Chapter 197: The Trash Novel Keeps Getting Printed Without Asking Its Author

The Grand Knowledge Bookshop was crowded when Lucian stopped at the new-release display.

Neat stacks of a fresh edition occupied the oak shelves.

THE ELEGY OF THE NAMELESS KNIGHT

Illustrated Children’s Edition

Introduction and historical notes by Sylvia Lunaire Written by Lucian Vance in childhood

He stared at the cover.

His brooding, mysterious wanderer had become a round cartoon man in a gray cloak with two enormous buttons. He was smiling. Waving, even.

“Why does he look like an idiot?” Lucian asked the manager.

“Our young-reader surveys favor a friendly expression over the face of an assassin, sir.”

“He looks incredibly stupid.” He took a copy and opened it.

This was quality control. The publisher’s existing license covered new editions, so nobody needed his personal permission for every drawing. That did not mean he had to approve of the teeth.

The inside was almost brutally honest.

His childhood grammar errors appeared beside corrections. The commentary quoted his own public complaints about the implau-sible action scenes. Sylvia had added historical notes to passages people used to treat as divine instructions.

On page forty-five, he found one in italics.

The author has confirmed that this passage was written to include twelve new vocabulary words in an assignment from his mother.

The publisher had added a second note.

This has not prevented three major philosophical schools from continuing to find cosmic depth in it.

Lucian tapped the page.

“Burn the academies down. Save everyone the trouble.” “No,” Sylvia said from behind the next shelf.

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He sighed and carried twelve copies to the counter. Evelyn joined him with an ice cream in hand. “Thought it was trash.”

“It is.”

“Then why buy twelve?” “Investment.”

“They’re mass-market books.” He paid.

“Market liquidity support.”

A small hand tugged his coat.

Lucian looked down at a boy of about seven in a school uniform. The boy hugged a worn pocket edition against his chest.

“Are you the one who wrote this when you were little?” “Unfortunately.”

“I like the chapter where the snow wolf gets its teeth knocked out.”

Lucian folded his arms.

“The shield flip is physically impossible. Don’t try it. You’ll break your neck.”

The boy blinked.

“But the wolf was cool.”

Lucian looked at him, then at the book. “Fair.”

The boy ran back to his classmates outside the shop. “Told you! The author says the wolf is cool!”

“I didn’t say cool,” Lucian muttered. He let the child go.

The System opened beside the sales receipt.

[NAMELESS KNIGHT — AVAILABLE PUBLISHING DATA]

Circulation: Growing.

New institutional treatment: Increasingly literary and historical. Host control over interpretation: Limited.

[ANNUAL ROYALTIES]

Account status: Extremely healthy.

Host tolerance of readers: Suspiciously improved.

“Royalties help.”

* * *

That evening, Lucian placed a children’s edition on the table beside Eleanor’s chair.

She picked it up, then took out the first edition she had kept for years. Its leather cover was worn soft around the edges.

She laid the two books side by side.

The old Knight stared out of the darkness. The new one grinned at them with all his terrible teeth.

“The old one made me want to meet you,” Eleanor said. She touched the spine of the illustrated edition.

“This one makes me glad I actually did.” Lucian drank his tea and looked at the fire. “That’s nauseatingly sentimental, Princess.” He left the book on her table.

On the train home, he had seen an office worker reading the pocket edition in a corner seat. The man hadn’t recognized him. He had looked tired, loosened his collar, and turned another page.

Lucian hadn’t gone over to explain anything.

Later, he stopped by his father’s study to return a warehouse key.

Above the marble fireplace, on a red velvet stand, sat a battered first edition of The Elegy of the Nameless Knight. The dragon-slaying swords had less prominent positions.

“Dad. Why do you keep that ruined old copy there?” Regulus looked up from the wooden sword he was polishing. “Because my son wrote it.”

Lucian stayed in the doorway.

His father went back to the sword. The book remained above the fire.