Shift! The Side-Character Heroine

The Author Who Succumbed to Disease

Most of Su Li’s fans and meme-loving netizens pounced on the post, without even reading that particular doujin novel

“I wanna know what kind of cancer does this beautiful, young military lady has, and when is she due to die…”

“This illustration is great. It might be my imagination, but I feel like there’s a great deal of sadness lurking about this character, is this the rumored “scent of death”?

“I wonder how this author would react to the curse of Su Li; she might just lose her marbles and kill this main protagonist off.”

“With artwork like that, I would usually go ahead and look into more of this character’s novel of origin, but I’m afraid of getting hurt. Let’s wait for the others to read it first; their screams will tell us if she’s going to die.”

“Isn’t this character was based on Shirotsumekusa? I never expected Master Su Li to play ‘Dreamside Maroon’?”

“Master Su Li was once a leading force in the field of doujinshi. She once carried another pen-name who we shall not speak of. It’s now a widely-known secret within the doujin circle. I’ve seen many fanmade derivations of Shirotsumekusa, and this probably tops it all. She looks amazing! I’m looking forward to reading this doujin novel.”

“Master Su Li, would you be kind enough to reveal the other name of yours… Hehehe.”

…

Besides the minority of the fans who truly praised the beauty of this illustration, most of the netizens were ridiculing the female character “Altair.” What sort of unfortunate fate awaited her, and how much longer would she live?

Undeniably, Su Li really did a good job of drawing this illustration amazingly, it had piqued the interest of many others, even though “Dreamside Maroon” was relatively unknown.

Many were aware of Qidian’s fanwork section, which mostly consisted of doujin animations, novels, and other creations. Some doujins were so well written, that one would not even need to visit the source material to enjoy them in their entirety.

When everyone realized that this doujin was in the official game’s forum which required a working ID to access, many were too lazy to go through the process and gave up on it.

The platform which one picks to post his or her content played a huge role. In Qidian’s case, whenever a new literary work gets posted, every major pirated website would follow up without a moment’s delay, to the point that people could easily be duped into thinking that these pirated websites were created by Qidian officials.

If “Setsuna’s” doujin novel was posted on Qidian, it would be impossible for it to have zero popularity and subscription.

After Su Li read through the comments and criticisms, she smirked. She boldly replied, “You guys have no idea what you’re talking about! Saying that misfortune would befall upon ‘Altair’ without even reading the novel, is just unheard of! This female protagonist is insanely powerful; even she isn’t aware of the boundaries of her own powers, how could such a mysterious, broken character succumb to misfortune?”

Even though Su Li did not understand the novel, “White Clover,” but in the process of putting ink to paper, she learned more and more about “Altair.” She has done nothing more than cross over dimensions while surveying in silence, but deep within her, something lay in wait. Something terrifying!

This military uniform princess, Altair, was nothing unlike a boss. And final bosses don’t just drop dead. She was the sole character of this doujin novel, if she ever dies, how else would this novel continue?

So Su Li was quite confident that history would never repeat itself here, it could not! Everything that happened in the past was all just a coincidence! Lightning does not strike the same place twice, or in her case, four times – Xu Jing, Yu Shengfan, and Chu Luoxun all died after she introduced them to ink that was because they were mere mortals. But not Altair, she may carry the guise of a mortal, but she was mystery incarnate. She also seemed to be happy as she was at that moment, taking her own life would be inconceivable!

After Su Li thought about it at length, she could not see any way that this could go wrong. All this while, the fault was not hers. Lady Zhao was the one who had the tendency of falling in love with ill-fated females. Su Li only drew those characters because Lady Zhao was into them.

This time, nobody could possibly accuse her of anything!

The next person who calls her “Pan of this generation” again would only be subjecting themselves to her wrath!

Su Li lay back, and let herself go. To her, the deed had already been done. This illustration had already cleared her name. Many saw her reply, but not as many believed her, especially those of the meme-loving variety. Of course, some firmly believed that Su Li would not mess things up, this time, or else nobody would ever dare commission her to illustrate a single thing, again. She had the power to draw everything to death, how terrifying was that!

Su Li had done her part in promoting the doujin novel, “White Clover,” but the effects were lackluster, due to the quality of the original content.

The novel’s thread started flooding up, but most of the comments went along the lines of, “Can’t understand,” “Writing is terrible,” and “Makes no sense.”

Only those who had nothing better to do, would have the patience to read this novel, but the best verdict they could give was, “Unique.” The problem therein was that its uniqueness knew no bounds, and no average person would comprehend its contents.

This literary work only existed to please its creator. This was the ultimate form of self-gratification, nobody would be able to share its creator’s joy.

Of course, Zhao Youyue was an exception, but even she too found the writing horrendously dull, only being able to enjoy it when she traveled within its worlds, in person.

“Setsuna” too note of those comments, but she only smiled and moved on. She was already used to such comments; she was never popular, to begin with.

A month later, “White Clover” came out as a doujin anime video. “Altair: Divina Commedia” went viral on Bilibili!

Zhao Youyue provided the music of this video; which was no longer than ten minutes. Unsurprisingly, her music was all grand and exciting. The beautiful, fantasy worlds visualized in this video attracted a great deal of attention!

“We will herald the coming of change unto this world, exacting punishment upon the domain of the Gods[1],” Altair had uttered in this doujin video.

Instantly, “Setsuna” the doujin creator attained fame!

Then, she passed away due to sickness.

“Setsuna” held on to her phone as she passed away, and before her final breath, she uploaded her final chapter to the internet.

She left the world in peace. Naturally, her passing meant that “White Clover” would remain incomplete, but not before throwing in a subtle hint on the hidden ability of Altair

Holopsicon[2]!

Altair would constantly gain new abilities whenever someone writes a fanfiction about her, and whatever abilities that are associated with that story would be added to her plethora of powers. As long as her stories continue, she would gain more abilities infinitely. Since Altair had no story of her own, any new abilities would be granted by other authors; it was called “Holopsicon.”

Only one author had written about “Altair” in her novel, but the video went viral, and inspired many other doujin creators to write more stories about this military uniform princess!

The original “White Clover” never got to reveal anything else, so nobody got to know the true power of Altair’s Holopsicon ability.

In the final chapter of “White Clover,” before “Setsuna” passed away, she wrote

“Once again, Altair stepped into a new world; only to realize that she was just a fictional character…”

Zhao Youyue, on the other hand, did not know that “Setsuna” had passed away, due to her illness. She was going to invite her out on a celebration because of the success of her doujin video.

Translation note:

1. We will herald the coming of change unto this world, exacting punishment upon the domain of the Gods (. ) The original English subs in the anime failed to fully translate the Princess’ character-defining statement of “warewa ga sekai ni henkaku, kamigami no chi wo seisai wo.” Amazon had translated this as: “Revolution to your world, punishment to the land of the gods.” This leaves out the dual meaning of seisai, which can be written as (sanction) or (holy festival). A more accurate translation would thus be “We will transform this world, exacting punishment upon the land of the gods.”The Chinese lines written by the author in this novel had been far more accurate, just in case any of you start wondering why we have translated them differently from the Amazon subs.

2. Holopsicon – Described by Altair as omnipotent, giving her a vast array of abilities. (Taken from Re: Creators Wikia.)