Episode 2: Hero Stories and Breaking Clichés (1)
I realized at once that I was fucked.
Because this wasn’t some beggar’s street chant I’d happened to hear in passing. This was a guest personally invited by our family, performing with all her might, and I had gone and declared it boring in the middle of it.
And it wasn’t even an ordinary “this is boring” declaration.
It was practically teabagging, a dismissal on the level of, “I could do better than that.”
Even simply declaring it boring would have been rude enough—throwing away my dignity as a noble and failing to uphold the courtesy owed to an invited guest.
But since I’d even thrown in that teabagging, I couldn’t complain if she felt it was less rudeness and more insult.
On top of that, the person I’d insulted was none other than a nationwide superstar.
A wildly popular superstar with fans even among those lofty high nobles.
Add in the special nature of her race as an elf, and she was by no means someone who could be looked down on as “just a minstrel.”
If Aria held a grudge over this incident and then casually let slip to other nobles or society circles—
“I had this rather unpleasant experience at the House of Viscount Byron the other day...”
What would happen?
“The House of Viscount Byron? I never thought of them that way, but what a truly rude and faithless family!”
“Goodness, how did they raise their children?
How can a noble lack that much dignity?”
“Hey, House of Viscount Byron. You’re out of our social gatherings.”
Wouldn’t our family’s reputation be utterly smashed to pieces, in roughly that sort of way?
In this medieval fantasy world, reputation among nobles was naturally one of the most important things of all.
Thus, the moment he grasped the danger of the situation—
Thud!
“I am truly sorry, Lady Aria!
My foolish second son has committed a grave discourtesy.
Allow me to apologize like this!”
My father, Viscount Gilbert Byron, fulfilled his responsibility as both father and family head by apologizing to Aria for the rudeness.
While grabbing my head and forcibly slamming my forehead onto the table, that is.
...It was a slightly extreme method, but I could understand it well enough.
I was the one in the wrong.
And judging only by the current situation, I wouldn’t have had anything to say even if I were treated not merely as an idle wastrel, but as a complete scoundrel.
‘If you’ve done wrong, the first thing you do is bow your damn head.’
So I didn’t even scream, merely kept my head meekly lowered and showed an attitude of repentance.
Though my forehead, smashed down by my father’s urgent hand—a former knight’s hand—was starting to hurt quite a bit.
Perhaps thanks to that immediate and extreme apology.
Fortunately, instead of getting angry, Aria asked me a question.
“...Was it truly that uninteresting? My song?”
In other words, was her performance really a one-star, boring-as-hell performance?
If a guy had a brain in his head instead of udon noodles, wasn’t there only one thing to say here?
“Goodness, of course not!
I was thinking it was the finest song I’d ever heard in my life! Heh heh heh!”
Before my father could even signal at me from the side to answer properly.
I reflexively shouted, “That isn’t true at all!” and gave an answer thick with flattery, but—
“Is that true? From the heart?”
Aria only frowned.
She didn’t seem to believe me at all.
Mm. Well, I wouldn’t believe me either.
A guy who’d been criticizing it as boring up until one minute ago had suddenly changed his tune like Udyr and started singing praises to the heavens. If she believed that, it would be a problem with her intelligence.
In the end, I had no choice but to tell the truth.
“To be honest, it’s because I don’t really enjoy the songs of minstrels.”
“Why not?”
“The style doesn’t suit my taste.”
In other words, the songs of minstrels were boring and tiresome in terms of prose style, structure, and story.
Of course, she didn’t understand.
As I said before, to the people of this world, a minstrel’s song was both a traditional method of storytelling and the highlight performance of a comprehensive art form.
In this dull world with no entertainment, this was basically the club and the nightlife, you know?
Naturally, she probably hadn’t seen anyone who disliked it.
But a performance everyone had loved until now.
And not just any performance, but that of a superstar who must have received countless praises—suddenly, some guy said he hated it?
This wasn’t some trashy drama. Was she supposed to go, “You’re the first one to ever treat me like this!” and fall for me?
Of course it would only wound her pride.
And Aria seemed angrier about her wounded pride than about the rudeness I’d shown her.
Perhaps that was why she declared to me,
“You clearly said that even if you wrote the script yourself, it would be more entertaining than what I wrote, didn’t you?
Then would you show me that skill of yours?
If you do, I will accept your apology and let this matter pass.”
In other words, if you don’t like it, write it yourself.
“...”
I was really fucked now, wasn’t I?
***
If you’re so frustrated, write it yourself!
To think I’d actually end up on the receiving end of that line, the one that reminded me of a certain soccer player.
It was a bolt from the blue, but naturally, I was in no position to refuse.
It was karma I’d brought upon myself.
And honestly speaking, this was a fairly generous way of letting it slide.
Telling me to write a script myself didn’t feel like she intended to publicly humiliate me or anything like that.
Rather, it felt like she wanted me to experience the difficulty of creation and learn not to run my mouth so carelessly.
And in any case, if I failed to write something as entertaining as I’d claimed I could, the embarrassment would come automatically.
Hmm, looking at it this way, it kind of felt like being educated by a teacher.
Was it because she had so many years behind her after all?
“Haah, where and how am I supposed to start writing this?”
“Exactly. Why did you say something like that and bring trouble on yourself?
Didn’t we learn the old saying together, that the mouth is the root of calamity?”
“I didn’t say it on purpose. It just slipped out...”
Naturally, neither my younger sister Lena nor my parents were on my side.
Well, that couldn’t be helped.
I had to clean up the mess I’d made myself.
“But it really was boring.”
“Good grief, you still haven’t come to your senses.
Dear foolish brother. If you don’t want Father to hit you, wouldn’t it be better to stop talking nonsense and hurry up and write?”
Damn it.
That brat Lena was going to tease me with this for quite a while.
Since it was factual and I had nothing to say in response, for the time being I had no choice but to accept the role of a punching bag that gave satisfyingly lively reactions whenever struck.
There was only one way to escape this situation.
“I just have to write something that really is more entertaining.”
“To borrow your manner of speech, as if.
If it were that easy, you’d be a more famous minstrel than Lady Aria.”
Lena gave me the obnoxiously smug expression unique to cheeky little sisters and mocked me as if to say, “You think you can do it just because you want to?”
But didn’t you never know until you tried?
Besides, a good idea had just happened to come to mind.
Using that idea as my foundation, I steeled myself and began to write.
“Huh?”
Unexpectedly, wasn’t it flowing far more smoothly than I’d thought?
‘Why is this writing so well?’
As I applied and corrected, one by one, the things I’d found lacking while comparing this world’s stories to the novels from my previous life.
Despite my worries that this was my first time writing, my pen moved with a rather lively rhythm.
To the point that I almost mistook myself for having a talent as a writer.
Well, since I’d taken in countless works in my previous life, that experience was probably just melting into the writing.
‘But maybe.’
Just maybe.
Compared to the dull books and stories of this world.
Even my writing, which was barely imitating a writer, might be enough to work, couldn’t it?
The countless works from my previous life that I had seen and remembered.
If I could follow even half of them... no, even a quarter of half of them.
If I could put even a little of all the entertainments meant to seduce readers into my writing!
‘Couldn’t it really be possible?’
When that thought surfaced in my mind.
I forgot entirely that this had been a punishment and began to focus on writing.
And Lena, who had been watching me from the side, saw that I, who had been grumbling until just a moment ago, had suddenly begun writing with concentration.
Perhaps finding the sight curious, she approached and asked,
“What’s this, Brother? You’re writing more smoothly than I expected.
What are you writing about?”
“Hm? That’s a spoiler.”
“Spoiler? What does that mean?”
“It means it won’t be fun if I tell you the contents in advance.”
“Ah, then at least tell me the theme.
That much should be fine, right?”
The theme, huh.
Well, I supposed that much was fine to tell her.
I was feeling a little uneasy about whether this idea was really okay anyway.
There was no harm in testing Lena’s reaction first.
“For starters, since I said minstrels’ stories are boring and that I’d write better than them.
Naturally, I should write a theme similar to their stories, right? Heroic epics, that sort of thing.”
“That makes sense.”
“But if I write such a common story exactly as it is, the evaluation will probably be harsh.”
Aria had a long career as a minstrel, so she would know the contents of most stories inside and out.
Of course, even with a common story, if I fleshed it out well, added plot, and made it dramatic.
I could probably earn a decent score.
But rather than that, wouldn’t adding a twist that had never existed before leave a much stronger impression?
“The basic framework is a Hero story.”
A Hero story!
Since this was a fantasy world, naturally it referred to the records or legends left behind by Heroes who had actually existed.
It was a very traditional and famous heroic tale.
And just as much, it was something common and clichéd.
The Hero defeated the Demon King, an evil dragon, demons, and various other adversaries of evil, gained wealth, honor, and power, and lived happily ever after. Roughly that sort of content.
Minstrels kept replaying that stale content over and over in a stiff style, like boiling the same ox bones again and again.
So if I suddenly turned that bone broth, steeped until nothing more could be steeped from it, into a spicy malatang, how surprised would they be?
“So what exactly is that method?”
To my younger sister, who urged me on as if she could no longer hold back her curiosity.
I answered solemnly.
If stories where the Hero triumphed over everything and lived happily-happily were clichéd and tiresome.
“Wouldn’t it work if I had the Hero get betrayed and end up on the verge of death?”
“...Brother, have you really gone insane?”
Mm.
Seeing my sister’s face twist as if she were looking at a madman.
It seemed the impact was definitely there.
‘Nice!’
I clenched my fist and smiled with certainty.
This will work!
***
For the past month, the elf minstrel Aria’s mood had not been very good.
And for good reason.
At the mansion of a noble family she had visited after receiving an invitation, she had suffered a rude insult.
To think she would experience something so absurd not from a high noble, but from an obscure family she’d merely stopped by while passing through.
On the other hand, it also felt rather fresh.
After all, the last time she had experienced such rudeness had been back when she was a novice minstrel, not yet famous.
How many decades ago had that been?
Perhaps it might have been over a hundred years.
No, in the first place, even back then, her beauty and voice had been radiant, so she had rarely ever been picked on like this.
Having experienced something that rare, she was almost at the point of laughing in disbelief.
Of course, that did not mean she wasn’t angry.
Aria took pride in her singing ability and in her talent for creating stories.
And the other party had insulted that.
That was why she had cast “if you don’t like it, try writing it yourself!” upon the noble young master named Wade, who had committed the rudeness.
Should she call it a lesson with a bit of mischief mixed in?
She had received an apology, and Wade seemed to have spoken by mistake rather than with intent.
So instead of seriously protesting and fighting.
She had meant to let a nonprofessional, who knew nothing of the pains of creation.
Experience for himself the anguish of creating a story.
Whether he gave up midway, saying he absolutely couldn’t do it.
Or brought back a complete mess of writing and felt ashamed.
At that point, she intended to gently admonish him about life lessons and consideration.
“It is finished.”
“Pardon? Already?”
Wade submitted the book far faster than she had expected.
It hadn’t even been a month yet.
The book was even rather thick.
Could it be that he had already given up and written any old nonsense just to submit it?
If so, in addition to being rude, he was the type with neither pride nor perseverance.
Inwardly, Aria lowered her evaluation of Wade another notch and resolved that her admonishment would be a little sterner.
With such thoughts in mind, she opened the book, and on the first page—
“Guh! Saintess! Archer! Mage! You three... why have you betrayed me?!”
“I’m sorry, Hero. But now that the Demon King is dead, you, who possess power beyond our control, have become a new risk.”
“If you return unharmed, you will surely become an obstacle to the existing rule.
For the stability of the continent, you must die, Hero.”
“Well, that’s how it turned out. Don’t resent me too much, Hero.
I’m only doing what I was commissioned to do.”
At the end of the journey to defeat the Demon King.
There was a Hero dying with arrows and magic in his back, betrayed by the comrades he had trusted all this time.
“Eh? Eh...?”
Upon seeing that shocking and powerful opening scene, Aria froze in bewilderment and instinctively felt it.
That today would be a great turning point in her life.
Though she still could not know whether it would be for better or for worse.