Chapter 2 - Contract proposal.

Ethan sighed and decided to leave his house to look around and see what had changed. He left his rented room and went down the old stairs of the apartment where he lived near the Bronx.

It was a dangerous and poor area. Ethan got on his old bicycle and pedaled towards Times Square. Despite the considerable distance, Ethan frequently made this trip.

When he arrived at Times Square, Ethan noticed the main changes. The brands were still there, but the advertisements featured all heroes: Iron Man, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and Captain America.

The more attractive ones, like Captain America, had the most ads on the Times Square billboards.

Ethan sighed and sat on a bench in Central Park.

'What do I do? None of the famous people from my world are famous here; most are heroes. The music and movies are different, too. I need to find a way to make money.'

Ethan started fiddling with his old iPhone 8 and went online. Then he noticed that the Webnovel market was quite popular, as an ad was on his browser's homepage.

'Webnovel.com. I think this site existed in my old life.'

Ethan began looking at the novels in the site's ranking: Shadow Slave, My Vampire System, and Supreme Magus. None of them existed in this world. Most of the novels were about heroes, which was strange.

Why would anyone read a story about heroes when they exist in this world?

The answer Ethan found was that heroes are so famous that anything about them becomes a hit.

'But even though they are in the ranking, most have below-average ratings.'

Ethan opened the first chapter of a novel called "I Reincarnated as Iron Man in Another World." It was torturous to read. It seemed like a ten-year-old wrote it.

No, it was written by a ten-year-old.

Ethan closed the site and leaned back on the bench. Then, a man selling hats passed by. Most of the hats were also designed based on Marvel heroes.

Ethan said without thinking, "Why is everything in this damn world based on heroes? Not even villains exist, just heroes doing ads and making money! Fuck!"

The man selling hats backed away. He was surprised by Ethan's sudden outburst. But Ethan didn't care; he got on his bike and returned home as fast as possible.

After rechecking his bank account, Ethan grabbed his laptop and started typing.

####

Five days after Ethan had written eight chapters of a novel called "Shadow Slave," he would finally start publishing it. But there was a problem: Ethan only remembered the beginning.

Then, something appeared before him as he tried to remember more of the novel.

[ Novel Catalog ]

[ Choose the Novel You Wish to Copy ]

The system was helping him plagiarize effortlessly. Ethan couldn't help but smile when he saw the extensive catalog of Shadow Slave chapters. It even included the most recent chapters.

'The universe I was part of is still alive and well, the author continues to publish. Only I ended up here...'

But even though it was another universe, Ethan was alive and well, so it didn't matter.

Taking advantage of the chapter catalog, Ethan managed to copy thirty chapters in just one night.

Then, Ethan posted the first chapter.

A few hours later...

The novel didn't have many views, although some people had added it to their library and received some supportive comments.

[ Anon8778: It's the first time I've seen such a different premise in so long. I was tired of hero stories, so this is very welcome. ]

This comment was posted in chapter 10, Ethan's latest chapter.

"There are 120 people with it in their library, and I've received some votes, but I'm not even in the top 200."

Then, when night fell, Ethan posted ten more chapters and fell asleep with no hope.

However, he was in for a surprise when he woke up the next day.

In his "Inkstone" inbox, many notifications were waiting to be read. The first notification Ethan read was from the system.

It was a notification from the system saying that Ethan's novel "Shadow Slave" had been featured in the site's beginner section. He had only started publishing it two days ago, so this was a victory.

The other notifications were all reviews and comments.

89% of the reviews were positive, and the rest were negative. The average rating of Ethan's novel was 4.65. It was a high rating compared to even the highest-ranked novels, with an average rating of 4.12.

Ethan began responding to all the comments, one by one.

After three days of copying and publishing more chapters, Ethan finally received a contract proposal from the site.

####

This novel will focus a lot on how the protagonist takes things from our universe to this new universe and the heroes react to it.