The Outcast Writer of a Martial Arts Visual Novel-Chapter 119: Publication - 1

Printing.

I wrote the novel in a word processor and pressed the print button. It only takes a few seconds for my words to come out on A4 paper. Stack the pages, punch some holes, bind it all roughly together—and voilà, a book.

“Here, though, we have to start by finding lead type for every letter.”

In the corner of the print room were thousands of neatly organized typesetting blocks.

As I dug through them to select each character needed for the novel, one by one in order, I couldn’t help but think of modern printing technology.

Every time I do this, it feels like my eyeballs are about to fall out. If you don’t look really closely, all the type blocks start to look the same.

“Hwa-rin, I finished the typesetting for one page. Can you handle the layout?”

“...Okay.”

Why does she sound so drained?

Shoulders slightly drooped, Hwa-rin began arranging the type I selected into the layout frame for printing.

She must be tired.

Sorting books, updating the ledger, cleaning—she’s been doing everything. The older employees and I help where we can, but it’s true she’s been carrying a lot.

You’d think if she was that tired, she’d go to bed early. But lately, Hwa-rin hasn’t been sleeping until I finish writing. It’s not like she needs to proofread or check for typos every single night.

Storm of the Tang Clan was scheduled to go on sale tomorrow, so I figured I’d send her upstairs to rest once we wrapped up.

“Hwa-rin, we’re short on type. Did we stash any extras?”

“There’s a box over there.”

“Found it.”

I pulled out a bundle of frequently used type blocks from a box in the corner. Thank god we didn’t have to do casting today.

Casting involves melting lead alloy to make new type blocks using a mold.

Normally, printing starts with casting, but it requires precision skills since you're literally forging each character.

Who knew something harder than changing printer toner actually existed?

One of our retired employees still had a casting machine and makes us whatever type we’re missing—just charging us for the materials. It’s a miracle, really.

“Hwa-rin’s grandfather must’ve been incredibly respected.”

As I grabbed the type, I was reminded once again of how important connections are in this world.

Just revealing that Hwa-rin is the maternal granddaughter of the Baek Family is enough to get most people in Yichang to bend over backward. Of course, money’s still another story.

“Hwa-rin, I’m done with typesetting. I’ll help with the layout.”

Her hands were noticeably slower today. She must be more tired than usual. I moved over and began helping her with the layout frame.

“...Okay.”

Up close, Hwa-rin didn’t just look tired—her expression was shadowed, like something was bothering her.

She seemed fine earlier today during the Seven-Step Bowel-Breaker incident...

“Hwa-rin, do I seem off to you?”

I exaggerated a sniff at my sleeve right in front of her.

“Why?”

“Ha ha. Just wondering if I still smell from earlier today.”

I tried bringing up the funniest part of the day to lighten her mood.

“You don’t smell.”

Her voice sounded even duller, her expression darker.

That’s odd. I thought she’d be feeling vindicated. That woman’s face turned bright red while I cleaned up the mess.

I did scold her afterward in a passing tone, saying to think about the other customers next time. Maybe that’s what’s bothering her?

“Anyway! That was hilarious, right?”

I forced a laugh and told the story playfully, pretending it was no big deal.

Let’s talk about something fun, Hwa-rin. Let’s shake off this weird mood. But she just looked up at me quietly and spoke hesitantly.

“...Do you get customers like her often?”

She must mean the woman who flirted with that weird smile.

“Me? Hell no. I’m just a black-haired barbarian, remember? I’m lucky if they’re not laughing at me behind my back. A few girls came in the other day, pointing at me and giggling. If they weren’t customers, I swear...”

I put on my best tragic expression for her. I already knew exactly the kind of thing they said. It’s all too familiar.

—Hey, there goes your boyfriend.

—Where, where? Bitch, that’s your boyfriend.

At the very least, say it where I can’t hear you. You think someone like me doesn’t count as a man? That I can’t be hurt?

Sure, I look better in this world—at least enough to pass as a foreign storyteller.

But in the Central Plains, I’m still a black-haired barbarian. Discriminated against. Despised.

“...I don’t think that’s the reason.”

Hwa-rin looked at me with a doubtful tone.

“What do you mean? I’ve been keeping myself presentable. That’s the only reason the prejudice is a little better. Try living as a ragged foreigner in the Central Plains—feels like the whole world’s your enemy.”

Images of the discrimination I faced flashed through my mind like a painful montage. Days where I couldn’t even get a bite to eat because they’d see I was a barbarian and dump my bowl in the dirt.

To think I became a shopkeeper after all that disgrace. Life’s unpredictable.

“...Sure. If you say so.”

“What do you mean, if? That’s how it is.”

“Heheh. Fine, fine.”

She gave a small laugh at my bitter face. Did my self-deprecation cheer her up a little?

Her expression still held a shadow, but it looked a bit more relaxed.

Good. ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) At this rate, we’ll be able to finish the remaining work just fine. In that slightly lighter atmosphere, we began the final prep for tomorrow’s release.

------

Printing and Binding.

We hurriedly applied ink to the layout boards, printed the pages, and bound them together to finish the book.

“It’s finally done.”

Storm of the Tang Clan.

Seeing that bold title printed on the cover made something swell in my chest. I couldn’t begin to count how many things we’d gone through to get here.

If I’d had to copy it all by hand, it would’ve taken forever.

Behind the copy I was holding, stacks of Storm of the Tang Clan books towered up. Martial smut—called “Colorful Chivalry” in this world. I looked at them and grinned.

All that’s left is one final touch—bring them downstairs, and they’re ready to go on sale tomorrow.

“Hwa-rin, you’ve done great. I’ll handle the rest.”

“We’re finishing together. Don’t be like that.”

“You’re tired. Go rest.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“And I said I’m fine.”

I exaggerated her tone and gestures, mimicking her.

“What the heck. Pfft—!”

She couldn’t hold back her laughter. Brightest she’s looked since we came into the print room.

“We’re done binding. All that’s left is stamping and organizing on the first floor. Go up and rest.”

“Alright then.”

Seeing how firm I was, she finally nodded.

As she did, the lighting and shadows on her skin shifted, and I spotted a faint ink blotch on her face.

“Hwa-rin, you’ve got ink on your—ah!”

As I moved in with a towel to wipe it off, she quickly grabbed my wrist in alarm.

“Oh! Sorry.”

Maybe it was a reflex, but she immediately let go when she saw my wince.

“No, it’s my fault. I wasn’t thinking.”

Her face... Of all places, that’s the one part of her she’s most self-conscious about. She’ll poison someone for mocking it within seven steps, and here I was, trying to touch it.

Too careless.

I rubbed the wrist she’d grabbed and lowered my head in apology. Hwa-rin looked at my wrist with a guilty expression, then looked up into my eyes.

“Yun-ho.”

She gazed at me like she’d made an important decision.

“Yeah?”

“...Please.”

Blushing, she closed her eyes and tilted her chin up toward me.

“...Huh? O-oh. I’ll wipe it.”

I gently cupped her chin with one hand and brought the towel to her cheek with the other, dabbing the ink away.

In the quiet print room, after the work was done, just the two of us...

The moment the towel touched her, she flinched ever so slightly—then accepted my touch with a strange flush rising to her face.

The atmosphere... It’s weird.

Uncomfortably weird.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

“Yun-ho.”

“Huh? O-oh!”

Whoa, that startled me. I answered her call with a slightly surprised look.

“Thanks to the medicine you gave me, it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“I’m glad.”

I responded absentmindedly while wiping the ink smudge from her cheek.

“Thanks to you, we were able to keep this bookstore running.”

“I’m glad.”

“Thanks to you, the store is doing well.”

“I’m glad.”

“I don’t know if that book will succeed, though...”

“Haha. I’ll make sure it doesn’t end up as leftover stock.”

“...Thank you.”

Hwa-rin gently brushed the wrist she had grabbed just moments ago.

“A friend should do at least this much.”

“Right. Because we’re friends...”

Her voice sounded faintly deflated.

“Hwa-rin?”

“No, it’s nothing. I’m just being weird today. I’ll head up now. Finish up, okay?”

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Without looking back, Hwa-rin walked out of the print room.

“...What’s up with her?”

***

Tang Hwa-rin rushed up to the attic and headed straight to the washroom.

She looked at her face reflected in the mirror.

The disfigured skin beneath her nose. Blotchy and rough down to her jaw, clean from the neck down—though lifting her top revealed more of the same on her upper body.

“Because we’re friends...”

She stared bitterly at her reflection and thought about the first friend she’d ever had.

The thing she’d longed for so desperately.

Someone who saw her—not her background. A foreigner who approached her as a person.

Someone who reached out to her gently when she was in pain and about to collapse.

Someone who, even when she had lost everything and could only be a burden, looked hurt and asked why she hadn’t come to him for help.

Whenever she saw that man, working late into the night despite exhaustion, her chest would fill with warmth.

Her thoughts were full of him now.

“This is the life I wanted.”

A bird that had escaped its cage, finally finding a nest of its own.

With him, she felt like a normal person. Life with a friend who shared her heart felt happier than the luxury of the Seong Family Manor.

A hard-won, precious daily life.

And yet lately, she had started to feel a vague frustration.

“Don’t misunderstand. Not with this face.”

She stared at the mirror and warned herself.

Yun-ho carried pain from his past. The grief of losing a true friend.

Because of the guilt he carried over his friend who had been a Poisoned One, she had been allowed into his life.

He could treat her kindly because he had once had a friend like that. He was kind to her as a way of making up for what he couldn’t do back then.

She couldn’t mistake that kindness for something else.

Don’t misunderstand, Tang Hwa-rin.

“The way things are now is good enough.”

She warned herself again.

The pressure in her chest—an emotion still too shapeless to name. If she let it spill in front of him, it could ruin everything.

So she ignored the growing bud of something within her heart, and began washing herself.

No matter how thoroughly she scrubbed, the ink blotches disappeared—but the marks on her skin did not.

***

The Final Touch

Only one thing left, and everything would be complete.

I was caught in a massive dilemma, all for the sake of putting the finishing dot on my dream of becoming a dragon.

That dilemma was—

“What should my pen name be?”

A nickname matters.

Choose wrong, and next thing you know, you're at an IRL meet-up for an online game, and bearded old men are shouting, “You little Tinkerbell! Are you ‘Fairy of Love’?!”

Or worse—on a web novel platform or with a publishing rep, you hear:

“Nice to meet you, Mr. SsamgaIsComing!”

“Ah, Mr. TheBiggerTheBoobsTheBetter! You changed your pen name, I see!”

A nickname is another self.

You can't just slap one together—it needs care.

“Even with a pen name, Fame Points still go up.”

I’d already proven that, suppressing the killing intent of the Heavenly Killing Star and calming the pain of a Poisoned One, all while performing under the name Kang Mo, the black-haired storyteller. The real problem was—what name now?

I can’t use Kang Mo anymore. It’s too easily linked to Black Tiger Brush.

Should I just use my real name?

A distant memory came to mind—back in Liaodong Province, far from Hubei, a woman seeing me off in tears.

“Huuuu...”

I let out a deep sigh.

If I became famous, I’d eventually have to face her again. But there’s no need to rush that.

Maybe I could borrow a name from one of the legends of the original world?

There were so many great wuxia authors who laid the foundation of modern martial fiction.

For example, Master Wa Ryong-saeng was the ancestor of all martial literature. And for martial smut, Wa Ryong-gang was king. Maybe I could be Wa Ryong-ho? ...No, still not quite right.

What about “Jiyu”—Paper’s Companion?

Sounds like someone who writes feel-good slice-of-life fiction. Doesn’t suit me at all.

No matter how long I thought about it, I couldn’t settle on anything.

“Wow. First-world problems.”

I laughed at myself, talking aloud.

Not long ago, I was curled up with a growling stomach, wondering if I’d even have food the next day.

As I’d told Hwa-rin, this world was merciless to a foreigner like me.

Even if Kang Yun-ho became famous through writing, some would always see me as a barbarian. Point fingers and whisper behind my back.

“...Actually, I do have a good one.”

I smiled as I pulled out two type blocks and stamped my pen name onto the book’s cover.

The two characters I chose—

My other name.

Ho – barbarian

Pil – brush

“Ho-pil.”

Black-haired barbarian.

A stranger, possessed into another world.

No matter what I say or write, that truth will never change.

So I’ll make it my name.

Yes. From now on, I am the barbarian writer of a martial arts visual novel.