A New Plan (2)
I woke to a strange sound and cracked my eyes open. My head felt foggy, like I was still half-dreaming. Was it still before dawn? Or maybe I wasn’t even sure if my eyes were truly open.
—!!!
“What the hell? Who’s there?”
—Wake up already. The voice was sharp and irritatingly familiar.
I’d heard that tone before. Or rather, I’d seen it. Yeah. It was that plagiarist author bastard. He was definitely speaking from somewhere.
“That way of talking… It’s you, you author bitch from before!”
—I put you under sleep paralysis, so don’t try to get up right away.
“You crazy fuck.”
—If you’d just stayed quiet, none of this would’ve happened.
“I’ve done enough! Send me back already!”
Even if this world wasn’t so bad, it still couldn’t compare to my real home in Korea. I could survive here if I had to, but if there was a chance to return, I wanted it. So I argued with the author.
—Promise you won’t blab about any of this, and I’ll send you back.
“I’ll promise, so just stop already!”
By now someone else would’ve noticed it anyway. It wouldn’t matter. I could even bow my head once if I had to.
—I’d love to say yes, but unfortunately that’s impossible.
“What?”
—Interfering is difficult. And annoyingly enough, it’s because you’ve become the author now.
“Speak clearly, damn it.”
I was writing as the author here, but how did that mean I couldn’t go back? Or was this bastard saying he didn’t want to send me back anymore?
—Simply put, once you started living your own life in that world, the story stopped being mine and became yours.
“So this is my fault? You want me to be punished for it?”
—If you had quietly rotted away in prison like in the original plot, I could have pulled you out. But now, if you want to escape that place, you’ll have to create your own ending.
My own ending? Was he seriously telling me to just live here like this? Ha. The sheer audacity. What kind of dogshit logic was that?
“You want me to stay here forever?”
—I wrote a certain number of chapters. Create that much of your own ending, and you can leave.
In other words, I had to write an ending equal to the amount of chapters he’d produced. What a fucking system.
“How many are we talking?”
—Hmm. It could take decades. There are plenty of time skips, after all.
Ah, right. There had been those “one month later” and “one year later” segments. He wrote decades’ worth of that crap? Was he telling me to grow old and die here?
Because of that damn author, I was experiencing all sorts of things no man should ever go through. That conscienceless hack. Why did I ever mess with that weird writer in the first place?
—But don’t worry too much. I can at least drop in and talk to a pitiful case like you once in a while. Besides, that body of yours is pretty high-spec, isn’t it? Thanks to how you twisted the original story, it now possesses the power of a saintess.
“You call that comforting?”
—Anyway, it’s better than being a wage slave stuck working back in Korea, right? Well, I need to go update the serialization. See you later.
This bitch. Hey! She was probably just going to copy-paste another chapter while acting like she was doing something difficult.
My mind snapped back to reality. A massive pair of scissors rested on my stomach. Sleep paralysis with actual scissors? Had that insane author really left them behind?
Knock knock knock—
“Writer-nim? Are you in?”
Oh, Jerry had arrived.
It felt awkward to admit, but the man had no problem visiting a single woman’s house. And at such an early hour, too. When I looked out the window, the sun was already high in the sky.
“Not having an alarm is really inconvenient.”
I glanced outside again, then at the clock. It was already noon. Time for lunch, and my stomach was definitely complaining.
I decided to meet Jerry first. Sudden visit or not, he was the one holding my purse strings. The fact that he’d come all this way probably meant there was news.
I stood the giant scissors in the closet and let Jerry into the room.
“Oh, Writer-nim, you were still sleeping. I apologize for barging into a lady’s bedroom like this.”
“No, it’s fine. I was having sleep paralysis. I just woke up from a nightmare.”
I shook my head.
“I see. You must be exhausted. You’ve been writing almost every day, haven’t you?”
“Well, I suppose.”
I’d been stretching properly and eating well. But now that I thought about it… I really hadn’t been going outside much. I’d told myself the world outside was scary and that getting involved with the original characters would be a hassle, so I’d been living as carefully as possible. But honestly, wouldn’t wearing a wig and glasses be enough?
By now Sophia and Schwald had probably spread enough rumors to ruin my name. No one would bother searching for a disgraced former noble. The other aristocrats connected to my condemnation wouldn’t see any value in mocking a commoner like me either. So maybe it was fine to go out.
Setting that aside for now.
“What brings you here?”
“Ah, yes. The Adventurers’ Guild gave the manuscript a very positive review.”
Jerry quickly wiped away the sweat rolling down his face as he explained. Wow, his work ethic was impressive. He’d already passed it on to the guild?
My novel was spreading faster than I expected.
“Really? That’s great. I was nervous it might not work out, but I didn’t think it would happen this quickly.”
“This kind of thing is all about timing. ‘Row while the tide is high’ isn’t just empty advice.”
When he got excited, he started spitting as he talked. I couldn’t believe that saying existed here too.
“Yes, I understand what it means.”
That was enough.
“It’s quite surprising, though.”
“Hm?”
What was he going to ramble about while spitting this time? I noticed he was holding a manuscript in his hands.
“You have no connection to adventurers whatsoever, yet you wrote the battle scenes with such vivid intensity.”
What Jerry handed me was the combat sequence I’d written. The protagonist—the first hero—fought countless monsters without having regained his past-life powers. As the first hero he was basically overpowered, but since he hadn’t recovered his original body, he fought the Demon King’s army in a weakened state. I’d written the process in a way that wasn’t boring but still detailed enough to visualize clearly. I described every move, every way the hero defeated his enemies, letting the reader imagine it all. He knew how to win but his body could barely keep up, so he scraped by victory after victory while slowly regaining his full strength. It was like walking a tightrope, but he won in the end and lived up to the title.
I hadn’t copied anyone completely, but I had referenced well-written battle scenes from other authors. It seemed to have worked. Besides, while it was fantasy back in Korea, in this world fantasy itself would be considered realistic. The standards were different. And somehow it had landed perfectly.
“And?” I decided to hear more of what Jerry had to say.
“It feels like you’ve actually encountered real monsters. The sense of urgency is incredible.”
That was quite surprising. I’d written this fantasy world with the sensibilities of a modern person, yet it still resonated. Maybe I’d struck the right balance after all. Or maybe… this could be dangerous.
If I wanted to target adventurers too, I probably needed to see real monsters with my own eyes. I remembered hearing about a Japanese erotic novelist whose editor paid for him to sleep with a woman so he could write from experience. They say writing from direct experience is completely different. So perhaps this was an opportunity for me. Who knows, it might be similar.
I didn’t need to fight myself. Just watching people in action would be enough. Seeing adventurers battle, for example. I still had plenty of money, and with the reprints selling, more would keep pouring in. But the more readers I gained, the bigger one problem became: readers who cared about accuracy.
When your audience is small, those nitpickers are rare or they simply drop the story. But take alternate history novels, for example. There are always people who complain about historical accuracy. Things like “People didn’t speak like that back then,” “Gunpowder didn’t exist yet,” or “Author, do your history research.” I’ve even seen comments longer than ten lines. After one novel I read featured gunpowder, someone wrote an entire essay about it in the comments.
Would I be any different? The capital’s readers might be fine, but the adventurers who actually fought monsters would dig into every detail.
—Wait, goblins are that strong?
—You wrote orcs like neighborhood mutts. Is this even a real novel?
—Don’t tell me the author has never seen a monster in his life?
There was a saying: when in Rome, do as the Romans do. The standards I knew wouldn’t work here. It would be better to study this world properly. Since it was a fantasy world, I should experience it firsthand. Rather than just writing from home my whole life, it might be smart to at least watch some fights. You never knew when trouble might find you.
“Um, Editor?”
“Yes? Please speak freely.”
“The truth is, I’ve mostly been imagining the battle scenes rather than drawing from real experience.”
That was natural since I only knew fantasy from novels back on Earth. But this place was real. That crazy original author had filled it with all sorts of monsters.
“I see.”
“So I was thinking… wouldn’t it help if I experienced it directly?”
“Then…”
“Yes. I’d like to watch some adventurers on a hunt.”
Just watching should be enough to give me a better feel. Meeting various adventurers would be good too, but I could handle that part myself. A novel had to feel like a novel; too much realism would ruin it.
“I understand what you mean.”
“Seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times, after all.”
“I can arrange that much. I have contacts at the Adventurers’ Guild. Would it be all right if I set it up so you can observe their requests?”
That would be enough. I was interested, but I had zero intention of risking my life or going without guards. It would be better to hire some reliable, expensive adventurers as escorts.
“Yes.”
“Since you’ll need protection, I’ll look for capable adventurers.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
There was a limit to what I could do alone.
“By the way, it seems your pen name ‘K’ has become quite well-known.”
“Ah, will I need a name when I visit the guild? Hmm. How about just using ‘K’ as my real name too? I’m not a Holpert anymore, so I won’t insist on the name Milene.”
“Understood.”
The Holpert family was still a powerful house. Milene’s condemnation was still circulating in the capital and might have spread outside as well. Using my real name felt too risky, so it was better to go by K in daily life too.
I was already looking forward to meeting the adventurers.