, but they all had terrible performance. But suddenly it's like they awakened or something, completely different. If you could write like this, you should have written like this from the beginning. Of course, it might tank later like the previous works, so be careful, but so far it's legendary fun.]
Legendary response.
The writings I've written so far only had comments mocking like the company that contracted with this author must have fired their staff, or saying it's boring.
No plagiarism disputes I was worried about either.
I understand why the company team leader called like that.
RING! RING! RING!
The phone keeps ringing.
I thought they couldn't wait and called again, but now I see the messenger has gone crazy too.
Not only the contact who reached out earlier, but writer friends I was close with left messages congratulating me and saying their companies are asking for my contact info, offering to introduce me.
There are several cases where they have already heard from companies and are presenting specific conditions, and they're all incredibly good conditions I never could have imagined before.
I feel strange.
I definitely thought it would be nice if many people read it, but I'm a bit embarrassed by the hotter than expected interest.
Readers probably think it's creative, but it's actually all my story.
In the past, I would have been purely happy. But I didn't write this for money.
So I should decline all the publication proposals... but I probably can't.
There are many places where you can't post without contracting with a company.
Even though I said money wasn't the purpose, I'm barely managing next month's living expenses, let alone rent.