Grains of Sand (2)
In the Fairy Corporation, they always consult the manual when selecting a protagonist.
Some parts of the manual are mandatory. Others are merely recommended.
Generally, they follow not only the requirements but the recommendations as well.
After all, those recommendations are the true essence of the manual.
“······But the data said this would be advantageous.”
Countless stories from countless fairies had created a set of unwritten ‘laws.’
How to achieve good results.
How to satisfy the Constellations more easily.
For example: if ugliness isn’t the theme, avoid ugly characters. Unless family is the focus, remove all family relationships. To ensure a fast-paced beginning, blind all personal history up to a certain point.
“I-I just followed it all. That’s all I did······.”
Thud.
Ram collapsed weakly to the floor and cried out.
She had followed the manual to the letter.
Kang Hae-il was tall, strikingly handsome, overflowing with a sense of justice, and possessed strong convictions. His parents had died for undisclosed reasons, and his personal history was blinded from the Constellations.
To the Constellations, Kang Hae-il’s father had simply died in an accident. The broadcast focused solely on how he inherited his firefighter father’s will and grew into an S-rank Awakened.
The deeper truth had been carefully hidden.
Up to that point, it had been a perfectly acceptable plan for a Story Fairy.
However—
A powerful surge of recollection energy detected!
After visiting the graveyard, Kang Hae-il’s emotions had grown far too intense. He was beginning to slip beyond Ram’s control.
In truth, this sort of thing happened all the time.
The protagonist would suddenly dive into an unscripted flashback of their past.
Ram had experienced it several times before.
The real problem was the content of the revealed information.
The father who had died on the Fourth Line.
Kang Hae-il had seen the live recording of that moment.
And across from him, the one who had ordered the doors sealed—Julian.
“I just wrote one line in the setting! ‘Mother died during childbirth, father died in an accident!’ That’s all!”
Ram screamed at the top of her lungs.
She had every right to feel wronged.
How could things have twisted this badly?
“R-Ram-nim······.”
Story Fairies held the initiative over a story board, but they did not possess absolute authority.
They could guide the characters in a certain direction, but they could not make them move in perfect, mechanical synchronization.
A story board lived and breathed through its characters. In a way, it was a living organism of its own.
Unexpected relationships formed. Unexpected narratives emerged. Unexpected characters suddenly became important.
The Constellations now recognize the character ‘Moon Junil’ as a major figure!
“Wh-Why?!”
No matter how loudly Ram shouted, there was nothing she could do.
The Constellations could no longer see Moon Junil—the one known as Sagosul—as anything less than a major character.
After all, he was the target of Kang Hae-il’s deepest grudge.
There was no way he could remain a mere extra.
Just as the Demon King could never be an extra in a hero’s tale.
The character ‘Moon Junil’’s importance has been elevated!
Extra → Supporting Character
“Th-This is too much! The joke of fate has gone too far!”
Ram pleaded, nearly sobbing.
Whether she did or not, the notifications kept coming.
Viewer Constellation limit increased: 1,000 → 5,000
More detailed descriptions will now be provided.
A Sub-Stream may now be generated.
Thump!
Ram slammed her forehead against the desk.
“This is my fault······ I put too many goblins on the Fourth Line······! I added so many to kill Julian that Hae-il’s father ended up dying!?”
Of all places, Kang Hae-il’s father had died right next to the car Julian had been riding on the Fourth Line.
Was this the side effect of spending too many coins on the Fourth Line in the early stages?
“Th-That can’t be it! He was already set to die anyway! He was always going to die no matter what!”
Whenever probability was broken, holes always appeared.
To fill those holes, enormous sacrifices were required.
That was what Story Coins were for.
The currency of the story board that accumulated every time the Constellations were satisfied.
With enough Story Coins, those holes could be patched.
But no matter how many holes you covered, you could never erase the traces of the patches.
A single careless line.
「The protagonist’s father died in an accident.」
An insincere, development-convenient setting with no specific time or process.
With that one line, Kang Hae-il had lost everything.
Ram had never imagined what kind of ripple effect would occur when that simple line became someone’s concrete reality.
Or rather, she had probably thought that whatever ripples it caused were none of her business.
The sorrow and contradiction were Kang Hae-il’s burden to bear, not a Story Fairy’s.
To her, these were nothing more than insignificant creatures playing inside a story board.
She had simply wanted the protagonist to be without parents for the sake of smooth progression.
Since he had to die anyway, she had wanted him to be a retired firefighter who died in an accident with clear narrative purpose.
Yet it was as if the story board itself had noticed her complacency and stabbed her with a dagger.
“Ughhhhh······!”
“R-Ram-nim?”
Ram was in agony.
“Nooooooooooo!”
Current viewer Constellations: 1,037
Because Julian’s viewer count, now freed from extra status, was exploding upward.
It had surpassed one thousand.
He was now an entirely different being from the Julian of before.
* * *
Amid the flood of countless texts rushing past in an instant.
Junil barely managed to hold onto his sanity.
‘Supporting character? I went from extra to supporting?’
Since he had only ever lived as the protagonist, he couldn’t predict exactly what kind of effect this would have.
Current viewer Constellations: 1,037
Inheritance of the Incarnation ‘Hero – Julian’
Progress: 10.37%
Thanks to that, he had finally broken through the wall of one thousand viewers.
And he had obtained one-tenth of Julian’s power.
Then the world stopped.
Crackle—!
The surroundings filled with noise as all time froze.
The Constellations’ chat, Kang Hae-il’s expression, even the birds flying across the sky—everything halted.
And only one thing moved.
—You······
Letters.
The letters the Constellations used.
Tap tap tap tap.
A sound like keyboard typing rang out as the message completed itself.
—You’re Julian······
Junil’s eyes widened.
—You are Julian, right?
Shit.
Junil barely held back the curse that nearly escaped him.
Did he have to answer here?
No.
Hadn’t Pam warned him over and over again?
Never converse with a Constellation.
Never let them know you can perceive them.
The moment the Fourth Wall broke, everything would end.
“······.”
Junil simply remained silent.
—Wow, you really are Julian?? It was Julian again! No matter how much they change your appearance, your behavior is so similar I can always tell lol?
Junil stayed perfectly still as if time had frozen for him too, yet the Constellation kept talking by itself.
—Why do you keep completely ignoring the princesses now? It’s so frustrating
Huh?
From here, Junil began to sense something was off.
‘Princess?’
What was that supposed to mean?
There were no princesses here.
Just the annoyingly perfect S-rank Kang Hae-il and the elf who loved mushrooms.
Reading the following lines, Junil finally understood the situation.
—Honestly, the first Julian series was a masterpiece lol. Everything after that is just mass-produced.
—Still, it’s Julian so I’ll keep watching haha
—What is this one? The Birth of a Trash Hero? For real lol He’s living up to his name
Gulp.
Junil thought he knew what this was.
The sentences he had seen before.
‘Th-This is······.’
The comments the Constellations had left during his time as a hero.
That’s right.
This was a memory.
Whenever his inheritance reached a certain level, hadn’t he always seen memories?
This phenomenon was the same.
It was just a slightly different form.
Instead of watching a scene, he was reading a Constellation’s comment.
—Ah Julian is so funny lolol
—Julian is cute lol
—Why does he suddenly run away when he sees a girl? The way he used to charge in was hilarious lol
Only one person was writing.
And it kept showing only what that one person had written.
This Constellation remembered Julian and had recognized him from the start in every new work.
The same was true for Junil.
‘You······ So it’s you.’
Junil remembered this Constellation.
‘First-round villain.’
—Watched it~ But no matter how you look at it, the first round was the masterpiece right? lol If you disagree then you’re correct lol
It was the one who always insisted the first round was the masterpiece.
Even though there was no way to distinguish usernames or IDs in the Constellations’ comments.
For some reason, that guy always stood out.
Later on, Junil could recognize him from the writing style alone.
—Hello^^
That uniquely bright tone was clearly different from the others.
—First round is the masterpiece, second round is next lol
Both his tone and his claims were truly unique.
‘Why is this memory coming up now of all times?’
The strange part was why this particular memory was surfacing.
Usually, inheritance memories were closely related to recent events.
—I cried so hard when he awakened Mana Blade in the first round······ I miss those days.
With those final words, the memory inheritance ended.
You have learned a new skill!
As always, once the inheritance ended, he gained a skill.
But this time was a little different.
‘Huh?’
Before, it had always been confirming skills he had already learned or was using.
Mana Blade
This was a brand-new skill.
Of course, it was one he had learned during his first round, but it was a skill Moon Junil’s current body had never used before.
Achievement: ★
Potential: A+
Description: A skill that left a deep impression on someone. Condenses mana onto a blade, forges it into an edge, and slashes. Boasts instantaneous range extension and tremendous cutting power.
‘Wait, suddenly?’
How would the Constellations react to him suddenly learning such an out-of-nowhere skill?
They were interpreting it however they wanted.
In reality, the timing of skill awakenings was entirely up to one’s own heart.
Even the famous ‘Eureka!’ moment hadn’t happened while solving a math problem, but while taking a bath.
‘Anyway, the sensation is definitely different now.’
Junil clenched and unclenched his fist, feeling the change.
His sense of mana, the purity and volume that surged within him—everything had changed.
Even the lightness of his body was completely different from before.
Current viewer Constellations: 1,037
Inheritance of the Incarnation ‘Hero – Julian’
Progress: 10.37%
He could now use ten percent of Julian’s power.
What people commonly called one-tenth.
He had become 0.1 Julian.
‘At this level, I can actually use Mana Blade.’
Mana Blade was a skill that even first-round Julian had only learned in the latter half after considerable hardship.
It was a true staple skill that remained useful all the way until the final battle with the Demon King.
Junil had been coating his utility knife and goblin dagger with mana to strengthen their edges, but extending the mana further to forge it into an actual blade for cutting was an entirely different matter.
Mana Blade was undoubtedly a proud and powerful skill.
‘But······ something feels ominous.’
However, he didn’t particularly want to remember the process by which he had acquired this skill.
The memory was so sensitive to him that he was beginning to question why the skill had been granted at this particular moment.
It was practically a trauma.
There was a reason the first-round villain had mentioned that moment as particularly memorable.
‘No way.’
Junil began to wonder.
Was the first-round villain······ still watching even now?
Would something similar happen again in the near future?
As Junil’s mind grew tangled with these thoughts.
“You smoke?”
Hae-il’s voice cut through his consciousness.
“Ah······ No.”
“Really? That’s surprising.”
‘What’s so surprising about it?’
Hiss.
Kang Hae-il lit a cigarette with a flame from his fingertip.
Kang Hae-il didn’t speak any further about his father. He simply exhaled smoke toward the sky.
“Oh. By the way, what was that sub-quest the elf gave you?”
“Ah······ That was······.”
If he told him, it would only end in another t-bagging.
‘Fuck. I still have to do what I have to do.’
Still, Junil hadn’t forgotten what the eighth request was.
“It was amazi—”
That was when it happened.
A chilling voice came from behind them.
“Was it you two?”
“Are you the rats who raided my stronghold?”