Settling Accounts, and Back into the Subspace
"Mmm. Cleaned up nice."
Fresh out of the shower, I took in the room—last night's food gone, every trace of sex wiped clean—and turned a bright smile on Lee Harin.
Thump.
"Save it. Move. I'm washing up."
Whether the praise rubbed her the wrong way or she was just pissed I'd dumped the cleanup on her, Lee Harin shoved my shoulder and walked straight into the bathroom.
"Hell of a temper."
Still, she seems all right now. Hmm. Simple as ever, that head of hers.
Watching her knock past me and disappear into the bathroom, I felt it for real this time. She was fine. Honestly, even the shoulder check didn't annoy me. I wrote it off as brattiness and dropped onto the bed.
"All right. Let's see what yesterday's rewards look like."
I flopped back, opened the System like it was already habit, and pulled up the previous message window.
"Right. That's the one from the first kiss..."
I scrolled until I found the last window I'd checked, then read down through the messages one by one.
Lee Harin was extremely satisfied with her first sexual encounter with the user.
+520 Points
Lee Harin was extremely satisfied with sex with the user.
+230 Points
"I was already wondering if there was a way to earn points outside of quests. Figures it'd come down to how satisfied she is in bed."
Six message windows had stacked up in a row, one for each of the six times I'd come before Lee Harin passed out, and altogether I'd picked up 1,651 points.
"Hm?"
I confirmed the total from sex with Lee Harin and moved on to the next message—and found one that stopped me cold. Strange.
You have advanced to the contest's final judging.
As an additional reward, you have acquired the one-use Compass of Fate (SSS).
Use it immediately? (Yes / No)
"What? I made the contest finals?"
I hit No on the prompt asking if I wanted to use it right away, then focused, trying to get a grip on what was happening.
"...Right. A KakaoTalk came in earlier, didn't it?"
The notification surfaced in my memory. I grabbed the phone off the bed and opened it.
"Today's the thirteenth, so I've got a week. I've got the subspace, so that's one thing—but is this even possible for a normal person?"
Two full scripts inside a week. Reading that, I had to wonder whether anyone else could actually pull it off.
By any ordinary standard, you didn't do what I had done and send in only Part 1. You wrote Parts 2 and 3 ahead of time and submitted the lot together. I'd fired off Part 1 without a second thought.
Ding!
One Step from Drama Writer
Only one step remains before you become a drama writer.
Submit the additional scripts to the contest.
🎁 Reward: Random acquisition voucher for a sex-related skill (B or below)
I didn't even get a moment to sit with the question before Tutorial (3) popped up again.
"Mm... time doesn't move inside the subspace anyway. Use the rewards first, then write."
I read the quest, turned it over for a second, and decided to cash the rewards in before I touched the scripts.
"Rewards keep shrinking, though. Tutorial's about to wrap up, isn't it?"
Watching them dwindle, I knew it in my gut. The tutorial quests were nearing their end.
"Not that the System disappears just because the tutorial's over. No point obsessing. Still a shame I won't be able to rake rewards in this easily anymore."
I looked over what I'd just gained and started sorting out what to use first.
"Let's see... which skill do I pick if I want people saying I came out of this looking damn good~"
In the end I decided to use the free purchase voucher for an appearance-related skill of B+ or below—the one from the first kiss—and stepped into the Shop in high spirits.
A skin skill, or something a higher grade than the appearance skill I already have... which one do I buy?
"Mm... yeah. This is the one. Obviously."
I weighed skin skills against higher-grade appearance skills from every angle, settled on my choice, and hit purchase without hesitating.
You have purchased the skill Handsome Appearance (B+).
A lower-tier counterpart exists: Pretty Decent Appearance (B).
Handsome Appearance (B+) absorbs its lower-tier counterpart, Pretty Decent Appearance (B).
└─ By absorbing the lower-tier skill, it has risen in grade to Charming Appearance (A-). ★
"...!"
The instant the message confirmed I'd obtained Charming Appearance (A-), I flipped the phone to selfie mode and checked the face looking back.
"...Whoa?!"
One look, and the gasp tore out of me on its own.
I like to think my standards are high, and I was sure of this much. Tastes might split, but a face like this could stand next to the celebrities on television and not come up short.
"Mm! At this level I could debut in the industry right now."
I spent a good while shooting selfies from every angle, admiring myself, and only once I was thoroughly satisfied did I check the next reward.
◈ When the user thinks of what they want, it guides them toward a beneficial destiny along that path, and helps them avoid misfortune when an unhappy fate draws near.
"...I'll save this for when I'm looking for a production company. Watching what she's going through, I get how much an agency matters. Plenty of crooked contracts out there, from what I hear. Better play it safe."
My eyes moved from the Compass of Fate to the bathroom door, where Lee Harin was still in the shower, and the weight of an agency hit me all over again.
"Haa... all right. Time to go write."
I tucked the Compass of Fate back into the inventory, drew a long breath, and thought, I want to enter the Author's Room.
The same sucking pull as the first time took hold of me, and I was there again.
"Ugh... coming back doesn't make me any fonder of this place."
A desk and a laptop sat alone in a room with nothing else in it, and I shuddered. Thank god for the mental-focus buff. Without it, this empty box of a space would've turned me into a complete wreck.
"Work's work, though. Look after me again today."
I couldn't stand there shivering forever. I sat at the desk, asked the System to take care of me, and started the scripts.
"Done..."
On the System's meticulous advice and its mountain of reference material, I wrote without rest for five years and finished Parts 2 and 3 of The One Forgotten from Memory.
"Thought it'd take about six. Guess I'm used to it—only took five."
Faster than I'd expected, and still I was satisfied. Like Part 1, Parts 2 and 3 had come out at A-.
"Mmm... scripts are done. About time I got out of here."
I stood, stretched my arms overhead, and left the subspace.
"...Back. Better submit these and get some rest."
Returned to reality, I climbed off the bed, sat in the chair, and began copying the scripts out of my head.
Takk— takkatakkatakk—
The protagonist, having dropped out of high school, is ground down by the cold condemnation around him and by parents who, far from believing him, deal in nothing but abuse and violence, until even his soul shatters. In the end he turns his back on everything and flees to his maternal grandmother's house in the countryside—but even there, hatred and rage toward the perpetrators, their parents, and his own parents take hold of him, and little by little he goes mad.
I finished Part 2 and went straight into Part 3.
Thousands of times a day he thinks of suicide, and still he never finds the courage to die. Walking a country road without end yet again, he happens to witness a heroine in circumstances much like his own standing up to her tormentors. Her fierce strength stirs a small change in him, and from that day he begins to gather the heart that had been falling apart. He resolves to stop running. He puts on a mask, and in his own way starts building a perfect version of himself.
"This is good."
Not because I'd written it. Objectively, it was entertaining, and the overall finish was sharper than Part 1.
"What's so good?"
Midway through Part 3, Lee Harin—shower finished—leaned in over my shoulder and asked.
"The script I'm submitting for the contest finals."
I answered like it was nothing and kept writing Part 3.
"Oppa, you're writing a drama script? And you're submitting it to the finals?!"
"I'm busy. I don't have time to deal with you, so don't get in the way. Go somewhere else."
Lee Harin stared at me like she couldn't believe a word of it. I didn't care. I left her with nothing but the order not to interfere, and kept on writing.