Chapter 42
“Isn’t that advertising a bit too early?”
“Marketing starts by building anticipation. Humans are creatures that live on imagination.”
“Hmm, imagination, huh.”
Watching the tin can tilt its head, still not fully grasping what imagination was.
I slowly began preparing to unleash the poison called TCG upon this other world.
To be honest, I’d been thinking about it for quite a while.
I wasn’t especially partial to card games anyway, and the rules themselves wouldn’t be nearly as complicated as MTG or Yu-Gi-Oh.
That would come a little later.
Not just Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but the entirety of Earth’s history.
For now, just enough to enjoy in a tavern.
“So why a card game? There are plenty of other media-mix options. Wouldn’t a comic be fine too?”
“One of the greatest strengths of the Three Kingdoms is its characters. But you can’t fit every last bit of their lore into the novel one by one. And besides, are you going to draw that as a comic too?”
“That’s a bit much.”
Exactly.
In trying to unfold the story as much as possible around the protagonist, there were also many characters I couldn’t cover, even though they clearly stood out in both the official history and the romance.
If I were to name the most representative of those forgotten guys so far.
First, the super old-timers like Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun.
…To be honest, they weren’t very well known to begin with.
At most, they make a strong early appearance in alternate-history stories set in the Three Kingdoms era.
Also, on Dong Zhuo’s side, Li Jue and Guo Si.
The human weapons Xiliang was proud of.
In the “married-woman” arc, we focused so heavily on action scenes centered on Hu Che’er that Jia Xu’s schemes didn’t really make it in.
Even Lu Bu’s death scene itself included not only Chen Gong, the king of sharp retorts, but also Zhang Liao, who is weak now but will end in glory.
The characters in Cao Cao’s camp were no different.
Xiahou Dun at least kept some presence thanks to the one-eyed gimmick and a well-placed illustration.
But it was even worse for guys like our macho-man Cao Hong, whose golden helmet only added to the frustration, or anyone else who was awkward to assign a separate storyline to.
In short.
My grand strategy was to release everything the novel couldn’t hold by stuffing it into card packs, like character dossiers.
And as a bonus.
“...Is this illustration really okay?”
“Of course it is.”
Why do people play gacha games?
Because the gameplay is good? Sure, that could be part of it.
The essence of a game is fun.
But what takes priority over even the fun of the game is
good-looking characters and strong character appeal.
This can be proven by Dendeni’s overwhelming sales, where a single “boobs-and-sword” move completely washed her image clean. Q.E.D.
“Even so... changing the gender of someone who appears as a perfectly normal man in the main story is...”
“That’s why it’s SSR. It works.”
How is Guan Yu born?
It hatches from an R-rank Guan Yu egg.
SR-rank Guan Yu.
And now, SSR has two tech trees.
SSR-rank Martial God Guan Yu.
SSR-rank Guan Yu (pretty girl).
Isn’t that common sense?
“I have no idea how that could be common sense...”
Maybe because it was still a newborn, the tin can didn’t seem to understand this subtle truth.
You haven’t opened your eyes all the way yet.
Take in more TS.
* * *
“Even if dirt gets in my eyes, that’s not happening! ...Wait! Why are you scooping up sand, desuwa?!”
Unfortunately, Kim Yul’s grand project of going from Guan Yu egg to Guan Yu pretty girl was cut off at the majority shareholder level.
“Sigh, I hate the world...”
“What kind of world have you been living in? You’ve only just started getting popular as a cool guy, and now you want to turn him into a pretty girl!”
“Then at least this big-busted high elf Liu Bei...”
“That is absolutely not allowed, desuwa!”
“Are you jealous of the character now?”
“Quit talking nonsense, desuwa!”
Chloe pressed a hand to her forehead.
Of course, of course, just a little.
She had thought that those voluptuous breasts—an indulgence not granted to her—didn’t suit the dignity of a high elf.
Then what on earth would Liu Bei be.
The tight sworn-brotherly bond—the kind that shared the same bed and endured hardship together even in difficult times to deepen the bond between the younger brothers—...
“It would turn into something like Liu Bei seducing Guan Yu and Zhang Fei with her body!”
“So Guan Yu and Zhang Fei should be female characters too.”
“Noooo! That’s not allowed!”
Only after Chloe had vented her anger to the point of breaking even her noble elven speech did she finally.
manage to subdue the pouting Kim Yul.
.
.
.
Thus, Chloe, after trampling, corrupting, and destroying the original author’s idea, reduced the TS pretty-girl Guan Yu to little more than vestigial remnants.
But she then busied herself in earnest to bring Kim Yul’s idea to life.
Because.
There was a smell.
A thick smell of money unlike anything she had ever smelled before...!
Printing was easy enough—she could just use some of Jinri Ilbo’s facilities.
“The most important thing is to prevent knockoffs from appearing. But I’m not sure whether that’s even possible.”
“Leave that to this noble lady!”
Just what kind of barbarian had he been living as, exactly.
Ulysses—Kim Yul—was underestimating the potential of magic far too much.
Chloe immediately took the prototype SSR Guan Yu card Kim Yul had made and murmured an incantation.
Although recently she had been getting her ears tugged every single day.
Chloe was a proper 5th-circle mage.
Elves were naturally highly attuned to mana to begin with, and she had been born with overwhelming magical talent instead of devastating archery skills.
If she hadn’t dropped out of the Tower of Mages partway through, she surely could have reached an even higher realm.
“If you imbue it with mana like this.”
The card floated up into the air, spinning while emitting a strange light.
“Oh. A gacha animation.”
Ignoring the incomprehensible word Kim Yul blurted out, Chloe delicately adjusted her mana.
And as a result.
“Gasp...!”
Above the card, a phantom image of Guan Yu’s illustration rose up like an AR hologram.
“Ohoho! This is the greatness of yours truly, desuwa!”
Chloe’s nose went an inch higher.
When else had Kim Yul’s gaze ever been this friendly?
His gaze always carried a strange hostility toward elves.
But today was different!
I can rule over humans!
“Magical objects always carry traces of the caster’s mana like a lingering aftertaste. Therefore, if you use identification magic, you can infer the source of that mana, making it a perfect anti-counterfeit measure, wouldn’t you say?”
“So how many can you make in a day?”
“Hmm... for a super-genius mage like me, 100 a day would be easy!”
“Then if Chloe handles all the anti-counterfeiting tech, we can save on labor costs. Let’s proceed.”
“Eh?”
Chloe had shown off her magic for nothing and ended up getting roped into it.
* * *
Even while whipping Historié and tugging Chloe’s ears, he kept devoting himself to expanding the new business model.
Kim Yul’s serial publication never stopped.
Of course, it was great that he had depicted Lu Bu’s death so dramatically, even using the comic cheat code.
“Hmm...”
“Hasn’t the pacing gotten a little slow lately?”
“Definitely. Once Liu Bei went under Cao Cao, the story started feeling a bit dull.”
“They haven’t run out of material yet, right?”
“No way. Cao Cao has basically solidified his base now. There’s still the Yuan Shao issue ahead, too.”
The readers were starting to feel uneasy.
After Lu Bu’s death.
Cao Cao brought Liu Bei to Xuchang.
And he even gave him the high office of General of the Left, while Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were also given the title of Zhonglang General, which at least sounded respectable.
And from the way Cao Cao was being portrayed, it was obvious he intended to make good use of Liu Bei however he could.
And on Liu Bei’s side, it was all scenes of him meeting people in Xuchang, greeting them politely, and faithfully playing the role of Cao Cao’s favorite figurine.
It even showed him as some idle layabout, doing nothing but farming.
“Hmm... wouldn’t sweet, lovey-dovey scenes with Lady Mi be better than this sort of thing...?”
Even Roselyn, who had started reading Kim Yul’s novel closely even outside the romance parts, tilted her head in confusion.
“Hmm, uhh... because it’s Kim Yul, maybe...?”
Even Estaea, the living legend of the yellow-dog world, didn’t so much as wag her tail at that slow pace.
But.
“All right, let’s get started.”
Kim Yul wasn’t shortsighted enough to toss aside his main job and focus only on the new business.
Rather, since his motivation itself was to make the Three Kingdoms franchise even better known, serializing the main story was also a matter of great importance.
He had simply knelt for a moment to gather momentum...
His sincerity punch.
More precisely, the legendary sincerity punch re-created by Luo Guanzhong.
The perfect plotline, from the secret edict hidden in the belt to the Hero Discussion Banquet, was ready to make its debut.
## ====== ##
“Th-This is...?”
“It is His Majesty the Emperor’s secret edict.”
Dong Cheng showed Liu Bei the secret letter hidden in the gap of his belt.
A heartfelt letter, filled with lament over the current plight of the Han imperial house.
The emperor Xian, who had been placed on the throne at far too young an age, and against his own will at that, and who was not yet even twenty.
The cry boiling up in his chest was contained in the secret letter.
To summarize its contents:
“Pursue and kill Cao Cao...”
“Shh. There may be ears listening.”
Even with Dong Cheng trying to stop him, Liu Bei couldn’t keep his hands from trembling.
## ====== ##
A secret letter from the emperor, no less.
And what’s more, the disastrous development of Liu Bei’s arc, where he received a letter ordering the death of Cao Cao, one of the dual protagonists!
And that wasn’t the end of it.
The next day.
At the end of Cao Cao’s arc, once again packed to the brim with nothing but political talk.
- Send Liu Bei an invitation. Say we should have a drink today.
With that one line tossed out so casually, so indifferently.
“...No way. Did he find out?”
“Even so, already?”
“At this rate, won’t both the emperor and Liu Bei be in danger...?”
The readers, tense with suspense.
turned the page.