Episode 45: Newspaper Serialization and Competition (3) Fin
-Huh? What’s this old board game?-
-Real Life? That’s a strange name for a board game.-
The beginning of [Real Life], the new work by Melissa, who was using the pen name “Timid Young Lady” that Wade had given her based on her true personality, opened with four protagonists discovering an old board game in an old warehouse, one bearing the same name as the novel’s title.
“Real Life? Has a board game like this ever come out before?”
“Could that be possible? Of course it must be a fictional board game.”
“...Or perhaps Author Wei is giving us an advance look at a game he’s going to release
in the future.”
“What? Then this is a story introducing a new board game?”
“Considering Author Wei wrote the background story for a fighting game before, isn’t that possible?”
“That... makes sense?!”
While people’s guesses, though somewhat backwards in order, were not entirely wrong, continued to pile up...
-Looking at it, I think this can still be used. Want to give it a try?-
-Sure. It feels wrong to just throw away something usable. Who knows, maybe it’s actually a surprisingly fun game?-
The protagonists, who were simply ordinary young commoners, naturally failed to sense the strange magical energy emanating from it. They unfolded the board, chatted among themselves, and began the game.
And immediately, the strange magic was activated.
-Whoa! What is this? My, my outfit really changed like a knight’s?!-
-No, I just picked the nun card from the job cards! I’m not an actual nun?!
The goddess isn’t going to punish me for this later, right?-
-We changed to match the jobs we selected?
What on earth is going on?!-
In an instant, the protagonists had transformed into appearances modeled after the jobs they had chosen.
A knight clad in armor.
A mage wearing a pointed hat.
A nun in a nun’s habit whose fabric seemed slightly lacking in coverage.
And lastly, a merchant who had turned into a potbellied man holding an abacus.
Their transformed appearances, kindly drawn as illustrations, captured their bewildered expressions exactly as they were.
“What is this? It wasn’t just an ordinary board game?!”
“It’s an artifact! And one imbued with extremely high-level magic, at that!”
“They changed into the jobs they selected? Then could the content of the game that proceeds from here also...?”
The readers who saw it also sensed that something was unusual, abandoned the subtly dismissive attitude they had held until just moments before, and quickly began to take interest.
Of course they did. They had thought it was just about fiddling with an ordinary board game.
But if it suddenly revealed the shocking twist that it was an artifact containing strange magic, how could they possibly ignore it and move on?
Especially if it was not some convenience magic placed on ordinary board games in an arcade, but rather a magic so powerful and forceful that it could arbitrarily change a person’s appearance in an instant.
An instinctive premonition and sense of expectation flashed through every reader’s mind: there was no way an object containing such powerful magic would end with merely changing appearances.
And soon, it was revealed that the readers’ premonition had not been wrong.
-Wait! The dice! The game is telling us to roll the dice right now! Where are the dice?!-
-H-How would we know that?! How many seconds are left?!-
-No! We’re too late!-
While the protagonists were panicking over their suddenly changed appearances...
Perhaps displeased that they had started the game yet failed to roll the dice, the game declared that the time limit had been exceeded, and the dice began rolling on their own.
-As a penalty for exceeding the time limit, the event that occurs this turn will be fixed as a combat event.-
The problem was that a phrase appeared saying that, as a penalty for breaking the time limit, the event had been fixed as combat.
The protagonists sensed something ominous from the phrase and immediately tried to stop the game.
-No! The board won’t fold! The game piece won’t stop either!-
-Damn it! Stop! Please stop!-
No matter how desperately the protagonists grabbed at it and struggled, the game piece, unmoved in the slightest by their efforts and driven by an overwhelming force, advanced on its own.
-Event Occurred!
Stop the “Monster Wave”!-
In the end, when it stopped on a square, such a phrase appeared.
And at that very moment...
-Uh...? What is this? My head feels dizzy...-
-It feels like the world is spinning...-
The protagonists, overcome by dizziness, lost consciousness.
When they opened their eyes, they found themselves standing not in the living room of the house where they had begun the board game, but atop some massive castle wall.
-W-What are those?!-
-Monsters? They’re really monsters?!-
Graaaaargh!!!
With them screaming as they watched hundreds of monsters swarming toward them beyond the castle wall...
Episode 1 of [Real Life] came to an end.
“No, how can they cut it off here?!”
“This is the moment the most important part is about to begin, and it ends here? They want us to wait until the next newspaper comes out?!”
“So what happens next?
The protagonists can survive, right??”
And along with it rang the screams of readers who had tasted an even harsher Cliffhanger Demonic Art than during formal publication.
***
Melissa, the novice author using the pen name Timid Young Lady, had recently been feeling an immense psychological burden.
The reason? Simple.
“Uaaaah. Why is the novel selling so well...”
Because the novel she was serializing was selling far too well.
If someone heard that, they might get angry and ask if she was trying to humblebrag, but Melissa was serious.
She sincerely thought it would be nice if it sold just a little less well.
After all, Melissa was every bit as timid a young lady as her pen name suggested.
To someone like her, the attention pouring down on her was far too much.
To be precise, the attention was not on Melissa herself, but on the novel she had written. But to Melissa, it was all the same.
“I was prepared for it, but I didn’t want it to go this far...!”
Of course, when she had first decided to write a novel, she had been prepared to receive a certain amount of attention.
After all, if it did not, she would not be able to redirect interest back toward board games, so it was only natural.
The problem was that, while she had prepared herself for that...
After she began collaborating with Wade, the original plan had gone completely off course.
“How did it end up like this...?”
Originally, her plan had been to publish it moderately, then circulate a few copies within the family to redirect only the servants’ interest.
Somehow, however, that had changed into regular serialization in a newspaper.
At the same time, it had even formed a competitive structure with Wade’s work, which was being serialized alongside it.
“Board games are the losers of a bygone era, and the superior game is the fighting game!
This can even be proven magically!”
“Nonsense! Board games themselves haven’t even been out for that long, so what are you talking about with eras?!
If you’re a junior game that came out later, quietly show the senior game the respect it deserves!”
That competitive structure naturally developed into a competition between board games and fighting games.
“Yeah. But in the end, the one who made that board game was also Author Wei, and Author Wei wrote his new work with fighting games as the theme, didn’t he?
Then hasn’t he officially acknowledged that fighting games are superior?”
“Shut up! What does ‘official’ know?!
The evaluation of a game is made by the users who enjoy it!”
“What.”
Because it was not simply a matter of releasing a single volume and ending there, but a regular serialization, reactions were constantly being updated in real time without pause.
As a result, it was continuously blazing hot and drawing in attention.
“At this rate, we won’t even need to bring out the weapons we prepared in case it didn’t sell.”
The fervor exceeded expectations so greatly that Wade said as much.
It was only natural that Melissa, whose prepared resolve had proven insufficient, rapidly shrank in on herself.
“Ugh. This wasn’t the feeling I had in mind at all.”
In any case, this was something that had happened because she had agreed to it, so though it felt unfair, she had brought it on herself.
But even so, it still felt somehow unfair.
“My lady, are you not playing board games anymore?
How about we play together for the first time in a while? Hehe.”
“Ah, me too! Me too!”
At least she had achieved her goal of raising interest in board games again.
If not for even that, she would not have been able to endure it.
At any rate, taking comfort in the fact that she could enjoy board games again...
Melissa somehow held on and continued her serialization.
Still, she did have the positive thought that if she continued serializing like this and grew used to it, perhaps this timid personality of hers might be corrected a little.
“Ah, Melissa. Come to think of it, I’ve been reading your novel lately.
I had no idea you had such talent.”
“...Pardon?”
At least, until Count Gideon, her father and the head of the family, said that.
Melissa stared blankly for about ten seconds, processing her father’s words.
The moment she understood their meaning, she cried out in shock.
“Aaaaah, you knew?!”
“What do you mean? That you’re serializing a novel in the newspaper? Of course I did.
Did you perhaps think I didn’t know?”
The count answered with a hollow laugh.
After all, it was only natural for him to know what his precious youngest daughter was doing.
Moreover, when the place she went out to was the Publishing Guild, and one of the people she met was Guildmaster Ariana of the Publishing Guild, there was no way he could not know.
It might have been different if Melissa had been accustomed to hiding such activities, but that was not particularly the case either.
“That’s true...”
“Don’t worry. I have no intention of scolding you for hiding it from this father of yours.”
“Really?! You won’t be angry that I lowered the dignity of the family?!”
“I don’t know why you thought that.
But serializing a novel in the newspaper is not something that particularly harms the family’s dignity, is it?”
Fortunately, the father whom she had thought would scold her harshly and forbid the serialization unexpectedly did nothing of the sort and only praised her.
Melissa was briefly stunned by that reaction.
“Now that I think about it, Father also enjoyed board games quite a bit, and he even personally brought in a fighting game machine, didn’t he?”
Soon, she realized that he had no particular bad feelings or prejudice toward this sort of culture.
Only then could Melissa let out a sincere sigh of relief.
“Huh? Then, Father, does that mean you’ve been reading my novel all along too...?”
“That’s what I said from the start, isn’t it?
Not only me. Your mother and your brothers are probably all keeping up with it as well.
The servants likely are too.”
“Wh... what did you say...?
Everyone in our family has been reading my writing...?”
“Yes. They’re all looking forward to it, you know? To just how much more entertaining the next chapter will be.”
Of course, after that, upon realizing the truth that everyone in her family had been reading her writing and was even looking forward to it...
“Hieeeek...!”
Her sense of burden only grew even heavier.