The Editor Is the Novel’s Extra

—

'So this place is inside the novel manuscript, huh.'

Thought a (former) editor of 5 years, Kim Jungjin.

'…But is it really necessary to go back to my original world?'

To the place where he didn't have a house, or family, or friends, or even a job starting from yesterday?

'I don't know how to go back anyways.'

His thoughts didn't continue for long. The body tired from falling into water soon became exhausted inside the warm blankets. Kim Junjin hazily fell back asleep.

In the Royal Capital Defense Corps affiliated school dorm of the capital city Rudein of Albion Kingdom in Dernier continent.

That place was the background of the novel manuscript <Albion Kingdom's Prince>, which the (former) editor Kim Jungjin had been reviewing up to yesterday.

< Into the Manuscript (1) >

The five years of work life ended fruitlessly.

Because the wholesaler that they did most of their business with went bankrupt, the history-specialized publishing company that had just four employees could only nervously hold onto a dishonored check.

Even besides that, they had been barely hanging on, because books weren't selling. The head of the company decided to just close the publishing company.

Today was the last company dinner.

"Editor Kim Jungjin, you've worked hard up to now."

"Ah no, sir."

"And you've shouldered all sorts of unpleasant tasks, too."

Since there was no place to go if he left there.

Since it wouldn't do if his pay was cut for even one month.

The job of an editor sounded reasonable on the surface, but in reality, it was close to being an author's servant.

It was a job that was far from how it was described in media. There was no impressive authority to change the author's subject and direction.

You took out one annotation and eliminated three original language clarifications[1], and sometimes you had to tearfully implore the author while gripping the phone.

Thanks to that, he had really properly learned how to smile while swearing inwardly. Since, even now he wanted to punch this tiny old man, but was holding back in case he wouldn't get his severance pay.

"Rather, I learned many things thanks to you, sir."

"The authors always praised you. That you worked meticulously."

"I did not do anything particularly impressive – thank you for speaking well of me."

"That's right, you're this polite, too."

The company head who had derided him to his face, saying that his work wasn't satisfactory, that he didn't have any flexibility, spoke contradicting things with one mouth. It was the company head's habit to only be kind when he was drinking.

'Well, whatever. It's the end now.'

News about nuclear rearmament or whatever continued on the television in the pub. In times like this, he wondered what would it matter if the world just ended.

The drinking in the heavy atmosphere ended after emptying several bottles of soju.

It was late at night, and the stuffy feeling didn't go away.

Jungjin thoughtlessly walked home from the company in Gangbuk. Toward the rooftop room he had lived in for several years on the top of the hill in Sangdang-dong.

It was left idle while the house owner was waiting for redevelopment, so the rent was incredibly cheap, but it was that much correspondingly old and uncomfortable.

He received contact that he had to vacate that as well. It was because the redevelopment that had been continuously delayed had arrived.

'If I leave there, where do I go.'

He had come up to Seoul after becoming an adult.

He had grown up roaming a fishing village up until high school.

In order to leave the rural area no matter what, he had placed an application for an unpopular major even within liberal arts. It seemed like he had used his whole life's luck in getting into college.

After that, he worked, and went to school, and worked.

And five years ago when a typhoon came, he paid the hospital costs for his mother, who had hurt her head while looking after a fishery.

The hospital costs for his mother, who had abruptly passed away after several years on a sickbed, was too much to handle for a young adult with student loans first entering the real world.

His father had passed away on an ocean ship when Kim Jungjin was three years old. He had lost his younger sibling at a young age when the sibling were playing near a reservoir.

There was nothing good that had happened throughout his whole life.

The presence of people around him lessened as he walked, swept up in all sorts of pointless thoughts. It was already past midnight when he trudged up the sidewalk of Dongjak Bridge.

The other side was the south side of the river. It felt bitter, being in the circumstance of not having a single home in the middle of the packed forest of apartments.

How much time had passed like that?

Brrr– brrr–

Kim Jungjin came back to his senses at the vibration of his cellphone, which rung like it was telling him to stop spacing out.

It was the alarm for his work email account.

'It's past two in the morning, so who sent this?'

[RE: RE: RE: RE: Manuscript Submission]

[Hello, Editor Kim Jungjin.

This is Mousai[2].

Thank you for giving a positive reply to the previous request. I will definitely provide compensation for participating in the revision of the manuscript from now on as well.

The manuscript that will be written this time will be the <Final Manuscript> of <Albion Kingdom's Prince>. It is my life goal to finish this story in a perfect form.

If you work together with me, I think I will be able to properly continue Part 2 this time.

Thank you.]

It was an unexpected reply email from the manuscript submitter. Seeing the email, Jungjin completely woke up from the alcohol.

"Wait, when did I say I would help?"

.

.

.

Kim Jungjin had received the first email from the author called 'Mousai' last Friday.

It was the in the middle of continuous late night work, when the amount of work to do had actually increased when the closing of the company approached.

That email had arrived when he was utterly exhausted from trying to finish up everything at once, from organizing the translation license to calculating the designer's outsource fee.

[A new email has arrived. (1)]

[Subject: Manuscript Submission.]

Attached file: <Albion Kingdom's Prince>.hwp]

Printing out the submitted manuscript was on an impulse. It was because the company head had always acted cheap even about printing out manuscripts.

'If it were up to me, I'd like to destroy the printer and make the office into a mess, but could I do that?'

He shoved the result of the timid sabotage, the manuscript, and left work right away.

The weekend was busy.

He searched the unemployment benefits request guidelines and job hunting sites. He even opened a cover letter file even though he didn't want to.

A history bachelor's degree that he's sorry about because it's liberal arts.

A so-so work experience and level of education at thirty-two years of age.

When he opened a can of beer and brought up a cover letter form, his mind automatically went to other thoughts. Emptying the beer, Jungjin took out the printed manuscript from inside his bag.

<Albion Kingdom's Prince> (by Mousai)

'What, is it fantasy? The author's name also seems like a nickname.'

How did they find the old and small company that doesn't publish novels, and submit their manuscript? They might have sent it after mistaking the publishing company's name.

Jungjin was accustomed to the persistent submission of nationalist pseudo historians, so he could review something like fantasy with a light heart.

The writing itself was surprisingly quite interesting, so he read to the end straight through the whole day.

But it wasn't finished.

'Is this the end of Part 1? After writing 6 thousand pages of manuscript paper?'

There was an author's postscript at the end, but maybe they had handwritten it first and then moved it to a Korean file, because it said that they had 'copied over' the manuscript. That they had fixed and rewritten the writing as much as eight times.

'Eight times?! Their tenacity is impressive.'

Normally it was custom to not even send a refusal email to manuscripts of different fields, to submitters below the standard. But this author had obviously put a lot of effort into the writing, so it was hard to ignore it.

Having finished reading the manuscript, Jungjin sent a reply to the author. A reply came back immediately, so they exchanged several emails as he gave advice.

Of course, because Jungjin wasn't an editor that looked over novel manuscripts, he even kindly advised sending the manuscript to relevant genre publishing companies like Golden B**gh or Ja*gwa Mo*[3]

'I'd thought that the conversation ended with that.'

He didn't know that a ridiculous reply like this would come as a result of having unnecessary sympathy. At three in the morning.

'Does this author not realize they were rejected?'

If you just glanced at it, the email that ended with ['I hope we will be able to meet someday, and please keep writing well.'] could seem like it's not a refusal, but… normally would people interpret that as agreeing to help them?

'Well who cares.'

Closing the email app, Jungjin put his cellphone away. When he did, something like letters passed by in front of his eyes.

[–The message has been received.]

"And now I'm seeing hallucinations."

Jungjin shook his head. A strong wind blew from the river, so he came to his senses a bit. And it was right when he was about to finish crossing the bridge.

The streetlamps of the Dongjak Bridge turned off at once. The village of apartments across the river that had lights on here and there also fell to darkness.

"Huh?"

He didn't even move, but it felt like his body was tilting outside the banister. The ominously surging black river water fluctuated like there was a gravitational pull.

He hated water. Bad things always happened in water. To think that he walked across a bridge on the Han River – he really was drunk. If he had been in his right mind, he wouldn't have done that.

'If someone saw, they would think I'm trying to commit suicide.'

He didn't want there to be an article about a gloomy suicide from job loss.

Jungjin tried to back away from the banister, but he couldn't get free of the water's restricting energy.

He was swept into the river in an instant.

[1] As in, when you translate or transliterate something from the original language, you put the word/phrase in the original language next to it for clarification

[2] This is the transliteration of Μουσαι, aka the Greek goddesses called the Muses (Mousai is the plural, a single Muse is Mousa)

[3] I don't really know publishing companies and this was censored in the text, so I could find out what the first one (golden bough) was referring to but not the second one so I just transliterated that one.