263 Amazing (1/2)

”Brother Monogatari,” Seiji confidently told her his novel’s planned name.

”This name... isn’t quite as eye-catching as I’ll Die if I Don't Become Handsome,” Saki remarked. ”I hope that its contents are as outstanding as you say.”

”You’ll have to see for yourself,” Seiji said with a chuckle. ”I’m going to call my home now and have Shika-chan... my relative send you the draft.”

”Alright, I’ll be waiting.”

They ended the call on that note.

Seiji instantly called Shika-chan and had her email a copy of his draft to Editor Yoshizawa.

All he could do now was wait. He was confident that Editor Yoshizawa would definitely call him back again today!

Saki instantly received Seigo Harano’s draft. She immediately began perusing it.

As a professional editor, Saki had strict standards for story drafts. If it couldn’t attract readers within a set word count, she would unhesitatingly give up on it, no matter who the author was.

And if she finished reading a draft from start to finish, then that basically meant the draft had passed her standards, and she would objectively give a review based on her impression.

She had given Seigo’s Become Handsome short story a review of ”quite an attractive story” after one quick read-through.

Very few stories could actually receive such a good review from her on the first read-through!

Saki Yoshizawa’s strict standards were by far the highest in Thunderbolt Literature’s editing department.

When she was still a newbie, she had the astonishing feat of having criticized a young, formerly successful author to the point of making them break down in tears. And after she became more familiar with the line of work and increased her standards, she received the exaggerated nickname of ”Wall of Disappointment.”

All her coworkers had witnessed her rejecting newcomers’ drafts before and criticizing them to the point of despondency or leaving them in tears.

Even veteran authors would be nervous when sending her their drafts, and some even went to the point of specifically requesting editors other than her if possible.

The head editor had lectured her several times about it—he had tried to tell her to be ”gentler” with the authors, and not break them.

At any rate, the nickname of ”Wall of Disappointment” was no joke. If a draft could successfully get past this ”Wall,” it was considered a type of glory in the authors’ circle, just slightly behind that of receiving the head editor’s praise.

All the drafts that successfully passed this ”Wall” would have good results after publication, better than the average results of drafts that didn’t pass this ”Wall’s” standards. That’s why even though the authors always complained how Saki was too strict, she was still viewed as an important employee by the editing department.

Saki had processed many good stories, but none were wildly popular hits yet, so she lacked absolutely convincing result. This meant that she was right on the border between an excellent editor and a famous editor known by everyone—she was barely on the wall.

Saki herself didn’t mind too much. She was just going through Seigo’s draft as per normal, using her own standards.

After she quickly read through the first page, she paused for a moment.

Instead of reading the next page, she started over again from the beginning and read again while paying close attention to every detail!

This was something she had never done before.

Saki didn’t even notice the change from her normal behavior, because all she could think of was the story she was reading right now.

This story was completely different.

It had a totally different writing style from Become Handsome, but it was just as excellent... no, even better!

The writing quality was quite high, and compared to Become Handsome, the part where it stood out the most was that it was something ”fresh!”

At the very least, Saki felt that it was a fresh type of story, as she had never read such a style of light novel before.

This story seemed like a real-life romantic comedy at first. However, it was also mysterious and mystical, and there were also serious and elegant elements in the novel.

”Monsters; the abnormal; the unexplained; mystery... Brother, which word do you prefer?”

”The world may not be pure black and white, but black and white do exist and will always exist.”

”Those that wear masks are humans; those that don’t wear masks are inhuman.”

”Sister, don’t run around, something bad will happen.”

...

Saki was drawn to sentences like these. As she quickly skimmed through the draft, she felt a strong compulsion to read further.

And when she read it again in more detail, she got addicted and lost herself in the words.