WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ How to Become a Star Writer ◈
Episode 3: Create an Incident (2)
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As I watched the cursor blink in the word processor window, all kinds of thoughts came to mind.
Could other people have had the same experience as me?
After all, Yoo Chan-young said it in that interview. “You have to become the protagonist.”
So Yoo Chan-young, like me...
“Writer?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Are you having trouble writing?”
Ji Eun-yu looked at me with clear eyes.
Could there be some industry practice I didn't know about?
For instance, was it fairly common for writers to enter their own novels?
“Editor, the truth is, I need to go into my novel for a bit.”
“...Pardon?”
As expected, she looked at me like I was crazy.
Well, if I thought about it rationally for even a moment, there was no way that could be true.
How many web novel writers were there? If all of them had entered their novels, surely people would have heard about it.
“Do you want to be alone?”
“...Well, I do find it more comfortable.”
“Starting tomorrow, I'll let you write alone. But not today. Write here. I won't disturb you.”
“Yeees...”
Was there no helping it?
Amid the murmur of the coffee machine, I focused my mind.
The cursor blinked at the end of the previous episode's final paragraph. My fingertips trembled against the keyboard.
Should I press it? Should I try just once?
If I went in there, I'd have to go through all that again.
Seventeen times. That was how often my head had been cut off inside the novel.
It was strange that, after going through that, I was sitting here trying to write again.
Had that skill called “Imagination” ruined my sense of danger?
“Writer. Do you realize you've been staring at the screen for an hour already?”
That startled me. Ji Eun-yu, who had briefly gone to the restroom, was standing behind me.
“Well, the first sentence...”
“Why are you worrying so much? Just write any sentence, and the next one will follow. Like this!”
Without warning, Ji Eun-yu reached over from behind and placed a hand over mine. A chill ran through me.
“No, wait!”
It was already too late.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Damn it, was I getting dragged in again?!
But when I opened my eyes, there was only a single sentence before me.
“Lance Pilgrim first assessed the situation around him.”
“Now, keep writing.”
...Huh?
.
.
To get to the point, I was not sucked back into the novel while writing the manuscript.
Ji Eun-yu finished editing and reviewing everything I had written by afternoon, then returned to the office.
“Anyway, we wrapped it up. Let's keep this pace up for a while.”
“How's the manuscript?”
“It's interesting. But something...”
“Does it lack soul again?”
“No. Let's look at the results together first.”
I felt a little deflated.
Why hadn't I entered the novel?
Could that really have happened only once?
Beginner's luck?
...I really didn't know.
The next day, the results for Episode 5 I had written came in.
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[99 Ways to Kill a Regressor]
Episode 5. Create an Incident (1) [11] / Views: 3,511
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The numbers weren't bad.
The views had dropped by around 500, but they could recover after another day.
I had completely forgotten even about getting my head cut off and was grinning to myself.
Maybe getting this to paid serialization would be easier than I thought?
What should I do first once I start getting paid?
Right. I should send my mom some spending money and help with Tae-hoon's tuition.
That kid Tae-hoon... Were they in their fourth year now? I should call them sometime soon.
Watching the views pile up, I murmured to myself in satisfaction.
“Let's keep it going like this.”
I clenched my fist and steeled myself like an office worker swept up in the bubble economy just before the IMF crisis.
Without even imagining that the IMF crisis would actually hit.
Then, the following evening, Ji Eun-yu called.
“Writer.”
“...Yes.”
“I'm sorry... I think you need to prepare yourself.”
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[99 Ways to Kill a Regressor]
Episode 6. Create an Incident (2) [1] / Views: 320
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Like the value of the won, my views had plummeted.
To an absurd extent.
* * *
“I'll write just one more episode. Just one.”
Ji Eun-yu did not answer on the other side of the phone. Instead, I could hear the editing department's shouting echoing in the background.
“Put Writer Lee Hak-hyeon on! Hurry!”
It was Team Leader Kim's voice.
“Didn't I tell you? I said this writer couldn't keep writing that!”
“Writer, I'll call you again later.”
Click.
Silence followed.
I could vividly picture the office, with voices raised in anger.
It was hard to bear the self-loathing slowly rising from deep within me.
I'd ruined it.
It was Yoo Chan-young's manuscript, of all things.
Yoo Chan-young's manuscript, something that would have done at least moderately well no matter who handled it.
A novel that could never have received only 320 views, even if it had been written with someone's feet.
I'd crushed that potential with my own hands.
Because of my greed to make this novel “mine.”
“One bottle of soju, please.”
I bought soju at the convenience store near my home and started walking as I drank straight from the bottle.
Come to think of it, I had been drinking when I first entered the novel, too.
Could I only enter it if I drank and wrote?
...Ha ha. No way.
If that were true, heavy drinkers like Hemingway and Dostoevsky would have entered their novels hundreds of times.
Still, on the off chance, I returned home and grabbed the keyboard while drunk.
Let's write something.
I'd already failed. What did it matter what I wrote?
I hammered at the keyboard while drinking soju.
A swig, a line. A swig, another line.
Please. Please, let a miracle happen to me just one more time.
How many characters had I written?
I fell asleep as if by magic.
And then.
[The stars' signal is strengthening. Beginning link.]
When I opened my eyes again, I was standing in a barren desert.
“...Damn. It really was the alcohol.”
[The stars celebrate your return and have gifted you 1,000 Dust.]
[Episode 2 has begun.]
My second round of life-or-death creative work had begun.
* * *
I first assessed the situation around me.
A bandit gang roasting beneath the hot, sandy wind.
And the previous protagonist's corpse.
It was exactly the same situation as right before I had left the novel.
Judging by the timing, it seemed I had returned to the end of Episode 1, just as Episode 4 had ended.
The stories from Episodes 5 and 6, which I had written without drinking, had not been reflected at all.
I carefully examined Fehilt Rune's dead body.
[Writer Skill “Imagination” has activated.]
[Abnormal mental shock has been negated.]
Searching a corpse felt deeply unpleasant, but thinking of this as a novel I had written helped a little.
Come to think of it, this guy had said something strange.
“How could this be? This story... It wasn't supposed to go like this...”
Could this person have been Yoo Chan-young?
...No way.
[Character Information]
Character: Fehilt Rune
Description: Former protagonist.
Their expression was empty.
The face of a protagonist who had died before they could even enjoy the glory of regression.
Hey, it's not like I wanted to kill you, either.
You were the one who cut my head off first.
Let's not think about anything too complicated. I couldn't know anything here anyway.
Whoever this person was...
This place was only a novel.
And I had no intention of giving up this world that I had barely managed to obtain.
After covering their face with dirt, I took only the weapon they had been carrying and quickly stood up.
[Artifact Information]
Name: Steel Sword
Rank: C+
Type: Weapon
Description: A sword made from steel found in the Kirvie Mountains. It is sturdy and has high spiritual power affinity, making it widely favored.
My bandit sword was E-rank, so this was vastly better than the sword I had been using.
They were a protagonist from birth, so they started out with good equipment.
While I was at it, I searched the bandits' belongings too, but found nothing else useful.
...Anyone watching would think I was a real bandit.
The next thing I checked was my status window.
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[Character Information]
Character: Lance Pilgrim
Age: 17
Role: Protagonist
Total Combat Power: 8,005
Potential: Lowest
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The first thing that caught my eye was the “Total Combat Power” number.
8,005.
It seemed fairly high, but...
Did they think I'd be fooled by numbers again?
I'd trusted numbers like that and gotten my head smashed countless times by a protagonist with combat power of 2,000.
For some reason, I glared at the combat power number for a while.
Then, as if by magic, the screen split apart and displayed a detailed combat power statistics window.
Stamina, agility, intelligence, and so on.
The one that caught my attention most was the “spiritual power” category.
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Spiritual Power: 50,124
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...Fifty thousand.
No matter how little I trusted numbers, that really did seem like a lot.
How many elixirs had I taken? Five? Six?
Even then, their effects had gradually weakened each time I took one, and this was the result.
Even if my body was weak, wasn't my spiritual power at least fairly useful?
Lastly, I looked at the “Description” field at the bottom of the character information.
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Description: You are the first in this world to be promoted from an “extra” to a “protagonist.” Some stars are watching your actions with interest.
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Those stars who had mocked or pitied me were now interested in me.
Since they gave me Dust, it didn't seem like an entirely bad situation.
That was when a message appeared.
[Now that you have become a protagonist, you can use the “Dust Shop.”]
The Dust Shop?
With a few gestures, a familiar kind of window appeared before me.
[Welcome to the Dust Shop.]
An item list spread out like a shopping catalog.
It looked similar to the cash shops I had seen while playing mobile games.
As a test, I selected the item in the very first slot.
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[Item Information]
Product Name: Everyone But Me Has an IQ of 50
Price: 5,000 Dust
Description: Lowers the intelligence quotient of every character within a 50-meter radius, excluding the protagonist, to half or less.
When used, there is a set chance that the amount of Dust earned will permanently decrease, and the story's plausibility may suffer major damage.
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What was this? What kind of ridiculous item was this? And 5,000 Dust?!
[You cannot purchase items because episode progress is too low.]
That was a little disappointing.
Bastards. Why show it to me if I couldn't buy it?
Grumbling, I looked through every corner of the Dust Shop.
Then I saw a [Q&A] menu in the bottom-right corner.
Right. I should check the warnings first.
Just as I happily reached for the button.
[Yes, that one.]
Huh?
[Hurry and press it.]
Had I heard wrong?
The message's tone seemed to have changed. And that was a woman's voice.
[You have lots of questions, right? Press that menu, and you'll find out everything! What Dust is, what stars are. So hurry and press it!]
“Who are you? What are you?”
[Questions and answers are available only through Q&A.]
The tone changed again all of a sudden.
Was this some kind of customer service representative?
Just as I considered pressing it once as a test, I looked closer and noticed tiny writing beneath the Q&A logo.
Q&A costs 500 Dust per use.
My hand instinctively pulled away from the window.
If my calculations were right, 500 Dust was roughly equal to 500 views.
Five hundred views for one click?
Were these people just thieves?
[...What? Why did you stop before pressing it?]
Would you press it?
From my experience with countless mobile games, once you started spending on things like that, there was no end to it.
[Please press it. Just once. The Dust you send will be used to help unfortunate protagonists in parallel dimensions. Really.]
I ignored the voice and carefully examined the other menus in the Dust Shop.
[No matter how much you search through that, there's nothing useful. Listen to me! At your story level, you should listen to me even more... Mmph, mmph.]
It talked well enough on its own if I left it alone.
Most items were locked, but I did not give up.
Cash shops usually allowed at least one or two features to be used for free.
There had to be something free to get more people to spend money.
Still, didn't this thing even have an item search feature?
[Using the search function costs 300 Dust. Would you like to pay?]
“I'm not buying it.”
These guys were relentless.
I kept searching through the item list without giving up. There were over a hundred product pages, so surely there had to be at least one free item...
About an hour passed before the voice spoke again.
[...Ha. This is a first. I give up, I give up.]
The voice disappeared after those final words.
And I saw the result of my hour of work.
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[Item Information]
Product Name: 99 Tips for Beginner Protagonists
Price: Free
Description: A must-read guide for those of you who have just become protagonists. If you found this, you are a protagonist of determination!
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Yes. I'd finally found it.
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