episode_0053

As we left the White Magic Tower, it rained.

Unlike the capital of the empire, where it rarely rains, the eastern part of the empire, where the White Magic Tower was built, had rain for about half of the week. From here, you can reach the capital by riding a locomotive made with horse engineering for about half a day.

Perhaps because it was close to the Magic Tower, there were a few people who seemed to have learned magic.

These are the people who are ‘avoided’ by the rain. People walking through the rain without getting wet were in themselves evidence of the mystery that exists in this world.

Those people probably won’t get the paper wet even if they read a book outside on a rainy day. Instead, you sit down somewhere suitable to read a book, and your pants and butt end up getting wet. I thought it was such a ridiculous mystery.

As I stood blankly looking at the raining world, the White Magic Tower lord spoke to me.

“Oh, it’s raining. Would you like to travel to the capital via a teleport gate? I will tell you about the Blue Magic Tower.”

“Um, no… . I was planning to take the train today and read books all day.”

I don’t really like traveling, but I quite liked the long travel times between trips.

As long as you can tolerate a little motion sickness, it was a perfect time to read a book.

Get on the train with a book as thick as a brick, say, Les Misérables. I loved the French scenery depicted in the book I was holding a little more than the complicated scenery outside the train.

I did, but when I looked at the mysterious and comical scenery around the rainy Magic Tower, and when I looked at the daily life of this world where orbital elevators, magic, and alchemy exist.

For a moment, I thought I might have walked into a scene from Earth’s literature.

It’s not because this world is too ‘Sword Demon Fantasy’ world or because it’s foreign.

Because this world is so similar to the Earth of my past life. Because the process that the people of Earth have gone through and the ideals that the people of Earth have pursued are mixed together.

That’s what I thought.

“This place seems very similar to my hometown.”

“Hmm? Wasn’t Herodotus from the capital?”

“I am from the capital.”

“There are many people from Haren Kingdom around here, so it seems quite unique compared to the capital… Well, I guess all places where people live are similar.”

“That’s right.”

Come to think of it, I made a promise with the Sloth King of Haren Kingdom.

What did they say? Did people ask you to write a novel that would bring them down? For a monarch of a despotic monarchy, he seems to have been a very irresponsible person.

“Now that I think about it, it’s time to study the literature of the Kingdom of Haren… .”

And me too.

Although he was irresponsible, he was a person who was not pushed around by others.

Go to Haren Kingdom.

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When I came out of the long tunnel at the border, I was in a snowy country.

This is the first sentence of ‘Snow Country’, a novel by Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata.

Here, the Chinese character for ‘Kuk (国)’ is not a country, but ‘Kuni’, an administrative district of Japan. In Korea, the word ‘border’ means the border between countries, so when translated, it is paraphrased as a border or boundary. It can also happen. The word ‘snow country’ is also often paraphrased as ‘snow country’.

But I liked this translation the most, as it preserved the original text.

Isn’t it a privilege of the Korean language, which has a similar sentence structure to Japanese, to be able to comfortably appreciate sentences from Japanese literature without paraphrasing?

So, let’s continue this sentence.

“The bottom of the night has turned white… .”

As I exited the long tunnel that crosses the mountain range between the ‘Empire’ and the ‘Kingdom of Haren’, the rain falling from the sky had suddenly turned into white snow.

I arrived in the snow country.

We waited for a while again for the train to reach the station, and got off together at the station with the most people.

A language different from the empire was heard here. I also heard quite a bit about the official language used in the empire.

An old man who was selling on a stall in front of the station solicited customers in the official language. There were no mistakes in grammar, but the way he spoke was a little awkward.

“Hey, are you from the Empire? There is a nice bracelet that symbolizes the Kingdom of Haren. It’s cheap. We sell a lot.”

Most of the languages of this world have already been learned in childhood.

I answered in Haren.

“You can speak comfortably.”

“Hmm? Are you fluent in Harenese?”

“Basic conversation skills are possible. What is the biggest bookstore around here?”

“It’s not difficult to tell. As long as you buy me things.”

“Hmm.”

The things on the old man’s stool were miscellaneous trinkets.

Since I didn’t really need anything, I pointed to a fountain pen that would be of use.

“I will buy this.”

“One silver coin. I also accept imperial banknotes.”

As expected from someone who deals with tourists, he is being overpriced. I shrugged, took a gold coin out of my pocket, and handed it to him.

“No need for change. Please teach me about bookstores properly.”

“Huh, you were a precious person. I’ll draw you a map, so please wait a moment.”

“Of course.”

The old man’s drawing skills were quite excellent.

I guess I remember all the buildings around here, so I drew their characteristics to make it easier to find them.

I arrived at the bookstore, following the map drawn by the old man.

The bookstore was quite large, as it was said to be the largest bookstore in this place. However, it was not as neat or sophisticated as the imperial capital, and because it was quite old, it had a strong smell of old paper.

I liked the atmosphere.

“Welcome. If there is a book you are looking for, please let me know and I will find it.”

“I’ll look around a little by myself.”

“Yes!”

Even in the Empire, I tended to read all of the Haren Kingdom novels in their original form, but there were quite a few books I was seeing for the first time.

Among them were translations of classics from my past life that I had plagiarized.

The quality of the translation… Well, I don’t want to say anything bad, but let’s just say it was difficult to say anything good about it.

I decided to stop looking at the translations and read all of the Haren Kingdom novels.

“Boss.”

“Yes! customer. Is there a book you are looking for?”

“Can you pack all the books I pointed to?”

“Yes?”

“Oh, and please recommend an accommodation. I haven’t decided on a place to stay yet.”

“Customer, you are playing with me now─.”

I took out a bag containing gold coins from my pocket and showed it to the boss.

The boss suddenly became kinder.

“We will take you to the best accommodation in the kingdom!”

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I left a message in advance saying I would be late home.

I wonder if my mother will say something when I return home later. Well, let’s go and think about it then.

I stayed in my dorm for about a week and read hundreds of novels.

And I learned something quite unusual: social criticism and satirical novels were popular in the Kingdom of Haren. In a despotic monarchy where the king is the secular ruler of all the peoples and the head of the Eastern Church.

It wasn’t difficult to guess what happened.

“It looks like the royal family is deliberately sponsoring this… .”

The royal family sponsors social criticism novels in order to hand over power to the citizens.

This country is also really complicated and bizarre.

But it wasn’t bad. Rather, it was very good. In the end, isn’t literature moving forward with two wings: pure literature and participatory literature?

After closing the last book I bought at the bookstore, I left my dorm and headed to a place I had known about for a week in advance.

A building with ‘Ivan Publishing House’ written on it.

Without hesitation, I opened the door and went inside.

“Are you there?”

“Hmm? Who are you?”

“I am a translator. I came here because I wanted to work.”

“Yes?”

A publishing company that published the poor translations that were included in the translations I saw at the bookstore.

As a reader before becoming a translator, I could not tolerate the poor quality of the translation. Even in my past life, how much suffering did I have to endure because of literature that had been badly translated without proper translations?

“It’s okay to work without pay, so please give me a job for just one week. If there is a book that needs urgent translation, I will take care of it.”

“… Ah, yes. Let me talk to the editor first.”

“Yes. Here are the manuscripts I ‘translated’. I hope you find this helpful in your decision. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“What can I tell you is your name?”

I thought about how to answer the employee’s question for a moment.

I was reluctant to say my real name, and it was also difficult to say the names of Homer or Herodotus.

“… Sophocles.”

“Yes?”

“This is Sophocles.”

“Ah, yes. Mr. Sophocles.”

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As a result, I succeeded in getting a job.

The editor-in-chief of Ivan Publishing seemed to quite like my translation. Or maybe he was tempted by the word “unpaid.” I do not know.

My role here was to translate the literature of the ‘Empire’, but occasionally I also translated foreign books written in other languages.

“Hey, senior.”

“Yes! Oh no, yes! Mr. Sophocles.”

“We have created simple guidelines for you to refer to when translating. Since there are many cases where it is translated without any standards, I thought that if I set some principles, I would be able to translate more productively.”

“Ah, yes! Thank you!”

So I translated several books into Haren.

Reading books from the Kingdom of Haren, researching various social backgrounds needed for translation, and analyzing trends in the market.

I ‘plagiarized’ a book in my spare time.

“Editor-in-Chief.”

“Yes~. Our lucky Sophocles! what’s the matter? Is the translation already finished?”

“I would like to publish a novel at our publishing company.”

“Huh? Other than translation?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm… Well, nothing difficult! Thanks to Sophocles, our publishing company is also growing. What kind of novel is this?”

“It’s a novel called Les Misérables.”

“Poor person? The title is good.”