Chapter 158

“A-Actually wait a moment. No, it can’t be. If this continues…”

My body trembled with fear. A masterpiece almost complete…and now introducing gates…?

“Ah, this…” I pondered for a moment. Should I leave it as is? Or should I threaten Oak Tree to modify the content?

Currently, I was writing Volume 7. Chapter 2 concluded at Volume 5, meeting the requirement of ‘minimum five volumes’ set by the Empire competition. Then, Chapter 3 featuring the protagonist’s old age followed.

‘If only I knew this earlier, I would’ve finished it at Volume 5…’

‘Dawn’ had self-contained stories within each chapter. While there might be some loose ends, ending it at that point wouldn’t significantly diminish its status as a masterpiece.

In other words, there wouldn’t have been any problem if I had finished the novel in volume 5.

‘But I’ve already started publishing volume 6…’

I had already begun the elderly part of the story and made considerable progress, so it was absurd to finish now. In the end, I put down the manuscript and spoke:

”…Flower.”

The study door opened, and Flower entered.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

I was about to call Oak but changed my mind. It would be better to see the faces of the writers at this moment.

“Call each writer one by one.”

“In what order?”

“By their scores. There is no rush, give them three hours. No, make it four hours from now.”

“I will inform them immediately.”

After Flower left, I resumed my hasty writing.

“Log out.”

I tapped on the keyboard.

“Log in.”

Reading books while manifesting chakra spells.

“Log out.”

I tapped at the keyboard. Currently, I was simultaneously serializing 402 works.

‘Slowly…I am reaching my limit.’

The condition for participating in the Empire’s literary competition was a minimum of five volumes, so I had to transcribe over 2,000 volumes. Using chakra techniques, my proficiency in Storm Writing increased, allowing me to copy more than 30 books per day. However, despite this, I was still falling behind.

I threw away a manuscript that only reached four volumes.

“Flower.”

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“For this week’s contest update, announce that the last 100 works will be eliminated. Then next week, eliminate another 100. Afterward, reduce it by 50 or even 10 works each time. Also, notify them about the possibility of varying elimination numbers.”

“I shall relay the message.”

There were too many works with average views in the single digits.

‘I earn 1,000 won for each serialized chapter.’

It might be easier than writing directly, but it was just wasting time transcribing all these works.

‘Especially when I can make 30 billion won from one ad.’

My position had changed in many ways compared to when I used to work part-time at a convenience store to earn every penny more.

“Log out.”

I returned to Earth and copied down the content I read. It had already been 45 days since the Five Dragons Competition started. With the event lasting 60 days, three-quarters of the period had passed. The serialized stories I submitted were progressing through volumes four to six, depending on their length.

“Let’s see how well they are performing…”

[Emperor Knight Never] had reached ninth place. Considering that the top 30 positions in the Five Dragons Competition were occupied by established authors, this was an impressive achievement.

“It is truly the sacredness of old wine.”

The next highest rank was ‘Eyes’ at position 48, showing a huge difference. ‘Survival of the Tyrant’ was ranked 68th and ‘My Survival’ was ranked 71st. Then ‘Dawn Breaks’ was ranked 92nd.

“It is lower than expected considering the topic.”

However, it was natural. Who wanted to see literary works in a genre novel competition? It was surprising that this type of material and theme made it into the top 100 of the genre novel contest.

“Let’s see…”

I checked the latest chapter of Dawn Breaks.

Dawn Breaks, Volume 6 Chapter 7.

Purchases: 927, Recommendations: 404, Comments: 464.

“This isn’t normal, not normal…” The number of recommendations exceeded 400 when purchases weren’t even close to 1,000.

Considering that most stories barely reached forty comments, these numbers were truly abnormal. And what about the number of remarks?

“How could there be half as many comments as views…?”

This chapter wasn’t unique; every installment had similar stats. Based on comment count alone, Dawn ranked first among all serialized novels on Novel Arena.

→Hashtag: Seriously?! The protagonist hasn’t learned even one magic spell yet? Just give him some basic magic tools already.

→Windblow: What are you talking about after reading three chapters? It would ruin both the character development and plot progression if they did that now.

→Starsea: If you don’t like the sound of slicing off a dragon’s head with sword force, then just hit backspace.

LQwQw2020: Who’s the backseat gamer now?!

LHashtag: But the guild master has his eyes on Vanilla! He even singles her out for errands! Shouldn’t we kill her already?! Ugh, this is so frustrating!

LSkyFullOfStars: It makes sense since it’s set in medieval times. This kind of thing was common back then.

LQwQw2020: Seriously, I can’t stand it anymore. The author seems to like logical reasoning, but isn’t it obvious that a former knight would be a killing machine compared to ordinary people? And if his granddaughter were in danger, wouldn’t it be more unrealistic for him to just sit by and do nothing?

LSkyFullOfStars: But he’s sixty years old…he’s quite elderly.

LQwQw2020: That’s still young!

LBattleHardened: That’s only according to District 34 standards, buddy…

The comment section was noisy today as usual. In fact, this atmosphere was quite mild and there were many cases where trolls stirred up fights. Every moment saw comments proliferating with ridicule, contempt, ignorance, and explanations.

“Wow. We are already at volume 6 but it is amazing to see these reactions.”

In other works, people didn’t care about negative comments but readers of ‘Dawn’ responded individually.

“It is still amazing… To leave such comments means they have read up to volume 6?”

I murmured out of curiosity, “What type of people are they?”

The advertisement filming location featuring Game Master’s Apostle, Han Jae-yeon was the topic of conversation worldwide—perhaps even throughout the universe. This was because the game master had specially opened this space to respond to the monster crisis.

“So, all the monsters pouring out across the universe will be concentrated here.”

“The ultimate goal is the entire universe, but initially, it is planned for the Leonhardt Empire. It shows the great power of the Game Master.”

A major incident occurred when the Game Master’s guidance device was used on the popular variety show Survival Island. An overwhelming wave of monsters, including transcendent grade ones, was triggered! If not handled correctly, there would’ve been enormous casualties, but fortunately, the Five Dragons present managed to resolve the situation somehow.

If this was the end of it, it would have been just another incident that occurred during a live broadcast. However, something important happened afterwards. The monster crisis, which had plagued the entire universe, took a sharp downturn after this incident.

“So, this is where the battle stage was located!”

“That’s right.”

Bae Sarang, who served as the representative for Nemesis, gave an interview before filming their advertisement. This location held special meaning to the people living in district 34. It was none other than the Steel Realm.

In order to deal with the monster crisis, the Game Master opened up his unique dimension called the ‘Steel Realm’. To be exact, he created a massive battle stage within the Steel Realm, and all monsters from across the universe were gathered there.

“Isn’t it dangerous to film your advertisement here?”

“Of course, safety comes first. Fortunately, we received support from the Second Army.”

“The 2nd Corps! They are amazing. By any chance, can we see the mechanized infantry division too?”

The interview progressed smoothly. The guild master talked about the battle stage he had created for this ad shoot. Then they discussed the advertisement itself. Of course, there was talk about Han Jae-yeon, who was the protagonist of the ad. There was also discussion regarding the large scale update to Revenge, which had established itself as the only true virtual reality game.

“A thousand stats! Is it power stats?”

“It won’t be simple microtransactions. You’ll need to complete a long epic quest.”

“The emperor rank will open after transcendent rank! Who do you think will reach that absolute boundary first?”

“We estimate it will take at least three years even if someone progresses quickly towards it.”

The interview had a friendly atmosphere to it. Revenge didn’t have a good image amongst the general populace. However, they were able to establish their unique position by being the only company with a level 1 insight. It was something that couldn’t be replicated by others.

Towards the end of the interview, the interviewer asked about Sungyoon’s personal life.

“You truly look beautiful. Are you dating anyone right now?”

“Huhu. If I could, I would start dating immediately. Unfortunately, my work is too busy. It seems I won’t have any free time for quite some time.”

“You are famous for having such a hectic schedule. When you get tired, do you have any hobbies that help you relax?”

Since she knew what questions were going to be asked beforehand, Sungyoon calmly gave her prepared answers.

“I usually read literary works. Especially, classics nourish my life and soul.”

“Oh~ That sounds like such an elegant hobby.”

Sungyoon recited his thoughts on famous classic literature pieces that he had memorized beforehand. Of course, he hadn’t actually read them himself. He had made his secretary, who graduated from a prestigious university, write up these reviews for him. Then he had memorized it all.

‘Now she’ll ask me about my favorite classical writer along with the reason why I like them. Dostoevsky’s intense and persistent thoughts… What was Nietzsche’s again? Ah! It was the chaotic language of truth. Ahh…he really makes things difficult.’

However, the interviewer asked something unexpected.

“By any chance, have you been impressed by any recent work?”

“…!?

She used her superhuman restraint to hide it, but Bae Sarang was falling into panic mode.

‘A recent work? No. This question isn’t on my list!’

However, this couldn’t be helped. Even if she had a list of questions, there was no way the interview would follow it exactly. The interviewer could exercise some discretion during the interview process!

“Hmm…”

She tilted her head as she tried to buy time, yet nothing came to mind. It wasn’t surprising since she didn’t read literature. Why should she waste her precious time reading something that gave her a headache? Reading uninteresting material felt like torture.

‘What should I do? Should I ask them to edit out this part? Should I laugh and tell them that nothing comes to mind right now?’

However, at that moment, one work popped up in her mind. It was a piece she had been following daily so she could leave hate comments on it.

“Amongst all the pieces I’ve read recently, I was most impressed by Dawn.”

The interviewer paused for a beat before asking with a smile.

“Oh my. Which work is this?”

“It can be described as medieval literature. The content is great, but above all else, its prose is truly beautiful. You can call it artistic aesthetic without any hesitation. I’m surprised to see such a masterpiece entered into a web novel competition.”

“My goodness. You even know about obscure works. This shows how deep your knowledge runs when it comes to literature.”

I overcame a brief crisis as the interview continued.

I applied makeup for the advertisement shoot while tapping Cheeda’s belly. First, I sent Killian to a stable hunting ground and connected to Olymon. It was time to check the purchase numbers for situation updates on the board. Then I saw something strange in the Novel Arena rankings:

[Dawn of a New Day (38th place) NEW!]

In an instant, I became confused.

”…What is this?”