Chapter 22
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Reader II
Shin No-a
4
I was deeply satisfied with the 'Canned Hotel' I had constructed myself.
Pangs of conscience? Such things didn't exist. Weren't these writers who would otherwise die meaningless deaths in other iterations anyway? Even the Saintess, who could be called the very incarnation of ethics, would surely give me a thumbs up for my actions.
[...Mr. Undertaker.]
"Yes? What is it, Saintess?"
[...No. It's nothing.]
Above all, I was genuinely saving the writers' lives.
Remember how I mentioned the monster called the 'Reincarnation Truck' earlier?
The Reincarnation Truck is a mysterious monster that appears probabilistically to readers of web novels, a truck that causes collision accidents while saying 'I'll transport you to a world where your favorite novel's setting is fully realized!'
It's not a lie, it's a real monster. This thing.
If you're an avid web novel reader, one day while walking down the street, you might suddenly experience—
-BWAAAH!
—a horn blaring. And when you turn your head, an 11-ton cargo truck would be racing furiously toward you.
Its characteristic is that instead of numbers on its license plate, the title of a work is engraved there.
Perhaps someone might think 'Ah! Finally I can escape this monster hell apocalyptic peninsula!' and rejoice, even actively trying to kiss the truck with their lips, but give it up.
I tried getting hit 3 times as a test, and there was nothing—no dimension transfer whatsoever. It's the same bullshit monster as 'Hero Syndrome.'
Anyway, these Reincarnation Trucks appear not only to readers but also to writers. Because writers are also the first readers of their own novels.
In other words?
-BWAAAAAAAH!
-BEEP! BEEEP! BWAAAAAAH!
-BWAAAAH! BWAAAH!
Cargo trucks began lining up and parking one after another in front of the 'Canned Hotel' I had built.
"Eeek... All these strange trucks have gathered in front of our revolutionary hideout!"
Even the fairies, who were veterans when it came to monsters, tilted their heads in wonder at this bizarre sight.
Those trucks shouldn't be taken lightly.
Wherever and whenever the protagonist of a creative work walks, the Reincarnation Truck employs earth-shrinking techniques to chase them down, commits hit-and-run, and then leisurely disappears without bearing any legal responsibility.
If you were to list just the protagonists killed by Reincarnation Trucks in creative works throughout history—saviors of worlds, heroes, destroyers, masterminds, gods, extras making appeals (the strongest)—all of them were heroes who could manipulate entire worlds at will.
A grotesque entity with a resume that in no way falls short of the epithet 'Godslayer'!
Unless one was the 'Fairy of Tutorials' who had similarly slaughtered countless protagonists, it would be impossible to deal with that terrifying entity.
"No problems with the defensive barrier, right?"
"Yessir, Comrade Superintendent! No matter how those reactionaries struggle to defy the times, the dialectical development of revolution is the supreme truth! The evolutionary turn of history is a flow that those bourgeois hired thugs can never dare to reverse!"
KWAAAAAANG—!
As if to prove those words, one of the 11-ton trucks came rushing from afar (suddenly appearing from beyond the horizon) and crashed into the hotel's main entrance.
But the hotel's main entrance, where the fairies and I had set up a barricade, remained intact. Only the truck was crumpled like an aluminum can.
-BWAAAAAAH...
-BWAAH! BWAAH...
As if mourning the heroic death of their comrade, the Reincarnation Trucks lined up in the parking lot sounded their horns.
Conversely, the fairies who had come out to the balcony gained a hundredfold courage and wildly waved red flags printed with Che Guevara portraits. Some fairies were even shedding tears and sobbing.
"Ah, Revolución! Revolución!"
"Go die, you fucking imperialists! Petit bourgeoisie!"
"Commune of fairies of all nations! May it be eternal!"
I nodded with satisfaction.
"Hmm, good. The revolutionary vanguard will continue the barricade defense operation. The success or failure of the revolution depends on this operation. Everyone, good work."
"Yes sir! Comrade Superintendent!"
"Viva la Revolución!"
"Our dreams will never end!"
The fairies saluted, displaying a spirit that would have made the citizens of Paris in 1871 give a standing ovation.
Look. This is how much I value the writers' personal safety and security.
Without the Canned Hotel, where would those dozens of trucks have departed to? I saved not only the writers' lives but their readers as well. It would be no exaggeration to say that the entire Korean web novel industry itself owed me its life.
As compensation for such dedication, I didn't ask for much from the writers. Just novels. They only needed to write novels.
If they filled my empty rice bowl with some new feed to eat, I could guarantee protecting them from eating, sleeping, wearing clothes, and Reincarnation Trucks for about 10 years.
After patrolling the security squad, I headed to the Secretariat (Editorial Department). Fairies with a slightly more intellectual feel than the security squad members greeted me.
"Ah, Comrade Superintendent. Welcome."
"Good. Everyone is working hard. It's been a month since the canning started, so the writers must have accumulated enough serialized content by now."
I sent a meaningful gaze to the editor-in-chief fairy.
"Comrade Secretary 264. Bring out the novels that have piled up."
"Understood!"
Fairy 264, who had taken a key position in the Secretariat this iteration, brought out new works printed from the printer.
I waited with rising anticipation, received the new works, and...
I had no choice but to doubt my own eyes.
"What is this?"
A stack of A4 paper that was, to put it mildly—no, excessively—thin for hundreds of writers having written for a month.
It was an amount that wouldn't even make a single novel book, but rather one that could be believed to be a somewhat generous joint anthology.
"...Why is there only this much?"
"But this really is all there is!"
This couldn't be happening.
The writers, whom I had asked to only write novels in exchange for food, sleep, clothes, and protection from Reincarnation Trucks, weren't actually writing novels!
I had returned to the hotel today after finishing a month of Regressor duties (awakening Seo-gyu, cooperating with the Saintess, closing Gates, raising promising candidates, collaborating with Guild Masters, etc.), only to be utterly lost.
No, I endured the whole month waiting only for today.
"I brought in a full 335 writers, and you're saying there aren't even 100 chapters...?"
Tremble.
The manuscript bundle in my hand shook. Anger and disappointment were converted to a seismometer, causing a magnitude 7 convulsion.
Writers who don't write? What difference does that have from unemployed people? At least unemployed people feel anxious that they're killing time meaninglessly when watching movies or dramas, but these so-called writers were self-praising, saying 'I'm not playing,' 'it's experience,' 'learning,' 'I'm being infused with experience from movies and dramas.'
If there's no difference between the two occupational groups (or non-occupational groups), why should I, as a Regressor, consume precious resources to care for these good-for-nothings?
"Who do you expect me to stick this onto!"
"Are you sending them all to the Gulag?"
"This is already a Gulag... No, anyway, where would I send my precious writing slaves!"
I slammed the desk.
"Gather all the writers in the lobby immediately!"
A short while later.
The writers were summoned to the lobby.
But, hmm?
'Did the writers... gain some weight?'
Waddle waddle.
Even when I kidnapped them to the Canned Hotel, their average health condition couldn't exactly be called good, but over the past month, however they managed their diet, they had become quite plump.
A little more time and their facial skin would be radiating gloss 24 hours a day.
"...Writers everyone. This reader is deeply disappointed."
I first exploded in fury at the writers.
"If each person wrote just one chapter a day, that's 335 chapters. In a month, that's over 10,000 chapters. Do you understand? 10,000 chapters. But now! Look at the manuscript in this reader's hand."
"......."
"91 chapters! 91 chapters! Does this make any sense? And when I say 91 chapters, the actual number of writers who wrote is 12! You're telling me only 12 out of 335 people wrote works!"
Whoosh, I scattered the A4 papers from the podium. For reference, these weren't actual manuscript paper but just empty sheets. It was a kind of performance.
I couldn't actually scatter the writings of talented authors on the floor.
Anyway, my performance worked. The writers' expressions changed.
"Even now, this reader is running around day and night for your safety and comfort! But what is this! If you have any excuse, tell this reader!"
"Mmm..."
"Hmm..."
The writers shifted their gaze.
"W-well... Reader-nim. I, I don't have the face to say this. But actually, new works don't just pop out like breathing..."
"...That's right. We tried brainstorming, taking walks, sleeping, everything to somehow write, but nothing really clicked as 'this is it'."
"Reader-nim! Works take longer to conceive than to actually write! That's even more true when preparing a new work!"
"As much as we're imposing on you, we don't want to say this, but objectively speaking, we think demanding new work ideas in just one month was an unreasonable request."
"Precisely!"
"We really, truly didn't not write because we didn't want to—we couldn't write even though we wanted to. We want to write too. But it doesn't get written. We're going crazy...!"
After that, the writers continued their chorus, trading lines like founding members of an acapella choir that had been together for over 10 years.
Hearing the writers' explanations, I hesitated.
'...That sounds plausible?'
Certainly... I heard that creation is a continuous series of pain.
There are writers who take 3 or 4 years after completing one work before writing a new one, aren't there?
Perhaps my demand for new works in just one month was unreasona—. Hmm?
"...Wait a moment. The writers who need to prepare new works here are only 126 people. The rest were serializing existing works, weren't they?"
The writers flinched.
"Why couldn't those people write? They were serializing just fine without any serialization breaks before entering the hotel!"
"Environmental adaptation...!"
The writers chanted.
"The serialization environment is so delicate. Some writers only write at home, some only at cafes, some get separate studios to write."
"But no one writes at hotels..."
"It's totally different story."
"Yesterday my rhinitis was bad so I couldn't sleep, and when I sat in front of the monitor my head was just blank and nothing would write. Like I didn't even want to put my hands on the keyboard?"
"Ah, I know exactly what that feeling is...!"
"I had too much time so I kept revising and editing and revising and editing, trapped in an infinite Tsukuyomi. I feel like I'm losing my mind."
"When facing a work environment for the first time, you have to rebuild your writing habits from the bottom up. Serialization is ultimately about habit, you know?"
"As expected, since you're all writers, we communicate well. Sigh. This is something outsiders who haven't personally experienced long-term serialization can neither understand nor empathize with—it's a very detailed aspect."
"That's right. It's really not easy."
Is that so?
Certainly... I heard that creation requires delicate sensibility.
I occupied a luxury hotel in Incheon to provide as comfortable a collective living environment as possible.
More than enough spending money was provided weekly. In this ruined world, and in a closed environment where going outside was impossible, one might think what use was currency, but surprisingly that wasn't the case.
'There's a casino in this hotel's basement.'
Originally it was a foreigners-only casino, but now it had transformed into a paradise exclusively for the writers.
The writers could fully enjoy the casino using the monthly currency as game money. The luxury shopping mall that was originally in the hotel could naturally also be enjoyed with money.
According to the report from Fairy 264, the writers were extremely satisfied with this environment and showed very high casino usage rates.
Truly near-perfect welfare!
'But it is an unfamiliar environment.'
I nodded.
How could a mere reader like me intervene in the deep agony and delicate sensibility of creators?
I could read the writers' psychology using [Mind Reading], but I felt that wouldn't be proper respect for the writers I loved.
"Understood. Then I'll give you one more month."
"No, one month is a bit... at least three months..."
"Ah-ah. No matter how difficult the work, self-flagellating sincerity is required in any profession. I believe in the writers' sincerity."
"Yees..."
"We will do our best..."
A month passed.
75 serialized chapters were placed in my hands.
"Why did it decrease!"
I couldn't hide my shock. Why was this happening?
The fairy smiled brightly.
"But this is all there is!"
"No... Secretary. Does this make sense? 335 people. 335 people! If each person wrote just one chapter a week, there would be over a thousand chapters. But not 750, not even 75?"
I summoned the writers again and pressed them, but the answer that came back was the same.
And when a person gives two chances and the same answer returns, that means it's an excuse.
Unfortunately, the writers could no longer be trusted. Thinking about it, it seems like a filter of bean pod scales had been over my eyes from the beginning.
An expert. I needed an expert who could objectively analyze why this situation had occurred.
And after visiting and consulting with an expert, I immediately received an answer.
"Are you stupid? The environment is too good, mister."
The Infinite Regressor Spins a Tale