Chapter 26
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: Liu Bei and Cao Cao (1)
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About a month had passed since the completion of The Fallen Noble Excels at Politics.
I was deep in thought, pondering how to weave the Romance of the Three Kingdoms into this world's newspaper serial format.
First things first: the title.
Any cultured modern person would feel a ticklish thrill in their chest just hearing those three words—"Romance of the Three Kingdoms"—like the buzz of an energy drink.
But if I tossed that term out here in this world, I'd just get blank stares of "What's that?"
Besides, calling it a tale of three kingdoms? Hmm, I had no intention of covering the Sun family at all.
At best, Sun Jian and Sun Ce could be seen as ambitious warlords brimming with tragic heroism.
Sun Quan, though? Eh, not so much.
So, something like "Three Kingdoms" or "Tale of Three Realms" didn't quite fit.
A catchy title is key to grabbing people's attention, of course.
Therefore...
"I've decided."
"Why are you agonizing so much over a title?"
"Quiet. Says the one who came up with something like 'Me, the Mat-Weaver, Becoming Lord of the Throne? No Way, No Way! ...Or Maybe It Was?'"
"I think it fits perfectly."
The black mark from my childhood that even I'd forgotten.
In an era before legal streaming, I'd gotten caught with an external hard drive packed with prime classics, copyrights be damned. The crime weighed heavy.
Anyway...
"The villain hides his ambition. And the imperial kin hides his bloodline. What do you think?"
"Are you sane?"
Of course.
Perfectly sane.
The protagonist always has to hide their strength, mercy, home—whatever.
Strictly speaking, Liu Bei didn't really hide his bloodline.
It was pretty much his only claim to legitimacy—some descendant of the Mid-Mountain Stabilizing King—and he paraded it in every self-introduction like a PR stunt.
Cao Cao didn't hide his ambitions either.
That's why he accepted the empty title and sent back the ritual vessel as a joke.
But hey.
Titles just need to pull clicks.
For a touch of unity, slap "Two Heroes" at the front, and the title's done.
...It had taken a full month to get here.
A whole month.
That was the limit of me and Historie's naming skills.
The content, though? It flowed easily, built on all my prior deliberations.
A protagonist for political intrigue and picaresque tales.
The lonely realist who chose reason over sentiment to pacify a chaotic world, and Cao Cao—who comes off as an outright villain, but that's his charm.
The archetypal righteous hero.
Liu Bei, the idealist who starts with nothing, armed only with benevolence and righteousness, wins over sworn brothers and countless hearts to achieve his great cause.
To avoid getting too stiff by sticking purely to history, I spiced it up Luo Guanzhong-style—holding back on Cao Cao's side and letting Liu Bei's shine, frying up those secret sauces just right.
"Isn't that plagiarism?"
"Kinda, yeah? But even if Luo Guanzhong crawled out of hell, the copyright's expired by now. Should be fine."
"Hmm..."
"This is another world, so they're probably planning to rip off anime and sell it wholesale."
"Whoa. You're speaking from the perspective of the top 0.01%—the Historie designer's viewpoint right now."
Honestly, if it were just about money and fame, that'd be the smarter play.
But I had my psychological hang-ups, and for someone like me who needed to leverage the status window, it offered little merit.
Anyway.
Time to go meet Gilford.
"Long time no see, Mr. Gilford."
"Ah, Author...!"
Seeing Kim Yul after so long, Gilford broke into a grin so wide it looked like his face might split.
Normally, authors took a break after finishing a work—that was the custom.
But since The Fallen Noble Excels at Politics wrapped, Truth Newspaper's sales had started slipping again.
- We got beaten by Peace Newspaper again!
Gilford had built his position by snagging one good author, but now he was like a deflated balloon, all shriveled up.
So, of course he was thrilled.
"Feels like you're eyeing the thing in my hand more than me."
"Ah. Haha... Sorry."
Kim Yul was welcome, sure, but the massive envelope of documents under his arm drew the eyes even more. A rude slip-up.
He signaled a staffer with a glance for the finest teas and drinks the paper had.
"Please, have a seat."
He sat across from Kim Yul.
A normal person might chat about this and that.
"My next work."
But Kim Yul just smiled brightly and offered up exactly what he'd been craving.
The moment he opened the envelope.
"Two... novels...!"
To churn out not one, but two ideas in that short time!
Kim Yul—he was a genius!
As he let out a gasp of admiration and flipped through the pages.
"I want to serialize both at the same time."
"...?"
At those words.
Gilford looked up at Kim Yul.
His expression was utterly serene, unshaken—like he'd foreseen it all.
And strangely.
Gilford felt like it had to be that way.
He was a literature pro.
Even if it was Kim Yul, if it was some childish scribble far below par, even then—for Kim Yul.
...It wouldn't be from Kim Yul.
Swept up in his own unshakeable faith, he nodded first.
But.
Works needed vetting.
"Still, I'll read them."
Even so, Gilford was a pro.
.
.
.
Suddenly snapping to, Gilford checked his pocket watch.
He'd spent a good two hours, utterly absorbed, devouring the massive manuscript right there in his seat.
"Oh, uh. My apologies for... "
He looked up.
Kim Yul was already gone.
"H-He said to contact you later."
"...Bring the contract draft right now."
This would hit big.
It had to.
An unprecedented experiment.
Novels with dual protagonists weren't rare, but failing to balance them often sent the story off the rails.
But.
The Hiding series was different.
Two men starting from wholly different points, tackling problems in their own ways from their own positions.
Like dots connecting into lines, their fates intertwined from thin threads into a web, forming a multidimensional tapestry.
And ultimately, hinting at the grand epic born from those webs clashing.
Yeah, he got why Kim Yul wanted to run both serials simultaneously.
Plus.
Kim Yul had thoughtfully considered the paper's situation.
The noble, idealism-armed hero: Liu Bei.
His physical trait: big ears.
His bloodline: of noble birth.
"High elf, huh."
The oath under the peach tree? Had to be alluding to the World Tree.
Then.
It'd be perfect for the tastes of the Wisperauld Duke family—the shadowy main sponsors behind the chairman.
"As expected of a master author—something's just different...!"
Grabbing the contract draft from the staffer, he bolted to the chairman's office with the manuscript.
And.
"Gilford! You're the only one for me! Hahaha! With this—with this, we'll crush not just Peace Newspaper, but Empire Newspaper too, and claim the pinnacle of literature in one go!"
Along with the chairman's rave reviews, he secured full backing for the novel's marketing.
Gilford felt it anew.
Elves... they make money.
"How'd it go?"
"He just kept reading for an hour straight, so I said I'd come back tomorrow and left."
"Hmm."
Historie felt a complex swirl of emotions.
Lately.
While Kim Yul was deep in "Operation Little Dragon Defense," soothing Esthea—who threw tantrums in the lobby every other day.
Historie had churned out tons of stories to show her.
Esthea read them with giggles and purrs, clearly enjoying.
But her final line was always the same.
- So, when the heck is Kim Yul writing his new one?
The words piled up.
And Historie felt a spark of rivalry.
What made her stuff so different from Kim Yul's that the reactions varied this much?
Even with that publisher staffer last time.
Why didn't her writing get proper praise?
"Kim Yul, why won't Esthea give my novels good reviews?"
It slipped out almost like a whine.
But surprisingly, Kim Yul answered seriously.
"Historie. What you're saying right now—how are you saying it?"
"Mm... Through logical processing in my brain's neural organ, outputting the result as speech."
"Then, what about when you write?"
Historie froze for a moment.
Kim Yul smiled and gently patted her head.
"Generative AI works by probabilistically predicting the most natural next word from input text to build sentences, right? Okay, think again. How do you write?"
"...I generate."
Kim Yul's point hit home.
The secret to cranking out "little dragon feed" so fast.
Not sure if it tied to her origins, but she could issue commands to electronics just by touching them.
And when commanding the laptop...
It was pure computer-language thinking.
"So stories inevitably stretch into predictable territory. The endings always float off like 'Their adventure was just beginning'—vague and grasping at clouds."
Looking back, yeah.
Their tale delved ever deeper.
Eyes sparkling in anticipation of the next thrill.
They stepped forward into the unknown world.
It wasn't the end of adventure, but the true start.
The curtain rose quietly on a new era.
Stuff like that...
Sounded profound, but in hindsight, utterly substanceless closures that made you wonder why you hadn't noticed sooner.
"Kim Yul. You've rewired my internal structure."
This was one of those common flattery lines he'd pointed out before.
But for Historie now, it was utterly sincere.
And.
"Kim Yul, I want to write good novels too."
She declared it with resolute determination.
Kim Yul silently patted her head again.
However.
Due to their height difference.
Historie didn't catch it.
The odd smile that flickered across Kim Yul's lips the moment she voiced her resolve.
That smile.
Was eerily like the one his grad advisor wore.
When Kim Yul first bit the bait of "Professor, I want to study history deeper too."