Chapter 193

Chapter 193

Chapter 193

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The Investor II

The story of Cocktail Bar 'Mori' was based on a true-life documentary.

While a guest was deep asleep enjoying the dream cocktail bar...

"B-BGM should be the jazz version of the Ghibli animation OST!"

...beside the real-life bed, the promoter—who was actually a writer—was diligently tweaking the dream.

"We need to emphasize that this place is run by a Japanese man! Plus, the weather is too mild! Let’s make it rain!"

"Whoa, this guy is sneakily dropping in informal speech. It makes me want to check the adhesive strength between his head and neck..."

"We agreed to split the commission! Hurry!"

"I didn't know it would be this much of a pain. I regret my past self for getting into this..."

The writer sat beside the guest's bed all night, fine-tuning the dream.

The bartender's dialogue, family relations, the patrons’ life histories, the ambiance of the place, sounds from outside, and mysterious visitors at around 1 AM (agents of the National Intelligence Service)—everything was meticulously crafted.

In essence, what the tutorial fairy had been offering people was merely the game's core, the vanilla version. The writer began selling 'mods'—enhanced versions of these games.

As a once-famous exploiter of geeks on Earth once said, "People don't know what they want until you show it to them." Indeed, even in the apocalypse when the capitalist economy had completely collapsed, this adage hit the mark.

A single mode created and uploaded by a writer, 'Cocktail Bar Mori (森),' exploded into popularity in the real creative playground.

"I want to go to Mori too!"

"Why don't you expand the cocktail bar? How can you only accommodate ten people when there's such demand?"

"I'll pay 1,000 won per person, no, 3,000 won! Please, let my friend and I visit too!"

Writer A was happy. And a happy writer naturally followed a typical path.

That is, he started bragging to other writers about how awesome he was.

"What's going on all of a sudden? You've booked the entire grill restaurant... It’s expensive here."

"Don't worry, don't worry! I've been doing well lately! I thought we'd have a drink tonight, just the old writer gang! It's all about the camaraderie among writers! Normally, others would have come too, but now it's just us left in Busan."

Their ears perked up as they gathered in groups of threes and fours in the stew restaurant. Their clothing was shabby, as expected.

Naturally. Writers are typically mentally fragile, lack social skills, envy their peers, anonymously slander others online, crave adulation, and have poor physical health, with creaky backs and joints. Simply put, they lacked any real advantages. They were among the worst types of people to survive the apocalypse. The fact that they had managed to settle down in Busan was proof that they were elite in their own right.

Therefore, regardless of Writer A's long-winded speech, his colleagues only really heard one sentence.

“I've been doing well lately!”

The ex-writers exchanged glances silently (a basic skill for any writer).

They started by making small talk. Yeah, we used to make good money. We should be grateful just to have survived. I heard from a Japanese writer friend that it's really bad over there.

As time muddled along with alcohol and chit-chat, finally, someone started the real talk.

"So what have you been doing lately that you're doing so well?"

"Huh?" Writer A tilted his head as if he didn't understand.

His insufferably pretentious demeanor struck a fleeting sense of humiliation in the other writers.

Friendship among writers? Nonsense. This drinking session was clearly arranged to show off!

However, they endured this brief humiliation with the help of alcohol. Since even the alcohol was paid for by Writer A, they could bear it again.

"You said earlier you've been doing well. What, did you awaken some ability and join a guild? I remember that guy—what was his name, that hack writer who turned his life around after becoming an Awakener."

"Oh, him? That guy wasn't really a writer. He just switched from writing to being an Awakener. I'm still living as a writer!"

Their ears gradually morphed into those of elves.

"Still living as a writer? Are you still writing? Are there actually readers out there who pay for your work?"

"No, I'm not exactly writing. We Unawakened can't even access SG Net. There's no platform for us. But that doesn't mean I've stopped creating. Even during wars, there are writers who create. For people like us, being a writer isn't just a job. It's our heart. If the heart stops beating, we die."

Writer A should have been grateful for the delicious stew served tonight. If it were old times, gossip would have already proliferated throughout the industry.

"Anyway, what I've been doing lately―"

It took about two hours from the start of the drinking session before he got to the point.

"―So, I thought, Ah! If I can just shmooze up the tutorial fairy, I could tap into this market! But what would be good? I know a lot about cocktails, and I can speak a bit of Japanese. Ah, let's go with a Japanese cocktail bar theme!"

"We were inspired by your story."

"Yeah, it really moved us. Like you said, a writer should indeed live off his creations."

"Right, right!"

"It kind of reignited my creative spirit, haha."

The writers laughed as if they were simply moved by his words.

Writer A felt humiliated by their blatantly insincere behavior.

‘Inspiration, my ass. It's plagiarism! But still...'

Professional Writer A bit his lip hard.

This situation was too ambiguous to simply call 'plagiarism'! If any of them had specifically used 'cocktail bar,' 'bar,' 'izakaya,' or something similar, perhaps he could have challenged them to a duel, but the writers had cunningly taken only the genre of the business, while completely changing the content.

Just like the old days when a new genre became popular in the novel industry, everyone rushed in and 'creatively' reinterpreted it...!

'Th-this familiar feeling! Could it be?!'

'Yes.'

The eyes of his colleagues, laughing innocently and purely, also twinkled darkly.

'It's time for a publishing competition again, rookie.'

'Ah, it's been a while. This chilling sensation. It feels like when I used to constantly check the bestseller rankings every two minutes after launching a new work.'

'Oh, no! Can't you forget that hell, you guys!'

'Yep. Your hell seems more livable than our reality.'

'I always liked the fires of hell. I used to run up to three series simultaneously.'

Again, exchanging glances without words was a basic skill for writers.

Finally, Writer A belatedly realized his mistake. Why did he commit an act he would regret for just a night of pleasure?

(Because he's a writer, of course.)

- Uh? What? Why are there so many signs?

- Did Mori finally expand its business?

Murmur, murmur.

But Writer A had no time to regret.

As the end of work hours approached and the crowd at the Dream Casino swelled, the inevitable fate of all writers, 'publishing time,' was upon them.

'No, stop! My guests! My readers!'

Contrary to Writer A's worries, there was no stealing of customers.

"...Huh?"

Nor was there any mishap of other writers failing to attract new customers.

Although there were some variations, Writer A, along with the other seven writers, managed to attract enough customers.

"Huh?"

The next day. The day after that. And the day after that.

Even as the number of signs increased from one to eight, and then from eight to twenty, there was never any loss of customers among the writers. In fact, the business of selling dreams went better than ever before, and even after expanding the cocktail bar's capacity from ten to twenty people, it always reached full capacity.

Then the writers realized.

"Ah."

A word long forgotten since civilization had collapsed.

Blue Ocean.

This was not a sea of blood where one must kill competitors to survive.

The place they had newly discovered, rolling around on the labor market, was a golden El Dorado―

A bonanza.

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