漫画大王

Chapter 11

Among the many problems I had, the most crucial one was money.

As soon as I heard the words “magical items store,” I could only interpret it one way.

Fortunately, I still had the scroll book in my possession. Selling the scrolls at the magic item shop would undoubtedly get me some money because scrolls were relatively valuable items.

I understood the advice to mean to sell them to secure some quick cash and, above all, to take care of the elephant in the room. However, I couldn’t afford to be too relaxed. The Scribe’s advice usually involved both good and bad things happening simultaneously.

So, the advice was to sell the scrolls for money. The bad thing was undoubtedly the possibility that I would be selling the scrolls at a far lower price, since I didn’t know the market price of the magic scrolls.

However, I distinctly remembered what Dyrus had said.

—“Wow, even the low-level scrolls are worth more than my monthly salary. The Demon King’s castle sure is something else.”

The monthly salary of a lieutenant in the royal army cavalry.

The value of a single low-level scroll was either higher or just a bit lower than that.

I wondered how much a cavalry Lieutenant’s salary was. That would give me a sense of how expensive the scrolls were.

The so-called “medieval fantasy trope” came to my mind.

In such situations, the descriptions always included how a single gold coin could sustain a family of four.

And it also described how much an average person with a regular job earned in a month.

Naturally, I used such references in my novel as well.

In the novel I had written, one gold coin covered a family of four’s monthly living expenses, and an average worker earned about two gold coins a month.

So naturally, I thought of one gold coin to equal about one million won.

It’s convenient to have a precise conversion like this when I write my novels.

You may be wondering, “How can a family of four live for a month on one million won? Don’t they eat out at restaurants? Our monthly food expenses are about four million won! One million is ridiculous!”

And to that, I say, “It is what it is. They’ll figure it out somehow.”

After all, in the so-called “medieval fantasy trope,” the characters only need to spend on food, and don’t have other living expenses! And in this world, there’s no health insurance, or phone bills that need to be paid!

Those who obsessed over historical accuracy were missing the point.

Some things could only be seen if you emptied your mind and looked at it.

Medieval fantasy trope. A spectacular genre where magic, knights, and magic-like science contributed to the development of the society’s infrastructure. I was a person who felt pity for those who couldn’t enjoy such a remarkable genre and had to criticize every small detail.

The main point of medieval fantasy wasn’t the medieval part; it was the fantasy part!

It wasn’t medieval

Most of it had nothing to do with the medieval period anyway! It was just there for the sake of it!

Anyway, that’s the kind of setting in a medieval fantasy.

I had created this world with that kind of simple and shallow thinking, but now that I was here, I found a fantastical world that had nothing to do with the Middle Ages!

Well... it was fantastical in a different sense.

I decided to sell some scrolls for now and make it through the day.

I’m not a wizard, nor a knight. I was just a fallen Demonic prince. I had the ability to control demons but I was in the imperial capital Gradium, where not one demon was to be found.

“Excuse me, can I ask you some directions?” I asked a passerby.

“Huh? Directions?”

I was addressing the most important question to a passerby who seemed bewildered by my unusual way of speaking.

“Oh! Are you lost?”

Oh, come on.

***

The primary customers of the magic item shop were adventurers and wizards. Of course, this wasn’t exactly an adventure story, so I never properly described what kind of people adventurers were. They existed, but I’ve never really thought about it.

...Come to think of it, I wondered how adventurers made a living in this world. Did they earn gold by taking on monster-slaying missions through an adventurers’ guild or something? Do such guilds even exist here?

Adventurers existed, but I never established how they made their living.

It was quite odd when I thought about it in detail.

When I thought about adventurers earning money in my head, the only things that came to mind were dungeon exploration and monster hunting.

But if that’s how adventurers made money, that was a problem, too.

Why would individual entrepreneurs like adventurers engage in monster hunting when there was a regular army that took care of them? If a country had a system for outsourcing major security issues like monster lairs and attacks to individual adventurers, then why did that country even exist? Why did people pay taxes?

Certainly, it was the hero, Artorius, who killed the Demon King; but are you saying that an army that was strong enough to defeat the demons and their allied countries would rely on adventurers and their guilds to solve monster-related issues? What did the soldiers do on their regular days?

In that case, if the regular army took care of the monster hunting and there were no requests for adventurers and their guilds, what exactly did adventurers do for a living? Furthermore, wouldn’t it be highly unusual if there were dungeons filled with rare magical items scattered all over the world, and none of the nations tried to collect them? Why wouldn’t they nationalize dungeons, restrict adventurers from entering, and monopolize it?

Wasn’t the very existence of adventurers a setting error in this world?

“...”

I started to become concerned about the authenticity and details of this world. I really did.

I got serious about the little things I would normally just let go of because this was the world I had to live in.

I decided not to think about it right then. It wasn’t like there were any adventurers rushing toward me, begging for a single coin. If adventurers had nothing to do, they’d probably turn to banditry or something.

There was only one thing I cared about—that I didn’t get ripped off at the magic item shop. I had to get at least one gold per scroll. I was willing to haggle a bit, as I wasn’t expecting to sell them at the regular price. However, I wasn’t going to sell it to them if they started blabbering about defects or nonsense to rip me off.

I was planning to take the money and go grab a meal somewhere. I was hungry.

And I needed to find an inn or somewhere to collect my thoughts.

Whether or not it resulted in a good outcome, The Scribe’s Advice had a positive side to it, since it provided straightforward instructions that helped me decide what to do.

If the advice was always good, I’d just follow it blindly and live an easy life.

Ah, so that’s why they included traps. So that I don’t get off the hook easily, and they can watch me suffer in one way or another.

***

Since the primary setting of the story was the imperial capital, I had to describe Gradium in quite some detail. Well, not down to how every single brick looked like, but still, it was relatively specific.

However, meticulously setting up a virtual space could be quite a hassle. It was not only challenging, but also had a high chance of turning into a huge headache, and if you didn’t set it up properly, you’d get confused later on.

The imperial capital city of Gradium was meant to be similar to South Korea’s Seoul.

Perhaps more than just similar.

Alright, to be honest, it was literally the same as Seoul. I just gave it a different name.

My description of the imperial capital Gradium was something like this:

“A main river flows through the imperial capital of Gradium. This vast waterway divides the city into the northern region, where the royal palace is located, and the southern region, where the temple stands.”

Are you starting to get where I referenced this from?

Yes, it was just like Gangnam and Gangbuk in South Korea.

“In the northern central part of the imperial capital of Gradium, you can find the Royal Palace.”

Basically, when comparing it to South Korea, it was like saying that there was a palace in Jongno. Of course, it wasn’t as small as Gyeongbokgung, but you could say that the entire Jongno district was like the royal palace.

“In the southern Eredian district, a vast educational facility and a cradle of numerous talents, the Temple, coexists with Gradium’s landmarks.”

It was like saying there’s a temple in Gwanak district.

So, the Eredian district was the same as Gwanak district.

I constructed the space called Gradium simply by renaming Seoul, with each district in Seoul given names that sounded somewhat medieval.

Actual sentence:

[The protagonist and his group raced from the Gehena district to the Eredian district at full speed. The effects of their physical training had finally paid off.]

How I pictured it:

"The protagonist and his group sprinted from Dongjak district to Gwanak district."

That was roughly the idea. It wasn’t like I was going to create a map of this world and show it to others, so all I needed to do was insert a mental map of a place I was familiar with and roughly change the names. It worked well and was so convenient.

Creating a detailed map of a fictional world was unnecessary because readers weren’t interested in such details. I realized that when I received a comment like, “I’m not curious about any of this. Stop adding useless details!” around ninth grade, back when I didn’t know any of this.

Anyway, an imaginary world map was for the author, not the readers. Gradium being Seoul was entirely for my convenience.

There’s the Temple in Gwanak district and a palace in Jongno.

The place I teleported to was currently Aligar district, but later it will be renamed Artorius district, in honor of the hero. They would even erect a big statue of him later on.

Presently, Aligar district, and later Artorius district.

Where was this on the map? It was the equivalent of Yongsan.

Of course, it was organized that way in terms of the terrain and layout, but the actual buildings weren’t similar at all, so it was a new environment to me regardless.

So, pretending that I had arrived in Yongsan, I headed towards the direction of Yongsan Electronics Market, where I supposed the shopping district sector would be located.

Even though it was a virtual land, this area seemed to have the characteristics of Yongsan.

“What’s with all these crappy scrolls? Hey, where did you pick up stuff like this?”

Great. Right from the first shop, I encountered a typical Yongsan-style salesman, ready to rip me off.

***

The first comment from that dishonest salesman clearly indicated to me that I had no business being in that shop, so I headed back onto the street. I could hear him muttering something as I left, but I didn’t care.

Every building around here was a shop. Numerous people were coming and going, examining goods. Were all of these people adventurers?

Was being an adventurer even a viable profession to make a living? Were there any income-generating ventures I didn’t know about? There must have been something, given how numerous they were.

It felt like someone had strangely supplemented the settings I’d messed up in my writing.

Sounds of haggling and bargaining echoed from all around.

“Oh, young adventurer! Just give it a try! If you try it, I’ll give it to you for half price. How about it?”

“Come on, so you’ve examined the item to your heart’s content but you won’t buy it? Geez, you’re really making fun of us store owners. Hey, come here for a moment. Oh, you don’t want to? No, come here for a moment. No, hey! Let’s talk for a moment. Who said I was going to hurt you? Huh? I just want to speak with you privately. Are you trying to make me look bad right now? Do you know what defamation is? Are you trying to make me look like the bad guy?!”

“Refund? Who is this guy? Why don’t you just take a dump in your underwear and ask for a refund for that? Why are there losers like this? Get lost!”

“Hey, oppa, look, it’s got a scratch on it! How am I supposed to sell this? I’ll give you two for the price of one, just take it! Even at this price, I’ll be in the red! You won’t buy it? You won’t? Should I call security? Huh? Do you think you’re right? Can you guarantee that? Where are you from? Argand? Do you know who Rand oppa is? Never heard of him? Ha. Why do I have to deal with someone who doesn’t even know—hey, fine. I’ll be nice and just let you take it.“

.

.

.

What?

What was going on?

Why did it actually feel like Yongsan?

The medieval version of Yongsan unfolded before my eyes.

“How many times do I have to tell you, they’re the same price elsewhere, too!”

The ones trying to take advantage.

“Um, I, uh... I’ll come back later then...”

The ones rebelling to avoid being taken advantage of.

—Hey, don’t make eye contact. Just don’t look at any of them. There are crazy store owners who will open an item and blame it on you even if you didn’t touch it.

—They’re all retired adventurers, so they can fight really well as well. If you argue, you’ll end up with a broken arm or leg.

Even those who had come knowing exactly what this place was like.

The place I had imagined to be like Yongsan, had literally turned into Yongsan right before my eyes.

And I, a 17-year-old boy, had come to a place that was more of a living hell than the Demon Realm to sell magic scrolls.

"Yongsan."

That one word made it feel like the task I had come here to do was impossible.