《The Errant Otherworlder Watanabe》Chapter VIII - Wherein is related Watanabe’s second conversation with a woman in another world.
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Unable to sleep out of excitement, Watanabe woke up very early. The sun was mildly bright, the birds were mostly absent and it was a bit cloudy outside. Yet, despite the quite average day, to our galliard hero it seemed like as if it was the best day in his life, death and re-life.
Watanabe was most ready to progress the plot, as well as the “plot”. He was ready to march forth and dispel himself of the problems plaguing him once and for all.
He was ready to actually become worthy of being narrated as a “hero”.
With such noble intentions did our hero march forth, ready to scale the walls and conquer the castle that is the heart of a maiden. He, of course, had never actually scaled the walls of any kind of castle, but he was the protagonist and by Brassicus was he going to become the best damn climber of castle walls on this not-Earth.
Speaking from my bountiful experience, thought Watanabe, women in these fantasy worlds love dense teenage protagonists. Unfortunately, I am neither dense nor am I teenaged, but I possess the most important quality out of them all, for I am the protagonist! One who is destined to rule the world, and with my genre savvy tricks, rule over a harem so great that the author might need to pay for an extra artist to draw all the girls I’ll be meeting!
Holding pure and heroic thoughts like so, our hero then began preparing himself for such a story-defining encounter that it’d make the last eight chapters of maidenless nonsense seem worth it. He first decided he’d fix up is looks a bit, as protagonists such as himself couldn’t afford to look unmarketable.
Or, he would have begun making preparations if he could find a suitable surface in which he could stare at his own countenance, also called a mirror if the author decides not to be pretentious while explaining what a mirror was. Watanabe searched the whole tent, careful not to wake anyone up, yet there was not a non-crystalline, transparent amorphous solid that could reflect back beams of light that bounced off from his generic face.
“[Mirror]!” he shouted in English with the hopes that he might somehow end up casting some sort of magic that’d help out his situation.
I thought this was an opportune time to satisfy the LitRPG readers again, so above is a piece of much needed exposition showing how much MP he’d need to cast [Mirror] if LitRPG mechanics actually existed in this setting (for American readers using the inferior imperial units, he needs exactly 2337,209399030 kMP/in3 to cast [Mirror]. Google is an amazing thing, I just typed in “cube decimeter to cube inch” conversion and there was a convertor for those who regularly need to convert their decimeters to inches).
After having clearly satisfied my readers by bringing the beloved blue box of information back (and having confused readers who are reading this outside of RoyalRoad who are probably wondering what significance a blue box holds), we can return back to the story.
Seeing no mirrors being cast, our hero resorted to using a cup of water that was in the tent as a makeshift mirror. Seeing his reflection, this would be the part where the author would waste a paragraph describing how their character looks. Thankfully, the author avoided this cliché of narration by making their character need no explanation. If you need a description of Watanabe, type “stock light novel hero” into Google (or any other search engine if you want to do that for some reason) and you’ll see approximately how Watanabe looks like.
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If you are somehow reading this story after the internet has disappeared off of the face of the Earth (or the planet that you currently inhabit), then I am terribly sorry for your loss. Or, well, the world is probably better off without the Internet.
Listen to this poor author from the past and never make an Internet ever again hypothetical post-apocalyptic reader.
…Where were we again? Oh right, our hero was getting ready to acquire a jade beauty or whatever. The author honestly wishes that we could just skip to the part where we get some fanservice. Unfortunately, our hero’s tardiness has prevented even one drawing of a woman appearing in this story (except for the one in the third chapter, but I don’t think she counts). We must bear this slog together in hopes that our hero’s venture in this chapter will be successful.
Watanabe combed his hair with his hands, resulting in his hair being only marginally in order. He straightened his trusty tie that had followed him in life and buttoned one button that had been left unbuttoned when he was in Japan. The only thing that Watanabe was now dissatisfied about was his facial hair, he already had grown a noticeable stubble during his short stay.
Of course, Watanabe as a professional man of the office had always taken care to have a clean shave. Yet, this stubble now presented an obstacle greater than being reprimanded by his boss. A protagonist is just like an office worker, he should never be seen with facial hair, thought Watanabe. I have already broken a few rules of protagonisthood, like by being legally an adult instead of being a plucky teen.
Indeed, most of the protagonists he saw were vaguely young enough that they didn’t grow facial hair. The ones who were old enough to grow an unfortunate stubble, in a fashion more fantastic than the words they were transported to, somehow never had to shave.
Yet, Watanabe looked to break new ground. In the world of business, one needs to push the edge of the envelope and blow open new ground… Or that’s what that guy at that webinar said once anyways, thought Watanabe as he bitterly reminisced about the many webinars he and his coworkers were forced to sit through. You’re a genre-savvy, self-aware man, Watanabe, you’re basically the alpha of protagonists. An alpha must lead, and I want to lead by setting a new fashion standard! Yes, this stubble, it gives me a rough, masculine appearance, it is a designer stubble meant to impress the lady which I am about to court. What to those teenage protagonists lacking in manliness have over me anyways? Nothing I say; today, in this very chapter, I shall open the way for real men to take over their rightful place at the top in the protagonist hierarchy!
With new-found confidence, our alpha protagonist felt like he had been born ready for this moment. Watanabe flexed the little to no muscle he had and smiled towards the cup of water that held his reflection.
Suddenly, a voice came from behind Watanabe. “Morning, Sir Watanabe.” said Hans who had just woken up. Watanabe quickly stopped flexing as his underling instincts took over. “Good morning, Sir Hans!” he replied in kind.
“Why are you… Running around and staring at a cup this time of the morning, Sir Watanabe?” asked Hans. “Even my late grandfather, all the way over in Erzen and six feet under, probably woke up hearing you run around just now.”
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“You see sir, I have a meeting with destiny, and needed a mirror to get ready for it. I am truly very much sorry if I have disturbed you.” replied Watanabe as he microwaved a ready apology and served it to Hans.
“Even if it is a meeting with Holy Theodore himself, I’d like it if I wasn’t woken up for it.” said Hans as he tactically retreated back to bed.
I’m safe, thought Watanabe. Apologies are a dish best served piping hot. He then proceeded to comb his hair one last time, and satisfied with his protagonistly appearance, proceeded to get out of the captain’s tent.
To find his way, he needed to find someone so that he could ascertain the directions to the potential harem member’s location. Thankfully he found a familiar face, that of Nicholas, who had woken up early. Greeting Nicholas, Watanabe asked the directions to wherever Rabano-ichi, or whatever she was called. Nicholas thankfully understood who Watanabe was trying to refer to, and after a short minute Watanabe had found his way to the makeshift canopy that this new harem member was staying under.
Forget ghosts that humiliate me and cause great fear, I am now at the verge of greatness! Couple steps forward, and I shall reach the so-called jade beauty, a woman worthy of that title, thought Watanabe as he found, among the forest of makeshift lodgings, a figure that he could just barely recognize from the night before.
The woman seemed to be sleeping, so Watanabe started with a soft and polite “Hello, Lady Rabanowicz?” to wake her up from her slumber.
An annoyed groan that didn’t fit a “jade-beauty” in any way came out of the woman’s mouth. “Mmrgh? Who in the name of the Divine are you?”
The woman in front of Watanabe was far from ugly, but she didn’t fit the description of a “jade-beauty” either. Her light brown hair, or the wig she wore to be more precise, flowed like a river yet it lacked color and luster. Her face was clearly tired, starting to develop wrinkles here and there from stress. Her eyes were just uninterestingly brown and nothing else of interest could be written about them. Her lips were cracked from lack of any care put into them and lacked luster similarly to the rest of her face. Outside of her face, the loose doublet and baggy pants she wore didn’t really show anything off anything about her plain figure.
Most surprisingly to Watanabe, who expected female characters to be equal or younger to the protagonist in age, the woman looked to be around ten years older than him.
Quickly getting out and putting on a pair of spectacles from a bag next to her, the woman stared back at Watanabe. “Wait… Right, you’re that Watanabe fellow.” said the woman as she quickly shook off her sleep and took out a journal of some sort. Before Watanabe could say anything back to her, she had already turned to the page she was looking for.
“Right, Monsieur Watanabe, before we proceed any further, could you read this?” said the woman as she pointed at the page that she had opened.
Despite being completely confused by the response the woman had given to just a simple greeting, Watanabe obliged and read what little was written on the page. “Kore yomeru ka… Yeah, of course I can read plain old hiragana.” replied Watanabe confidently.
“You can?” asked the woman again.
“Of course I can. I learned how to read that at kindergarten… Wait a second, how do you-”
“-know how to write in my language, is what you want to ask, right?” said the woman as she concluded Watanabe’s sentence. “Before being asked questions, I’d like to introduce myself.”
“I would have liked to introduce myself before getting a question too.” interrupted Watanabe.
“Perhaps you’d like to be more honest while doing the introductions with me.” said the woman and continued “I am, as you might have heard yesterday during the impromptu book reading session, Rabanowicz of Kelm. Most call me Lady Rabanowicz, but it’d be better to refer to me by my proper title of ‘Doctor Rabanowicz’.”
“Isn’t ‘Lady’, like an actual noble title? Isn’t it better?” asked Watanabe.
“You see monsieur, there are thousands of ladies on this continent, a lady is born to a noble house by achieving nothing. I am not a lady; I am just the daughter of an insignificant commoner in the far-off village of Kelm.” replied Rabanowicz. “Furthermore, there are thousands of women who are ladies, yet there is one woman that I know in this entire forsaken continent who has earned the title ‘Doctor of Philosophy’.” Rabanowicz proudly pointed at herself, “That one woman, who spent six years disguised as a man in the University of Cyouc, is the same one now standing in front of thee.”
Watanabe remembered how Anton had mentioned how women couldn’t become clergy either. No clergywomen, no university education, no women in the army… What are these people supposed to do I wonder, thought Watanabe as the potential archetypes in his harem diminished faster than his evaluation of the world he had been sent to.
“As admirable as your achievements seem to be doctor, I still can’t see how you could just manage to write a sentence in a language you have never apparently seen, nor do I see why you would be interested in me.” said Watanabe.
“Well then Watanabe, who has managed to come here from very very far away,” said Rabanowicz “if you’d like to learn the how and the why then I implore you to sit down and listen.”
As Watanabe reluctantly sat down, his eagerness to engage in this conversation had disappeared when he noticed that Rabanowicz was not as physically beautiful as he had hoped, Rabanowicz brought out a small sealed pitcher from the same bag she had took out the journal from. “I don’t know much about where you are from, but where I come from, it’s unheard of to leave a guest without something to drink or eat.”
Watanabe’s eagerness to listen to what Rabanowicz has to say increased tenfold as she handed him the pitcher full of drink.
“Now, just be careful to stay sober while we speak.” added Rabanowicz as she began to relate what she wanted to relate.
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Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
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