Surviving a Shounen Manga

Squatjaw's Guide

"Didn't you mention only about a thousand people…"

Chinuavi sighed softly as he watched the swarm of enemy soldiers.

He'd tried to limit the possible angles of attack by narrowing the terrain using earth dragons, but it wasn't easy to compensate for such numerical inferiority.

A mere one hundred dream soldiers simply weren't equipped to handle these many enemies.

‘Would things be different if I'd actually studied tactics?'

Chinuavi's lips pressed into a thin line.

Contrary to what he'd told senior, he'd never studied any books about war. His results in the Brawler Goblin Test might've been different if he had. Because tactics was one of the main subjects of the test.

He'd never once considered tactics or strategy as important in the first place. He'd always thought that a strong enough goblin could just take on a hundred, a thousand, even all the monsters in the world.

So he… had stepped forward simply on impulse. Angry, and wanting to be of some help.

‘I should have studied a bit.'

But now it was too late to regret.

The situation was only getting worse and worse.

Out of the hundred dream soldiers he'd started with, now less than thirty were left, and all of them were showing signs of exhaustion. It wouldn't be strange if they returned back to the dreaming any moment.

He, too, was tired.

He tried to clench his palms, but couldn't exert much force.

"Hoo…"

Was it because he'd summoned three earth dragons at once?

Or because he'd forced himself to use multiple techniques at the same time?

Well.

Actually, those weren't the real problem.

Neither his ignorance of tactics nor his lack of energy was the true crux.

The biggest problem – was the existence of a single man.

Chinuavi raised his head and looked to the front.

There, a man in an Eastland-style black coat was lying on a luxurious palanquin, supported by dozens of people, and surveying the battlefield with an infinitely bored expression on his face.

In fact, the flow of battle, which had initially been in the goblin's favour, had started twisting and turning ever since that bastard had appeared.

Five minutes.

In just five minutes, the first and second rows of the dream soldiers had been overpowered by that man, who'd broken into their ranks wielding a weapon that looked like a pen.

It'd been completely one-sided.

‘Too strong.'

If that bastard hadn't quickly lost interest and retreated, not only the dream soldiers, but even Chinuavi himself might've already become a cooling corpse.

Chinuavi glanced backwards.

‘… This is a dilemma.'

Acknowledging the inevitability, he'd tried to run away as planned, but even that had failed. While he'd been concentrating on the battle, suddenly the path of retreat had somehow been cut off.

Chinuavi recognized his current circumstances as the ‘uninteresting situation' that he'd often heard about.

‘I underestimated my opponent. Like an inexperienced pup.'

In a situation where so many people's eyes were focused on him, he couldn't activate the goblin stealth ability either. In particular, the indifferent eyes of the man in the black coat… Even if there weren't many onlookers, he might not have been able to avoid that man's eyes.

And in the midst of this, the number of dream soldiers continued to dwindle, and from thirty they had now been reduced to to less than ten.

Soon, it was finally his turn.

That was then –

"Should I say congratulations?"

Suddenly, the man in black coat spoke with a languid voice.

"You managed to persevere. Although, it's true that I just watched."

His words came suddenly, at an unexpected timing.

"… What?"

"That guy in the back. He's in your team, right?"

Chinuavi unconsciously turned his head, to the direction the man was pointing.

There, a strange sight was unfolding.

Pop–.

Pop–.

Enemy soldiers were jumping into the air like flying fish.

"Hmm, I guess this bastard's pretty decent…"

At that moment, Chinuavi felt his heart pounding violently.

No way…

"Wait, that guy's got the same squat jaw as you! Brothers? Is that guy your older brother?"

"He… isn't, but… "

‘He' was rushing towards their side like a wild boar charging through a field of reeds.

Pop–.

Pop–.

The slender reeds did not dare stand in his way. They were bent, blown, bounced, and then crushed without mercy.

"Hey, it seems like your older brother is a little stronger than you, right?"

The man in the black coat, who'd been lying down, had already risen into a sitting posture. His eyes, which had only been drowsy and indifferent till now, were shining brightly.

"… Not just a little."

All of a sudden, he'd come close.

Chinuavi stared at that powerful figure with shaking eyes.

That gigantic size, that superlative strength, and that majestic jaw…

Perhaps the legendary monster hunter, the battle goblin Baugarvi, had looked something like this?

Then,

"Hey, hey. I'm not late, right?"

When he finally reached them, grinning, he didn't stop and went further forward, leaving the goblin at his back.

The sight of those broad shoulders made Chinuavi's heart swell in enthusiasm.

The true Captain Squatjaw had arrived.

In that instant, a fierce shout erupted from Chinuavi's throat.

"Big bro Squatjaw!"

‘… Big bro?'

I was a little embarrassed.

"Big bro" was a designation rarely used among the goblins.

To address somebody with reverence, ‘senior' was much more popular among them.

For a simple reason. Because ‘elder brother' referred to none other than one of their gods.

The eldest brother, the God of Mischief.

The situation must've been really urgent. If he'd shouted something like that unconsciously.

‘Or does he really think of me like an older brother…?'

Hmmm.

Whatever the reason, it didn't matter right now.

I slowly looked around.

All but a couple of the intermediate combat agents had already collapsed.

Things would've been pretty dicey if I'd come even just a little bit later.

‘Hey, didn't you ask me to believe in you?'

I looked back at Chinuavi who was standing behind me with a reproachful gaze, but for some reason, there was no sign of remorse in the kid's shining eyes. He had been the self-proclaimed commander, yet he seemed to have quickly transitioned into a cheerleading role.

I turned my gaze back to the man on the palanquin.

It had been my mistake.

Why did I think this guy was going to wait at the back?

Come to think of it, nobody else could compare to how many battlefields this guy had been active in. Because his instinct as a ‘scout' didn't discriminate against his enemies.

Firmino also looked at me, as if sensing my gaze, and slowly started speaking.

"You must be the true owner of these toys. It seems you also went and dealt with some of my men inside the city, right?"

"Actually, I went to catch you, but you weren’t there. So I had to hurry back after venting a little bit."

"You threw these toys into the sacred battlefield. What bad taste."

From the looks of it, it seemed that he'd planned to recruit the intermediate agents as subordinates. But trying to dominate them must've left him a little embarrassed since they were just NPCs bought from the shop.

"Oh, did they taste bad?"

"That squat-jaw in the back didn't interest me, but this is good. You, are different."

He jumped off the palanquin.

As if intending rush at me right away.

Of course, that was what I wanted, too.

After a brief probe, we crashed into each other.

Bang–.

As his feet struck mine, there was a booming roar.

"Hey…"

It was only one exchange, but that alone proved it.

He was fast and had great strength. He was really very strong, despite that slender physique.

It was frankly cumbersome.

And he seemed to feel the same.

"You're great. Squatjaw."

"You're overpraising me. You aren't too bad either."

"I'm looking forward to it."

"Oh?"

"To having a slave like you, I mean."

Pulling out the thin implement he was wearing at the waist, he held it in his hand.

An iron pen.

His signature weapon.

The one he used to scribble on people's bodies.

My anger boiled over in a flash, but I reined it in. So as not to mess things up in my excitement.

Before long, the guy swung the stylus and rushed forward.

His attack was several times faster than before.

Shhh–.

"Ugh!"

Suddenly, the stylus flew towards my left eye. I quickly turned my head to avoid it, but a thin line still appeared on my cheek.

It was a formidable display of speed and power.

"You managed to avoid it."

"…"

"But how long will that last?"

He didn't let up and continued attacking, and wounds gradually accumulated on my body.

Then, eventually,

"Fufu, bastard! It’s over."

He managed to reach my back.

Next, Firmino's stylus was nailed to my shoulder.

Push–.

"Ouch."

It stung.

Firmino gave a sly laugh.

"Fufu, the pain won’t last long. Now, become my slave…"

But at that moment, his voice suddenly stopped.

"Huh?"

When I looked back, his expression had also stiffened slightly.

"Why isn’t it writing properly?"

"…"

He struggled to move it, but the iron pen stuck in my shoulder didn't budge.

Not because it wasn't sharp enough or he wasn't strong enough.

Because the conditions for activating of the ability hadn't been met.

I smiled.

This was the moment I'd been waiting for.

For just the sake of this moment, I hadn't mimicked any unique abilities till now.

"Then, shall I try?"

I immediately mimicked his ability, [Scribe's Shackles].

An iron pen, identical to Firmino's, appeared in my hand.

I quickly grabbed the guy who'd been holding on to my back, and stabbed the pen into his forearm.

Splootch–.

"Aagh!"

Then I scribbled on it in my lousy handwriting.

– Wimp.

"Agggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Blood gushed like a fountain from the open wound.

I watched the guy writing at my feet with indifferent eyes.

There was a reason this guy was so aggressive, preferred hand-to-hand combat, and wandered the battlefields with his subordinates.

Because his unique ability, [Scribe's Shackles], didn't fit its name, and required the user to be quite aggressive.

– Governing conditions:

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Your physique must be at a higher level than the target.

You must inflict more than a certain level of damage on the target.

You must create a sense of fear in the target.

"So this is what happens if you just attack like an idiot without knowing your place."

I engraved one more phrase on his other arm.

– Fool who rushed in[1].

Why did I attack this Neo Archive without much in the way of preparation?

Because even the boss here was weaker than me.

When I'd first found out that this guy was behind the organization, I'd immediately tried to mimic his [Scribe's Shackles]. But it didn't work. The Firmino who'd appear in the future of the work, had superior physical ability compared to the current me.

So, while I was scratching my head trying to figure out a way, a scene had accidentally flashed through my mind. It was a scene where Firmino himself was explaining to Leo how he was able to create such a large ‘army'.

And surprisingly, the scene cut to a flashback in his own ‘memory'.

It was about the times when Firmino, who'd left this Neo Archive, had started his adventures in earnest. In other words, he of that time was stronger than the guy in front of me right now, but weaker than the Firmino of the future.

When I tried, I was able to mimic the guy in the flashback.

This meant that the guy in front of me right now was unquestionably weaker than myself.

Of course, I didn't know the difference would be this much.

Anyway, what was going to happen now?

I'd already inscribed the words on his forearm, but I was curious as to what'd happen after this.

Would my ability act the same way as his?

Of course, if it were a simple physical ability, I wouldn't have wondered at all. There wouldn't have been any other option. However, since this ability was about mind control, I wondered if there was some sort of inherent defence mechanism.

And then,

"Ugggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

I could see his eyelids slowly fluttering open.

At that moment, I knew.

Done. It was a success.

There were two reasons why I'd dared to subdue this guy with my own abilities.

First, because this ability had a ‘semi-permanent' effect.

Once engraved, the shackles cannot be removed. Until either the target dies, or the master.

In other words, to break the shackles that bound Cocoa, I had to kill him.

To be honest, I was determined, but it wasn't easy to murder somebody in cold blood. Even when I tried to think of him as merely a manga character, what my eyes saw was a real human.

Besides, wasn't this a shounen manga? If the author became vindictive and created some strange whistle-blower character to spread word of my actions, it'd only be a matter of time before the readers' appreciation of me took a nosedive.

So, it was necessary to do this instead. After all, if I could control this guy, I could free Cocoa irrespective of whether she still had the shackles not.

And, secondly.

This guy was a character scheduled to appear in a future arc. A pretty powerful named villain. Of course, he might now get rejected by the author after being subdued by me, but either way, he was a handy subordinate to have around.

In other words, I was preparing for the future.

I looked at him and smiled happily.

"Come."

"Yes."

Although his arm must've been hurting him quite a bit, he followed me without protest.

As if he'd lost some of his senses.

"Once over there… you know what to do? First, handle the soldiers, then deal with what you need to."

"Yes."

"And Cocoa. She's a kid with a pocket ability, you should be able to remember her if you try. Stop paying attention to her, and release all her restraints."

"Yes."

"And that bald subordinate of yours. You know the one. Bring him over here. You can't move on your own, so send a few people to bring him in."

"Yes."

"Oh, and, you…"

That was then.

"No!"

A shout came from somewhere.

"Huh?"

The voice seemed familiar, so I turned around, and surprisingly, it was Cocoa.

She was watching us from afar.

"What, why are you here? I told you to wait until the end."

Thankfully it was all over now, otherwise it might've gotten dangerous.

As I was waving to her, I suddenly felt something strange.

"Squatjaw! You, let go of Squatjaw!"

"Huh?"

… Wait. I scratched my head.

‘Did she misunderstand the situation?

Come to think of it, Firmino's stylus was still embedded to my shoulder. And he and I were now facing each other.

It was both funny and absurd.

‘Still, if you just think about it for a second, you'd notice that something is strange…'

If nothing had changed, Cocoa wouldn't have even been able to shout at this guy.

Judging from that, she seemed to be really anxious.

While I started to shout and say it was okay –

"Stop – it!"

Cocoa took out ‘something' from her pouch.

For a moment, I doubted my own eyes.

"… What the hell is that?"

I couldn't believe it even when I was looking right at it.

How did she even get that…?

But there was no time to ponder.

After Cocoa straightened up, she pulled ‘its' trigger.

Puff – whoooosh!

"… Ohmygod! Avoid!"

There was no time to organize my thoughts.

I jumped straight towards Chinuavi, avoiding the rocket fired out of the ‘bazooka' with a roar.

After an hour.

I glanced at Cocoa, who was busy with her word correction.

She had a very calm expression for somebody who'd almost blown up the whole battlefield just awhile ago.

For an instant, I flashed back to her previous expression as if it'd been superimposed on her face.

She suddenly brought out a bazooka out of nowhere and bombed people without mercy.

Cocoa, awakened version.

Surprisingly, she'd undergone a level of ‘growth'.

Just like somebody who'd definitely been set as a supporting actor in a shounen manga, she was faithfully following the growth cliché of the genre.

In a moment of crisis or rage, upgrade your unique ability to the next level.

To be honest, her evolved ability surprised even me.

It wasn't just a matter of taking out a bazooka and using it.

Of course, it was a weapon used only in some highly developed civilized cities in this world, but since she was from the ‘Northland Continent' with many machine cities, her familiarity with it wasn't very surprising.

What really surprised me was that she'd taken something out that hadn't even been in her pocket.

I didn't know how she did it, either.

"Oh, it hurts!"

Cocoa frowned and flinched back.

I slapped Firmino, who was holding his pen, upside the head.

Slap!

"Ouch!"

"She said it hurts."

"Sorry, I’m sorry. But since the pen is made of metal, some pain is natural."

Slap!

"Ouch!"

"Is that so."

"Okay, okay, I’ll do better this time."

That was then.

"Hey, Squatjaw."

"Hmm?"

Cocoa suddenly spoke up.

Except for intermittently spitting out words of pain, this was her first time speaking in the last hour.

First she ran up to me and hugged me, but after hearing my explanation, she'd been silent all this time.

Thinking she was going to thank me, I was feeling a tad embarrassed –

But the words that came out of her mouth were completely absurd.

"I think we should hurry."

"Eh? What?"

"You have to get on a ship."

"Ship? What ship?"

"It's going to Eastland. Or you'll be late."

It was pretty silly.

"Ship? Uh… But why do I have to take a ship? Isn't a ship too slow? There's an airship, too. And the ships also run on a regular schedule…"

"There's no next time. You have to go catch this ride right now. To British, right now."

"…"

She seemed to have seen something with her pathfinding eyes.

"She'll be on the ship."

"Who?"

"The key. The core of the mission."

"… Hmmm."

It was hard to understand right now.

Still, I just had to go with what information I had.

"Chinuavi, prepare an earth dragon."

"Ah, yes, big brother!"

Then I snapped at Firmino, whose editing process was still in full swing.

"Not finished yet?"

"Yes, it's almost done."

I could notice that the letters were fixed, although they looked bit sloppy. It was impossible to erase them, so they were modified in a hurry, but fortunately the original ‘pocket slave' could be changed to another acceptable phrase.

"Okay, come with me."

The letters were crooked and a mishmash of different font sizes, so it looked slapdash overall, but I thought this should be enough. Since it was a phrase she liked.

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– ‘Squatjaw's Guide[2]‘.

"Keep gathering your troops as usual and wait. I'll come back soon to check up on you."

"Understood."

Finally, we boarded Chinuavi's summoned earth dragon and headed towards the port city of ‘British'.

Editor's Notes:

[1] 하룻강아지 (lit. one-day puppy), part of the idiom ‘a one-day old puppy is not afraid of tigers'. The English equivalent would be ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread'.

[2] In Korean it changes from 주머니 노예 to 주걱턱 길잡이, but we had to spend some effort to consider how the two phrases should be translated to line up in English. Some readers would think it's a waste of time, but it just helps to visualize it. Imagine if we went with jutting chin instead of squatjaw, poor Cocoa (this isn't a dig at the manhwa, though).

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