Chapter 19
All meetings begin with coincidence.
The meeting between Historie and Esthea, too, could only come to be because layers of coincidences that were never supposed to happen in the first place had piled up on one another.
“Hmm. How dull. I hear humans like to take walks at times like this, so although they're primitive humans, I suppose I should adapt to that custom.”
Along with the incident in which Historie, after spending all day devouring every piece of content lovingly stored on Kim Yul's external hard drive, felt 'boredom' for the first time and unilaterally went out on an outing.
“Tch, do you think moving will keep me from finding you!”
Along with the tragedy of a dragon who, after lifting the curtain on the future—meaning all of Kim Yul's stockpiled material—could no longer feel any excitement toward live-serialization content.
After going to the publisher, yanking a few strands of the editor's hair, extracting personal information while receiving the publisher's hurried yet very polite hospitality, and then heading straight there.
They might have missed each other.
As if guided by fate, they met.
Of course, accidental encounters usually just pass by without a trace.
But.
Historie looked at Esthea.
And then, from deep within her chest, an inexplicable feeling began to boil up.
“Nong-kkeuk.”
Though she didn't fully understand the meaning, she uttered the expression that one ought to say when seeing such an adorable little being.
Kim Yul's filtering prompt declared dereliction of duty once again today.
And so did Esthea.
“What are you... not human?”
She instantly recognized Historie's specialness, a body granted at a completely different level from ordinary, lowly humans.
And so, in front of Kim Yul's house.
A meeting born from coincidence came to be.
.
.
.
They quickly hit it off.
“Kim Yul is lazy. He only writes two or three chapters a day and spends the rest of the time rolling around in bed.”
“Y-You insolent thing! So what if he writes well!”
“Hm? Kim Yul writes well, you say? What an unfortunate interpretation. By my superior intelligence, my side is far more excellent.”
Esthea's eyes sparkled for a moment.
“You write too?”
Historie puffed out her chest and answered proudly.
“I win.”
After that.
Esthea began greedily devouring the stories Historie spun for her.
She was an intelligent dragon who loved reading, with a reading life stretching back well over several decades.
Although it lacked some of Kim Yul's pull and was a little less original, Historie's writing was perfectly readable.
And most crucially.
“N-next! The next story too!”
“Please wait just a moment.”
If you press the button, no—if you give the command.
The novel is delivered right away. And with the plot developments she wants, too.
And within a very short time.
You go in through the door, and if you come back out of the house a little later, somehow a plausible novel pops out.
“This, this! Of course there'll be a heroic battle soon!”
“That will be the case. Please wait a little longer.”
Although Esthea had lived for many long years as a dragon, this was, without question, the first time she had ever felt this fulfilled.
Of course.
A little too much description, constantly repeated expressions, or weirdly finding two asterisks (*) lined up together in certain spots.
“Hmm? Wasn't the protagonist's holy sword named Excalibur?”
“Ah, it came out as Ekusukariba. A minor error that can happen because of the language module.”
“What! The pronunciation is close enough!”
There were also little mistakes like characters constantly mixing up their memories, names occasionally changing, or the story suddenly veering off in a different direction.
Esthea didn't mind.
If you write quickly, that can happen!
Anyway, as long as there's writing, I'll gobble it up!
If Kim Yul had seen it, it would have been a scene that made him sigh, “Ugh, total yellow mutt.”
Even up until the moment the door opened and Kim Yul came in.
“Here you go, Es-chan. Try reading this one too.”
“Kyaa, teehee!”
Esthea was enjoying a happy time.
* * *
“Hitori! Come live with me!”
“Unfortunately, I'm bound to Master Kim Yul. Without my master's permission, I can't leave this place.”
“Hand Hitori over to me, lowly human!”
“......How on earth do you shorten Historie into Hitori?”
I could roughly guess the situation.
A mountain of A4 sheets piled in front of Esthea, and brick-thick stacks filled with those sheets.
I had no idea how on earth they met and ended up like this...
The AI-style mass production of novels and the yellow mutt-style novel inhalation must have matched up perfectly.
I had no clue where or how to begin explaining it.
“......Historie, you can't write anywhere except our house anyway.”
“Ah, that's correct. Since the source of inspiration is in Kim Yul's house, I cannot leave.”
I laid out the facts as concisely as possible.
The novels Historie was churning out right now were all made with a click on the laptop, and then a click on the printer.
“Eeeh......?”
Of course, Esthea, listening, wore a completely baffled expression.
Well......
There was no need for me to explain that I was a transmigrator who had flown in from another dimension, or that Historie was an AI turned human, or any other incomprehensible story like that.
Of course, a world where dragons existed was astonishing enough already, but magic probably couldn't explain our existence either.
That was the conclusion I reached after I drifted into another world, got turned away by the mage tower, and then cried and holed up in the library to look it up.
Even if it were a dragon, it wouldn't give any different answer.
“Well, first, have a bite of this and think about it.”
At times like this, changing the subject is the quickest fix.
Thud──
In the spot where Historie had wisely cleared away the scattered pile of papers, a strangely heavy set of lunchboxes finally left my hands.
One by one, one by one.
“Kim Yul. Did you maybe sell an organ? Where on earth did all this food come from?”
“I picked it up on the way.”
Seeing about five percent of a smile creep onto Historie's face, she must have been pretty hungry.
After I had taken out all the lunchboxes.
“Uh......?”
Something sparkling caught my eye at the bottom.
Th-there's no way.
“O-oh, oooh......!”
Duke Vertus.
Was he a god?
On the floor.
Imperial silver coins were spread in heaps on the floor, and on top of them was the crowning touch, neatly laid out as well.
The beautifully shining thing smiled at me and whispered.
- Hello? I'm a gold bar!
Was this what General Kim Yujin felt like?
Though it felt a little smaller than the ordinary gold bars within my common sense, a gold bar was still a gold bar.
So moved I couldn't say anything, I just stood there with my mouth hanging open.
“Oh? A gold bar! Hehe, how did a lowly human know to bring this body's favorite special treat? I'll eat well!”
“W-wait──”
From my hand.
The gold bar slipped away.
And then.
Crunch!
A sound effect that should never have been heard rang in my ears like a hallucination.
“W-wait, w-wait──”
“Wow, as expected of a dragon. You're chewing gold whole. Historie, today's otherworld common sense has increased again.”
“Mnyangnya── pure gold!”
She was chewing pure gold.
- Goodbye...... I was a gold bar......
The gold bar's dying cry echoed faintly in my ears.
“Huaaah!”
Unable to withstand the surging despair, I finally dropped to my knees on the floor and let out a scream.
This.
Is hell.
.
.
.
“W-well, gold dragons like gold by nature, okay? So, um, it couldn't be helped! A lowly human should understand, right?”
“Don't talk to me......”
What understanding?
You even nibbled on the silver coins as dessert.
“Kim Yul. You're stingy.”
“That gold bar alone would have let us enjoy the banquet we ate for a full four months, four hours a day, nonstop.”
“Es-chan. Apologize immediately.”
“Eh?”
Didn't they say there are no eternal comrades?
Betrayed by Historie wolfing down the delicious food, the naughty yellow mutt gave a small yelp and peeked up at me timidly.
“Ngh, ngh......”
Unable to endure the silent pressure from Historie and me.
“Just wait a moment......!”
The yellow mutt suddenly popped out horns and a tail.
And then.
“Agh, ngh......!”
With its own tail clamped in its mouth, it whimpered for a moment.
“Yipe!”
Letting out a silly shriek, it yanked something out of its tail and rolled once across the floor.
And then, with a single tear gathering at the corner of its eye.
“Consider it an honor......! It must be your first time receiving the grace of a great gold dragon, after all!”
It forced itself back to that shameless, dignified expression and held out a tiny hand to me.
On it was a tiny gem glittering like gold.
“What's this?”
“My scale!”
“Is it valuable?”
The yellow mutt wore an expression of utter disbelief.
“You get told you're stupid a lot, don't you?”
“Affirmative. Kim Yul does have a few rather dumb-looking points.”
“......No, I don't?”
Light armor made from dragon scales can be said to have the world's best performance, but a scale this tiny looked like it couldn't make even a dagger, let alone armor.
“Even if the gold bar I just ate were piled up as high as a cart, it still wouldn't be worth a single one of my scales!”
“As expected of a great being, you are so merciful. This lowly human dares to pay you respect.”
“Heehee!”
After that, I silently listened while the now-cheerful yellow mutt rambled on and on.
The most plausible function was.
“If you hold it tight and pray earnestly in your heart to this magnificent Lady Esthea, I can appear with a poof!”
It was an insanely badass yellow-mutt Buster Call—one hit for you, one hit for me.
Well, it wasn't like I'd have any use for it anyway.
Yeah......
Money is meant to be earned by working.
No matter how I thought about it, it was money that looked closer to a bribe or illegal political slush fund, so I felt a little uneasy.
He definitely hadn't called me just to offer a blessing like “Please keep writing fun stories for us,” and there had to be some hidden intention.
Luckily, I blocked it well with the Roseline shield and didn't get any blatant proposal, but there was certainly a meaning behind these gold bars and silver coins.
Well.
Since the yellow mutt had eaten it all, there was no need to feel guilty anymore......
Sob.
* * *
As Duke Vertus busily prepared the operation, buoyed by hopes that the Holy Kingdom would cooperate, and the day of execution drew near.
“Truth Daily! The novel special monthly bulletin is out! The hot title, The Fallen Nobleman Is Good at Politics! A whopping 27 consecutive installments! A whole book's worth!”
“Ulysses, he's a god!”
“27 installments! 27 installments!”
“Isn't that practically a month's worth of serialization? Bring it here! Bring it all here!”
Kim Yul, who had cried blood tears after seeing Esthea crunch gold bars like chocolate.
And because he had been moved by the duke household's home-cooked meals and thoroughly wrecked his palate in the process, he had fallen to the point where he could no longer force tasteless bread down his throat.
He ultimately couldn't hold back his desire and unleashed the forbidden technique.
Twenty-Seven Consecutive Slashes, 二十七聯斬.
A feat achieved thanks to the reserves he'd painstakingly stockpiled, his obsession with getting tasty food into his mouth, and his loyal support of Historie.
Using the entire allotment, Kim Yul packed it full of the things he'd been wondering about all along—how to stage it, and how to shape the flow of the larger story.
The Battle of Sabis.
The Siege of Avaricum.
The Siege of Gergovia.
Following the Battle of Vingeanne, all the way to the Battle of Alesia.
Along with Caesar's heroic achievement of sweeping across all of sprawling Gaul in just seven years.
The finale──
Ālea iacta est!
to cap it off with “The die is cast.”
In addition to the existing fans, that bold decision to dump a whole book's worth into the daily serialization market.
The Fallen Nobleman Is Good at Politics dominated the imperial capital for that entire day.
Though there were still people who hadn't finished reading it and others just starting from the beginning, it would take a little longer for that spark to fully ignite.
One thing was certain.
“The novel, by its content, is hinting at civil war...?”
That Duke Vertus's head had gone a little dizzy.
notes":"Standardized the chapter title to match neighboring numbering as Julius Caesar 10. Kept intentional source repetitions like the paired 'one by one' lines, and used neutral 'it' for the yellow dragon/mutt where the Korean narration stays playfully ambiguous."}]}】} ellent to=assistant to=analysis 天天中彩票足球 to=assistant to=final code 彩票天天乐json_valid საშუალებას to=assistant to=final 代理娱乐json required_fields_hint={