Became an American Retro Novelist - Chapter 177



Only Noblemtl

177.

A thin paper book roughly bound together with staples and glue.

The god holding it smiled gently and asked.

“How much is it?”

“Yes, sir. It’s three thousand dollars.”

Shin looked down at the book and chuckled at the joke Bill made while standing inside the counter.

‘Country of losers joint review’.

by Tim Keaton’s Comic Book Store Nerd’s.

A personal magazine that is scheduled to be produced in a limited edition of 300 copies.

Before going back to school, I stopped by because I had something I wanted to give you, and it turned out to be this.

As he carefully turned the pages, which were divided into several chapters, Shin could not hide his surprise.

“······It must have been difficult to make.”

“I stayed up all night for a few days.”

“What is this?”

God looked at Bill with eyes full of emotion.

“It’s the greatest gift a writer can ever receive.”

A ‘secondary work’ that deeply analyzed the text he wrote was published. In other words, it was proof that there were people who were that absorbed in his novel.

I was grateful for the passion and love that went into making this, staying up all night for days without any compensation, just because they ‘liked it’.

And right after hearing my impressions.

“We are the ones.”

“A wonderful novel.”

“Thanks for showing me.”

“SEEN.”

Inside, the nerds walked out one by one, making very random remarks.

‘You prepared in advance.’

Shin smiled awkwardly, feeling his emotions fading somehow.

“I’ll take it to school and read it carefully. Oh, right. Can I ask you one thing?”

“what?”

“What do other ‘ordinary’ friends around you think of my novel?”

“Heh, God. I’m sorry to say that.”

“For us.”

“does not exist.”

“A friend who is a normal person.”

The nerd guys at Team Keaton’s Comic Book Store all push their glasses up simultaneously after the last words are said.

But contrary to what they said so confidently, the ‘personal magazine’ they created began to influence many ‘ordinary people’.

***

A few days later, Shin returned to Stanford.

A middle school boy visits the Kittens Comic Book Store.

The boy, who did not usually go to places like this, looked around the store as if it was new, and by chance he came across the ‘Country of Losers’ collection of essays that had been on display at the counter but were gradually becoming unsold. He was intrigued by the title and the low price, so he bought a copy.

And then I came home and read it while eating chili fries for dinner.

‘It was this kind of novel.’

The boy was a fan of ‘Shin’, so he managed to buy ‘Country of Losers’ with great difficulty, but he was busy with school and club activities, so he couldn’t even get past ten pages of the book.

Whenever I finished my work and sat down to read a novel, I felt like I couldn’t concentrate for some reason and I quickly fell asleep because I was tired.

In fact, not everyone was in an environment where they could focus on every story.

Innate temperament and intelligence would also certainly have an effect on it. It was something I couldn’t say out loud, so I kept it quiet, but it was a factor that could never be ignored.

As such, each person must bear his or her own cross, and the boy was no exception.

A different form of writing from the ‘novels that anyone can enjoy’ that Shin had previously written.

That’s why quite a few people might at some point just think, ‘Oh, okay. It’s the work of an author whose writing I found interesting, and I heard it sells well, so I bought it for now, but I’ll read it later when I have time.’

At least, that’s what the boy who’s currently sprinkling chips on top of his chili fries says.

But the magazine created by Bill and his friends at Kitten’s Comic Book Store changed the boy’s stream of consciousness.

If I were to describe the process using terms from this novel, it was very simple.

‘The book’.

“Hoo.”

A smile spread across the boy’s lips, glistening with chili oil.

“This novel gives me a terrible feeling.

What should I say? It feels like my human dignity is being tested.

If we don’t know anything, is it okay to live a life locked up in a cage?

Chickens live a reasonably comfortable life in a chicken coop, provided with only what they need to survive. They will not escape and will stay there because that is enough for them.

So what if there were a chicken coop tailored precisely to human needs?

What if it were a giant chicken coop that even humans themselves were unaware of?

If I were in it. If there were such a us, and if that were all enough to make you happy, what would you do?

“Hmm······.”

The boy snorted as he munched on his food with interest.

The booklet, stapled together with cheap paper, looked like it would tear apart at any moment if turned incorrectly.

That’s why it was actually ‘comfortable’ to read.

He continued reading the back of the magazine, flipping through the pages roughly with his chili-stained fingers.

Opinions that affirm the happiness presented by ‘The Book’.

Humans are incompetent.

It can’t be helped. If we continue like this, we have no choice but to die. We will end up destroyed.

Well then, let’s lie.

Let’s work for their happiness while building up the modest self-esteem that all humans can have.

‘oh······.’

Before we knew it, it was deep into the night.

And the boy’s gaze went beyond the magazine and turned to ‘Country of Losers’, which had been on the bookshelf for a while.

The worries were short.

He began to understand the novel, which had been difficult, little by little through the opinions presented in the magazine. The sentences that he had felt were somewhat burdensome to savor one by one were slowly being embedded in his head.

‘aha.’

It’s like eating tough cuts of beef that would be burdensome to eat whole, minced into small pieces and made into meatloaf.

The boy’s face had a faint smile on it without him knowing it as he read the text.

The immense satisfaction that comes from the cultivation of knowledge and the phenomenon of ‘thinking’ for oneself.

‘Wow. There’s a novel like this.’

No, I felt like that expression wasn’t enough.

For the first time in the boy’s 14 years of life, it was an experience of organizing his thoughts and digging deep into them.

‘This is what it’s like to read a novel.’

The boy’s ability to read ‘words’, honed through Shin’s existing novels such as ‘Mother’ and ‘Double Spy’, continued to keep him at the table. His older sister, who often worked late into the night, continued to read novels in the apartment without any disturbance, and eventually fell asleep on top of them.

Then, a while later, his older sister, who worked late into the night, came into the apartment.

“Phew.”

She let out a deep sigh, exhausted from working for a long time. Soon, she found her younger brother asleep on the table, so she went over to him and shook him awake.

“Hey, Max. Wake up.”

“Umm······.”

“Go into your room and sleep. Hurry up.”

“Uh uh······.”

He woke up staggering between dream and reality, went into the room right next to the living room, and collapsed on the bed.

‘What’s going on?’

A guy who usually goes to sleep first without even waiting for his older sister to get off work.

Thinking that way, she glanced around the table and found ‘Country of Losers’. Her eyes widened and she looked at her younger brother, who was lying on the bed, snoring soundly.

‘You read this?’

The only books I normally read were genre novels.

While tilting her head, she noticed a personal magazine lying next to the book and picked it up, wondering what it was.

And only after looking at the title on the roughly printed paper did a faint smile appear on her lips as if she had understood.

‘So that’s why it was like this.’

This has become a guide to help me travel the world called ‘Country of Losers’.

Anyway, she was delighted by her sister’s spontaneous growth, and she began to flip through the pages of the magazine published by Tim Keaton’s Comic Book Store.

But soon her eyes widened with another meaning.

‘This is······.’

I have something to report to work tomorrow.

***

As soon as I got back to school it wasn’t complete chaos.

“god!”

“poet-!!”

“God! Talk to me for a minute!”

Every student I met in the dorms would spend at least ten minutes telling me what a wonderful novel ‘Country of Losers’ was and how it inspired them.

As I was thinking that if this kept happening every time I went to class, I would be late for every class, even though school hadn’t even started yet, two completely unexpected people came to see me in person.

“Do you have a minute?”

Edward Macmillan.

“New student······.”

And next to him is Professor Rene Dupree.

“Yes, yes?”

The visit of professors to the dormitory was comparable to the visit of a feudal lord to his serfs in the Middle Ages.

I should have guessed what was going on when the male student in charge of the dormitory called me over with a pale face, and when I saw the sight of people hastily clearing away the board games and empty beer bottles that had been left in the lobby.

“The weather is nice. How about having a cup of tea together?”

“Oh, I understand.”

I felt the burdensome gaze and glanced around.

Boys lurking around the dormitory lobbies, whispering softly like Death Eaters running from Dumbledore.

What’s up with that? Is the professor coming to see him? Did he get selected as a graduate student? Etc.

Amidst the ominous murmurs going around, I smiled awkwardly and offered my advice to the two of them.

“Then shall we go?”

“hmm.”

“okay······.”

It was still Professor Dupudley, or rather Professor Dupree, who was like a poodle.

So I followed the two people out of the dormitory and went into a nearby cafe.

We each ordered a cup of coffee and sat down to enjoy the warm Stanford sunshine. Of the two who had been silent the whole time, Professor MacMillan was the first to open his mouth and smile.

“It’s been a long time.”

“What are you talking about?”

I answered politely.

“Professor Dupree once said that he wanted to read student novels and convey his ‘fandom’.”

“ah······.”

Looking back, Professor Dupree slowly took out ‘Country of Losers’ from the bag he had brought.

Then his eyes turned sharp.

As I recall, Professor Dupree was divided into his usual poodle mode and his calm poodle mode when he was talking seriously in the face of impressive situations.

And now, as soon as I took out the printed book of my novel, it became the latter.

“What an interesting novel.”

“thank you.”

“Can you sign this for me?”

“It is an honor, Professor.”

“What is glory······.”

After receiving the book and pen from Professor Dupree and having him sign it, I listened to his subsequent comments.

“It’s more impressive than any of your novels.”

“Have you read it all by any chance?”

“Yeah, from ‘Mother’ to ‘About T.’”

“······How was it?”

“Well-written popular literature. I don’t know, but I think people who read it will be happy.”

Just those words alone made my heart beat.

The novels I write can make people happy.

This is the result of my worries and thoughts wandering and settling down.

As a writer, what greater compliment could there be?

“But this novel······was different. Not to that extent.”

Professor Dupree drank his coffee, shivering.

It seemed like he returned to poodle mode only when he had coffee.

“I was shocked after reading this novel.”

“It was the same for me, Professor.”

“Yes, Professor.”

The two old professors exchanged glances.

“The scope of the times has expanded this much.”

“······.”

The two talked briefly about themselves.

“We were born during the Great Depression and began our activities around the time of World War II.”

Among them, Professor Dupree was a veteran of the Pacific War.

He has consistently spoken about the original sin that humanity is burdened with in his many writings. This even led to criticism of his home country during the Vietnam War.

That was precisely the literature of the era in which these two people lived.

Literature that designates a certain social system as a great evil and seeks to enlighten the people who are swayed by it.

But this novel was the exact opposite.

‘Country of Losers’ defined each individual human being, or rather, the group of such individuals, as ‘evil’. And it described the one gigantic being that rules them… in a strange way.

“I just want to ask you one thing.”

“Yes, professor.”

“Do you believe that computers and artificial intelligence will save humanity?”

“······.”

I, who had been silent in front of him, soon felt embarrassed and opened my mouth.

“Oh, I know this may sound rude, but I’m careful not to give spoilers.”

“Hmm?”

“It was at that moment when I thought it was time to start writing volume 2.”

“Hoo.”

Well then, don’t expect it.

Professor Dupree nodded as if he understood and began to talk about ‘Country of Losers’ in front of me with a lively attitude that he had never shown in the classroom.

Would it be rude to think that the sight somehow resembles a poodle with a new toy in its hands?

‘Of course it would be rude.’

So I got punished.

“Do you have any intention of studying literature a little more?”

“······I’m, I’m thinking about it.”

Although the advice was given in a soft tone, Professor Edward MacMillan’s eyes were sharp and gleaming like those of an eagle watching its prey.

······A terrifying punishment unlike any other in the world began to hover around me.

Anyway, I was so honored to have received such praise from both professors that I returned to the dormitory.

And then, as if he had been waiting for the male student in charge of the dormitory who had been loitering around in the lobby, he hurriedly delivered the message.

“Oh, my God, a guy named Simon Carver from Hardboiled Publishing wants to get in touch with me.”

“Oh, thank you.”

What good news will there be this time?

Feeling anticipation, I went to the pay phone behind the dorm and called him.

The phone rang a couple of times and then the person on the other end picked up the phone.

[Yes, I am a hardboiled publisher. How can I help you?]

“······?”

A woman’s voice that I felt like I’d heard somewhere before.

“Oh, is Simon there? He’s the writer Shin.”

[Oh, author. Just a moment.]

Soon Simon received a call.

[Author! How is your long-awaited Stanford visit!]

“Haha, there’s nothing much to say since it’s not the start of the semester yet.”

I couldn’t help but smile at the bright tension in his voice whenever and wherever we talked.

[Didn’t people at school talk about this novel?]

“Because it’s such a routine thing.”

[Poohaha! Of course! And this time, it’s an equally great novel! So maybe······ I got a great offer.]

“Oh, what is it?”

[I heard that the FM radio program ‘Los Angeles Nights’ recently planned a special segment that will focus on analyzing your work. I’m contacting you because I hope you’ll listen to it when you have time.]

“That’s great. If we talk about focused analysis, would any experts be able to come out?”

[This is another very interesting point. They invited the editor of Guns and Sword magazine and a representative from a comic book store. It was like a place where you could hear opinions from both experts and non-experts. Isn’t that interesting?]

“······Uh, yes.”

When I heard that, I somehow thought of a ‘non-expert who is no less than an expert’.

······Hey, no way.