WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ How to Become a Star Writer ◈
Episode 4: Don't Be Consumed by the Setting (1)
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I couldn't clearly remember how everything unfolded after that.
I rushed Gu Dae-seong, who had lost consciousness, to a nearby hospital and asked Baek-gwi and Pa Cheon-u to handle the rest.
I had to part ways with Ji Eun-yu without even properly saying goodbye.
After everything had passed in a blur, Ji Eun-yu finally called me late that night.
“Writer, may I ask you something?”
“What is it?”
“Have you ever worked in a rather unusual profession?”
I could see why she would think that.
It wasn't enough that the huge man holding a bat had been terrified at the sight of me. He'd wet himself and passed out.
“Of course not. I've lived a perfectly decent life.”
“Right... Then you didn't know Writer Gu separately, did you?”
Even if I did know, this was the kind of situation where I had to say I didn't.
And in truth, I hadn't known him.
“Anyway, thank you for today. Really. I'll definitely repay you.”
“Repay me for what? Forget it. Just buy me a coffee sometime.”
“I'll definitely repay you.”
It was nice of her to say so.
Still, I hadn't come away empty-handed.
Writer Gu Dae-seong.
The writer who had ghostwritten Yoo Chan-young's novel with me.
I vividly remembered the fear in his eyes when he saw me.
“P-Please spare me!”
Those were the first words Gu Dae-seong had uttered when he saw me, before passing out.
I calmed him down with difficulty and asked several questions, but Gu Dae-seong couldn't properly remember what he'd said.
“Ugh... What are you talking about? Who are you people? Whose work did I ghostwrite?”
He even seemed to have forgotten that he'd ghostwritten Yoo Chan-young's work.
Then there was no need to say that he must have forgotten his memories of being Fehilt Rune too.
Why had he lost his memories?
I came up with two theories.
First, he had fallen into the Abyss while short on Dust.
Second, he had lost the copyright to the work in which he had been the protagonist.
Either seemed possible, but the more I thought about it, the more complicated I felt.
If Gu Dae-seong remained like that, hadn't I ruined a writer's life?
If I was consumed by the Abyss or lost my copyright, would I end up like that too?
I was afraid.
Afraid that I was becoming a monster.
Afraid that I'd stepped into a world I should never have entered.
The world spun around me.
Were the voices I was hearing real, or were they hallucinations?
[The balance of your consciousness is becoming unstable.]
[Writer Skill “Inferiority Complex” activates.]
[“Inferiority Complex” rationalizes the guilt you feel and spurs your creative drive.]
[Writer Skill “Imagination” activates!]
[“Imagination” offsets your abnormal psychological shock and increases your adaptability.]
Maybe... I had already become a monster.
* * *
It didn't take long for me to calm down.
It's okay. It's okay.
Let's look on the bright side.
I only got one special ability.
An ability nobody else has.
Maybe it was because of the skill messages that had sounded like hallucinations, but I definitely felt better.
I had to keep writing.
Writing was the only way I could continue surviving, and the only way I could learn about this situation.
But first...
「And shortly afterward, Lance was locked up in a detention center again.」
...I had to do something about this development.
I let out a deep sigh as I looked at the end of the uploaded Episode 6.
Even after all that eloquence, I couldn't believe I'd ended up in detention.
What was I even supposed to write about in a detention center?
No, more importantly, that guard captain had been persuaded by my skill, so why did he lock me up?
“You don't know how to continue the plot?”
In the end, I called Ji Eun-yu again.
When it came to this, there was no one more reliable than an editor.
“Didn't you have some kind of plan when you went to prison?”
“No.”
“Then you need to get out of prison immediately.”
A clear answer.
But...
“That's not so easy.”
“What? Why not?”
“It's hard to explain.”
If I broke through the wall and escaped, I felt like the guard captain with unmeasurable combat power would beat me to death.
But I couldn't just write, “Somehow, he escaped,” and move on either.
Normally, I might have gotten away with that... Damn it, but now I was the one running around in the protagonist's body.
“Hmm, you don't want to escape through force, but you do want to maintain plausibility. Is that what you're saying?”
As expected of Ji Eun-yu.
Even when I gave her a terrible explanation, she understood it perfectly.
“Then there's only one way.”
“What? There is?”
“Of course. If you can't escape yourself, someone can help you escape.”
Help from the outside?
But from whom?
“Sigh. This work must be especially difficult to write. You're asking me to tell you everything from one to ten...”
She had struck right at the heart of it, leaving me with nothing to say.
“Writer, don't you have any settings prepared?”
“What? What settings?”
“This is your novel.”
“...What?”
“Lance Pilgrim.”
I felt like an idiot.
“What kind of person is Lance Pilgrim, exactly?”
* * *
A little while later, I was looking at the setting file for 99 Ways to Kill a Regressor.
Ji Eun-yu was definitely a genius.
Or I was really an idiot.
...Putting that aside, when had this file gotten here?
Since I hadn't been writing by typing on a keyboard lately, which felt strange to say, I hadn't even noticed a file like this appearing on my desktop.
I could only guess that it had been created alongside the upload of my novel.
For now, I opened it.
Zzt.
A throbbing pain pierced my brain.
[Using author's authority, you opened the setting book in “read mode.”]
After the unreal voice rang out, the setting book opened.
As I read through it, I could feel my jaw slowly dropping.
This really was enough to call a whole world.
Had I really imagined all these settings myself?
Well, I hadn't imagined them alone. There was Yoo Chan-young, and...
Grunsiade Chronicles Setting Book
By Team Eoduksini
More than anything, I had taken a great deal from this open source.
For reference, Team Eoduksini's Grunsiade Chronicles Setting Book was among the materials in the file folder Ji Eun-yu had given me.
Yoo Chan-young had said that they had borrowed the worldbuilding from this open-source data, but seeing them side by side, this was far beyond borrowing.
They had simply used all of it.
Yoo Chan-young had no original settings to begin with.
Well... Yoo Chan-young was also a member of Team Eoduksini, so they could make a dubious claim to originality, but still.
I began seriously studying my novel's setting book.
I examined the nations, place names, and recorded figures.
I sorted out what had appeared in my novel and what had not.
Maybe because of the influence of my unconscious, more of my setting book remained blank than I expected despite its thickness.
[These are settings your Imagination has not yet reached.]
It probably meant the detailed settings hadn't been established yet.
I kept reading.
I found the information I wanted around thirty minutes later.
[Character Information]
Character: Lance Pilgrim
Description: The protagonist of 99 Ways to Kill a Regressor. Currently active as Bandit Underling 2.
Lance Pilgrim.
My creation, absent from both Yoo Chan-young's original work and Team Eoduksini's Grunsiade Chronicles.
The description was brief, and I had already confirmed all the other references through Character Information in the novel.
I pressed Character History.
“This character has no history.”
As expected.
He was a newly created character, so naturally he had no history.
That was exactly what I wanted.
Now then, how should I cook this up?
[Would you switch the setting book to “edit mode”?]
Switch it.
[Switched to “edit mode.”]
I began filling in settings as they came to me.
[Lance Pilgrim's History]
Year 633. Born as the second son of House Pilgrim, a grand ducal house.
Year 643. Became the prized disciple of Enterheim, a Swordmaster ranked among the continent's ten strongest.
Year 645. Became close friends with the heir to one of the continent's four greatest merchant guilds.
...
Bandit Underling 2's past began changing until it was almost absurdly lavish.
A diamond spoon upbringing.
The continent's strongest master.
A friend from a chaebol family.
At a glance, he was such an absurdly overpowered character that it was almost unpleasant.
It felt like cheating, but it was all preparation for later.
In case you'd forgotten, my story level was currently “Nightmare.”
The guard captain I met right from the start was already a monster with unmeasurable combat power. How much stronger would the ones to come be?
...If this were a novel, a message like, “The Stars are impressed by your self-justification and pay 500 Dust,” might have appeared by now.
Anyway, one hour later.
The revisions were complete.
I pulled out the soju I had prepared.
All I had to do now was go back into the novel.
[These settings cannot be used.]
Huh?
Brrrrrrrr.
The computer began moving on its own and deleted all the settings I had spent an hour writing.
“What?!”
[Settings that violate plausibility cannot be used.]
[If you forcibly change settings while ignoring plausibility, the amount of Dust you acquire may be permanently and significantly reduced.]
“Permanently,” “significantly”?
What a damn intimidating threat.
I hurriedly and cautiously adjusted the ranks of a few settings.
For example, changing the grand ducal house to a marquis house.
[These settings cannot be used.]
Changing the marquis house to a count's house.
[These settings cannot be used.]
Changing the count's house to a baron's house...
[These settings cannot be used.]
...Then how about this?
[These settings cannot be used.]
And so, the diamond spoon upbringing.
The continent's strongest master.
The friend from a chaebol family.
They all left my side.
...Right. That's life. Once a dirt spoon, always a dirt spoon.
In the end, I began entering settings one by one at random, searching for something I could change.
[These settings cannot be used.]
...
How much more time passed?
For the first time, the message brushing against my ears changed.
[These settings can be used.]
[Setting Plausibility Compatibility: 100%!]
[Using these settings may earn bonus Dust from the Stars.]
...What? This works?
Footnotes:
“Diamond spoon” and “dirt spoon” are Korean expressions for being born wealthy or poor, respectively.
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