Work Text:
It was a peaceful morning in the Super Rock Villa.
No birds were chirping, the annoying artificial sunlight was blocked out by heavy velvet curtains, and Cale Henituse was doing a perfect impression of melting cheese on his fluffy bed.
The children got up at dawn. They must have gone to their weekly outing with Choi Han. He was relieved that they did not disturb his sleep, though he was a bit confused when the children did not say goodbye before leaving. Maybe they got the hint that he wanted to sleep in today. After all, when the children kept cajoling him to go with them during dinner last night, he told them that, “I want to try something different tomorrow.”
Cale sank deeper into his comfortable bed, hugging a pillow and humming in bliss. He could live like this. No war, no White Thing, no problems, no obstacles to his slacker life—
BANG!
“Good morning, human! Let’s go to a different city today!”
“…”
Cale could only stare wordlessly at the little black dragon who flung the door open, and at the man behind him holding a teacup and wearing a benign smile.
He spoke too soon.
Cale let himself be dragged about by the children, while Choi Han trailed behind them like an excited puppy. During their previous trips, the children dragged him to wherever they found interesting, from food stalls to pastry shops to antique shops to armories and smithies. Cale was not particularly enthusiastic about the whole thing, but he still paid for everything they bought. The kids insisted that he should buy something for himself. He just shrugged it off, as nothing caught his attention before.
This time, he saw a decent bookstore. Choi Han volunteered to stay with him, but Cale convinced him to go with the children to the glass maker’s shop. After all, he would be just across the street from them. Not like anything would happen to him in a bookstore, of all places.
He strode inside confidently, breathing in the calming scent of acrid ink and aged paper. He looked around, decided to browse the fantasy section— then dove behind the nearest shelf for cover.
‘Even here?’ Cale thought, cold sweat running down his face.
He had seen the distinctive silver and pink colors of those crazy YHW fans. The gaggle of women (and some men) were discussing amongst themselves in another corner of the bookstore, but he was not yet safe even in his disguised state. (He was NOT underestimating them again after the Black Ribbon Incident, thank you very much.)
Moving with enough stealth to make Ron either proud or amused, Cale randomly grabbed a lot of books, stacking them to hide his face. He tossed a gold gallon on the counter to step out as quickly as possible, leaving one book merchant happier. Only when he rejoined Choi Han and the kids—and put a considerable distance between him and those fanatics by teleporting back to the Super Rock Villa—did he allow the tension to drain from his body.
After checking on the kids and helping them sort through what they bought, Cale finally allowed himself to sit back and pick a book from his pile. He smiled at the familiar feel of pages between his fingers, though the texture was rougher and thicker than the papers back on Earth.
He was not feeling nostalgic or anything. He just recalled that he used to read novels in his free time as Kim Rok Soo. It seemed like a good hobby to keep, since flipping pages and holding a book only required the bare minimum energy. He could also read while sitting or lying on the bed, and stay in place for hours without a need to move around. Like napping with his eyes open and his mind wandering.
Cale’s smile widened. He was looking forward to a relaxing afternoon.
Or so he thought.
The children watched as their guardian’s stoic expression slowly eroded into visible signs of frustration. Little things at first: a minuscule eyebrow twitch, a slight wrinkling of his nose that was a prelude to his default frown, that small downward tug in the corners of his lips. Soon, a heavy scowl was etched on his face, and the furrow between his brows was so deep that the Roan Kingdom’s army could practice trench warfare in it. He was also sighing loudly, which commonly signaled his irritation.
The youngest was the first to comment. “Human! Is the book annoying you? Is that why you’re gripping it like that? Human, human! Don’t be mad! This great and mighty Raon Miru will destroy it for you! No, we’ll destroy ALL books in the whole world!”
“Let’s burn them, nya!” On, the normally level-headed eldest, offered.
“Nya~ Rip them to pieces!” Of course, that was the cute and cuddly middle child, Hong, who eats literal poison for breakfast.
Normally, Cale would shiver at the violence and bloodlust emanating from the children averaging X years old. However, he was too deep in his growing list of issues with this— this atrocity to even hear them. He could not keep this to himself anymore. Opening his mouth, not caring about his audience, Cale just goes O F F.
“Aigoo, what is this? Is this even a plot? Where is the suspense? The character development? I can forgive wrong grammar, a shallow exposition and poorly written characters on a good day, but not all three in a novel! Where is the editor? I need to speak to the editor! How can you let someone get away with this?! The story has an interesting concept and a great hook for the beginning, but you wasted its potential! How can you butcher something like this? And the clichés! Clichés can’t be felt if it’s well-written, but why? How could you? I—”
After their initial shock, the children closed their gaping jaws and snickered. Yet, they quickly grew concerned and alarmed as the human went on and on for minutes without stopping. Raon hastily activated a communication device and sent a distress signal to all their nearest allies. Everyone rushed to the villa, only to halt at the sight of Cale pacing around his bedroom, ranting at the air and clutching the offending book on one hand. He was making slashing gestures with the other, waving his hand about and sometimes smacking his forehead in irritation.
The adults reacted with varying degrees of confusion, amusement and worry. However, their worry intensified when Cale continued to vent his spleen out.
“Your Majesty, I don’t think he’ll stop.”
Alberu, who dropped everything and teleported here when the distress signal reached him, nodded to Choi Han. “You’re right, instructor-nim. I have never seen him so… passionate about something that isn’t about money or his slacker life.”
Eruhaben rounded on the three. “What brought this on?”
“The human was just quietly reading the books he bought this morning, Goldie Gramps! Then he started getting annoyed!”
“And then he started thrashing the novel, nya!”
“Have you tried getting his attention, Raon-nim?”
“We have, Smart Rosalyn! But he started lecturing us about world-worldbuilding!”
“We learned so much, nya!”
“Nyaaa~ but it was also scary!”
“Aigoo, this unlucky punk.”
Ron tried tapping his young master’s shoulder, but Cale just turned to him and launched into another series of vehement and indignant arguments. (That no one really understood because of how complex these were. What is a deus ex machina, anyway?) Seeing the redhead’s intense gaze, Ron drew back in surprise. His puppy young master’s usual fear of this old assassin was not even there.
“Has he ever been like this before, Ron?”
“If you mean the previous young master, Your Majesty, he has not. He would swear and cause a ruckus, but not the way the current young master is behaving right now.”
“So, it must be his habit as Kim Rok Soo,” Choi Han observed.
Ron scoffed. “Who asked for your opinion, punk?”
“Shut up, old man,” Choi Han shot back. “What I’m saying is, why don’t we ask Soo Hyuk-hyung? He must have an idea.”
Eruhaben sighed and went to fetch Lee Soo Hyuk. Meanwhile, Rosalyn tried talking to Cale, and was quickly overwhelmed by the voluminous knowledge and heavy use of jargon, as Cale lambasted every angle of the novel. (“Keep your tenses consistent!” or “Do you have to give the protagonist plot armor every time someone stabs him?!” or “You have so many plot holes this early in the story?”)
Rosalyn shook herself out of her stupor and found Cale slapping one of her formula boards, which was now hung on his bedroom wall. It was full of scribbles, loose sheets of paper and a confusing mess of red yarn. It was fair to say that Rosalyn was confused on how all of it got there. She let it be and focused on Cale while taking down notes. Rosalyn was not a novel writer, but the young master might drop hints on how to write excellent academic books. Those might come in handy when publishing her own books on magic as the Tower Master.
“Oh no.”
Those were the first words Lee Soo Hyuk uttered after he walked into the room and saw Cale. The stunned expression on his normally calm, smiling face made everyone anxious, especially the kids. He quickly explained to ease their worries. Well, most of their worries.
“Rok Soo used to rant like this for days when he read any trashy novel. On the plus side, this means that he’s finally relaxed around you and this villa. He felt safe enough to let his guard down. Monsters aren’t exactly forgiving when you’re that noisy.”
They felt happy about this tidbit, but Alberu fixated on a different matter. “What do you mean by days?”
“The longest he had been at it was for two weeks and a half. He was even mumbling in his sleep and between bites of food.”
“How do we stop it?” Beacrox asked.
“You can’t. Only Jung Soo can keep up with him and slow him down by arguing back in schematics. He will stop when he makes his point, then he gets awkward and quiet for days after. Hah, not even money can distract him.”
“But you know how to?” Rosalyn verified.
“…I will try my best,” Lee Soo Hyuk declared with all the solemnity of a soldier going to war.
He approached and snatched the book from Cale’s hands, earning him a glare. Lee Soo Hyuk did not mind, flipping through some pages while Cale stood there with a hand on his hip. “Let me see… You’re right, it’s a mess. But have you considered that this is the author’s first novel?” Lee Soo Hyuk combed through the other books and selected one, opening it and pointing at a page. “Here. The second book is improving. Less grammatical errors, more cohesive plot, well-rounded characters. You just have to be more forgiving of mistakes, dongsaeng.”
“Mistakes can get you killed.”
“You’re no longer on the battlefield, Cale.”
The redhead went silent. He blinked once, twice, before squinting suspiciously at Lee Soo Hyuk. “Have you read it before? How can you understand the plot so fast?”
Lee Soo Hyuk grinned and ruffled his hair. “I have a smart dongsaeng. I have to keep up, right? Or I can’t be called a good hyung.”
Everyone noticed the visible softening around Cale’s eyes—a contrast on the otherwise stoic face—before he sighed. “Stop that.”
But he did not push the hand away.
Bonus:
A week later, everyone woke up to a Cale with sparkling eyes, who was also rambling excitedly about a very cool magic system, unique plot twists and proper suspense.
Rosalyn and Raon got their priorities straight, whipping out their recording devices and smiling in a way that was eerily similar to a certain scammer. Eruhaben gave a long-suffering sigh and turned to Lee Soo Hyuk, who was leaning on the door, hands in his pockets, looking thoroughly entertained. “What is it this time?”
The man who patted the hair of and spoke so casually with the King of the Roan Kingdom, as well as called a swordmaster and more-than-a-hundred-year-old transmigrator ‘Han’ merely chuckled.
“Well… remember his habit? If he likes a book—really, really likes it a lot—he also does that. He ends up praising every bit of it. Passable books, he will only read through and comment on calmly. But ‘god-tier writers,’ as he and Jung Soo called them…” Lee Soo Hyuk shook his head, an exasperated but fond smile settling on his face. “Just stop him from scheming about raising enough money to dump on the author.”
“Uncle Soo Hyuk?”
“Yes, On?”
“One, he’s already rich. Two… too late.”
That night, in a cramped, rented room somewhere in one of Caro Kingdom’s cities, an overworked, underpaid and caffeine-high writer could be heard laughing and sobbing hysterically. When some concerned neighbors tried to knock on the door and peek inside, their jaws dropped at the sight.
The previously dirt-poor author was clutching an upturned spatial bag, sobbing as a sheer amount of gold coins spilled out into a trembling hand and onto the floor, continuously flooding the room.