episode_0045

While ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ was being translated with reference to the advice of the chief wizard, Jules Verne’s ‘Fifteen Boys Adrift’ was also undergoing final editing.

Translating 15 Boys Adrift was simpler.

This was the difference between 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, an ‘exploration story’, and 15 Boys Adrift, a ‘survival story’. From my perspective, as I plagiarize works from my past life, there is nothing to worry about other than historical verification.

Moreover, in the previous life on Earth, for some reason, the story of 15 Boys Adrift was often re-created as a ‘fairy tale’ or a ‘recommended book for elementary school students’, so I also had the experience of doing such excerpts and summaries several times.

“Zion, how are you?”

“Hmm, both works are so great that it’s hard to say anything… . I don’t know if I dare compare these two novels.”

“Still, I’d like you to give me your opinion.”

“Personally… 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea seems a little more exciting. The story of exploring the sea felt very romantic to me.”

Zion gave 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea a slightly higher rating.

Since both works are representative works of the same author, it could be said that it was simply a problem with my translation, but rather, it was probably because the directions the two works pursued were different.

15 Boy Adrift was written for exactly the same reason as ‘Lord of the Flies’, which can be said to be the antithesis of that novel.

Isolating children and showing them how they change.

The ‘change in children’ imagined by William Golding in ‘Lord of the Flies’ was chaos and desire. On the other hand, the change in children imagined by optimist Jules Verne was ‘growth and courage.’ This was internal, not external, and the object of pioneering was essentially an ‘inner conflict’ rather than an ‘unknown place’.

And Zion seemed to feel even more romantic in the story of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which explores the unknown space called the sea. It may have been even more so because he grew up with me as my servant from a young age.

Since I am a person who only reads books in the corner of my room, Zion also never had to travel far.

“Shion, do you also want to go on an adventure?”

“No.”

“Hmm?”

“I have no intention of going far. To me, Mr. Master’s literature is the deep sea and an island. When I help you, I feel truly free when I see the boundaries of ‘literature’, which I had never known before, and when I hear its name.”

Shion said this in a voice without even the slightest hesitation.

That story contained something that could be called ‘power’. Zion was full of confidence.

“I still don’t know what ‘development of literature’ you are looking at. So, I hoped you would be my captain. I don’t know the map of the sea, but I believe that you will guide me step by step.”

“Like Captain Nemo?”

“Mmm. yes. Would that be rude?”

“Puuu, Ah, yes, I understand what it means. Thank you.”

Captain Nemo was definitely an attractive person.

He was a wise and bold intellectual, noble and mysterious person. Aside from his incomprehensible aspects, he was actually quite kind.

But there was something sinister behind it.

That ominous feeling you feel when looking into the bottomless ocean above the water. I thought that maybe, in the eyes of Zion, I too might be that kind of person.

[“I am not the civilized person you call me! I have completely broken away from society, and you have no qualifications to evaluate that! So I do not follow that law, and I hope you will never mention that law in front of me again!”]

Half of my soul was still on ‘Earth’.

The clearest evidence was that when I drank the Hyde potion, half of my past life and my current life were mixed together.

And the sea called ‘Earth’ was more ominous and difficult to guess than the darkness of the deep sea. At least for the people of this world.

secret. Mystery. darkness. miracle.

A ‘different world’ that people from this world cannot reach. A distant and alien world that no great pioneer or talented adventurer could fathom. Just as Captain Nemo was the only person who had walked the deep sea, I was also the only person who had ever experienced the Earth.

And people were bound to fear what they could not understand, or worship it out loud—.

“Uh, hmm?”

“Why are you doing that?”

“No. ‘Something suddenly occurred to me.’

It may be an over-interpretation, but perhaps that is why people worship me, calling me a ‘savior’ and a ‘saint of literature.’

I felt inspiration in my literature that was not from ‘this world.’

The alchemist had already said that the literature I wrote had an inspiration that was distinct from the literature of this world. People with a keen sense of spirituality, such as church priests or some writers, might have discovered something a little different.

“Hmm… ?”

Also, the wizard said that ‘possibility’ is the reproduction of an event.

He said that the imperial army’s practice of shooting by setting up human-shaped targets was also a way to maximize this possibility.

– “Similar things share possibilities with each other and thus create similar events… . That’s why the trick of saying they’re blood relatives and magic towers works… .”

Some events that occurred in this world. The slight discomfort I felt when writing works like Don Quixote or Sherlock Holmes.

The reactions of readers that occurred in the ‘History of Literature’ in my previous life occurred similarly in this world. A fairy’s prank experienced by Lionel Balzac.

When I put it all together, I was able to come up with a pretty interesting hypothesis.

I thought it was simply because of the ‘power of literature’ contained in the classics, but maybe.

“The magic worked… ?”

I didn’t know that there might have been some kind of magical connection between the literature of ‘Earth’ and the works I plagiarized.

It was something so abstract that it was possible even without magic.

The reason why people who read Don Quixote were fascinated by chivalry and the character of Don Quixote was because the family members who saw Sherlock Holmes’ death asked, ‘Why did you kill Sherlock?’ Questions such as these were asked, and the young nobles who read young Werther’s sadness imitated ‘Werther’s’ attire.

It was entirely possible even without magic.

It was like that in my past life, the works I plagiarized were all great classics, and literature was inherently magical. If you think about it with common sense, there was nothing strange about it.

and.

“I said that if something is possible with magic, it should ultimately be possible even without magic… .”

Let’s come back to the story about my soul.

My soul was the only link between ‘Earth’ and ‘this world’. This soul loves literature, sometimes misses the Earth of its past life, and values ‘literature’ more than that longing or even a single piece of information.

And I had experience translating countless ‘classical literature’.

Translating classical literature was a very labor-intensive task. It is not uncommon to erase and rewrite sentences several times in order to preserve the atmosphere of the time. Just as a soldier repeatedly fires at a target to increase his accuracy, translators also had to rewrite the same sentences over and over again to get a feel for them.

In the process, we study the history of the era in which classical literature was written, look for various papers and references to include as annotations, and look for various anecdotes that would be good to include in ‘Translator’s Notes.’

Only after going through all of these arduous processes is a ‘translation’ completed.

So the translator’s job was to magically reproduce the author’s work. It wasn’t much different from a wizard.

“I thought the translation was good… .”

It would be nice if it were too much of an assumption, but… .

Perhaps the ‘history of Earth literature’ itself had become embedded in my soul. I used the works I had experience translating as a medium.

I was infecting ‘Earth’ in this world!

.

.

.

“You don’t look good today? It’s not because I came here, right?”

“No. How could you not like seeing the princess?”

“You didn’t say you didn’t like it, did you? I guess the author of Homer doesn’t like seeing me?”

“No.”

“I like coming to see the author Homer.”

“… It’s an honor.”

The princess came to visit me suddenly, as always.

The princess, leaning on the sofa in the living room, slightly tilted her head and looked at me questioningly.

“So, is something going on? My complexion is bad.”

“Mmm. I have some personal concerns.”

As I said, I was currently struggling with one guess.

The speculation was that perhaps my literature was spreading ‘Earth’s literature’ to this world.

Of course, at first glance, it seemed no different from my goal.

To rapidly develop the world’s literature through the literature of my previous life. My goal was to provide a path through various literary trends, new paradigms, and constantly researched plots.

but… .

“I was happy that the matter was resolved quickly, but in fact, the result was a little different from what I first thought.”

“Ah! That happens often.”

“But the result is not bad. Rather, I would say it is good. It’s just that the initial idea was such a high ideal that I felt a little uneasy.”

“Hehe, the author is also worried about that? I thought he was just a genius writer, but he seems to have a more human side than I thought?”

What I was trying to create was soil where new literature could flourish, not rice paddies where crops to fill one’s stomach could be grown.

Ultimately, the goal was to see a completely new and interesting work created by mixing the ‘literary trends of the past life’ with the culture, ideology, religion, and values of this world. New classics and new literary trends.

There was only ‘chivalric literature’ in this world, so he killed chivalric literature with ‘Don Quixote’.

Copyright law was created to prevent literature from stagnating.

He broke the formality of existing literature with ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’, made literature more accessible with ‘The Conan Saga’, and broke taboos with ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’.

They had spread the genre grammar of ‘mystery novels’ and ‘romance novels’, and now they were planning to spread science fiction and adventure stories as well.

“That’s why I’m worried. It’s a shame.”

However, if the result is ultimately nothing more than a repeat of ‘past life’.

So, just as in my previous life I used to search for and read new books at Kyobo Bookstore every day after work, if only new novels of a similar genre were the only ‘miracles’ I could admire.

That’s a bit much for a topic that has come all the way to another world.

Isn’t it a pity?

The princess’s reaction upon hearing my regret was simple.

“In that case, why not just leave it to the reader?”

“Yes?”

“The author may think it’s just a ‘normal’ novel, but readers may feel differently, right? You can criticize Homer, saying that he is now obsolete, or you can praise him, saying that this is Homer’s greatest masterpiece. Isn’t it meaningless to think about it alone anyway?”

“Umm.”

“At least for me, Homer’s novels have always been the most interesting and enjoyable novels. So I want to see more soon. Please release new books more often.”

“… … .”

Leave it to the reader… .

In my case, it would be something I would leave to the writer. And in fact, that simple statement was the truth.

“I see… . Of course, in the end, I have no choice but to leave it to the readers.”

“Right? So when is the next work coming out?”

“Thank you. Princess.”

“What? It’s my joy. So when is the next work─.”

“Thanks to you, my head became clearer.”

“Do you hate me by any chance?”

“I like it.”

“… Yes?”

“Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde, I really enjoyed reading it.”

Ultimately, it is the author who writes the work.

Even if I, a plagiarist writer, try to talk about magic or Earth’s literature or whatever, it only sounds arrogant.

Sometimes, great works come out even in genres thought to be dead.

As a reader, that’s all I have to do.

“Princess, I look forward to your next work.”

“… Ah yes. is it so. I got a kick out of it.”

“Yes?”

“Chii, are you telling me not to just read it? It’s shameful… . all right. Well, I’m a writer too… . There is also a work I was preparing to show at the Academy.”

“Haha, yes.”

It was about trusting the author.

“I believe it. Writer Is.”

“I’m looking forward to it too. Author Homer.”