Chapter 3 - Episode 1: The Regressed 10th-Circle Swordmaster of a Chaebol Family (3)
◈ How to Become a Star Writer ◈
Episode 1: The Regressed 10th-Circle Swordmaster of a Chaebol Family (3)
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“No! It’s not ghostwriting...”
Ji Eun-yu waved her hands in alarm as she explained.
In short, this was the situation.
A famous author’s work had suddenly stopped serializing.
It had been on indefinite hiatus for over a year. When they tried to contact the author and visited their home, the place was empty.
Even the author’s parents and friends had no idea where they were.
“Isn’t that what you mean? You’re telling me to continue writing it.”
“Author, please calm down first...”
In my anger, I dumped the coffee sitting on Ji Eun-yu’s desk into my mouth.
“Ah, that’s hot!”
“Kphuagh!”
Coffee ran down my neck and streamed beneath my shirt.
Ji Eun-yu frantically pulled out tissues. Everyone in the office was whispering as they looked at me.
I couldn’t remember whether I shoved away Ji Eun-yu’s hands first or ran to the bathroom first.
When I took off my soaked shirt, it revealed a sagging white undershirt underneath. My patchy beard stuck out like the quills of an old hedgehog, and my skin had lost its glow.
An unemployed twenty-eight-year-old stared back at me in the bathroom mirror.
What had I survived for all this time?
While everyone else studied TOEIC and prepared for jobs, why had I clung to the coattails of literature?
...When I didn’t even know what literature was.
As I washed my shirt in cold water, I thought that maybe this was punishment for the life I had lived.
Like a coffee stain that wouldn’t come out no matter how much I washed it, there were times that could not be erased no matter how hard I tried.
Fine. Let’s give up.
What chance did someone like me have of becoming a billion-won author?
I was already twenty-eight, but I was still young enough to catch the last train into the job market. If I started trying to live responsibly now, I could probably find work at a small or medium-sized company, if not a major corporation.
That thought made me feel a little better.
...Of course, Ji Eun-yu would be disappointed.
She called it a ghostwriting offer, but I knew she had brought it up because she was thinking of me.
She knew my circumstances better than anyone.
The project support grant was about to end, so she must have considered all sorts of things before making the offer. It must have pained her terribly just to say it.
...Damn it. What did it matter? Once I found a job, I could at least buy her a meal.
I was halfway through pushing open the bathroom door when I closed it again after hearing something from Ji Eun-yu’s cubicle.
“Ji Eun-yu, how long are you going to keep holding on to that author?”
It was Manager Seo’s voice.
“You’ve tried for half a year. Some things just aren’t possible. You don’t need to push yourself.”
I didn’t need to ask who they were talking about. My hand tightened around the doorknob.
“Take on someone else instead. We have someone who came in after writing middlebrow fiction, and their prose is decent. If you develop them well...”
“Manager Seo.”
Was I imagining it?
Was I hearing what I wanted to hear?
Ji Eun-yu’s voice sounded cold.
“I’m not pushing myself.”
That was the Ji Eun-yu I knew.
It was the voice of the Ji Eun-yu who calmly tore my novels apart and pointed out every hole in their structure.
“Author Lee has talent. He isn’t someone you should talk about carelessly.”
“Really? From what I can see, he has reached his limit.”
“No, they haven’t.”
“Haha, Eun-yu. You don’t know the temperament of people who used to write literary fiction. Before long, that author will...”
“What’s wrong with having written literary fiction?”
Ji Eun-yu snapped.
“Fine. Maybe you’re right. Author Lee still hasn’t broken his old habits. He still turns a sentence that should take one line into three, and his characters still speak like they’re in a Shakespearean play. But.”
My chest twinged.
“Still, Author Lee is the only author who has done every assignment I gave him.”
Ji Eun-yu was looking at my manuscript.
“So I believe in Author Lee. It doesn’t matter whether he used to write literary fiction or genre fiction. What matters is that he works hard, as hard as I believe he can. I don’t care if it takes one year or two. Author Lee will definitely succeed. No, I’ll make sure he succeeds...”
Drip. Drip.
Water from my shirt fell onto the office floor.
Ji Eun-yu’s voice abruptly grew quiet. Startled, Manager Seo cleared their throat and backed away.
“...Author?”
Why was I suddenly doing this?
I didn’t know either.
Who was I, anyway?
But still.
Even so.
I still wanted to say it.
“I’ll do it.”
“What?”
“I’ll write that work in their place.”
* * *
...Why had I said that?
I could see the hand clutching the manuscript bundle trembling.
If someone wrote a script about what had just happened, it would probably look like this.
Lee Hak-hyeon: (wearing a wet, sagging undershirt) I’ll do it.
Ji Eun-yu: (startled) What?
Lee Hak-hyeon: (with a dashing squid-like expression) I’ll write that work in their place.
If only a reincarnation truck would come barreling in and hit me. Then it would all be over in one painless blow.
I was afraid of what Ji Eun-yu must have thought.
What if she announced that she would no longer be my editor?
While I worried about this and that, I arrived at my studio apartment.
Fine. Let’s think positively.
It wasn’t like I had accepted this job just because I was moved by Ji Eun-yu’s speech.
With a sigh, I looked down at the manuscript bundle I had been given. The first thing I saw was the novel’s title.
『99 Ways to Live as a Regressor』
We had acted out a whole melodrama, but I wasn’t stupid enough to impulsively accept something like this just because of what Ji Eun-yu said.
The real reason I accepted this job was simple.
Author Yoo Chan-young.
The author of this manuscript was Yoo Chan-young.
That’s right. The Yoo Chan-young you knew and I knew. The insufferable person from the video I had once watched who made an annual salary of one billion... No, 2.4 billion won.
“Yoo Chan-young disappeared?”
“Yes. It happened over a year ago. Readers caused a huge uproar at the time... I think they still believe the author stopped serializing for no reason.”
Apparently, Yoo Chan-young had vanished without a trace after the infamous interview I had seen. It was strange enough to be chilling.
Where had this person gone after abandoning their own manuscript?
Then again, with an annual salary of 2.4 billion won, maybe they were lounging around at some ultra-luxurious villa on the Mediterranean, scratching their belly while beautiful women waited on them.
“It’s an amazing work. It will definitely help you too, Author. It took first place on Textpia’s Platinum Best rankings as soon as serialization began.”
According to Ji Eun-yu, Textpia was stingy with comments, yet this work had averaged a thousand comments per chapter. There was no need to say more about how popular it had been.
I was jealous.
A thousand comments. I had never even received ten.
I read some of the comments attached to the file Ji Eun-yu had sent me.
DownWithiYooChan-young: Fuck, I knew Yoo Chan-young would pull this again!!!
TrustingFool: If I ever trust them and read again, I’m a complete idiot.
HiatusMan: Always going on hiatus, then going on hiatus again. How long are you going to keep doing this? You’ll come back and say you had another mental breakdown, won’t you?
FreeOnlyz: It’s still a free serial, readers, why are you all reacting like this...? Please calm down...
Wow. People said this much over a free serial?
Maybe being a famous author wasn’t entirely a good thing.
I could almost understand why they had dropped everything and vanished.
“But even if the author is missing, this is clearly someone else’s work. Would there really be no legal problems if I wrote it?”
“There won’t be.”
“How...?”
“As you know, Author Yoo Chan-young’s release schedule was notoriously irregular. They signed a contract that assigns us the copyright if they stop serializing for more than six months.”
I knew web novel authors often had irregular release schedules, but I had no idea contracts like that existed.
Then again, with so many authors putting their serials on indefinite hiatus, they probably needed solid safeguards.
In any case, it worked out well for me.
“Since we currently hold the copyright, the royalty split would need to be adjusted. But if you take on this work...”
It was embarrassing. Truly embarrassing. But this was the real reason I had chosen the job.
“If things go well, we might even be able to give you the copyright to the work.”
I might be able to make a large amount of money right away.
And I could steal Author Yoo Chan-young’s work.
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