Thank you to all the readers who have loved ‘The Academy's Genius Scoundrel’ all this time.
Over the course of writing nearly 100 chapters, I was able to keep going thanks to your support and interest.
Thank you to everyone who read this flawed work to the very end.
I will return with better writing in my next work.
Author Danu.
└Huh? Me, support you? I think all I did was leave a shitload of hate comments?
└It was shitty knowing you, and let's never see each other again!
└Author, please retire…… I'm begging you.’
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.
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***
‘Ha, fuuuck.’
Somehow, it felt like a single completion afterword had gotten more comments than I received throughout the entire serialization.
I read the comments one by one, suppressing the suicidal urges that kept surging up inside me.
‘I don't even have enough money left to eat before I die…….’
I'd loved novels since I was young, and after finishing my military service, I'd boldly thrown my hat into the webnovel market. But after two years, all I had left was the title of aspiring writer that I still couldn't shake off, my family's disapproving looks, depression, and panic disorder.
‘Other people have management companies reaching out to them just fine, get donations, and even get recommendation posts. What's wrong with me?’
I knew perfectly well.
My writing was fuuuuucking boring.
That was the biggest problem.
I'd studied successful novels for input and tried applying the useful tips I'd learned by subscribing to famous authors on WiTube, but whether I simply had no talent or all of it had been wasted effort, my skill was still stuck in place.
At least this work, ‘The Academy's Genius Scoundrel,’ had gotten a relatively good response…… or so I'd deluded myself.
When an extra I'd put in as comic relief was wiped out in an instant along with his students and the entire academy, a wave of hate comments came in, followed by readers dropping the story.
‘How the hell was I supposed to know that character was the one keeping this novel alive…….’
Lucas von Kraus.
He was a character I'd made without much thought.
Inspired by a character called ‘Queen’ from Wan Punch Man, I created a character who ‘wasn't strong, but was mistaken for being strong.’
He was a descendant of the Ranger people, naturally gifted with exceptional eyesight, but he had been cursed and couldn't use a bow. So he was driven out of his people, wandered from place to place, and somehow ended up settling down as a professor at an academy.
Thanks to the keen eyesight that was a trait of his people, he could get through most crises, while his appearance, the atmosphere he gave off, and his lack of words made everyone around him mistake him for a powerful man.
In other words, he was a character I'd created to inject humor through a misunderstanding-comedy setup.
His appearance and the aura he gave off were simply traits of his people, and he rarely spoke because he couldn't speak their language and was afraid people would find out if he opened his mouth.
But unexpectedly, whenever I wrote scenes featuring him, the so-called ‘character appeal’ took off.
To think most of my novel's readers had been Lucas fans……
Once the villains wiped out Lucas along with the academy he belonged to, readers began dropping off one after another, and the ranking that had been hovering around page five of Best plummeted. Then I lost motivation, and I could feel the people who'd sent contract offers slowly backing away.
In the end, I wrapped the story up with a trainwreck ending before even reaching 100 chapters.
I hadn't abandoned the serialization midway partly out of stubbornness, and partly because I was worried my pen name might leave a bad impression. But even after completing it, it looked like I'd already blown any chance of leaving a good one. Judging by how most of the afterword comments were hate comments.
“Ah, fuck it. I don't know anymore.”
I should just buy some quick-light charcoal and die.
‘I'll do this with the resolve that if I fail, I'll die.’
I had no face to return to the home I'd boldly stormed out of.
I crawled under the blanket and kept refreshing the comments.
The hate comments just kept piling up.
“Yaaaaawn.”
The fact that I was getting sleepy even now meant I was completely hopeless.
My eyelids grew heavier and heavier until they finally closed completely.
***
WHOOSH—!
CLANG—! CLANG—!
SLASH—!
Aaargh!
“#@%^$(”
“$#%@!!”
-Mmm……
It was noisy around me.
Noisy enough to force my eyes open even though they refused to budge.
And when they did, what spread out before me wasn't my familiar studio apartment, but a scene straight out of a war movie.
Flames engulfed everything around me, and shreds of flesh flew through the air.
-Huh?
I felt an inexplicable sense of déjà vu.
Then a gloomy, low voice sounded in my ear.
-A lofty spire, surrounded by a demon of flame, collapses.
Groans and fragments of flesh scatter in every direction.
-Oh, right. I definitely wrote a sentence like that…… Wait. That's from my novel, isn't it? Ghk!
I turned toward the voice and saw a man drenched in blood staring at me with empty eyes.
-Yes. This is the landscape you created. How is it, seeing it for real?
-…….
I couldn't say anything.
The man's blood-soaked state was one thing, but the peculiar atmosphere around him made it impossible to open my mouth. I felt like I'd die if I did.
-Luina, Baron, Kareen, Dejan, Havertz, Eden, Fernando, Elling…….
A flood of names poured from the man's mouth.
Some were familiar. Others I'd never heard before.
-Do you know who they are?
But I knew what they were.
-The extras…… from my novel.
Students from an academy that had been reduced to ruins overnight by a villain attack.
-The children you gave names to, and the children you did not. Every one of them was alive. Until just moments ago.
The man gestured at the massacre unfolding around us.
-Why did it have to be this place?
-B-Because…… the story needed to progress…….
-Then could you not at least have given me the strength to fight back?
-B-But…….
That wasn't what you were for.
The thought flashed through my mind, and for an instant, my thoughts stopped dead.
-Huh? You are…… n-no way…….
This atmosphere. This appearance. This oppressive presence.
-Lucas.
-Yes. Lucas, the character you created to play the clown. Because of that damned role, I had to watch my students die. I had to leave the people precious to me to die!
A red liquid trickled down from his eyes.
My heart pounded.
Lucas didn't possess the combat power to kill me.
And yet this oppressive presence, this atmosphere, felt as if it would crush me to death all on its own.
-I made a decision. I would make you the same as me. I would make you feel the exact same pain I felt.
The bloodstains that began at his eyes traced a picture across his entire body, then reached me through the pool of blood on the floor. A geometric pattern surged over my body.
-Now, it's your turn.
His chilling voice struck my ears, and the picture drawn in blood consumed my entire body.
Then my vision went black.
***
WHIRR—
In the dark room, the computer turned on by itself.
It automatically connected to Sseolpia and opened the notice-writing screen.
Then letters began typing themselves onto the screen, one by one.
-R E M A K E N O T I C E