A Rather Overqualified Adventurer
The novels serialized on Net Novel in its earliest days were quite different from the genre fiction I knew.
The Time Traveler.
Upon the Flowing Moonlight.
Tales of wanderers journeying between dimensions, and so on.
There wasn't a single title among them that resembled the web novels I was familiar with.
Worse still, the content itself ranged from essays to classical poetry—slow, tranquil pieces steeped head to toe in a literary air.
In other words:
Aside from Exorcism Records, there wasn't a single work you could call a smash hit.
The thing about any industry is that it can only grow by producing superstars.
Exorcism Records was still the flagship dragging Net Novel along, but it was about time other works started climbing up behind it.
There were none.
For nearly a whole year.
Even as we accepted advertisements, expanded Soul Net's dimensional storage capacity, built the upvote and downvote systems, and tinkered with the platform in every way imaginable, Net Novel showed no sign of coming back to life.
Ah, well—
It wasn't that we had no hits at all—mid-tier successes and above were springing up like bamboo shoots after a rain.
The explosive influx of the early days had tapered off somewhat, but Net Novel's core user base was now settling into a stable trend.
Right.
We were barely a year in.
Hoping for mega-hits like Exorcism Records to burst out one after another was asking a bit too much.........
"Elsie! The ad rates went up again!"
"H-how much?"
"Once the daily users passed the one million mark, the Third Elder reportedly jacked the rates way up! And the advertisers still paid! We're starting at 5,000 Balrod gold coins per slot now!"
Too much.........
"Hold on, that's insane! 5,000 coins? There was actually a group crazy enough to pay that?"
"Wahahaha! There was! There absolutely was! And they say once we pass two million daily users, he can charge more than double that! Elsie! Think of a way to bring in more Soul Net users, and fast! Anything? Come on, I need ideas, and I need them now!"
Too much......... Ah. Right. Time to be honest with myself.
I was praying on the inside.
Please.
Please, just let one more work like Exorcism Records appear.
Let one more smash hit come out to deflate the egos of those publishing-house bastards sitting pretty, grow Net Novel, and send Soul Net's user count skyrocketing—please!
So there I was, praying and praying, anxiously checking the Net Novel main page day after day to see if anything had emerged that could threaten the fortress of Exorcism Records—and then one day:
"It's here, Tower Master! It's here!"
"What? What is it?!"
"A smash hit on the level of Exorcism Records! No—possibly even bigger! It's insane! A completely insane work just dropped!"
It had finally arrived.
Dragon Contractor.
The premise was extremely classic: a candle-maker from the countryside forms a party, seeks out a dragon, and stops the end of the world.
Even a classic premise changes depending on who writes it.
One year.
A year of laying foundations and waiting, starting from Exorcism Records.
And at last, atop that foundation, another work took glorious flight.
And this one's arrival generated a reaction that went far beyond a mere commercial success.
Good things draw crowds. That's simply how it works.
Rumors about Soul Net.
Rumors about the novels on Net Novel.
As word spread from mouth to mouth, Soul Net's user count began climbing steeply once again.
"1.5 million! We hit 1.5 million, Tower Master!"
"I don't know who this Orchard Keeper fellow is, but I feel like kissing him! Incredible, Elsie!"
The Tower Master, myself, and everyone in the Black Magic Tower were forced to scream ourselves hoarse with joy.
And then—
"What the fuck! Sales are dropping?!"
"Fewer and fewer people are coming to the bookstores! Even mages just look for information posts in the galleries—nobody buys spellbooks from a shop anymore!"
"Goddamn Soul Net! Goddamn bastards!"
The publishing houses' fury was crossing the tipping point yet again.
Where there's a rising sun, there's always a setting one.
But wasn't this setting a little too abruptly?
The publishers' CEOs and shop owners tore their hair out day after day.
Exorcism Records.
And now Dragon Contractor on top of it.
If those two had been published through print instead of Soul Net, how much money would they have been raking in right now?
Thanks to two all-time blockbusters appearing on Net Novel simultaneously, the exodus of authors toward the platform only intensified, and no way to stop it was in sight.
We were long past the point where they could sit back, suck their thumbs, and reassure themselves: those guys write vulgar trash—just a passing fad, they'll die out soon enough. Heheh.........
"Wait, hold on! We were doing fine together! And now you're quitting on us?"
"I'm going to give Net Novel a try."
Not just mid-tier authors.
The number of even popular writers defecting was ballooning to absurd proportions.
And at long last—
"Pebble of Ages? Now what the hell is that?"
"Another smash hit out of Net Novel, sir. Its view counts are passing the multi-millions as we speak, boss!"
"Boss! The bookstore revenue decline is now confirmed! If this keeps up, we're genuinely finished! Genuinely!"
"Several small bookshops are already preparing to shut down! If this continues, we won't be able to keep the publishing house afloat!"
Once the authors who fled began churning out absurdly successful works on Net Novel one after another, the fear and desperation of the publishing houses finally blew past the breaking point.
In well-organized nations like the Balrod Empire, Karlaksil, or Isrban, such things were rare—but outside that范围—outside those borders?
Befitting a fantasy world where monsters and magic ran rampant, a few publishing houses existed whose depravity defied imagination.
The kind backed by thief guilds, systematically fleecing their own authors.
On first hearing, it sounds absurd—a thief guild running a publishing house, lol—but reality has always been in the business of making the impossible happen.
Just as companies that force children into labor to sell bananas genuinely exist,
so too did publishing houses that exploited authors to sell a single novel exist in this world.
While the vast majority of the dimension's publishers reeled from the impossible natural disaster called Net Novel—
"This novel being serialized on Net Novel right now. You wrote it, didn't you?"
"N-no, I didn't! Aaagh!"
"Don't fuck with me, you little shit. You think we don't know your writing style? Your favorite vocabulary, your pet phrases—they showed up word for word in the novels you published with us. And you had the gall to betray us and run?"
"D-don't do this! I've s-serialized plenty for your publishing house, haven't I? S-so now it's my turn to—AAAAH!"
"We scraped you off the gutter—a homeless vagrant from Seonmu World—fed you, housed you, and this is the betrayal we get? Fine. Today you die by our hands. Did you sign with Net Novel or not?"
"Hhhk. N-not yet."
"If you don't sign those papers today, it won't end with just losing a few fingers. Understood?"
A popular work steadily climbing the Net Novel rankings abruptly went on hiatus, with no warning or announcement of any kind.
And at this point, the publishers who'd cornered and shaken down a lone novelist had no way of predicting just how far this incident would blow up.
"Something's off here."
I'd sent a chat message, but at some point they'd stopped even reading it.
The vibe felt strangely wrong.
An author who had just been enthusiastically expressing their intent to sign and continue serializing had suddenly gone silent, as if they'd vanished off the face of the earth.
I sat there sluggishly staring at the chat window that refused to produce any further response.
"What's the matter, Elsie? Some kind of problem?"
The Tower Master, who by now treated my lab like his own personal workspace, strolling in and out at will, glanced at my window and tossed out the question.
"Something's a bit strange. An author who'd been actively stating they wanted to sign has suddenly gone quiet."
"Which work?"
"You know that novel trending on Net Novel right now."
"Pebble of Ages? Or something else? Was there another work recently that qualifies as a smash hit?"
"There's that dimension-travel one. The novel about a saber-wielder from Seonmu World crossing over into the Wirod Dimension and going on a rampage."
"Ahhh! That one? The one you said felt like the next big hit? Why, what happened all of a sudden?"
I drummed my fingers on the desk, over and over.
Something about this.........
Smelled bad.
I hurried out to check the author's username from the chat.
Username: ComeFromSeonmu.
The moment I pulled up the posts they'd left on the Novel Gallery, the rough picture came together.
"From Tornerheim Kingdom. They've attended a few of our in-person meetups there too, so there's a record of their posts."
At my words, the Tower Master's face twisted into a deep scowl.
"Tornerheim? Something about this reeks. That kingdom has a terrible reputation. Criminals and assassins—honestly, you could call it the mothership of thief guilds and crime syndicates and not be far off."
"Does the Black Magic Tower have jump points in Tornerheim Kingdom?"
"A few, in the major cities. Why?"
"Tower Master. Can you open up the access codes I'm about to give you—make them completely free to use? I'll cover every cost associated with the jump points and travel magic circles myself."
"Is that necessary? The Tower will just cover it. You're going to look for them?"
"I intend to place a request with the Adventurer Guild."
"Good thinking. I'll contact the guild myself and........."
"No need."
I opened the chat window.
Why go through the trouble?
"I'll ask for this one personally, Tower Master. Don't worry."
Manager of the Adventurer Gallery.
A being who'd called himself "Guild Master" until the nickname system was introduced, at which point he'd changed his name to Iron Blood Sword Emperor.
I contacted him directly.
And when I explained the situation—
A rather discouraging answer came back.
I had to scratch the back of my head.
Taking the Iron Blood Sword Emperor's advice, I calmly combed through the posts Dungeon Slaughterer had left on the Adventurer Gallery.
Before long, I reached a verdict: surprisingly enough, persuading her might actually be possible.
I immediately opened a chat with Dungeon Slaughterer.
And—
And just like that, with almost laughable ease, I hired a continent-class apex powerhouse.