Chapter 49
A serialized work in the Imperial Daily.
The author of “The Stars Bloom in the Mist.”
Basseline took pride in his own writing.
Though it was embarrassing to call himself that.
He was proud to say he had made a tremendous contribution to the empire-wide popularity of the “hero story” genre.
Just open a newspaper and you could see the framework he had established.
A commoner of ordinary lineage.
A childhood friend who promised a future together.
An accidental event—say, the childhood friend getting gang-raped by demons, or something like that—and the protagonist’s mental shock and growth.
Then he sets off on an adventure for revenge, gets betrayed by a comrade once, and even gets cast aside after being used.
After all kinds of hardship and twists, he finally reunites with the childhood friend who has been freed from petrification, and the story ends happily.
Such clichés were flooding the market without restraint.
That so many authors imitated his work was, in his own estimation, a great literary achievement he had accomplished.
Because of that.
He went around flaunting this Golden Pencil, awarded by the Imperial Daily for attracting many readers.
“Wow! That’s amazing!”
“Haha, not at all. I’m just a clumsy hack who’s only now starting to learn what writing is.”
It wasn’t just the Golden Pencil.
He subtly bared his wrist.
“So humble! Oh, now that I think about it, what is that watch?”
“Ah, you mean this?”
His second pride and joy.
The capital’s largest salon.
At the Jean Lenovil Salon, every year at year’s end, people who enjoy novels and literature gather to host a highly prestigious event.
Its name, too, takes after the salon itself: the Lenovil Award.
Various novels are divided by category, and the novel that delivers the most enjoyment within each category is selected—a true grand festival for novel lovers.
Basseline.
He was, after all, a real author who had won third place in the “Heroic Tales” category at the 5th Lenovil Award held three years earlier!
For someone like him, that was only to be expected.
It wasn’t the novel’s own appeal—though of course Two Heroes Part 1 did have some of that—but rather external factors.
The fact that a rookie author named Ulysses was drawing in readers with card packs was frankly hard to stomach.
What’s more, the serialization venue wasn’t even the Imperial Daily, the biggest of the big, but some unheard-of newspaper called Novelpia?
It was utterly ridiculous.
Yet even in the salon, talk of his work came up from time to time.
- This year... again, Two Heroes?
- But if the protagonist is a hero, hmm.
- The Cao Cao depicted in Part 1 was too human, and Liu Bei was idealistic but somewhat incompetent.
- Zhuge Liang in Part 2 felt almost superhuman; if it stays like this, wouldn’t he be a frontrunner?
Those assessments.
- Sigh, here we go again.
- This author must have been abandoned by his parents as a child. Otherwise, would every work repeat the pattern of being betrayed by the people they trusted?
- Still, he hasn’t written a lover being raped yet, so isn’t that a huge improvement?
- It’ll probably show up within ten chapters...
Compared with the sharp, needle-like criticism recently being driven into his own work, this was far too generous.
Basseline felt wronged.
To think they’d try to win through some cheap trick by selling cards outside the novel?
“Zhuge Liang is far too flat as a character. If he went through such a miserable childhood, he ought to be that much more pessimistic, so how could he grow up so calm and righteous? That Ulysses fellow must be like a flower in a greenhouse, growing up comfortably without ever suffering.”
For that reason, he freely tore into the rookie author Ulysses.
In fact, he hadn’t even read it.
He’d just badmouthed it based on what he’d heard.
Guilt... well, he did feel a little.
But seeing the woman in front of him cast him an admiring look, it melted away like snow.
This is it.
This is the taste...!
At that moment.
"Excuse me. I couldn’t help but notice you were having an interesting conversation."
He turned toward the voice.
A black-haired man, and a saint whose appearance was so blasphemous that, paradoxically, she overflowed with sanctity.
Is this man the Saint’s attendant?
“May I ask what business you have...?”
“I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but I got curious. You look like a writer—may I ask what pen name you go by...?”
The black-haired man scratched his head with a troubled expression.
Stars burst in Basseline’s head.
The Saint is interested in me!
At that moment.
His interest in the frog-like woman before him melted away.
Basseline, trying to look as dignified as possible, pulled out one of the business cards he always kept in his breast pocket and handed it over.
“Ah, I’m someone like this. It’s a little embarrassing to call myself a writer, haha...”
Of course, he didn’t mean it.
Who was he?
A star author of the Imperial Daily.
Winner of the 5th Lenovil Award.
It was a feeling that naturally made his chest swell with pride.
The black-haired man respectfully took the business card, then handed it to the Saint.
At that moment.
The Saint’s eyes went wide.
“Oh? Basseline?”
“You know my pen name...!”
Basseline was a writer.
A writer’s job is, by nature, to have a vivid imagination.
In his head.
Starting from a chance encounter on the street, going through all sorts of twists and turns together, then a shy confession of “Will you become my hero?” and finally, on the wedding night, the first intimacy reserved solely for the hero──
“Let’s see, ‘If you don’t beat a woman for three days, she turns into a fox,’ ‘A man ruling and handling women is as natural as breathing,’ ‘Women only need to cook, do laundry, and clean well’... what priceless lines! And the heroine being humiliated by extras was really, truly amazing, wasn’t it? I was curious which horny bastard—no, which gentleman wrote it.”
“──?”
The Saint smiled brightly.
* * *
“So how did it go?”
Chewing noisily on the popcorn that only came out one piece a day from the intake slot, Tin Can’s eyes sparkled.
“How did it go, he says. Nothing happened.”
“Huh?”
“More precisely, he spent about two hours lecturing on what wholesome love is.”
“Ugh...”
Historié grimaced.
I was no different.
I had clearly gone in with the feeling of, “You’re the one I was trashing! I challenge you to a duel!”
Yet I ended up witnessing the horrifying situation of Roseline getting even more worked up than I was and flying into a frenzy.
Even when I tried to stop her.
- Kim Yul, stay put for a second! You’re no different!
- Agh!
As a result, my forearm was still red and bruised from the Women’s Rights Palm she had slammed on me, one that surpassed the Tathagata Palm.
“But, yes, she was definitely rude. If it were the official Records of the Three Kingdoms, maybe I could let it pass, but to lump Zhuge Liang in and put him down like that.”
That’s right.
Honestly, if you’d called the Sima Yi part boring as hell, I could have agreed.
Because...
The Sima Yi part was bound to be heavily constrained by the world’s corrective force.
Even while I was fighting a bloody battle against every “that doesn’t match the historical record” objection popping up at every turn, I was still ruthlessly using every possible cutting technique to somehow keep readers from dropping out at the end.
I could accept that humbly.
But.
How dare you insult Zhuge Liang?
“Come to think of it, did you find out where he lives.”
“Ah, right.”
Smack──!
“Agh──!”
“No whining.”
Got hit on the same spot again.
Sniff...
.
.
.
Kim Yul endured it.
Of course, I almost became Mega Kim Yul, but that was only because I was crushed by the Giganoto Saint’s spiritual pressure.
As I had declared.
Ulysses can’t let it slide.
This wasn’t a simple insult.
It was a heart-wrenching feeling, as though Luo Guanzhong’s soul were screaming from hell.
“Damn, Tin Can rubbed off on you.”
“Want another one?”
“Sorry.”
Ignoring Historié’s dagger eyes as she squeezed Mentholatum onto my arm, I refocused on typing.
Originally, I had planned to move through the Battle of Red Cliffs quickly, in serialized-novel fashion.
I changed my mind.
I’ll properly bring out the true delight of the Romance, where a mad genius’s bold imagination runs wild on the foundation of history...!
So.
Starting from the scene I had planned to skip.
* * *
Basseline couldn’t shake off the shock from that day even after more than a week.
Of course, being personally insulted by the Saint wasn’t the problem.
...It was true that, to make it provocative and popular, I had deliberately inserted those lines and scenes.
But there was one line he simply couldn’t accept.
- 당신 같은 작가보다는, 율리시스가 훨씬 낫죠!
I couldn’t accept it.
How could writing that seemed scribbled out carelessly, with no depth, be better than one that had poured in all my deep anguish, philosophy, and climaxes?
At least the work I serialized back in the Truth Daily days wasn’t that bad.
Rather, it was my own watered-down version.
A work stuffed full of forced misery!
“I’ll check it myself.”
Just what kind of moves had Zhuge Liang, that protagonist, made for the salon to be heating up like this?
I’ll see it myself, and laugh my head off at the Saint’s pitiful sense of taste.
.
.
.
The next day, Basseline got up and immediately ran to the newspaper stand to buy every copy of Novelpia that had been published so far.
Only secondhand copies were left, with the cards already gone, but since he had never intended to collect cards anyway, he actually liked being able to buy them cheaper.
He read chapter 1 with anger in his eyes.
And then.
When he came to his senses.
Why... is it already night...?
His time had vanished completely.
To be honest, at first it was ordinary.
He still thought it was just a crudely stitched-together sequel riding on the coattails of a brand-new newspaper.
But from the moment Zhuge Liang really set out on his campaign.
The last passage he saw──
To persuade the Wu nobles opposing the alliance between Liu Bei and Sun Quan, Zhuge Liang himself took up the white-feather fan.
Even the scene where he boldly stepped into that hostile place with not a single ally at his side.
He read the novel straight through without even eating.
Even lying in bed, the strange feeling wouldn’t go away.
Even in his dreams, he was gripping a spear, entrusting himself to a single horse, and racing across the vast battlefield.
Before he knew it, he had been completely won over.
The next day.
“The Imperial... no, just give me one copy of Novelpia for now!”
Monitoring reader reactions was important too.
But above that.
Right now, the priority was to see how Zhuge Liang survives in enemy territory, and then how he brings about the alliance.