Became an American Retro Novelist - Chapter 239



Only Noblemtl

239.

When Julia Chandler got home, it was well past midnight.

The house, with no lights on, had a quiet atmosphere.

“Phew.”

I think my mouth felt dry today because I talked a lot. Even though I definitely drank a lot of water.

At those times, she didn’t really have an appetite. She hadn’t had a proper dinner because she was busy with the article draft and all, and she didn’t really feel like preparing a meal, so she took a shower first. She stood there blankly for a while, getting soaked in hot water, then dried her hair outside the bathroom, and moved around in only a shirt and shorts.

A small apartment in downtown Los Angeles.

The reason Julia lived here was because of emotional issues. She was someone who was so obsessed with her work that it seemed foolish. That was why, even though she had earned enough money, she did not move to a bigger place and continued to pay rent in this apartment close to her company.

When I opened the refrigerator, a dim light came out.

“······hmm.”

I took out the leftover cheap wine. And some dried cheese that even a rat wouldn’t eat.

She came out to the living room and sat down on the side table next to the sofa with wine and cheese. Realizing that she had forgotten her glass, she stood up and headed straight for the kitchen. She roughly washed the wineglass on the sink and returned to the sofa, shaking off the water. Then she took out a magazine from the bag on the table.

Today I picked up a pulp fiction magazine called ‘Legendary Stories’ from Hardboiled Publishers.

‘I thought it was a magazine published in Nevada?’

It seemed that a problematic short story by a new writer was included here.

After pouring a moderate amount of wine into her glass and taking a sip, Julia snickered at the cover of a man in a wizard’s outfit, who looked like a ghoul, fighting a skeleton. It was a cover that was inspired by the new author’s short story that was published this time. It was drawn in more exaggerated and colorful colors than what she had heard.

The phrase inserted on the cover, ‘Including a short story by SEEN, a simultaneous winner of the Hugo Award and Nebula Award!’ caught my eye at first glance. Judging from the fact that I don’t particularly remember hearing the name ‘Legendary Stories’ before, it seemed like it wasn’t a very large magazine.

But it could be a prejudice.

And even in such magazines, good works are sometimes published.

Julia began to read ‘Legendary Stories’, slowly turning the pages.

Drinking wine occasionally and eating cheese here and there.

Since all of the novels were currently being serialized, I ended up reading them from the middle of the story, but it didn’t really matter. I could tell whether a novel was well-written or not just by looking at the descriptions or the overall flow of each episode.

Julia sipped her wine as she read the magazine, which mainly contained sword and sorcery and high fantasy genre novels, and soon she reached the end, quickly turning the pages.

As a guest writer for this issue, Shin, whose work is featured in the last issue of the magazine,

Honestly, I don’t quite understand this move.

‘It doesn’t seem to be a particularly famous magazine.’

That’s understandable, because I didn’t see any particularly interesting novels.

Just in case, I read more closely the novel that was serialized right before the new author, which is probably the most promoted novel in this magazine, but I didn’t see anything particularly outstanding.

Why did the new writer publish his short stories in these magazines?

Julia thought that she did not live up to the name ‘SEEN’, but soon she came to know her own truth that few people in this world know.

Shin and Simon were never the type of people to care about such things.

‘My opinion is a little different.’

If you publish your novel in any magazine like this, your status as a writer will decline. If this process continues, you will end up receiving requests for manuscripts from all over the place.

Thinking that she would ask for a clearer reason or intention for this part later, Julia began reading God’s short story, ‘Magician’s End’.

『The life of an old man is boring. Even though he has not yet achieved his life’s long-cherished desires.

When I woke up in the morning, I started with meditation. I cleared the chaos floating inside me, purified my mind, and prayed that the new problem that was unfolding before my eyes would be solved well.

I forced myself to calm down and went deep into the cave to continue organizing the research I had been doing for decades.

This was a place beyond the dragon’s nest, untouched by human hands. I had not met anyone for a mind-bogglingly long time. Humans repeated wars and conquests due to their own greed and became corrupt, but my love for them never changed.

It was like a love bestowed by God.

I felt pity for humanity.

At some point, I truly felt sorry for them, like moths flying into a flame.

Why do humans get caught up in vain desires?

I thought about it for a long time and realized that it was because they were mortal.

Have you ever seen dragons flying high in the sky and spitting fire obsessed with what they cannot have? No. They are eternal, so they give up their desires for more than they need and take only what they need. In this way, they can live as they are, without being greatly affected by the cycles of the world.

But that was a conclusion I could come to because I was learning magic to the extreme, and was getting closer to a dragon, somewhat escaping from human imperfection.

I didn’t need anything, just a little water, some salt, and an occasional handful of sweet berries to soothe my mouth and mind.

So, inspired by myself and the dragon’s state, I began to research immortality.

For a long time, I continued my research alone. And as I said, I became a being close to a dragon, but I could not achieve eternity like them. When the task was completed and I completed a new spell that had never existed before, I vomited dark red blood.

I realized that death was imminent.

And I didn’t have the strength left to execute the completed order.

No, you can do it. But then you’ll use up all the magic power that’s maintaining your body and die.

What happens if you use an immortality spell on a dead person?

There was no way I could know that far with my weakened mind, so I decided to attempt one last experiment.

It was just me casting the immortality spell on myself.

The story, which unfolds in the first person, shows the definition of immortality and the direction in which the wizard’s research has progressed. At the same time, it describes the twisted compassion he feels for humans, and expresses the way the wizard has lived up to now.

As Julia read through that passage, she realized she had finished half of the wine she had left, so she went back to the fridge and got a can of beer.

‘Interesting.’

What should I say?

Overall, I liked the ‘madness’ of the main character in the work.

Usually, in first-person novels, readers tend to understand and become immersed in the thoughts and actions of the main character more easily.

But this short story by God was not like that. On the contrary, it made the protagonist feel a bit of emotional distance. Julia pondered that part while drinking a can of beer.

‘Why do I feel this way?’

The answer came quickly.

The protagonist’s logic was extremely flawed somewhere.

Considering the style of Shin’s writing, it was probably intentional. Was it to describe an old man with dementia, or a character who had lost his mind after spending too much time alone? No, I thought there must be something more to it.

Anyway, one thing was certain.

This novel had the power to capture your attention and keep you reading.

In fact, the reason why the main character, the wizard, was not a character that readers could really get into was because he was so arrogant. He said he was doing it for humanity, but I didn’t think it was right. In the end, it was just an act to satisfy his own ego.

If humans really become immortal, will all conflicts disappear? It is by no means a problem that can be solved so simply.

But the reason I kept reading this short story instead of just thinking of it as something unpleasant was because the efforts the wizard put in over the years were all real.

He had spent a long time in celibacy, studying the magic of immortality, and was dying as if by fate, right before the results.

The story, which had been going on for a long time as a monologue, reached its climax when the wizard organized the spell, carved it into his body, and recited the spell of immortality.

In that scene, the sorcerer’s mad monologue reached its peak, and he died while prophesying that he would become a god.

And when he stood up again, he became an unconscious being.

The sentence was also changed to the third person to create a sense of distance.

The body was immortal, but the mind was not.

Grrr, groan······.

An immortal who begins to move solely by instinct and the memories remaining in his body.

He started to walk away slowly and unsteadily.

I crossed mountains and rivers and kept walking somewhere.

I didn’t even sigh, I just moved forward following my instincts.

Because of this, the body gradually deteriorated, but the unconscious immortal did not even realize that fact.

Where is he headed? Is it a sublime ritual to pass on his spell to future generations?

The reason was revealed in the latter half of the work.

The wizard’s body carried the remaining remains of his spirit and reached the village where humans lived.

If someone with even a little bit of knowledge about magic saw the spell engraved on his body, he would surely pass on the spell of immortality to humanity and lead it to future generations. The value contained in the spell he completed was so great that it far surpassed the result of immortality, and raised the level of magic enjoyed by humanity far beyond that.

However, as can be guessed from the fact that the place the wizard’s body arrived at was a ‘village’, the wizard’s wish was not fulfilled.

The town guards came out and defeated the ‘ghoul’, a being whose body was alive but whose mind was dead. They then burned it, saying that it was dirty, ominous, and could be a source of contagious diseases.

“······.”

It was such a disappointing ending that it felt really neat.

***

The end of the fall semester of the third year.

My pulp fiction club friends who read my recent serial “Magician’s End” in Nevada’s Legendary Stories had mixed reactions.

“I don’t really understand what this is trying to say.”

Kate Moore was scathing.

“Fantastic! This is a truly fantastic novel! God!”

John Smith, on the other hand, was favorable.

It was expected that the two people’s reactions would be sharply divided.

But the person who secretly cared about the evaluation was Rebecca Wong, who now had her own way of deeply understanding what the ‘genre’ was all about.

And she answered:

“Isn’t this the kind of article that would be serialized in an ordinary magazine?”

“That’s true.”

I answered honestly.

So when I sent the manuscript, I told them that if it wasn’t good enough, they could reject it, but Legendary Stories said they would accept it with open arms. And I think that if they were pulp fiction enthusiasts, they would enjoy reading this novel and think about the meaning contained in the work.

Rebecca’s opinion also agreed with mine.

“The general public may not know about it, but enthusiasts will really like it. It completely twists the existing sword and sorcery clichés.”

“Is that so?”

“Oh my, isn’t that what you meant to write?”

“I just let out the story inside me and this is how it turned out.”

I remembered the feeling I had when I wrote this ‘Magician’s end’.

No matter how deeply I pondered it and came up with my own answer, I suddenly had the thought that if I looked at it from the perspective of someone who didn’t know much about it, it would all be a waste of time.

Maybe that’s why, when I was writing this novel, I used the first half as a tool to heighten the feeling of emptiness in the second half.

No matter how deeply I worry, others don’t understand it.

And actually, that’s okay, that’s just the way life is.

However, readers who learn about the wizard’s story while reading this novel will not feel that way.

So Rebecca’s guess wasn’t wrong.

“It’s a bit of a cliché twist, I guess.”

Usually, the ‘wizard’ in these works, especially the ‘great sage’ type characters, are portrayed as very gentle and serious, and as beings who can provide answers that ordinary people cannot know.

Of course, there are evil wizards, just as there is Saruman if there is Gandalf.

“But the protagonist of this short story doesn’t seem to be an evil wizard. He’s just… a somewhat arrogant old man? Oh, I was wondering something. What’s the protagonist’s name?”

“It wasn’t stable.”

“I have to decide.”

“Well, in a short story, why not? Then why don’t you call me Hulk Hogan?”

“Hulk Hogan is portrayed as a very genre-defying wizard.”

Are you really calling him Hulk Hogan?

Excuse me, Mr. Hogan. Excuse me for a moment.

“yes?”

“I liked that. I like short stories after all.”

“Thank you.”

“No, but even so, it completely distorts the fun category of the genre. Aside from the fact that this is a novel with excellent completion, it seems like it cannot be acknowledged as a genre.”

“Haha, fans of genre fiction might think differently?”

John automatically refutes Kate who interrupted him.

“Those people read so many novels that they tend to enjoy this type of work more. I do too.”

“If I had to be picky, I would say that this is close to the cliche of a wizard who has lived a life close to immortality.”

“Ugh, I’d rather be satisfied with just an ordinary novel······.”

As I listened to the story that was going on between the three people, I thought.

‘A twist on a cliché.’

Did you find this novel enjoyable to read in that sense in Legendary Stories?

But I wasn’t satisfied with this novel.

That doesn’t mean I think twisting cliches is a bad thing, nor do I intend to deny each reader’s reaction.

But what should I say?

‘From my perspective as the writer, it feels like I’m just expressing my emotions without any filtering.’

It was a method I didn’t want to use when writing a novel.

The absurd ending of ‘Magician’s End’ was intended to highlight the theme of the work, but I thought that genre fiction should fundamentally be a form of writing that ‘builds up the reader’s expectations little by little and then explodes them.’

I read a novel that was hundreds of pages long, and it ended in such a vain ending?

‘He will remain a legend in the industry in many ways.’

That’s why I never intended for my next work to end like this.

The short story ‘Magician’s End’ is an experimental work before the new work. So this should be enough.

‘Now that I have a rough idea, let’s start planning it in earnest.’

The genre was hard-boiled crime.