Big Life

“What do you think?”

“What else would I think? Of course, it’s a good thing.”

As expected, Ha Jae-Gun showed a positive response. No genre fiction novel writer would hate having their own novel turned into a webtoon. Ha Jae-Gun wasn’t familiar with anyone who would hate that to happen to them. Moreover, there was no reason for him to object when the other party was Comic KT.

“But, I know nothing about the webtoon industry, things like revenue sharing standards and all.”

“I’m still quite inexperienced as well, so I’m not entirely sure…” Jung So-Mi muttered.

She looked at Ha Jae-Gun and said, “If we do go ahead with this, we will be selling the distribution license of your original novel. Comic KT would look for an illustrator and a storyboard artist to adapt it into a webtoon. After all, we wouldn't be able to transfer all the novel's contents into the webtoon directly."

"Of course."

"The editor-in-chief said that we should be able to get around 10% of the earnings for each webtoon chapter, which will then be further divided into half between Star Books and you since it's a derivative work."

"Ah, I see."

Ha Jae-Gun recalled the conditions laid out in all the contracts he had signed before. Regardless of whether they were webtoons, movies, or dramas, the contracts always had a clause about derivative works.

Ha Jae-Gun hadn’t paid much attention to that clause so far because he had never expected that any of his works would one day get adapted into another form of media by other parties.

‘Turning Records of the Modern Master into a webtoon…’

The scenes of himself working on the novel suddenly started playing in his mind. Ha Jae-Gun still couldn’t believe the news that Jung So-Mi had brought him.

“Comic KT won’t bring you too much revenue, so if we estimate around 1 million won, you would be getting 50,000 won out of it.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“But if the webtoon succeeds, the novel would succeed as well, which includes the entire trilogy of the Records series. After the paperback edition gets fully published, we will be publishing them in ebook versions. If we match the release with the webtoon, it will create better synergy in terms of both promotions and sales.”

Ha Jae-Gun smiled. He could imagine Kwon Tae-Won’s serious yet soft tone of voice with the explanation that he had just heard from Jung So-Mi. Ha Jae-Gun definitely had faith in Kwon Tae-Won’s words.

“Please take care of me.” Ha Jae-Gun made his decision right there and then. “I hope that a great illustrator would turn it into a much more exciting work.”

“Of course, don’t worry about it. I’ll definitely keep a look out for the illustrator’s artwork. And once we have shortlisted the illustrators, I will send them over to you, and you may let us know of your thoughts by then.”

“Thank you.”

At last, their order finally arrived, and they started enjoying their meal over some small talk. Ha Jae-Gun felt comfortable since their talk over work had ended.

“Um, Writer Ha.” Jung So-Mi started just as they were almost done with their food. While refilling the water in Ha Jae-Gun’s cup, Jung So-Mi asked, “Are you possibly working on a novel right now?”

“No, I’m not writing any in particular. I’ve been resting recently.”

“Um… I’m just wondering if… you would be interested in writing another novel?”

Ha Jae-Gun had expected it somewhat as he watched Jung So-Mi bring up the subject with much difficulty.

However, it was unavoidable.

Now that Records of the Other World had ended, it was natural for Star Books to sound him out for his next novel. It was normal for Jung So-Mi to bring this topic up since she was already done talking about the webtoon.

“Sorry, but I don’t have any story ideas or anything special to write about right now.”

“It must be tough. That’s something we can help then. I understand. We’ll wait for your news, Writer Ha.” Jung So-Mi didn’t push any further and ended the conversation there.

Ha Jae-Gun felt thankful that the topic had ended there, yet he felt suspicious at the same time. The Jung So-Mi he knew was straightforward and would always place the company’s benefits as the top priority.

However, she actually gave up today without much fuss.

Ha Jae-Gun initially thought that she would persuade him more.

‘Was she really saying that out of consideration for me?’

Ha Jae-Gun wondered as he drank the persimmon punch for dessert. He stared intently at Jung So-Mi’s face, but he couldn’t read her thoughts at all.

“Thank you for the meal, Ms. So-Mi.”

“It’s all thanks to you that I got to enjoy such a great meal. Thank you, Writer Ha.”

The two of them left the restaurant and stood on the walkway covered with fallen autumn leaves.

The streets were somewhat empty today, and it made sense because even the warmth from the sun made one feel like they should head out for a short trip somewhere.

"Are you heading back to the office?"

"No, I'll be going to Comic KT's office."

"Now?"

"Yes. I’m supposed to immediately make a move after hearing your thoughts." Jung So-Mi placed both hands behind her and smiled. One of her feet was drilling on the fallen leaves.

Ha Jae-Gun chuckled at the sight. He recalled the time when Jung So-Mi's shoe flew out after the authors’ meet.

"Why are you laughing?"

"It's nothing."

“You always keep me in suspense, even during the authors’ meet from before, mm…” Jung So-Mi trailed off. She smiled shyly upon recalling the moment when Ha Jae-Gun went to pick up her own shoe for her. It was still an embarrassing moment, albeit she wasn’t as embarrassed as back then anymore.

“Where is Comic KT’s office?”

“It’s at Samseong.”

“That’s quite a distance away.”

“It’s just thirty minutes away via subway.”

Their conversation paused there for a moment. They both looked away from each other, but they had the same thoughts in mind.

‘Should I suggest following her there?’

‘Would he like it if I asked him to join me?’

There was really no need for Ha Jae-Gun to follow since it was a contract between Star Books and Comic KT. However, Ha Jae-Gun was the original author of Records of the Modern Master, so he could easily find a reason to follow her, such as wanting to know the contract details or the progress status.

‘No, that’s not good.’ Ha Jae-Gun came to a conclusion earlier than Jung So-Mi.

The thought of wanting to spend more time with Jung So-Mi just because the weather was good vanished. On second thought, Ha Jae-Gun didn’t really want to join her at that meeting.

Jung So-Mi was out to work, not to play. He also didn’t want to trouble her when there was no need for him to be present at the meeting.

“Let’s go to the subway station together.”

“Okay…” Jung So-Mi suppressed her disappointment and followed behind Ha Jae-Gun.

They slowly walked down the sidewalk toward the subway station, which was covered with yellow fallen leaves. Jung So-Mi was walking carefully to avoid the bumpy tiles on the sidewalk.

“Are you heading straight back home?”

“I’m going to stop by the bookstore,” Ha Jae-Gun replied. He had planned to stop by after meeting Jung So-Mi since it had been some time since he last read novels written by other authors because he had been busy writing novel after novel.

A good writer would have to read good works as well. He was planning on using up his free time to read as many books as he could in one go.

“Please be careful on your way.”

“You too, Ms. So-Mi.”

Then, they turned their backs on each other, tapping their transport cards at their respective gates.

Before he headed down the stairs, Ha Jae-Gun looked back and saw that Jung So-Mi was looking back at him as well. Their eyes made contact through the bustling crowd. Ha Jae-Gun smiled and raised his hand first, and Jung So-Mi responded by bowing to him before slowly heading down the stairs and disappearing from his sight.

‘Yeah, I should get back to work, too.’

After meeting the hardworking Jung So-Mi and boarding the train, Ha Jae-Gun made a decision.

‘Let’s read all sorts of books today. Who knows? Perhaps I would stumble upon another idea while reading.’

Storm and Gale was an unexpected piece of work because its creation was kickstarted by the karaoke helper, Da-Seul. It seemed that inspiration would always come at unexpected moments.

Ha Jae-Gun kept reiterating that point throughout his journey on the train. Ha Jae-Gun finally reached his destination after roughly twenty minutes and headed to the department store connected to the subway station.

‘There are many people today.’

There was a huge bookstore in the department store. It was a weekday, but the bookstore was bustling with people in the middle of the day.

Ha Jae-Gun headed straight to the New Arrivals corner located nearest to the bookstore’s entrance. Among the countless books, only one of them caught Ha Jae-Gun’s eyes.

It was Foolish Woman.

A piece of paper was wrapped around the book with a blurb that said ‘Grand Prize Winner of the Digital Literature Award.’

Ha Jae-Gun took around thirty minutes to rummage through the books in that corner while checking out what books other customers were picking up to read.

There were less than ten who picked up his book during his time there, and most of them flipped only a few pages of it before putting it back on the shelf. No one actually bought it.

‘Seems like it’s tough for it to become popular.’ Ha Jae-Gun smiled bitterly.

The prize money of roughly 20 million won, which he had received, could be considered as advance royalties for the book. If he wanted to get more than that, the book would have to earn over 20 million won.

If each book was 1,000 won, over 20,000 copies would have to be sold.

They were now in an era where sales of paperback books were bottoming out. With that in mind, there was no way Ha Jae-Gun could realistically expect that the novel would end up selling 20,000 copies.

He was also aware that he was just starting to get popular as a writer.

‘Should I get to work now?’

Ha Jae-Gun took out the brown horn-rimmed glasses from his inner pocket and wore them. He had brought it along for his speed-reading session. With this pair of glasses, he would be able to finish fifteen books in an hour at the maximum.

“Ah, this is very interesting.”

Passing by the fantasy and martial arts novel section, Ha Jae-Gun overheard a conversation between two men who seemed to be university students.

Ha Jae-Gun turned around with shining eyes. One of them was holding the first volume of Sword Master of Pezellon.

“The first of the series was Wizard of Pezellon, and it was damn awesome. I had a major withdrawal after reading that, and I couldn’t even read anything else. Do you know this author?”

“Of course, I know Poongchun-Yoo. I thought you read the Records series?”

“I finished reading that ages ago. Geez, I want to do a quick read for this book but the wrapping’s still intact. I should just buy it. I believe in him.”

The student quickly gathered the available volumes of the book and headed to the cashier.

Ha Jae-Gun didn’t move from his spot for a while.

He had deduced that sales were great by looking at the money being transferred to him as well as the words of the employees. However, the chance to personally hear and confirm the readers’ thoughts on his novel like this was uncommon.

He was extremely grateful to the student who had said that his novel was interesting.

Ha Jae-Gun headed to the fusion genre novels in delight.

***

“Hmm, this is interesting. Romance definitely has to have this in them.”

“Kyaa, this person was the criminal? That backstab was refreshing.”

“Was this author’s works usually this hardboiled? It feels somewhat ambiguous. It’s quite violent, but it’s lacking in charisma.”

“It’s sloppy—too sloppy. Why is this author’s work getting less interesting with each passing book?”

It had been nearly two hours since he entered the bookstore. His fingers blurred as he flipped through the pages of the books.

Ha Jae-Gun leaned against the corner of a bookshelf that fewer people frequented, and those who happened to pass by him would give him a strange look.

‘Now that I’m done with this row, I should move on to the next.’

Ha Jae-Gun was reading all the books on the shelves at an alarming speed. Of course, he wasn’t just flipping through the pages. Thanks to Seo Gun-Woo’s glasses, he was reading them at the speed of light.

Ha Jae-Gun would usually read around a hundred and fifty books in total every year, which meant he would read three to four books a week. However, in the two hours he spent in the bookstore today, he had already read over fifty books.

The ability to read more books was a powerful weapon for any writer out there, and Ha Jae-Gun was slowly developing and improving as a writer in the corner of this large bookstore.

***

‘He’s is still there?’

A female staffer stared at a customer with narrowed eyes. For her, the customer was obviously a weird customer whom she couldn’t overlook.

The man had been picking up books, quickly flipping through them and putting them back into their places. He had been repeating this process with every book on the shelves—for the past two hours.

‘Is he looking for a specific book?’

While she was observing him from afar, the speed at which his fingers were flipping through the books had increased.

The female staffer decided to pretend that she was organizing the books as she slowly approached the bookshelf where he was located. She glanced at him and saw that his eyes behind his brown horn-rimmed glasses were wide open and were moving left to right to read the book in his hand.

‘No way…?’

The female staffer found the sight so unbelievable that her jaws dropped to the floor.

‘...Is he actually reading the book?’

Riiiiip!

“Urgh!” Ha Jae-Gun groaned. He had accidentally torn a page from the book that he was reading. He wasn’t able to control the speed of his fingers. Ha Jae-Gun looked up and finally spotted the female staffer standing in front of him.

Ha Jae-Gun hurriedly said, “I’m sorry, I accidentally tore the page while reading in a hurry. I’ll buy this book.”

“Ahh, okay—Hmm…?” The female staffer looked at him blankly because his face looked somewhat familiar to her.

“Uh, um… Are you perhaps…?”

“Pardon?”

“Are you perhaps… Writer Ha?”