Something is going terribly wrong.
Noel Grace simply couldn't shake that thought.
Watching the people around her falling into 「The Bridges of Imperium Town」 one by one as if addicted, she realized it was time to admit it.
That the dopamine she released thinking it was just a taste test was beyond imagination in this world which lacked resistance.
"Was it this much?"
Now Noel felt like she understood why such dramas kept coming out endlessly despite being called Makjang.
No matter how many people curse it and ignore it… because it's fun!
It's stimulating, dopamine bursts out while watching, and you end up watching even while thinking this makes no sense.
There is no right or wrong in that.
So she was afraid.
Worried about whether it was okay to keep writing like this when she couldn't know what kind of ripple effect it would cause.
There was plenty to write.
The problem was that she wasn't sure if she should.
If people are making this much fuss over just one 「The Bridges of Imperium Town」, what would happen if they tasted even stronger dopamine…?
'I don't care if the world burns, but what if the fire reaches me?'
If she could just watch the fire from across the river, she wouldn't know, but she had an ominous imagination that calamity might befall her if she kept writing such texts.
Because she realized the surrounding reaction was unusual enough to trigger such imagination.
So, Noel felt the necessity to prepare a fire suit before it was too late.
After pondering, she asked,
"Princess, if you don't mind, could you become my patron?"
It felt like entrusting a fish to a cat, but she decided to rely on Princess Lydia.
They say if you can't beat them, join them.
For personal protection and dealing with various problems, where else would there be a card as useful as a Royal?
Since Princess Lydia didn't seem like someone who would be pushed away even if pushed, she decided to gratefully accept her fandom.
And at such a request from Noel, Princess Lydia,
"With pleasure!"
Nodded as if she had been waiting for only those words.
"I was also thinking that I definitely wanted to sponsor a talented artist someday."
Princess Lydia said with her eyes sparkling.
In this era—no, always—art and culture have been dominated by the wealthy.
Sponsoring a talented artist was a liberal art and vanity of the noble class.
Should one say they compete over how excellent and great the artist they sponsor is?
It felt sort of like boasting about a pet, and Princess Lydia, who had never directly sponsored an artist until now, had been waiting for a day like today.
Seeing her like that, Noel felt a pang of conscience.
Originally, the artist who received Princess Lydia's sponsorship was──.
'The Childhood Friend who is the main heroine.'
It was the original protagonist's childhood friend whom one meets at the Academy.
The composition was that she would sponsor that childhood friend who was knowledgeable in music, and using that as a link, the original protagonist would connect with the Princess, but it ended up like this.
'Well, but… there's no law saying she has to sponsor only one person, right? I can receive sponsorship, and the main heroine can meet her at the Academy later and receive sponsorship too.'
Noel thought lightly and moved on.
Right now, her own nose was three feet long (she was in deep trouble herself).
She didn't know what the fans who went berserk would do if she kept releasing dopamine like this, yet she was in a predicament where she couldn't stop writing either.
She absolutely refused to end up like Misery.
Just imagining it was terrible enough to give her goosebumps.
To secure her personal safety, Noel absolutely needed the Royal Friend Shield, the pinnacle of Friend Shields.
'Well, it'll work out somehow.'
Thinking what big deal would happen just because I met the Princess first and got some sponsorship, Noel moved on lightly.
Honestly, right now the immediate task was more urgent, so she didn't have the leisure to think deeply about the admission that was a year away and the original story that would start with that admission.
"Princess, this…."
The sponsorship matter was resolved well, and now it was time to start work in earnest.
Noel presented what she brought in front of the Princess as if offering a tribute.
"This is?"
"It's a fairy tale I was writing to gift to my sister. Hmm, since it's come to this, I was wondering how it would be to publish it together with 「The Bridges of Imperium Town」."
No matter how much she thought about it, she felt the need to purify the stimulating taste of 「The Bridges of Imperium Town」 a little.
Starting her career as a Makjang adultery novel author felt a bit iffy… so she decided to release the fairy tale together to patch up her image a little.
Like milk prepared when eating spicy food.
She wondered how meaningful it would be, but wouldn't it still be better than doing nothing?
"A fairy tale…? You knew how to write such things too?"
Look at this.
Even Princess Lydia had this reaction right away.
『Weren't you a Makjang specialist author?』
Noel felt like she could hear a voice saying that in her ear.
Holding back a bitter smile, Noel naturally thought she did well to care about this.
An author's image is quite important.
Noel, who knew that well through her experience as web novel author Kim Doha, naturally cared.
Isn't it fine as long as I write entertainingly?
Is there anyone who cares about things like author image?
There might be people who think like that, but there is an impact.
Using a restaurant analogy, something like "I came because they said this place is good at Kimchi Stew, but what is this? Where did the Kimchi Stew go and why are they selling Pasta?" could happen.
Of course, if that pasta is delicious, there might be customers who eat without much complaint saying, "Wow, I thought it was a Kimchi Stew place but the pasta is delicious too!"
But are there only such customers in the world?
It would be fortunate if they just left without eating, but they might eat the pasta and keep talking about Kimchi Stew, or if even one thing displeases them, they ruin the atmosphere saying this is why they should have just stuck to boiling Kimchi Stew.
Other customers are bound to be influenced by such evaluations.
Therefore, Noel wanted to publish the fairy tale together, just as actors fear a fixed image and attempt acting transformations, so that prejudices wouldn't form as much as possible.
Believing that it would act as a buffer, even a little.
"I've thought about this before, but Lady Noel seems to have a very fast writing speed."
Princess Lydia opened her eyes wide, asking if writing a book wasn't something that took years originally.
It's not that there aren't fast-writing and prolific authors here too, but it wasn't the norm.
The writing environment and people's perception itself were different from Earth, where it was natural to pump out at least 5,000 characters a day.
"Have you perhaps been writing for a very long time?"
"Ah──."
Noel, who was about to honestly say she just wrote it all in a month and it wasn't that hard since she had a sample, snapped to her senses.
'Why tell the truth? What if I become a convenient dopamine manufacturing machine?'
Historically, they say one hides 30% of their skill in the Jianghu (Murim world).
Considering the current situation was no different from a dangerous Jianghu, 30% wasn't enough.
Noel decided to hide 50%.
"Writing itself was fast, but instead, I have been conceptualizing it in my head for that much longer."
Noel exaggerated, claiming she conceptualized the ideas for 3 years to write one book, but Princess Lydia was surprised hearing that.
"Since Lady Noel is 15 now… does that mean you conceptualized such a masterpiece since you were 12? You are truly a genius! They say the great literary figure the Empire boasts of also wrote love letters for a maid at 12…!"
Seeing Princess Lydia making a fuss saying she felt like she was seeing the second coming of that figure, Noel felt something was wrong.
It felt like she was wearing rose-tinted glasses, and thick ones at that.
But this too was a sort of build-up….
"So 「The Bridges of Imperium Town」 can also be completed soon, right?"
Say yes, Author-nim.
Princess Lydia looked at Noel with eyes that felt like she was shouting that.
At that silent pressure, Noel had no choice but to simply nod.
Of course, writing is fun.
It's enjoyable that people go crazy for her writing.
She also has a sublime? goal of turning the whole world into a dopamine festival.
But feeling resistance to being 'Canned' was an unavoidable instinctual realm as an author.
It was the same as a cow shedding tears instinctively as it's dragged to the slaughterhouse.
『It's comfortable if you give up.』
She heard Kim Doha's voice sounding transcended… but she didn't want to live like her past life even after being reborn.
She wanted to be someone who wrote when she wanted to, threatening readers like the author of Game of Thrones.
'But basically, the readers here are the wealthy class, nobles, or Royals, right? It probably won't work.'
She had to think of it as the price for taking a Royal as a backer, what other way was there?
It was Noah (Noel) trudging back to her room to become a writing machine.
"This is the fairy tale Lady Noel wrote…."
Princess Lydia returned to the guest room holding the manuscript preciously in her arms.
With sparkling eyes, she looked at the fairy tale──more precisely, the collection of fairy tales──that Noel ended up writing for her sister.
"Oh my, there isn't just one story? How on earth did she think of this many stories…?"
A voice unable to hide the amazement.
The secret, of course, lay in her past life.
Because she adapted Earth's fairy tales to fit this world.
That adaptation was also a form of creation, but since she wasn't writing from a zero base, she could be prolific without great difficulty.
「The Hatchling That Repaid Kindness」 「The Elf and the Woodcutter」 「The Princess and the Seven Dwarves」 Every single one was interesting and a good story fitting the theme of a fairy tale.
They were beneficial stories for children's education with a structure of encouraging good and punishing evil, and so it was surprising. It was to the extent she wondered if this was really written by the same person who wrote「The Bridges of Imperium Town」.
If she had seen it without knowing the circumstances, she would have thought it was a work written by a professional fairy tale author. The fairy tales Noel showed Princess Lydia were that excellent. Did the person who wrote the novel fitting the description of a forbidden taste really write this? Such thoughts didn't stop.
The more she read the fairy tales, the childhood innocence she had paid as the price for being born as a Royal seemed to squirm inside Princess Lydia. 「The Hatchling That Repaid Kindness」, 「The Elf and the Woodcutter」, and 「The Princess and the Seven Dwarves」 all fit Princess Lydia's taste perfectly to that extent. Among them, reading 「The Elf and the Woodcutter」, Princess Lydia felt it was a story that gave the reader much to think about, unlike a typical fairy tale.
「The Elf and the Woodcutter」, adapted from Earth's folktale, was the story of a woodcutter who helped an Elf chased by slave hunters. Through that story, Princess Lydia came to empathize with why barbaric acts like slavery, which was rampant in the continent in the past, were abolished.
At the same time, it became an opportunity to deeply contemplate love or friendship between humans and other races. A prosperous Empire. She heard that intoxicated by the greatness of that Empire, a bad ideology viewing other races that aren't human as beneath humans was squirming these days.
Saying only humans are the race truly blessed by God and other races are all demi-humans or whatever; she heard it was an ideology born as a result of a branch of humanism going out of control. To prevent children from being negatively influenced by such unrighteous thoughts, Princess Lydia even had the thought that this fairy tale should be designated as required reading for children. And she didn't end it with just a thought. "I must seek an audience with Royal Father."
Because recommending a required reading book wasn't something a Royal individual could just do because they wanted to. In vulgar terms, she intended to use the 'Daddy Chance'. The publication work she started initially just to fill her self-interest… was now somehow becoming a task for the future of the Empire and the Continent.