Chapter 9
The imperial capital had many newspapers.
...Too many, in fact.
Even the major papers alone numbered seven, and if you included the small and midsize ones, the total easily topped twenty.
Newspapers had three principles.
The first and second were factual accuracy and public interest.
Major newspapers had generally risen to their positions because they could gather information properly through connections with the Imperial Palace, the Magic Tower, the Hero Academy, or the Demon Realm Expedition Corps.
But in the end, the truth always tended to make the rounds sooner or later.
The most important final principle was.
Literary quality.
Roughly half of each daily paper's pages were swallowed by various novels, and it was no exaggeration to say that sales depended on whether those novels were hits.
In such a situation,
“Why is there no news! The Academy's pink-haired fighter finishes in a week! We need to fill that space somehow!”
Gilford, head of the Literature Department at Truth Daily, was being scolded by the editor-in-chief again today.
“...I'll find a good work soon...”
“Soon? When is soon! Even if you start writing now, it'll take forever, and you're planning to bring me some trash nobody else wanted?”
“...I'll have something finalized within two days.”
The editor-in-chief jabbed Gilford in the chest with his staff.
“Watch yourself. Swapping out someone like you for another piece isn't hard at all!”
It was humiliating treatment, but
Gilford couldn't bring himself to object.
Because
Truth Daily's sales had been dropping day by day lately.
The reason was that, aside from its flagship work, 'The Pink-Haired Fighter of the Academy,' everything else was underperforming.
Bang──!
The moment the editor-in-chief, unable to contain his anger, went into his office and slammed the door shut,
“Phew, fuck.”
The curse slipped out of Gilford's mouth on its own.
But what could he do?
This was work he had started because he liked it.
“Um, Head of Department...?”
“Ah, yes. Is there some kind of problem?”
At the words of the subordinate who had been nervously watching him from the start, Gilford forced a smile to his lips.
He didn't want to become such a terrible boss himself.
That was the idea.
“W-well, a guest is here with your business card, Head of Department...”
“Ah, I'll go see them myself.”
Another one had come?
Over the past month alone, he had scouted more than a hundred writers, and met eight of them.
But none of them had produced any results, and even if he started writing now, would he really be able to meet the manuscript deadline...?
He thought that, but work was work.
Gilford opened the door to the reception room and went inside.
“Ah.”
And at a glance, he recognized the other person.
After all, in this country, black hair and black eyes were an impression impossible to forget.
“Um, if I may ask, your name...?”
“Ah, I'm Kim Yul. It's an honor to meet you again.”
Right, even the name was odd.
He didn't look like a demon, but the style of the name was similar to a demon's.
Could he be half-blood?
Quietly setting that aside, Gilford sat down casually across from Kim Yul.
If there was no finished product, the meeting meant nothing anyway.
Still, since he'd come all this way, Gilford had intended to explain everything carefully to leave the best possible impression, but.
“For now, I'd appreciate it if you could take a look at this first.”
“......?”
Kim Yul held out an envelope.
Suppressing the thought, Surely not, Gilford took it with a calm expression and soon checked the contents.
Inside were several sheets of paper.
The first page was the novel's synopsis.
Thinking that he'd prepared things quite thoroughly, Gilford began reading it lightly.
But.
“Oh......”
The moment he read the manuscript for Episode 1 enclosed after that, his back straightened on its own.
“Hoo......”
He couldn't help admiring the pacing, which boldly skipped childhood and drew in the young-adult years with such pull.
“I won't get divorced......?”
At that final line, he swallowed without realizing it and turned the page.
And then Episode 2, Episode 3, and Episode 4 as well.
After reading straight through without even taking a breath,
“Ah......”
The shocking fact that Episode 5 was missing left a clear look of disappointment on Gilford's face.
Immediately after, a voice full of conviction rang through the reception room.
“Let's officially sign this work today. Bring the contract right away.”
* * *
Gaius Julius Caesar.
The man who led the Roman Republic into a great empire, an ambitious figure who seized the unprecedented position of dictator for life beyond the consulship.
An individual whom Montesquieu praised as someone who would have won no matter what army he commanded, and would have been a leader no matter what country he had been born in.
And yet, when I tried to turn his life story into a novel...
Two seemingly minor yet hugely important problems grabbed me by the ankle.
First.
“Hmm......”
Where should I chart his life from beginning to end?
Especially from a novelistic standpoint.
No matter how great a hero's life may be, there are inevitably boring stretches in the rise and fall of an entire life.
Looking at Caesar, wasn't it true that the popular parts of his achievements were all concentrated after middle age?
The Triumvirate, the conquest of Gaul, crossing the Rubicon.
And finally the end, summed up by “You too, Brutus?”
But without a sufficient understanding of the man and the background story, I couldn't make the later dazzling exploits flow plausibly, so packaging all of that as appealingly as possible was the hard part.
Besides...
Historical accuracy, damn it, historical accuracy.
When writing Greek and Roman mythology, perhaps because the source material itself allowed for mythic exaggeration, historical accuracy also came with a prefix, like “(myth) compliant.”
But the moment I started dealing with an actual historical figure, accuracy became rather troublesome.
Since I hadn't directly possessed that person, small lines, actions, and emotional expressions weren't much of a problem if I made them up myself.
But if I tried to twist parts that were firmly recorded in the historical record for the sake of the plot, accuracy errors would start bursting out everywhere.
I couldn't even count how many times I'd dug through references, searched for papers, and huddled with Historie over the manuscript, groaning.
『The plot-construction work of selectively choosing branches of Caesar's life, as instructed by Lord Yul, has been completed. Based on that, “A Fallen Noble Is Good at Politics” is about human desire, political intrigue──』
“Stop. I'll read it myself.”
『TTS has been stopped.』
First, let's organize the opening.
Caesar's early years were, to put it bluntly, a constant struggle with Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix.
I had already decided to start the novel's opening with his conflict with Sulla.
A dictator who trampled the common people under the boots of his army.
And a righteous young man who stood against him.
Even when his life was threatened, I would include the part where he refused the order to divorce his wife, fled the assassination order, and gradually built up his own power.
In other words, a clear villain and a clear opposing side.
But.
I had to avoid the part where the story after that dragged like a slog.
Especially his military years.
Caesar...
“He was a gutsy man.”
Of course, I hadn't lived through that era, so I couldn't confirm whether that was really true, but Caesar had two human weaknesses.
An M-shaped hairline.
And... homosexuality.
During his stay in neighboring Bithynia, rumors ran rampant that he and King Nicomedes IV had one of those very, very... relationships, and the label stuck to him for life.
Of course, in modern times you could brush it off with the word “gutsy” and satirize it, but
this is a primitive medieval fantasy land.
......Naturally, homosexuality is treated as a sin.
If I put that in as is, Roseline might suddenly appear, grab my neck, and shake me while shouting, “This isn't pure love!” so this part should be censored... no, omitted.
After several trials and errors,
omitting it without describing it doesn't affect historical accuracy.
“Roughly, I think I can skip his military service quickly and continue from after his discharge, when he starts building his career.”
『Yul. You've hit the core point. This is going to be such a wise and perfect development──』
“Like I said before, please don't use Markdown syntax in every conversation from now on.”
『Understood. I will refrain from using Markdown syntax.』
After putting the brakes on Historie's habit of going straight for the **core**, which sometimes flared up because of the LLM's peculiar long-term-memory issues,
I organized my thoughts a little more while looking at the lines she had spat out, and focused on the next story's structure.
.
.
.
“This should be enough......”
After finishing the outline, along with the early serialization chapters,
I stretched and loosened my stiff body.
After eating a disgustingly tasteless fantasy-style meal, taking the manuscript to the newspaper, coming home, working out a bit, and watching some of the video media piled up on the external hard drive.
Then, today would end with another peaceful, ordinary day.
[Sales of 'Olympus Story – The Iliad' have surpassed 5,000 copies! A bonus skill has been granted!]
“So it's already time for that.”
For the first time in a while, a little happiness was added to my peaceful day.
A pleasant notification that the latest book I'd written, The Iliad, had reached its sales target.
This time, its overall quality had also been judged high, and public reception had been very good, so
the sales target had been set at 5,000 copies instead of the original 2,000.
In other words, it had been set at more than double, but the reward was correspondingly extravagant.
A B-rank skill, no less.
Hector's Valor!
“Heh heh.”
My mouth practically watered at the thought of checking the performance of my first B-rank skill, but.
“Huh...?”
That wasn't the end of the message.
[The number of equippable skills has exceeded the limit (current: 3)!]
[Please swap skills to equip the ones you need, or synthesize them to obtain new skills!]
There's a limit...?
Synthesis too...?