The Main Characters That Only I Know

Chapter 12

I racked my brain for a good name for my library, but nothing came to mind.

‘Should I go with something provocative like the other tellers? No, whatever name I choose, it will be overshadowed by those libraries.’

It was easy to attract attention with a catchy name when most names were plain, but now everyone was trying to stand out with flashy names.

It was a losing game.

It was like being normal in a land of cyclops.

I looked around at the other libraries, hoping to find some inspiration.

My colleagues who had just finished their induction ceremony had already set up their libraries and were showing their stories.

They had very few viewers, maybe three at most, or just one at the minimum.

They were tiny libraries.

I logged into one of them to check it out, and the viewers were not very impressed.

[Shadkar’s First Survivor 100TP donation!]

[What is this? This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.]

[Proud Dragon 100TP donation!]

[This is so low quality. I came here out of curiosity because it’s a new library, but I’m leaving now.]

[Drunkard of the Tavern 100TP donation!]

[Lololol just close your library.]

The message window was full of hate comments.

And they were not even indirect messages, they were direct messages that cost TP.

The Divine Spirits were mocking the teller and the collector, and of course, the collector’s face was sour as he watched them live.

Excessive criticism and personal attacks.

But they couldn’t kick them out because they were the only viewers they had.

The teller of this library must have been holding back tears and catering to their whims.

The first impression was everything, or at least half of it.

The Divine Spirits who came to this library out of curiosity would also be influenced by these reactions.

The chances of them staying were slim.

‘That’s what happens when you sign a contract with a pathetic collector.’

The collector’s level was indeed low.

It was natural that his skills were lacking since he didn’t have a contractor.

In that sense, I was lucky.

I had found a hidden gem in Kang Hye-rim.

‘If you mess up the first button, you can never succeed.’

The Divine Spirits who shot TP at them now would soon lose interest and leave the library.

Then the library would be doomed with no visitors.

‘Then there are only two paths for the teller to choose.’

The first one was to give up their library rights and join another teller who ran a bigger library.

The other one was to starve to death without TP and disappear with their library.

From this world.

Most tellers chose the first option.

They would rather work under someone else and do all kinds of chores, but at least they wouldn’t die of hunger.

That was the common sense of the tellers.

Watching that scene live, I thought that I could have ended up like that if I made a wrong move.

‘I’m lucky in that regard.’

I decided not to name my library yet and pressed the [Create Library] button.

[Mission Success!]

[You have acquired a personal library]

[You have acquired the Manager’s Room]

[You can now move to the Manager’s Room whenever you want]

A small fanfare sound that only I could hear and a message that my library was created were delivered to me.

I knew what the Manager’s Room was, but that wasn’t important right now.

“Kang Hye-rim.”

“Yes.”

“First of all, you did well by changing your weapon to a sword and practicing as I advised.”

“Hehe. Thank you.”

“But in the end, what matters is whether you can produce results. Kang Hye-rim. Are you ready to swing your sword?”

“Huh?”

She wasn’t stupid, she must have understood what I meant by that.

Swinging your sword.

It wasn’t just practicing in the air.

Kang Hye-rim had to start working as a collector for real.

That’s why I told her to change her weapon.

“Right now?”

She asked incredulously, as if she didn’t expect me to say that so soon.

“Hye-rim. You know that we tellers sign contracts with collectors and show stories, right?”

“Yes.”

“Showing stories means showing stories. We tellers find suitable contractors and show their stories to the Divine Spirits. Let me ask you this. What exactly are the stories we are trying to show?”

“Uh, well…”

She hesitated to answer.

She probably hadn’t thought much about it before.

Kang Hye-rim thought for a moment and answered.

“The life of a collector?”

“Well, that’s close, but too broad. Actually, there is no single definition of a story. Some Divine Spirits are curious about the world where collectors live. They are interested in their lives and history. Some Divine Spirits like stories that make them think. Some Divine Spirits enjoy the fun things that collectors show them.”

In other words, there were different genres of stories.

Some collectors showed adventures of exploring the unknown, some showed cooking and eating various dishes.

History, philosophy, entertainment, etc.

But among these genres, there was one that was overwhelmingly popular.

“That is the hero’s tale.”

“Hero… tale?”

The story of a hero. Their birth and success.

It was the genre that the Divine Spirits loved the most.

“Kang Hye-rim. You will be the protagonist of a hero’s tale.”

“Me, me? Can I do that?”

“You can. And I will make it happen for you.”

Well, I said it was a hero’s tale, but it was actually simple.

Go inside the gate, defeat the monsters there, and grow steadily.

That was the basic framework of a hero’s tale.

But simple things were hard, and many tellers who tried this genre failed to succeed. It was not easy to overcome the obstacles in front of them.

“I’m still very low in collector rank. I’m only a ninth-grade subordinate…”

A ninth-grade subordinate was the lowest of the 18 ranks of Korean collectors, starting from first-grade regular.

It was equivalent to F rank in alphabetical order.

“It doesn’t matter.”

She was low-ranked because she hadn’t fully awakened her talent yet.

When she awakened her trait, she would be much higher than a ninth-grade subordinate.

“But still…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

I cut her off firmly.

She had to trust me on this. I knew what I was doing.

I had a plan to make her a hero.

“You have to believe in your own power, Ms. Kang Hye-rim. Of course, you don’t know it yet. But if you do as I say, you will soon realize it. How amazing is the trait that you possess.”

“Uh, um. Okay.”

In the end, Kang Hye-rim was the one who lost to my persuasion.

Kang Hye-rim grabbed a sword.

It was a mediocre weapon that was provided for free, but it wouldn’t be a problem for her level.

Fortunately, the entrance to the Mental Realm was not far away, so it didn’t take long to get there.

“There are not many people here.”

“That’s because the entrance is in a remote place.”

I answered Kang Hye-rim’s words, but my eyes were fixed on somewhere else.

At the end of my sight, a white whirlwind was spinning in the air like a vortex.

‘That’s the entrance to the Mental Realm.’

Before the material world Earth was incorporated into the mixed world, myths and legends were just fictional stories created by someone.

But since we entered the mixed world, everything changed completely.

It was because of the appearance of these worlds of ideas.

‘A place that resembles the world that exists in actual history, or in legends, myths, and folktales that were only passed down by writing.’

Now, the stories of ancient times that had disappeared and were impossible to verify whether they were real or fake, became reality and manifested as a kind of subspace.

These worlds of ideas were the optimal places for collectors to be active.

“Let’s go in.”

“Ah, yes.”

Kang Hye-rim entered the Mental Realm through the entrance with her shoulders hunched.

The scenery changed in an instant.

The place we moved to was a mine.

The air that touched our skin was damp and dark because there was not much light.

The Anbar Mountains’ Kobold Mine.

That was the name of this Mental Realm.

Of course, it was not revealed yet, but in the future.

‘And it’s also a place where beginners collectors usually come to farm points.’

It was not a bad place for Kang Hye-rim’s debut battle because the difficulty level was moderate.

“Where is this…?”

“This is the Kobold mine. Do you know about Kobold?”

“Ah, yes.”

But knowing something in your head and experiencing it in reality were different.

Kang Hye-rim clenched her sword nervously.

She looked around with anxious eyes.

There was no one else in the dark mine except for her and me.

It was a place where people didn’t come often.

Her tense appearance was pitiful, but this was also necessary.

I turned my eyes away from Kang Hye-rim and checked the status of my library.