Chapter 65
Today.
As she read the novel Kim Yul had been putting aside for a while, Chloe's emotions changed from moment to moment.
First: denial.
"W-What? No way, desuwa! There's no way Liu Bei could fall, no way the high elves could collapse......!"
She even compared the newspaper serialization and Kim Yul's draft, reading back and forth to check whether what she'd seen was really the serialized version or whether someone had secretly swapped the manuscript.
"Kim Yuuuuul...! After all this, you expect me to trust you? What a bad, wicked, rotten man......!"
Because she let the anger boiling up inside her out with a KRAAANG, the employees kept away from the area near the boss's office for a while.
Then came.
"Hmm, this must be a dream, desuwa. I've been in such poor health lately that I'm dreaming, dreaming, dreaming, dreami......"
Negotiation.
"Uu, uuuu......"
Depression.
That was the moment Kim Yul found Chloe, who was huddled in a chair, burying her face and swaying weakly.
"Kim... Yul..."
She had clearly been planning to give him a severe lesson the instant she saw him, with the anger stuffed into a chest she proudly believed was by no means small, and in fact above average.
The moment she saw Kim Yul's face,
Chloe felt that anger slowly begin to ebb away.
He looked terribly haggard.
If I exaggerated a little, the dark circles looked like they could reach his cheekbones.
His face was filled with guilt and bitterness.
Right.
Even though I, the reader, felt this gloomy,
how much worse must it be for the writer who created this being, and who had lovingly serialized a character since Part 1 before finally killing them off?
"Could you get those elf protesters outside cleaned up?"
"I'll kill them, desuwa......!"
Chloe, having reversed through the five stages and returned to rage mode, shot out like lightning, grabbed Kim Yul by the collar, and dangled from him.
"There must definitely be a resurrection spell among Zhuge Liang's magic!"
"There isn't."
"Uu, uuuu......"
"Tsk."
Only after going through negotiation again, then depression again in rapid succession, and finally reaching acceptance.
"Hoo. So what happens from here on? Zhuge Liang is naturally going to work for Liu Bei's revenge, right?"
"Hmm, yes. He's a loyal retainer."
Luckily.
Chloe's brow loosened a little once she confirmed that the high-elf bloodline would pass to the heir, Liu Shan, and that Zhuge Liang, the protagonist of Part 2, had promised not to betray Liu Shan.
The elf ears that had been completely drooping perked up again, twitch, twitch.
and began to recover their original angle.
"Hoo, this really is the last time I'm putting up with it, desuwa."
After leaving Kim Yul a warning, Chloe walked over to the office window and flung it wide open.
"Disperse, desuwa!"
At that one shout,
the Jeonggan-yeon protesters, who had been swallowing their anger as if they would burn down the building, muttered, "Tsk, we're busted," and slowly began withdrawing from the protest site.
"......You didn't have them do this, did you?"
"As if I would, desuwa."
"Your speech is getting weirder by the day, though......"
"It's just your imagination, desuwasawayo."
Kim Yul formed a hypothesis that Tylenol's liver toxicity might be harmful to elves.
Of course, there was no way that was true.
.
.
.
Looking at Kim Yul soothing Chloe's mood by telling her all kinds of behind-the-scenes stories that couldn't appear in a serialized novel and existed only in his head,
"Kim Yul sometimes feels like he's writing a history book rather than a novel, desuwa."
Chloe had hit the nail on the head.
Kim Yul just scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
In any case.
Thanks to his natural storyteller's talent, and because he mixed in stories that subtly eased her temper and delighted her ears,
Chloe's heart had softened quite a bit.
Only then.
"Ah, right."
Chloe rummaged through a drawer, took out a letter, and handed it to Kim Yul.
"The troupe leader asked me to give you this, desuwa."
"Hm?"
Kim Yul tilted his head.
* * *
The office of the Fantasy Horizon troupe leader.
"You seem to have a remarkable talent for tragedy, so how about going straight into playwriting from here?"
"......Haha......"
The troupe leader looked at the young, spirited man sitting across from them.
The troupe leader teased Kim Yul while watching his reaction.
One of the buttons at Kim Yul's throat had been torn off, and that caught the troupe leader's eye.
That was probably Chloe's doing.
She'd killed a high elf, after all.
"Anyway, personally, I thought that was an extremely satisfying development. I'm serious."
"Is that something I'm supposed to be thankful for?"
"What, thankful? No need."
Just as the troupe leader had told Kim Yul.
The troupe leader thought that "Two Heroes" had unfolded the story in the smartest and most perfect direction possible.
Unlike Cao Cao, who had run straight ahead for his grand cause without blood or tears,
Liu Bei was the protagonist who, at the opposite extreme, symbolized humanity itself.
If, at that point, he had pursued the greater good, abandoned revenge for his brothers, and made common cause with the tide of the times?
The character foundation Liu Bei had built up until now would collapse completely.
And if, instead, he had gone into the decisive battle despite the objections of his loyal retainers, and won there thanks to the previous-work protagonist buff?
Guan Yu and Zhang Fei's deaths would have amounted to nothing more than sacrifices to awaken the previous work's protagonist, and that would have been all.
"Liu Bei is the sort of character who is completed by a tragic end. What do you think of my interpretation?"
Looking at Kim Yul's flustered expression, the troupe leader became convinced that the inference was correct.
Going one step further,
it was also possible to confirm that Liu Bei's death had been meticulously planned.
As expected.
A terrifying level of talent.
As I'd felt before.
This writer, Kim Yul, was definitely different from the others who merely filled in the things they had to write each day mechanically.
If you looked inside that mind, there would probably be an enormous amount of lore stacked up neatly.
"So, when do you think the Zhuge Liang story will be finished?"
"Hmm."
At the troupe leader's question,
Kim Yul briefly checked his plan.
The remaining story.
Stabilizing the line of succession.
The Nanman campaign, the Seven Captures and Seven Releases.
The Northern Expedition.
And... the Autumn Wind at Wuzhangyuan.
"I think it'll be done within a month or two."
Kim Yul had already resolved long ago that, even if he wrote side stories after the ending, the main story itself would conclude at Wuzhangyuan.
And he also felt he'd been serializing Romance of the Three Kingdoms for far too long.
He had been thinking he might wrap it up quickly and try his hand at another published novel this time.
Taking advantage of that hesitation,
"Then, if you have the time, how about planning one more magical play?"
The troupe leader's proposal pierced Kim Yul straight in the chest.
* * *
"You must have had a rough day today, Kim Yul."
"You also had your hands full calming the blondie down."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
What kind of life on earth did you live?
Listening to everyone I knew in unison saying, "So why did you kill Liu Bei!", I felt a really nasty knot in my chest.
Even Roselyn, whom I thought cared about nothing but romance,
- Writer... I'm so sad...
With the tear mole beneath her eye damp with tears, she'd sent me a reproachful look, and my life was nearly down to zero.
But.
"They say they want to do one more magical play."
"Oh."
Got to do what we've got to do.
After refueling Tin Can, who was sitting politely in front of the table with a spoon in hand and chirping like a baby bird again today,
we started discussing what subject would be good.
"This time, the troupe leader gave us a few restrictions outright. We need to build the story to fit them."
"What are they?"
"Simple if you keep it simple, complicated if you don't."
One.
The protagonist should have an ordinary background.
Two.
The backdrop should be a chaotic age.
Three.
The protagonist should have a helper.
Four.
The final scene should end in the protagonist's tragedy.
"Hmm."
Tin Can's earrings began to sparkle brightly.
Something I'd only recently realized: not only did the design resemble semiconductors, those earrings also seemed to help Tin Can's calculations as if they were some kind of magical tool.
What a fantasy mystery.
After the loading finished,
"How about Jing Ke?"
"Jing Ke, huh."
He did satisfy all the conditions.
When you think of Jing Ke, the famous 图窮匕見 comes to mind.
With Fan Wuji's head in front of him, the moment Qin Shi Huang unfolded the map and the dagger popped out is the highlight of highlights, if you ask me.
Since it's appeared in dramas and films quite a lot already, it's easy to adapt for the stage and easy to turn into a short story.
If there was just one minor problem,
"No matter how you slice it, it's a bit much to write about an emperor's assassin in an imperial nation."
"Ah. I overlooked that part."
Tin Can readily admitted its mistake.
Jing Ke's story was extremely appealing in that it let you discuss what a chivalrous hero is...
But not yet.
It could be called premature.
"Then what about Spartacus?"
"Not bad. It can also be tied to the Caesar story from before."
A whole stream of other candidates came pouring out of Tin Can's mouth as well.
Because each of them had their own strengths and weaknesses, their own stories, and plenty of appeal.
If time and room allowed, I'd want to take them all on, but my time wasn't infinite yet.
So I had to discuss it carefully with Historie.
As expected.
"Jeanne d'Arc would be the answer, then."
We reached our conclusion.
Since we'd already gone long enough on the Eastern side with the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, if we were really talking turns, it was about time to give the Western history side a turn too.
It matched the troupe leader's conditions perfectly.
And even from a personal narrative standpoint, she was more than enough to build a protagonist-centered play and a one-volume short story around.
"Then, shall we start the study?"
"I'll start by searching for research materials."
I began brainstorming with the graduate student at my side.
The troupe leader.
He'd asked for the protagonist's tragedy, after all.
I'll wring tears and snot out of them.