Ch.BONUSBetrayal Red’s Background Setting and Other Miscellaneous Details

# About the Creation of “Betrayal Red”

I’d like to discuss the process and setting behind the creation of “Betrayal Red.”

## 1. About the Story

When conceptualizing this work, the genre I enjoyed most on Novelpia was the so-called “4-drone revenge stories” about exile and vengeance. I wanted to write a story that many readers would definitely enjoy, so I planned to use revenge story clichés in the early parts.

The reason 4-drone works become repetitive and boring is because the revenge itself becomes the purpose, and the protagonist lacks their own story. Therefore, I needed to determine what the essential story would be.

During this time, I read “Transformation Death.” It was a divinely inspired work. I originally liked tokusatsu and had thoughts about writing a Kamen Rider story, and I realized that Super Sentai teams could have exile scenarios similar to adventuring parties.

So what would an exiled Red do?

The conclusion was obvious: become the leader of evil.

Thus, the insane and outlandish headline was born: “A story about a Red who was exiled from Super Sentai, becomes a Rider, and nurtures villains with the goal of becoming a villain boss.”

From this point, the plot was constructed, and the story up to the Galaxy Empire arc was completed from the beginning. The original ending had Morgan or Han Somi dying, and an enraged Jung Ui-seok destroying the world except for children and resetting it.

However, I decided to avoid making the protagonist too picaresque, and thought it would be better to have the Incursion as the final episode to prove that the villain protagonist was right. As a result, it became a kind of all-star match with various love-hate relationships entangled, leading to great scenes like breaking the robot’s horn or transforming into a hero that surpasses oneself, which I’m very satisfied with.

There are also many regrets.

The revenge plot and the story of nurturing villains didn’t mesh well together in the end. There were too many characters, which inevitably confused readers. The three-faction structure of heroes, villains, and monsters was also scattered. Despite Jung Ui-seok being a fully-formed protagonist, scenes where his speech patterns and personality needed to be portrayed differently became necessary.

Lee Lu-a’s narrative also didn’t quite fit with the overall atmosphere.

The story of Kang Yerin going back to the past and becoming devastated was something I absolutely wanted to write. I was holding onto my buffer chapters for this part’s serialization. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the “depressing” tag on this work is because of this part.

Time-axis movement was an important theme in my previous works like “Fate Changer” and “D-Class Return,” and this trend will likely continue in my next work.

I think I chose the wrong material for the Civil War. As I was writing, I realized there was no place for the heroines to appear, so I quickly skipped it. Originally, I had planned to make it longer.

## 2. Character Background Settings

– **Jung Ui-seok**

I originally wanted to portray him as a cooler, more impressive character, but due to my writing limitations, his dialogue often came across as chuunibyou-like. Although I set him up as a complete character, he had multiple identities and relationships, requiring different speech patterns, which made him very difficult to handle despite being the protagonist.

As mentioned in the main story, it’s correct to think of the Jung Ui-seok met in the Incursion as a different person. Even if that Jung Ui-seok had met Han Somi at the same point, the other Dragon King Sentai teams have slightly different personalities and ideologies, so the same history wouldn’t have occurred. The setting is that there are parallel worlds in the original world, and that Jung Ui-seok was possessed from there.

Of course, even so, it’s certain that Han Somi is a very special person to Jung Ui-seok. This Jung Ui-seok would also have had a very high probability of failure without Han Somi.

A couple of people correctly guessed that Jung Ui-seok’s Gerogius dragon transformation form was modeled after Jetman’s Jet. The Ryutaros form might be similar to his old dragon form when he was a solo hero. It could easily be mistaken for a monster.

The Armaggedon form doesn’t have a specific motif. I gave it angel wings because I thought it would be paradoxical for a demon to have them.

The transformation pose was, of course, from Decade. My favorite Rider.

The transformation item, the Switch, uses terminology from Fourze, but the position of the transformation device when being a hero is on the left arm, similar to ToQger’s ToQ Changer. The Switch gimmick might feel like Double’s Gaia Memory. It feels like activating it with one press before equipping it. Pressing the top part to activate the finishing move is like Fourze. The design is the size of Build’s Full Bottle.

The Armaggedon Belt doesn’t have a specific motif either. I thought of it as an original gimmick, but the explanation is complicated. The setting is that it burns the book of apocalyptic prophecies to turn the pages of sin into cards. It actually destroyed one world, albeit a parallel one.

The motif for Dragon King Sentai would be Kyoryuger. They’re dragons and the Red has a power-up form. The coloring motif is Gokaiger. The reason I set them as dragons was simply because they look cool. I first chose the dragon keyword and then set up abilities to match the colors. Thanks to that, I think abilities suitable for villains like apocalypse and sin emerged.

Additionally, the Sea Lord Sentai that appeared in the latter part was modeled after Goseiger. They’re an angel sentai. They also share the commonality that Green was already dead when they formed.

– **Lee Lu-a**

Lu-a was a heroine I personally liked, but she wasn’t popular with readers. I fully understand the cause, so I’ll try to shape characters better in my next work. All the women in this work are somewhat crazy, and Lu-a is the only normal one. Maybe that’s why she lacked charm.

– **Lena**

Lena was a heroine with prepared narrative and design. However, I didn’t expect her to be this popular. It wasn’t a clear intention but rather a combination that happened by chance. I actually put less effort into her than into Lu-a, so I was quite surprised.

I noticed her popularity when she first appeared, but at that time I had accumulated a large buffer of chapters, so it took quite a while for her to reappear. I learned that having a large buffer isn’t always good. Instead, I was able to serialize continuously for a while.

She was perhaps the biggest gain in “Betrayal Red.” I’m happy that many people loved her.

However, I wish I could have prepared more narrative for her in the latter part.

– **Kang Yerin**

She’s the character responsible for the depressing elements in this work. Yerin was never a heroine from the beginning and isn’t a heroine at the conclusion. One of the principles I set from the start was that none of the Dragon King Sentai 4 would become heroines. If I had to classify her, I treat her as a co-protagonist in my mind.

If Jung Ui-seok is the leader of evil who found his own method, then Kang Yerin is a hero who found her own reason and became a complete character.

Jet and Alpha, who became the design motifs for Gerogius and Sulphur, are also co-protagonists. Of course, Jet is the actual protagonist as the title is Jetman.

That’s not to say that “Betrayal Red” also includes Kang Yerin’s story. “Betrayal Red” is ultimately Jung Ui-seok’s story. It’s just my perception.

She’s the character who rode the most rollercoasters in the work. I actually enjoyed tormenting her. Writing from Kang Yerin’s perspective in the latter part was a very sad yet rich experience. I also really like depressing works like “Miss Suicide,” and this became a catalyst for wanting to write such works.

Her ability, Milky Way, is the river that separates Altair and Vega, or Gyonu and Jiknyeo. It symbolizes Jung Ui-seok and Kang Yerin who cannot meet. They need a crow, Deneb, to meet, but Kang Yerin continuously lacks the Deneb skill. (During serialization, I consistently wrote Vega as Deneb, causing confusion. It has been corrected now.)

But in the end, when she finally opens it, I wanted to symbolize that the connection with Jung Ui-seok was not made through someone else’s help, but through her own efforts.

The first appearance of the Milky Way Switch is in chapter 70, which was quite a long build-up.

I hope I can show a bit about what happened to Jung Ui-seok and Kang Yerin’s relationship in the side story I’ll be serializing.

But where did the Supernova Switch go? Didn’t Jung Ui-seok say he’d give it to Lena?

I kept missing the timing to write about this.

What Recter was supposed to drop was the Black Hole Switch, but in real time, Jung Ui-seok was too busy with Choi Minseo’s meteorite to retrieve it, and Kang Yerin, who completed the loop, snatched it up. This was also skipped because there was no place to write it.

Additionally, I kept missing the timing for Emma to appear.

– **Han Somi**

I thought I had quite explicitly written in chapter 3 that Morgan was Han Somi, but readers were surprisingly uncertain whether it was true or not. Maybe I should have approached it as a trick from the beginning.

In fact, for the smooth progression of the story, she should have been an ill-fated heroine who died after being assassinated by Choi Minseo. Normally, I wouldn’t have hesitated to do that, but this work had the purpose of avoiding developments that readers dislike, so I refrained.

The situation where a person with excessive self-sacrifice became a hero, unintentionally committed mass murder, and became a villain seems like it would have been optimal for a depressing story in retrospect.

However, describing the inner thoughts of non-protagonist characters and how relationships change requires too much content, and although I wanted to write it, I judged it didn’t match the atmosphere of this work, so I quickly moved past it, resulting in less psychological description, which is regrettable.

Still, I liked the portrayal of her being liberated while taking revenge on Choi Minseo.

## 3. Other Settings

Actually, the most fun gameplay is when you’re a citizen hiding your power.

The executives of Dark Kingdom Apocamellot are Lancelord (Excalibur), Modrafit (Clarent), Bedivides (Longominiad), and Morgan. If Morgan had been killed, the Yulong Switch would have dropped, which would have started Jung Ui-seok’s descent into despair.

The ages of the main characters at the beginning of chapter 1 are as follows:

Jung Ui-seok 26 / Han Somi 26 / Shin Yukyong 25 / Ji Se-hwa 23 / Kang Yerin 23 / Choi Minseo 20 / Lee Lu-a 19 / Lena 27 / Boksil 196

Chapter 1 starts in October, and the Incursion occurred in January of the 4th year. The final chapter would be around July.

That’s all about the work. Thank you for reading.

If you have any other questions, please leave a comment and I’ll answer.