Became an American Retro Novelist - Chapter 192



Only Noblemtl

192.

Charlie Chaplin, the unfortunate man who missed out on becoming the moustache icon by a hair’s breadth because of a dictator, once said:

‘Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.’ It was a saying she heard in passing during an acting class. Alexa Flair found herself feeling particularly drawn to it recently.

A lot has changed since ‘About T: TV Series’ began airing.

Everyone who saw her from afar sent their congratulations.

[Alexa~! Congratulations! You’re becoming an actor!]

[Now all that’s left is to succeed!]

[You, are you sad that we forgot about everything?]

After graduation, I got calls from friends from the cheerleading club that I hadn’t heard from since. Every time, Alexa would happily reply, “Thank you~! How are you?” and I felt relieved that she was contacted even for something like this.

Following that, she was also struggling in reality.

First, family.

“Alexa, how’s work going these days?”

“Yeah, it’s so much fun.”

“When they saw you on TV, everyone around me was going crazy saying how cool you were.”

“Wow, really?!”

“It’s nice to see you working hard. But if you have any difficulties, you should definitely tell me.”

A family that always encourages you.

And my friends at the comic book store that I visit occasionally.

“······.”

“······.”

“······.”

“Phew.”

Everyone was hiding behind the counter, just looking around, and Alexa sighed.

“Hey, isn’t it time you got used to it now?”

“Uh, uh.”

Neanderthal-like nerds at the comic book store who act like they’re scared of a lightning strike that starts a tree on fire.

In the past, when she was ‘The Cheerleader’, she approached me first and barely let her guard down, but now that she’s become ‘The Actress’, it seems like our inner intimacy has been reset.

‘Hey, you go.’

‘No. You go!’

Nerd guys gossiping over each other’s secrets.

And then Michael came forward, shyly holding a piece of paper and said.

“Excuse me, could you please sign this?”

“······.”

Alexa, who had been frozen for a moment, soon shouted, unable to accept the situation.

“Eww!”

All this pain I feel now stems from the fact that ‘reality is absolutely not like that.’

***

‘About T: TV Series’ was cruising along.

Even just looking at the viewer ratings······ Alexa didn’t know much about it, but she heard the PD or writer say ‘daebak’ in passing several times. Because of that, the atmosphere on set became warm, and everyone was in a good mood while filming.

At first glance, it seemed like a normal and good situation.

The problem was that Alexa was just a ‘glass’ inside it.

Surprisingly, that was the character’s name in the script.

‘glasses’.

A character with a light brown sweater, glasses, blonde hair in pigtails, and always carrying a book.

Although she had little activity in the work, she appeared frequently on screen. This was because the PD and cinematographer thought that Alexa’s youthful mask and the character of ‘glasses’ suited the ‘teenage sensibility’ of the work.

The actual dialogue was just something like, “I’ll borrow a book.” “Wow, they’re hanging out together?”

Of course, even that was difficult for Alexa, who had no acting experience whatsoever.

At the filming site, she was a rookie who had just debuted, and was a former model.

Unlike dramas that appear on screen, it was never easy to empathize with the emotions and deliver lines in front of a camera and filming crew. Even if Alexa was cute, if she made even one NG, the filming set would instantly become chilly.

Nevertheless, the ‘Golden Retriever’ was grateful for the work given and tried harder.

First, I gave ‘Glasses’ the name ‘Annie’.

And he added his own settings.

This was the so-called character interpretation.

A pure girl who loves books.

The light brown sweater I’m wearing was knitted by my mother.

I feel a bit curious and close to Alice, the librarian, but I’m so timid that I can’t really talk to her first.

In high school, someone said to me in passing, ‘You shine so much, unlike me. You’re cool, but at the same time, you make me feel a little shabby.’

And the emotions I feel on set right now.

Alexa tried to find the anime she had in mind within herself.

He acted with affection for the character he created by adding all of his own memories and experiences.

Of course, Alexa’s efforts were not recognized by the people on set. Her role was still ‘Glasses’, and even now, she mostly played the role of passing through the crowd.

But the people around her treated her like some kind of Hollywood movie superstar, so she couldn’t help but feel burdened.

“So······ I have a lot of worries.”

Alexa groaned as she fell onto the table.

The god who was sitting in front of her and drinking coffee smiled, thinking that she was cute.

Although she said that she was nothing special, she had no choice but to wear sunglasses to hide her face.

Otherwise, it was because people who recognized her sometimes approached her and asked if she was an actress and asked for her autograph. And when people around her were half-confident and half-doubting, once confirmation was made in that way, many people would ask for her autograph one after another and even push their cameras in.

Alexa Flare.

Although he was not aware of it, his name and existence were gradually becoming known through his appearance in ‘About T: TV Series’.

And the results came back to me in the form of work. Little by little, my modeling work began to increase, and now I often had to shoot every single day of the week, excluding weekends.

God thought as he watched her whining in front of him.

‘Maybe I just awakened Alexa’s talent.’

In her previous life, she must have wandered around, unable to clearly figure out who she was or what she wanted to do.

Looking at her current appearance, it seems that she went to New York to become a model after struggling between her identity as a multicultural family and the image she presented to the public as a blonde, white pretty girl.

But the result of a choice made without careful consideration could not have been good.

It was completely different now. Alexa had changed with her friends, Jiwoo, Doopi, and Shin.

She was inspired by seeing her friends pursuing their own dreams, and she was passionate about the work given to her.

And the consequences were greater than expected.

As I said, to the point where I wasn’t even aware of it.

“God, what do I like?”

“Oh my, that must be really hard.”

“······What is this mechanical reaction?”

Alexa puffing out her cheeks.

Shin felt a cold sweat run down his face for a moment.

If the person I was having this conversation with was Doopi, I would have said, “You’re doing well, so why are you worried? Just work harder!” But the person in front of me right now was my girlfriend. From the perspective of having an emotional exchange, there was a need to speak a little more kindly than usual at times like this.

And humans, like God, were quite vulnerable in that regard.

Fortunately, Alexa quickly calmed down when she saw his flustered face and smiled, saying that he was cute.

Then he immediately apologized.

“Sorry. Did I whine too much?”

“No. It’s a worry that can be completely dealt with. Especially the comic book store kids must have been really hurt. They’re not strangers, so why are you suddenly distancing yourself from each other and being afraid again?”

“Right?! Isn’t that too much?!”

“······Isn’t it possible that they did it as a joke?”

“Oh, is that possible?”

“Shall we go together later?”

“I don’t like today. God, I want to spend it with just you and me. Hmm~ Is there a quiet place to go?”

“······.”

God tried desperately to erase a single thought that flashed through his mind.

It was a leisurely day.

So I was excited.

School is back on break again, and the manuscript for ‘Country of Losers: Part 2’ is almost finished.

‘About T: TV Series’ was airing smoothly, and the ‘Double Spy’ comics had just been completed. And the comic book store was continuously holding TRPG sessions with the additional rulebook for ‘KOG’, ‘Other Worlds’.

I never thought I would feel this happy about the fact that fans would continue to consume the work in different forms even after the work ended.

Just then, Alexa, who had caught the god’s expression sensitively, asked.

“By the way, what was the title of Part 2?”

“’Universe of losers’.”

“From Country to Universe. The scale has gotten so much bigger?”

“Because of the further north······.”

“Ah! Ah! No spoilers!”

“Want to read it yourself?”

“Yeah!······Will it be very difficult?”

“It’ll be okay.”

God answered with confidence.

This work has been revised to the best of my ability with the help of Simon Carver.

The title, ‘Universe’, was given to this work as it deals with a larger story than the previous work.

It will definitely not be an easy novel, but I tried to make sure that it wasn’t so difficult that it was completely incomprehensible.

***

In a dark room.

“Phew.”

Remy Martin, president of Torrance New Media, sighed.

In front of him was the second part of ‘Country of losers’, ‘Universe of losers’, which was released just today.

In contrast to the previous work, the black illustrations on the white cover were very impressive.

Remy picked up the book and looked through it.

This time, too, it’s a hard cover. The illustration located under the title at the top is a black sphere with smoke rising up. It looks like a human hand, or a scream.

‘After the nation comes space.’

Although the rapid increase in scale is felt, if you keep in mind that the word ‘Country’ in the title is by no means a word that generally means a country······.

‘Yeah, the universe isn’t just any universe, right?’

I felt uncomfortable with myself understanding that fact.

Remy Martin.

A man who believes that novels are just a means to make money, and that moving one’s body and communicating with the real world is more in line with a man’s life in many ways than getting lost in such a fictional world.

But his standards, stained with various prejudices, were certainly shattered.

It was really fun.

······At some point, I even gave up sleep to read novels.

As a businessman, he was the type of person who thought that a businessperson should be able to predict the future and move forward. That is why I couldn’t help but think a lot after reading ‘Country of Losers’, which seemed to accurately predict the future era after the advent of the ‘Internet’.

Predicting the future was really difficult, but the gist of it was actually quite simple.

‘You just have to look at the person.’

Read people’s minds and analyze how they will behave.

And predict the results that will be revealed through it.

Remy Martin’s thoughts on business and humanity further fueled my interest in this novel.

In fact, he didn’t even care about ‘The North’.

Why? Because humans would certainly submit and obey if there was a ‘more north’. The humans he knew were made that way.

However, I couldn’t help but admire the insight of the new writer who specifically described the human condition that ended up like that.

After staying up all night for several days and reading the entire novel, he felt a sense of shame he didn’t want to admit.

‘I never knew I could get this deeply immersed in a novel.’

I, who used to argue that experiencing real life in reality is more valuable than reading letters on paper while talking about the ‘real world’, realized the joy of reading novels through ‘Country of Losers’.

But Remy could not easily admit and accept that fact. He had been successful in his field for decades, and even the slight emptiness that came at a time had been overcome with greater success. To such a man, his beliefs were like his life. He could not easily break them.

Nonetheless, he bought ‘Universe of Losers’ on the day it was released.

‘Because it’s work. Work.’

Since you’ve decided to take charge of distributing Part 2, shouldn’t you read it in advance?

······I had long since put aside the thought I had before, ‘What good would it do for someone who sells novels to read novels?’

He opened the book, puffing on a cigarette, and began to read. From the moment he read the first paragraph, Remy Martin’s mind left the study where he had just been, and was transported to a future Earth dominated by the North.

Although he did not admit it, he had already become a prisoner of the writer called God.

‘Nikolai Kardashov.’

A story about humanity being transported to a distant future, reached with the help of ‘The North’, following a hypothesis put forward by a Soviet astronomer.

From that first sentence, my heart was set on fire.

The reason was due to the unconscious.

[I want to go on an adventure!]

In a distant past that even he himself cannot remember, Remy Martin was that kind of boy.

But as a child, I heard this:

‘Born too late to explore the Earth, born too early to explore space.’

A dream that naturally disappeared during the growth process.

Little did he know that the dreams of those days would be rekindled by this novel.

‘SF’ and ‘dystopia’.

It’s because of the ‘Universe of losers’.