Inside number 17, Green Town, Tivian North Suburb, Naifnis sat in the warm living room, reviewing the "new books" before her with a curious expression, searching for the one she wanted.
"The Legend of the Wendigo"... "The Mystery of the Yeti"... "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"... "Night of the Living Mist"... Found it!" While flipping through, Neff took a book aside. Finally, she found the target she wanted, smiled, picked it up, turned to Dorothy, who was sitting on the single sofa by the fireplace, and held up the book.
"Miss Dorothy, this is the one I want!"
"Oh, that one. It's adapted from the legend of the Nightmare. It was recently published in Prit as part of the plan. I think this is what you're looking for," Dorothy said, sitting on the soft sofa, crossing her legs and sipping her tea. Neff then spoke up again.
"Then, Miss Dorothy, I'll borrow this one first~ I'll return it when I buy a new one."
"Take it. I won't insist you remember to return it, but remember not to stay up all night reading. Deal with your final exams first," Dorothy continued, then placed her finished teacup on the side table. On the other side, Neff had already smiled and put the novel she had just gotten back into the bag she brought.
"Haha, don't worry, I know my limits."
Neff said with a smile. Then she focused her gaze on the other books before her, and a hint of curiosity arose in her eyes as she looked at the titles.
"I really didn't expect that after not checking for a while, Miss Dorothy, you've directly produced so many new books. But none of these books seem to be sold on the market. When do you plan to release them?"
Neff asked Dorothy curiously, and Dorothy casually waved her hand and spoke.
"These books you see have actually already been released, just not within Prit."
"Huh, not within Prit... Miss Dorothy, are you still writing books abroad?"
"Of course. After all, if too many excellent novels appear in the same reading market at once, they will hinder each other's popularity. After one work becomes a hit, it will bury other works, which is not conducive to the overall increase in popularity," Dorothy slowly explained to Neff, looking at the world map hanging on the living room wall as she spoke.
"So I've separated these novels I've created and put them into different reading markets in different countries, letting them become popular in their respective markets before exchanging and introducing them to each other, ultimately increasing overall visibility. For example, my current plan is to make 'Night of the Living Mist' popular in Prit's reading market, and then introduce works like 'Frankenstein'... 'The Legend of the Wendigo' which are currently popular in Faloro. And I've also put different novels in the Iweig area of Castile now."
Dorothy said to Neff. Listening to her words, Neff couldn't help but be stunned, then she rubbed her head and spoke with a dry laugh.
"Miss Dorothy... the novels you've created all at once... are really numerous. Is this the genius mind of a 'Qi' (Awakening/Enlightenment) Extraordinary? I feel like my head is about to explode when I write a thousand-word essay... You can produce so many in one go..."
"'Qi' (Awakening/Enlightenment)'s ability? Maybe... But more than that, it's standing on the shoulders of giants~" Waving her finger, Dorothy said to Naifnis with a smile, and her words couldn't help but make Neff's expression a little confused.
"On the shoulders of... giants?"
...
Soon, Dorothy saw off Neff, who had come to finish, and sent her out of the house to go back and review. Dorothy leisurely returned to the warm living room in her slippers. After stretching a big yawn, she rubbed the tears from the corners of her eyes, then waved her hand, making the Corpse Puppet typists in the house start working again. For a time, the entire house was filled with the sound of typing.
Then, Dorothy sat back on her single sofa by the fireplace, and while warming herself by the fire, she fell into contemplation, thinking about and examining the new type of reading popularity she had constructed in various countries around the world in recent months, the revolution of horror novels.
Dorothy the Bizarre Writer's ability, the release of Anecdote Manifestation, requires the circulation of anecdotes that meet the conditions within a region, preferably urban legends that have a horror element and conform to the meaning of "Shadow". However, such stories are not available everywhere, and even if they are, the degree and range of their circulation vary from place to place. This has invisibly restricted Dorothy the Bizarre Writer's ability in various ways, and the freedom of ability release is not high.
Writing various novels with horror elements, and then making them popular worldwide, letting anecdotes circulate in the form of novels, thereby facilitating Dorothy's future use of her ability for summoning.
This is what Dorothy has been doing for the past few months. She first wrote and published "Bloodborne Legend" based on the Tivian Fear Howl strange tale. Initially serialized in newspapers, after attracting enough popularity, she began to find publishers to cooperate with, launched physical books, and also achieved considerable success.
The reading market in Prit could not satisfy Dorothy's needs. Soon, she found a certain versatile Clockwork Neighbor, asking her to help publish new books using the influence of the Craftsmen's Guild worldwide, and share the profits. Although the Craftsmen's Guild is almost not involved in the publishing industry, after Beverly heard Dorothy say that sales were absolutely guaranteed and even that she would personally provide a huge deposit, she immediately hit it off and decided to help Dorothy, letting the Craftsmen's Guild's strongholds in various countries around the world start helping Dorothy publish novels.
At first, the Craftsmen's Guild still cooperated with local foreign publishers to distribute books, but after trying it out and finding that the sales were indeed good, they simply started to establish their own publishing house to publish Dorothy's works, and additionally invested in advertising to increase promotion. The final result was that sales in almost every region were very successful after a few months, and Beverly also seemed to have officially started involving the Craftsmen's Guild in the mundane publishing industry using Dorothy's works as an opportunity.
Of course, the fundamental factor for this series of sales successes is based on the quality of Dorothy's works. Dorothy's confidence to dare to cooperate with the Craftsmen's Guild in this way comes from her full confidence in the quality of these works. As long as there are sufficient sales and promotion channels, there is no worry about not selling them. Her confidence comes from the works themselves, which are classics in the field of horror and fantasy novels from her previous life, and have already withstood the full test of time and readers in another world.
Dorothy planned to quickly trigger a horror novel popularity craze within the civilized world, but she also did not want to create a great writer who seemed to have an overly outrageous creative ability. Therefore, except for a few books she wrote herself based on Tivian rumors, she used the corresponding original authors' names for the other novels she brought over. The pen name truly used by Dorothy herself is "Ett", which is the name of a female writer in a manga Dorothy had read before. The works she created using the pen name Ett are mainly popular in Prit.
"Phew... It has increased the visibility of anecdotes and earned a lot of manuscript fees. This wave can be considered killing two birds with one stone. The past few months have not been in vain."
Dorothy sighed softly while sitting on the sofa. Due to writing and waiting for anecdotes to spread, she spent a relatively calm and stable period. During this time, she did not go anywhere else, and no other major events occurred in Tivian, allowing her, the newly promoted Scarlet Tier Extraordinary, to have a good rest.
During these past few months, neither the Wolf Blood Society nor the Eight-Pointed Nest had any movement. The hidden world of Tivian was peaceful. The director of the An Yin Bureau had recovered, and a new Archbishop had arrived at St. Yong Cathedral to take office. As for Grego, he had successfully been promoted to Chalk and became a resident Captain in the An Yin Bureau, a talented member who was promoted after only one year in the An Yin Bureau.
On the other hand, Misha's idea of forming a vigilant faction in Prit is also proceeding in an orderly manner. She has now secretly contacted several An Yin Bureau members and noble members, and she is indeed organizing her own forces to counter the Eight-Pointed Nest. As for Vanya, after the official Archbishop arrived, she handed over the position of acting bishop and resumed her pilgrimage with the pilgrimage group, fulfilling her duties again.
After Vanya's first round of pilgrimage ended, she unexpectedly received a decree from Holy Mountain, ordering her to go to Holy Mountain to report on her duties. Vanya and her team arrived at Holy Mountain a month and a half ago, where she was arranged to undergo spiritual cultivation and receive Holy Communion of high Spirituality value.
This behavior indicates that the Church is helping her quickly accumulate Spirituality, which means that the preparation for Vanya's promotion has already begun, and she will soon be able to be promoted to Scarlet. Her promotion now seems to be a foregone conclusion, and it's just going through the process.
To be honest, Dorothy herself had not anticipated Vanya's promotion, because although Vanya had many merits, she was still too young. In such a large organization as the Church, seniority is very important. Her obtaining the position of Sacred Relic Holder was already a somewhat irregular promotion.
Dorothy had originally expected Vanya to stay in the position of Sacred Relic Holder for at least a few years, but she did not expect her to be promoted again in less than a year. Faced with this anomaly, Dorothy could only attribute it to more serious problems in the power struggle among the high-level members of the Church, which was the same reason why the Archbishop of Saint Chant Church had not been appointed for a long time before.
Facing the situation where the Church's abnormality was continuously deepening, Dorothy gradually began to feel worried. After being stable for several months, she finally began to think about whether she should start acting again and officially put the pursuit of the Golden Tier on the agenda.
Sitting by the fireplace, Dorothy controlled the Corpse Puppet to type while thinking about her future plans, wondering where she should start at this time to get information about the Golden Tier promotion method. Just then, she seemed to sense something and her eyebrows raised slightly.
Dorothy took out the magic box from her body, opened it, and took out her "wen hai hang zhi" from it. After flipping through a few pages, she saw a few new lines of delicate handwriting that appeared on the pages.
"Are you free tonight? I have something important to discuss."
Looking at the familiar handwriting on the book page, Dorothy couldn't help but frown slightly, then muttered.
"Something important... I hope it's real this time."
...
Time flew by, and soon the day went away and night fell.
In a common bar in East Tivian at night, Dorothy, wearing a thick cotton cloak and a wide-brimmed hat, walked slowly down a long corridor. Around her, there were slightly noisy sounds.
After walking for a while, Dorothy stopped in front of a private room, turned and looked at the door of the private room next to her. She sighed slightly, then reached out and pushed it open. As soon as she walked in, she felt an arm wrap around her waist from the side, lifting her up with one hand.
"Oh~ my little Detective darling, you're finally here. You've made me wait so hard."
Wearing a dark red Madam's trench coat, Adele held a red wine cup in one hand and wrapped her other arm around Dorothy's small body, lifting her off the ground. She smiled as she looked at the other person's small face from close up, circling in the small private room as she spoke with a smile.
"Put me down Adele... I'm not your doll." Facing Adele's actions, Dorothy spoke silently, but the other party clearly had no intention of doing so.
"How can I do that? I finally caught you. Come, let's finish this cup of wine together and I'll put you down."
Looking at the exquisite little face of the silver-haired girl before her, Adele shook the red wine in the cup and continued to speak. Seeing this situation, Dorothy sighed slightly helplessly, then reached out and snapped her fingers.
With a soft sound, the figure of Dorothy, who was held by Adele, suddenly became distorted, and then quickly disappeared into nothingness. Looking at Dorothy's sudden disappearance before her, Adele's eyes widened slightly, and at this moment, Dorothy's voice sounded in the room again.
"I said, I'm still a minor child and cannot drink."
Adele turned her head to look at the source of the sound, only to see that at some point, Dorothy had already sat on the seat in the room, and was leisurely brewing the tea that had been prepared on the table while speaking. Seeing this situation, Adele spread her hands and spoke somewhat helplessly.
"Alas... the little darling is Scarlet now, not like before when I could catch her and she couldn't run away. What a pity~"
While speaking, Adele sat back in her seat, across from Dorothy. At this time, Dorothy had already brewed her first cup of tea and placed it in front of her, looking at Adele and speaking seriously.
"This time you asked to meet me, you're not just trying to tease me, are you?"
"Of course... not~ This time I asked you to come because there's something important, and it might be related to what you're looking for." After sitting down across from Dorothy, Adele lightly said, waving her finger. Dorothy's eyebrows raised when she heard this, and she spoke.
"Tell me the specifics? What is it?"
"Okay... Detective Miss, you might have already seen it, I'm not from Prit." Putting her hand on her chest, Adele said, and Dorothy answered directly.
"Based on some of the signs and habits you've shown before, as well as your name, Miss Adele, you should be from Faloro, right?"
"That's right, I'm from Faloro. In fact, in a sense... I'm not just an ordinary person from Faloro," Adele said, and then her expression became quite serious. The original frivolousness and playfulness in her expression were restrained.
"I am a remnant of the Bourbons Dynasty of Faloro. More than a hundred years ago, during the Cold Moon Revolution, my ancestors escaped from the bloody purge against the Bourbons Royal Family, avoiding the fate of being sent to the guillotine. Since then, they have changed their surname and lived in anonymity, no longer having any ties to the politics of Faloro.
"But not long ago, someone actually wrote to me, exposing my identity as a remnant of the Bourbons Dynasty, and even asked me to return to Faloro to inherit the rich legacy left by the Bourbons. Detective Miss, isn't this strange~"
...
Hmm... Thank you to the big shot for the treasure chest reward.