Shift! The Side-Character Heroine

Chapter 2: Trashy Web Novelist

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

This had to be a dream! Zhao Youyue believed. Such an event would not happen unless she has fallen asleep. However, upon closing her eyes, a huge mysterious gate appeared right before her. Just like a wave of inspiration which usually comes out of the blue, her brain was suddenly filled with every piece of information pertaining to this gate.

This gate called itself “Two Dimensional Gate”. Apparently, through it, one could transmigrate into the story of a manga, a novel, a game or any other literary work. She would then be allowed to pick one female character and play out her role, whether it be the main character, a supporting character, or even a side character, as long as the character has been given a name and place in the story. Bear in mind that if one is to play the role of a main character or a supporting character, their personalities and abilities would already have been firmly established by the author. Therefore, she must carefully retain the guise of the character’s traits, she would have no control of modifying the character settings in any way. However, if she opts to take over a female side character, she could then tweak with the character’s settings like her own backyard. It was very unlikely for an author to pay close attention to the details of a side character.

Meanwhile, if the character she plays becomes well-known in reality, allowing her to transform into a memorable iconic character, she would inherit the said character’s abilities in the real world!

The higher the character popularity, the more powerful her inheritance would be, and the longer the inheritance effects could last. If this character is not well recognized, she would never inherit that character’s abilities.

Zhao Youyue had been vexed by her absence of a golden finger during her waking hours. Now, she simply could not resist envisioning a bright future of her own. Yes, this is more like it. How could she possibly remain as a side character!

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She pushed the Two Dimensional Gate open. Soon after she walked in, the full understanding of this world came into her mind, and she instantly understood that this is the world of “The King of Superpowers”, a that depicted the journey of an Otaku student after acquiring his superpowers. He had then traveled freely to all the cities of the world, and soon nestled in the midst of a female harem. Besides, he had even stepped into the novel’s underworld, battling superhumans of all sorts. Of course, this novel was still under serialization. With an average popularity and almost 2,000 subscribers, it had generated a monthly income of 5,000-6,000 Renminbi (RMB) for the novelist.

Zhao Youyue had never come across this novel before in her life. She immediately selected a female side character named “Zhang Jiajia”. It was such a pity, this girl had once been humiliated by the main protagonist during her days as the promoter of a high-class apparel store, solely for staring at an Otaku with disdain. Previously, the male protagonist had won a big sum of money from gambling with his superpowers. He had then embarrassed Zhang Jiajia by flinging money into her face. Ever since being humiliated for her arrogance, Zhang Jiajia has never again appeared in the novel...

Zhao Youyue modified the character settings of “Zhang Jiajia” in such a way: Max intelligence, Max perseverance, along with Eidetic Memory. In the real world, Zhao Youyue was unremarkable in all aspects. Imagine, if she inherits the intelligence, perseverance, and eidetic memory of the new Zhang Jiajia, she would rip her Side-Character role into shreds!

At the same time, Zhao Youyue had even equipped Zhang Jiajia with the signature move of “Mikoto Misaka”. If she could fire her “Railgun” attack in real life, how cool would that be!

In fact, in the story of “King of Superpower”, the male protagonist had not grown too much in terms of his superpower. The novel was still at its metaphase, where the male protagonist had intended to use his superpowers only to show off before ordinary folk, or to humiliate the children of tycoons, politicians...

Without any doubt, these unruly character settings, no thanks to Zhao Youyue – had severely upset the balance of this novel’s storyline. As she roamed about in the novel’s story, she happened to bump into a man who looked like a little gangster. This man seemed to be harassing a fair lady who drove a nice little sports car. Zhao Youyue lifted her hand up...Bang! Unbelievable. That little gangster has just been obliterated by her Railgun. In the world of novels, she had the power to kill someone in such a decisive way!

Later on, she discovered that the person she has killed was actually... the male protagonist!

Terrible! This is terrible! To think that a dress promoter who once suffered the humiliation of the male protagonist, had literally fought back and even murdered him!

...

The next day Zhao Youyue woke up. She quickly took out a coin and tossed it in the air. She shouted, “Railgun!” Alas... the coin fell smack on her forehead, nothing else happened.

At the same time, she rummaged around her brain, only to find that she had no form of eidetic memory.

“Ah, that was just a ridiculous dream.” She sighed, “How could there be such a golden finger that could access a Two Dimensional Gate...”

During the morning reading class, she suddenly heard Wang Yang who sat in front of her, speaking to his neighbor Jiang Chao, “Holy sh*t, I can’t believe that there’s such a goddamn novelist! Is he trying to fool his readers? To think that I even tipped his novel... Even if he himself doesn’t feel like continuing the novel, he shouldn’t end it so stupidly.”

Wang Yang had been a fan of since junior high. He had carried his interest over into high school. He would always read novels on his phone whenever he gets back to his dorm, in secret.

Jiang Chao was more of a webcomic guy. Anyway, both Chinese and mangas were indeed flourishing. After all, in this world [1], Japan was the vassal of China, so their mangas were pretty much alike.

“What’s wrong?” Jiang Chao was intrigued.

“I’m following this book, “The King of Superpowers”, not that it’s popular, or the novelist’s writing is excellent, he just isn’t too shabby when it comes to sex scenes. So, I was reading up to this part, where the male protagonist was picking up a fair lady. Just as I was ready to see him accept another harem member, this girl with electric superpower came out of nowhere. I mean, her description was so stupidly long and elaborate. We get it, she’s powerful! The novelist had even hit on the point that she was spectacular in all aspects and possessed an eidetic memory. Right after that, she fired her Railgun at the main protagonist, and killed him! Such a f*cking plot! Isn’t it? I had assumed this superpower girl was just another member of his harem...”

Jiang Chao burst into laughter upon hearing the story, “Who is this novelist? He is way too talented! Perhaps this is how he takes his revenge on society, since his novel is not selling well?”

“Anyway, I will never read anything that is written by this trashy web novelist anymore. Who does he think he is? Coming up with such a ludicrous ending... Was he trying to make the readers remember him and his novel in such a brazen way? Nah, they’ll be forgotten in a day or two.” Wang Yang scoffed.

“These years, web novelists would come up with all sort of “tactics”. Well, isn’t there this one who ended with the entire world getting destroyed by a single meteor. So, this tactic is nothing much, it’s just a side character coming back around to kill the male protagonist. Hahaha...” Jiang Chao continued laughing.

After hearing the conversation of the two, Zhao Youyue was dumbfounded. She was the true culprit of all this!

Believing that it was merely a dream, and wanting to have a little fun, she had stirred up trouble in the novel without much deliberation. It had never come to her mind that the male protagonist would be killed by that!

She took out her phone and opened up the Qidian website. She found the comments section of that novel on the verge of blowing up, as it was overwhelmed with streams of invectives from the readers. Oh no, many of them were railing against this novelist who named himself – “I’m the Best”.

Translation Note:

1. Novel’s world, as in Zhao Youyue’s world, not the world she ‘shifted’ into, and not according to our history. It’s their Japan, and their China, and their history.