Lee Jong-suk opened his eyes with difficulty, groaning as the bluish light from his computer screen assaulted his pupils. He had stayed awake all night again, spending hours aimlessly wandering the internet without doing anything productive. His cramped studio was in disarray: instant noodle wrappers littered his desk, a pile of wrinkled clothes occupied a chair, and the trash bin overflowed with empty cans.
He sighed and stretched, running a hand through his messy hair. It was time to do something with his life... or rather, find an easy way to make money. He had never been keen on hard work. Why bother when there were shortcuts to take?
His gaze fell on an online article:
"Webnovel authors make thousands of dollars a month!"
A smile crept across his face. He knew about those platforms where people published online novels, and some even became rich. But the idea of spending months or even years writing a story didn't appeal to him at all. He wanted a quick solution.
Then, a thought crossed his mind.
"An AI..." he murmured, sitting up.
Artificial intelligence was doing wonders these days. He had heard about programs capable of generating text, writing poems, and even scripts. If he could use one to write a novel for him, he could just publish it and wait for the money to roll in.
Excited by the idea, he began searching for an advanced story generator. After some research, he found a software that claimed to be able to create a full novel from simple keywords.
"This is exactly what I need!"
He quickly installed it and opened the interface. A dialog box asked him to enter some information:
Genre: Fantasy, Action
Theme: A cursed hero seeking revenge
Special keyword: Rebirth in a ruthless world
He shrugged. He didn't even need to think about it. Dark fantasy stories where an overpowered protagonist crushes his enemies were always popular.
With a click, he started generating the novel.
The screen began to scroll rapidly as the AI wrote before his eyes. Chapters piled up one after another. In just a few hours, the program had produced a story of over a million words. Jong-suk blinked, impressed.
"Incredible… and some people spend years writing!"
He opened a random chapter and skimmed a few lines. He didn't understand everything, but it seemed fine. Anyway, he didn't need to read the story. His goal was to publish it and make money.
Without wasting time, he created an account on a webnovel platform and uploaded the entire novel in just a few clicks. To maximize his profits, he locked the first chapters behind a paywall after a free introduction.
Even before publishing, he could already imagine the comments from readers praising him as a genius, the payment notifications piling up... He smiled thinking about all the things he'd do with the money: move into a bigger apartment, buy a better computer, order food without worrying about the price.
"This is the beginning of my new life..."
He clicked "Publish" and leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head.
All he had to do now was wait.
Jong-suk got up from his chair, stretched, and headed towards his bed. He deserved a bit of rest after all that "hard work." As he lay down, he already imagined waking up to hundreds, even thousands of readers hanging on to his story.
Excitement kept him from falling asleep immediately, so he grabbed his phone and opened the platform to check the first reactions.
[0 comments]
[0 views]
[0 subscribers]
He raised an eyebrow. Well, it wasn't a big deal. Maybe the site needed some time to index his novel. He glanced at the time: 2:37 AM.
"Well, I'll sleep. Tomorrow morning, it'll surely be filled with comments and views."
With a satisfied smile, he placed his phone on his nightstand and drifted off to sleep, dreaming of cash and rapid success.
The next morning, as soon as he opened his eyes, he grabbed his phone. His heart raced at the thought of seeing the views explode. He unlocked his screen and refreshed the page.
[12 views]
[1 comment]
Jong-suk frowned. This wasn't what he expected. Only twelve views?! And just one comment?!
He tapped on it to read it. Maybe it was from an admiring first fan?
Reader_456: "What is this crap? I've never read something this bad in my life."
Jong-suk felt his stomach churn. His smile immediately vanished.
"Huh?"
He jumped up and went to his computer to see if other readers had commented in the meantime.
[32 views]
[7 comments]
His fingers trembled slightly as he clicked on the comment section.
DarkLord99: "I thought this was a joke. Seriously, did a robot write this or what?"
FanDeFantasy: "It's written so poorly, it looks like the author didn't even read what they published."
WTFisThis: "The story is full of inconsistencies. The MC changes personality every three sentences."
BerserkFan: "Avoid this novel. It's a waste of time."
BigReader77: "I wasted ten minutes of my life reading this garbage. No effort, no logic."
ImOut: "I've never seen such an empty work. No emotion, no character development. The author should stop writing."
ShadowCritic: "If this thing becomes popular, I'll eat my shoe."
Jong-suk felt anger welling up inside him.
"What are these idiots talking about?!"
He opened his own novel to see what was wrong. He started reading the first chapter… then stopped after a few lines.
It was a disaster.
The sentences were repetitive, the narration was flat, and some scenes made no sense. He then realized he had never bothered to check what the AI had written. He had just thrown the raw text out there without proofreading, thinking the readers would be too stupid to notice the inconsistencies.
But that wasn't all. He opened a few random chapters... and discovered completely absurd situations.
A character dying twice in the same scene.
A tyrannical king suddenly becoming a farmer, with no explanation.
Dialogues where characters changed names for no reason.
A fight scene where the hero's sword turned into a baguette in the middle of the duel.
He felt his face burning with shame.
"No... no, no, no, no!"
He wanted to believe it was just exaggeration from the readers, but the reality was clear: his novel was a catastrophe.
But what angered him even more was the money. He opened the earnings tab.
Revenue generated: 0.00 $
Not a single reader had unlocked a paid chapter.
His fists clenched. He had spent hours setting everything up, and now he had nothing.
"This is all that damn AI's fault!"
Furious, he opened the software and slammed his fingers onto the keyboard.
"You useless machine! You've humiliated me! I should have written it myself!"
The AI interface flickered slightly, as if reacting to his insults.
"System error detected. Do you want to reset the experience?"
Jong-suk frowned.
"Reset? What nonsense now…"
Without thinking, he clicked "YES."
At that moment, a chill ran down his spine.
The screen of his computer turned black, then a series of strange symbols briefly appeared before disappearing.
"Huh?"
Suddenly, his eyelids grew heavy. His body seemed to lose all strength.
"What... what is this..."
Before he could finish his sentence, he collapsed onto his keyboard.
Silence settled in.
On the black screen, a single message appeared in red letters:
"Loading the world… Welcome to your creation."
Jong-suk opened his eyes. A blinding light, a cloudless sky, and an overwhelming heat hit his face. He blinked, still believing he was dreaming while lying on his computer, but no. He was standing, his feet sunk in the scorching sand of an endless desert. A warm breeze blew, and fine dust stung his skin.
"What... what am I doing here?"
He raised his arms, searching for a shaded spot or... anything better than this damn desert. He turned around and there they were. A group of merchants, like in one of those old fantasy films where people travel on camels under the sun, with bags and stalls full of all kinds of strange things. Some of the merchants wore cloaks and turbans, others were simply covered in ragged clothes.
"Hey! What the hell is this?! This can't be real... I must have eaten too much ramen yesterday."
He ran a hand over his forehead, pushing away a lock of hair that he didn't remember having. He couldn't even remember if he had hair. He rubbed his eyes, hoping that if he closed them and opened them again, this would all disappear. But no, the desert was still there. The heat too.
"Okay, okay... I'm probably in a video game, or... in a bad movie, or maybe I've been drugged. Yeah, that's probably it. I'll just close my eyes and hope it all disappears."
But as soon as he closed his eyes, he heard voices.
"Kael Draven! Don't wait! We need to reach the city before nightfall."
A strange chill ran down his spine. He turned his head toward the voices. And then he heard them again. This time, he addressed one of the merchants, a man with tanned skin and piercing blue eyes.
"Kael Draven, you're lagging behind! We don't have all day."
"Kael Draven?!"
The name echoed in his mind, and a wave of confusion washed over him.
"Wait a minute, why... are they calling me Kael Draven? That's not even my name... No, no... this is impossible! KAEL DRAVEN?! That's not even a normal name, it's too... cliché!"
He looked around, trying to figure out if this ridiculous situation was some kind of misunderstanding. But all the eyes were on him, and he began to feel strangely overwhelmed by the attention. He took a few steps back.
"Hey, guys, this is a joke, right? I'm not Kael. I'm Lee Jong-suk... just a regular guy who wanted to write an online novel and sleep peacefully!"
The merchants seemed to ignore his protests. They kept moving forward in formation, as if nothing was wrong. He suddenly found himself being dragged along with them, a false leader in a role that didn't belong to him. He tried to stop them, but every time he tried to walk away, one of the merchants would call out to him.
"Kael, don't go! You're our guide! We're counting on you!"
Jong-suk froze. So... he had become a guide? A guide in this unforgiving desert? A lazy guy like him, used to the comfort of a couch, the glow of his computer screen, and the coldness of instant noodles.
"Hey, are you sure? Because I... I'm more of an anti-guide! I'd rather stay comfy, cool, and not... die in this cursed desert!"
But his protests were in vain. The merchants looked at him as if he were a savior or a hero, and the more he struggled, the more he felt that this absurd world simply wasn't going to let him go. He lowered his arms, sighing.
"Okay, okay, let's play this game... But I'm warning you, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do."
They soon arrived at an oasis. Jong-suk, overcome with thirst that seemed to appear from nowhere, rushed toward the water. But as he neared the pond, he stopped dead in his tracks. The name of this place was carved into a sign next to the water.
"Valdara Desert"
His eyes widened. It took him only a few seconds to make the connection. This desert, this city, these characters... all of this belonged to the novel he had written, or rather, the one the AI had created for him.
"The... Valdara Desert... That's the title of the desert in the novel! I'm in the novel!"
He stopped in his tracks, a nervous smile forming on his lips.
"Wait, if I'm in this desert... does that mean I'm... in the novel?! But... if I'm in the novel... that means I might be the hero! Right?"
He started walking in circles, lost in his thoughts. He slapped his head.
"No, no, wait... I could be the secondary hero, or worse, a character who gets killed off right at the beginning. The kind of guy who gets forgotten in an alley on page 20."
He sighed, sitting down on a rock.
"Great, I'm stuck in a world I didn't even create, with people who think I'm a hero. The AI's going to bury me here, and I'll end up dying under the sun, crushed by a camel. I really got lucky, didn't I?"