How to Become a Star Writer - Chapter 14

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

◈ How to Become a Star Writer ◈

Episode 3: Create an Incident (4)

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Things were not going as I’d planned. As I bowed my head and said, “Just give me anything to do, sir,” the guards clicked their tongues.

“What would we have you do? Did you think we brought you here to hire you?”

“You’re headed to prison now, punk.”

...Prison. Right.

Most criminals go to prison.

And in this world, I was one of those criminals. Therefore, it was only proper that I go to prison... Wait. What?

[A small number of stars are disappointed by how the story is unfolding.]

As expected, the stars reacted faster than I did at times like this.

[100 Dust has been deducted.]

Damn it. Prison now, of all times?

Just when the protagonist should be spreading his wings and flying freely through the world? Come to think of it, Ji Eun-yu had once said something like this.

“Try to avoid three settings if possible: an academy, a tournament arena, and a prison.”

“Why? Aren’t those all common settings?”

“That’s exactly why. When those settings show up, views usually get cut in half. If you use a common setting, you need to make the story even more interesting, but it’s hard for a rookie to construct incidents like that. It’s best to avoid competing purely on writing skill. Ah, of course, I’m not saying you’re a bad writer...”

What an excellent editor. Or perhaps I should say she knew my level perfectly.

The only prison novel that came to mind right away was Solzhenitsyn’s A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

I liked that novel, but if I started writing A Day in the Life of Lance Pilgrim in prison, the views would be cut in half immediately...

[A small number of stars express concern over how the story is unfolding.]

[50 Dust has been deducted.]

I wanted to tear my hair out.

I had to get out of here somehow.

“I’m not actually a bandit.”

“What?”

“I stole this bandit badge. So I’m not a bandit.”

“You stole a bandit badge? Then you’re a bandit.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.”

Damn it, was I a complete idiot?

“Captain, are you done checking? The way this guy talks is suspicious. Let’s send him off already.”

Maybe it was just my imagination, but the guard captain who resembled Solzhenitsyn sat at the desk, puffing furiously on a cigarette.

He barely glanced at my face as he flipped through wanted posters. He looked like a great literary master, but acted like a total thug.

“...Hard to find. Why not just lock him up?”

Solzhenitsyn... No, the guard captain, was it?

When I got back to reality, I was definitely deleting you from the setting.

The captain searched through the posters for quite a while before his eyes suddenly lit up.

“No mistake,” he muttered, thrusting a poster forward.

My heart sank.

No, what was that supposed to be?

“What... No! That isn’t me!”

“They certainly do look alike.”

But the guards were too busy nodding in agreement.

The composite sketch looked nothing like me, no matter how I looked at it.

Wow. What kind of nonsense was this?

It was actually a wanted poster for Bintz Rat, not me.

In case you’ve forgotten, Bintz Rat was the exposition-loving bandit bastard I met when I first entered the novel. Along with me, he’d had his head cut off by the protagonist seventeen times.

So these guards were desecrating a dead man.

“Lock him up.”

“Yes, sir!”

Did these bastards have something like <Face Blindness> in their settings?

The subconscious was truly amazing. Why had I created characters like this?

Was it me, or Yoo Chan-young?

Either way, I couldn’t let myself get locked up like this.

I could already hear my view count dropping.

...Let’s just beat them all up and escape.

This seemed like exactly the point where some catharsis was needed, so the stars would surely love it if I just forced my way out of here.

But how strong were these guys?

At that moment, brief windows appeared above the guards’ heads.

How convenient.

[Guard Bane]

[Total Combat Power: 80]

[Guard Zeke]

[Total Combat Power: 56]

...They were much weaker than I expected.

That gave me confidence.

No matter how weak I was, there was no way I would lose to someone with a combat power of just 80.

Next was the guard captain...

What? Why didn’t this guy have a brief window?

[Character Information]

Character: Solzhenitsyn

Age: 42

Role: Extra (Guard Captain)

Total Combat Power: 14,000 to ????? (Estimate. Your imagination is not yet capable of measuring it accurately.)

Potential: High

Description: A guard captain with abnormally high combat power who once drenched the continent in blood. (Your imagination is not yet capable of viewing this individual’s entire past.)

...

My mouth fell open.

The fact that his name really was that of the great Russian author was one thing, but... What the hell was this? Was it okay for a guard captain who appeared this early to have combat power like that?

It was even higher than the previous protagonist’s!

And why had a guard captain drenched the continent in blood? Was this some kind of extreme hard-mode game or something...?

Ah...

Right.

This was Nightmare difficulty.

Suddenly, everything made sense.

But I couldn’t back down now.

“Wait. According to that wanted poster, I don’t think I’ve committed any crime.”

As I was being dragged away like a sick ox, I barely managed to come up with that. For reference, the wanted poster I saw looked roughly like this.

Name: Bintz Rat

Charge: None yet (Valhalla Bandits bandit)

Bounty: 10 Kap

I had a dead bandit to thank.

Thanks, Bintz.

You lived a kinder life than I expected.

“What are you talking about? You’re a bandit.”

Unfortunately, our Solzhenitsyn seemed incapable of accepting the contradiction of an innocent criminal.

“That’s true, but it says so right on the wanted poster, doesn’t it? ‘Not yet.’ I’m an honest bandit who hasn’t committed a single crime.”

An honest one indeed.

He was even the kind bandit who answered every question anyone asked.

“But if you’re a bandit, you’ll commit a crime eventually.”

“Maybe I won’t.”

“A king is assassinated eventually, a hero defeats the Demon King eventually, and a bandit bastard commits some petty crime eventually.”

That bizarre analogy left my mouth hanging open. The late Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn might have climbed out of his grave.

“As expected of our captain!”

“Hahahaha! What an incredible analogy!”

Apparently, they had all lost their minds. What was I supposed to do with this?

Judging by the atmosphere, I got the general idea. These guys didn’t care who I was. Looking into everything would be a hassle, so they just wanted to throw me into prison.

[An extremely small number of stars expect wisdom from you.]

[An extremely small number of stars pay 20 Dust.]

The stars seemed delighted that even this sort of thing counted as an incident.

An incident...

...Wait, an incident?

It felt as though sparks flew in my head.

Maybe I had been thinking about this too hard.

An incident did not necessarily mean something had to go off, explode, or have its head cut off.

“Quit screwing around and lock him up, bastards.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lee Hak-hyeon, if I backed down here, I would not be a creative writing graduate.

I was a man who had never once lost an argument during novel critique class.