The magic merchant who mingled with Fairy Tail

The early morning sun shines warmly on the earth, waking up the sleeping town.

With the ringing of the alarm clock, the girl got up on time as usual, washed, had breakfast, dressed up, and put on work clothes. It took half an hour to get her appearance in order, then opened the door and started a new day of life.

Today is a sunny day, and the gentle breeze blowing in front of you makes people feel indescribably comfortable and comfortable.

The girl's name is Zena. She is 18 years old this year. She has beautiful long emerald green hair, a pure and sweet face, a petite and exquisite figure, and a big face. Among the "enthusiastic and wild" standard Western Continental women around her, It seems a bit bland.

This appearance comes from her mother who was born in Ishgar, but Zena was not ostracized because of this difference from ordinary people. Instead, she blended in harmoniously with others with her sunny and cheerful personality.

Zena is an intern reporter at the newspaper "Empire Miracle". She only has two jobs. One is to write articles, and the other is to interview passers-by on the street and record their opinions on the contents of previous issues of the newspaper.

Today her job is the latter.

This kind of work is relatively easy for a new reporter with little experience to get started. Apart from the complicated work content, it is not too difficult.

The work in the morning was busy. Zeina had interviewed seven or eight passers-by in succession, including men, women, old and young. This was to determine whether the newspaper content was accurately pushed to the target group, and to target the interests and hobbies of each target group. , choose a more engaging topic.

"I feel like people weren't very interested in the content of the last issue of the newspaper... That's right. After all, 'overseas expansion' has been on the headlines for half a year, so it's normal for the popularity to have declined."

Zena, who had just finished interviewing an eight-year-old boy, sighed, looked at the short figure on the street, and murmured to herself, "I heard that boys are all fans of military and politics. It seems that the rumors are not true."

This child is obviously more concerned about the Big Eater competition, and even asked when the next competition will start. How could he possibly know such a thing!

Looking at the comments of passers-by on various news items recorded in her notes, Zena felt depressed, lost, and angry.

She never expected that the residents of the town would not pay attention to the severe natural disasters such as sandstorms, nor to national events such as overseas expansion. Instead, they would pay attention to robots playing hooligans on the streets and who won the prize in the Big Eater Competition. Little things that don't matter.

What's more, they don't even care about the inexplicable meteor shower appearing near the royal capital. That's the royal capital! The most important city in the Albarez Empire! What are their reviews?

"Meteor shower? What's so strange about it? It's like no one has seen it before!"

"Does the wish work? If it doesn't work, don't see it!"

"There are several adults with twelve shields there, what could happen?"

This is simply unreasonable! !

But what makes Zena the most unhappy, and what the residents are most concerned about, is the recently famous light novel "I Became the Thirteenth Shield of the Empire".

When Zena learned about this book for the first time, she was stunned: the name was filled with a strong sense of self-indulgence and mindlessness of a loser at first glance. It had no cultural level at all. It was obviously a person who was hanging around. Things written by people at the bottom of the wizarding world, who may not even know magic, for their own entertainment. How could anyone like to read this kind of novel? !

However, reality slapped Zena hard in the face. Not long after she learned about this book, she found that almost everyone around her was reading it!

Children are watching it, adults are watching it, men are watching it, women are watching it, and everyone who has seen it says it is good. Even the seniors in the newspaper office are full of praises and discuss the plot every day, and it has derived a lot of stories. Unrealistic daydreams.

The unspeakable absurdity once made Zena feel that the empire was hopeless.

A few days later, Zena suddenly discovered something: when you think something is outrageous enough, reality will tell you that there are far more outrageous things in the world.

This light novel has become very popular. In less than a month after its release, I heard that the sales volume has exceeded 100 million, and this figure is still rising. It will increase by several percentage points every day, which is millions of readers!

When Zena found out about this, she was dumbfounded.

Can this thing be popular? ! Has the literary world in the Albarez Empire become this bad? Could it be that I lacked a clear positioning of my writing level before? Shouldn't I be more conscious and take up the banner of the literary world?

Not surprisingly, when Zena told the people around her about this, their reaction was-

"Sales exceeded 100 million? That's normal! What's so strange?"

"I'm so jealous! If I could write something like that, I wouldn't be like this..."

"What a role model for our generation! I will become such a novelist in the future!"

"Stop talking, start writing a book now!"

Later, Zena heard that many people quit their jobs and wrote novels full-time at home, hoping to be as famous as the author of that novel. Unfortunately, in the end, nothing was written.

Regarding that novel, Zena also went to the bookstore to buy it and read it. It tells the story of a young orphan with outstanding talent for magic. After unremitting struggle and hard work, relying on tenacious will and hard work, he overcame obstacles and repeatedly defeated powerful enemies along the way. In the end, he joined forces with his friends and lover to defeat the evil dragon who wanted to destroy the world, and was named the "Thirteenth Shield to Protect the Empire" by His Majesty the Emperor, becoming a legendary wizard of a generation.

With the idea of ​​"anything like this is possible, there is no reason why I can't do it", Zeina secretly wrote a similar short story and sent it to the manuscript agency, but what she got in the end was "does not meet the standards" and "failed to pass the review" Such a reply.

"How can this be?!"

That day, the young girl Zena felt that her world view had been severely insulted!

The sense of absurdity that was different from common sense struck her nerves forcefully, as if she was forcing her mind to cater to that unreasonable logic and then change into its shape.

It took Zena several days to get over that emotion. Although she let it go temporarily, every time she saw the name of the novel, her blood pressure would rise uncontrollably, like Now like this.

Although I was disgusted to death, I had to ask passers-by for their comments on that report, and then patiently recorded it word for word.

She also reported to her seniors, "It's all good reviews anyway, can't you just write about it?", but she was retorted back with "News must be authentic."

Zena knew that this was only one of the reasons, and the other reason was: the seniors even wanted to read the comments of other readers! That would make them feel like they were having a book club.

This almost made her collapse: Are there any normal people around me? ! !

The answer is: no!

“It’s a very good book, the elderly and children at home love to read it!”

“I will also recommend similar novels next time!”

"Can't the reporters at your newspaper write at a similar level? Why do you always write those messy things? Let me tell you, let your boss just change the newspaper into a novel club..."

Different from the "Astronomy", "Geography", "Military", "Food" and other channels, all the people Zeina interviewed today, regardless of men, women, old and young, were all interested in the novel in the "Entertainment" channel of the last issue of the newspaper, that is, the novel that made her collapse. The novel "I Became the Thirteenth Shield of the Empire" has been evaluated, which shows that its attention rate is not generally high.

Along with anger and unwillingness, jealousy and hatred, an idea occupied Zena's brain: If I could write that kind of novel, what would it look like now? ?

No...that's not right! This idea is wrong! That novel is trash! Writing something similar will only dirty your hands and brain, as well as paper and pen! Although you may gain a lot of money from this, it will permanently pollute your soul!

Zena suddenly got excited, and under the shocked eyes of several passers-by, she shook her head violently, trying to get rid of all the wrong thoughts in her mind.

Then...she saw an incredibly handsome red-haired boy walking by her.

"!!!"

This man... so handsome! !

The long-lasting depression was gone in an instant!

Zena is not a nymphomaniac, but the man in front of her is indeed the most handsome boy she has ever seen! Such words as majestic appearance, extraordinary talent, heroic demeanor, and suave...these words she could think of were not enough to describe the handsomeness of the young man in front of her!

For a moment, Zena wanted to step forward and grab the red-haired boy to get to know him, but as soon as she took half a step, she hesitated in her heart: He shouldn't be like others, bragging about that novel. ?

I don't know since when, Zena has regarded "attitude towards the novel "I Became the Thirteenth Shield of the Empire"" as the standard for testing the IQ of normal people.

At first glance, this person is both talented and beautiful. He should not be like those idiots!

Thinking of this, Zena whispered to herself twice, mustered up her courage, spread her long legs and trotted to catch up.

"Hello, sir! Can I interview you?"

The red-haired boy turned around, seemingly surprised, and then followed the girl in front of him with a beautiful and gentle smile.

"sure!"