Antagonist Protection Service-Chapter 93: Work Assistance

"――Enk-enk. Help with work."

"Why? And don't call me that."

"What do you mean why? You said you would. Ki-ki?"

"When? And no, that's even worse."

"Okay, Enk-enk. Anyway, now."

"Stop. I didn't say that."

"No, I'm saying you'll help me now."

"I didn't say that I would help you though."

"Well, you will."

"But I don't want to."

"Mm, too bad. This is payment for me helping you out the other day."

"Am I supposed to pay family back for helping me out a little?"

"Irrelevant."

"Ah..."

'But you're the one who was so curious about the sword in the first place...'

Following an unfortunate rapid-fire exchange that progressed as so, I found myself trapped in Ina's room anew.

"How am I even supposed to help you out, anyway? I've only ever written a script once in primary school, like ten or eleven, maybe twelve years ago."

"It's a creative thing, you. Even if you don't have the experience, you have that quirky sort of brain, don't you?"

"I don't think so. You should probably just let me go now since I won't be of much help."

"Mm, no, I think you can stay, actually."

She really didn't intend on freeing me, it seemed. What tyranny.

Realising there would be no getting out of it, I sighed, taking a casual seat on her bed while she sat in the chair at her work desk. Since I was going to be helping out anyway, I thought I might as well do it so that it'll be over quickly.

"What do you even need my help for, then?"

"Ahh, I'm in a bit of a bind for the script I'm currently writing. See, it's actually not mine this time, but there's a book that's being adapted into a series I'm having some trouble with. Gimme your perspective on some things."

"Okay... what's the issue?"

As I asked that, Ina swivelled around in a circle on the chair, tapping her lip ponderously. Immediately, I regretted asking.

"Mmh, well, it's about this girl being raised in secret by a Witch you see, but she's not actually a girl, she's a Homunculus, and so the Witch who's raising her has to keep her existence hidden from all of the other Witches in the city which is only full of Witches because the alchemy used to create the girl that is the Homunculus is actually taboo, but another aspect is that the Witch who used the taboo alchemy to create the Homunculus girl is actually the Queen of the Witches. Ah, you wouldn't know what it's called because you don't read, but the name of the book is 'Black Magic'. Anyway, because of that, it introduces this strange dynamic where the Witch Queen is sheltering this Homunculus girl from all these other Witches who think the girl is only the adopted daughter of the Witch Queen, but because she's the daughter of the one and only Queen of Witches, the Homunculus girl is actually greatly sought after by all these other Witches because they think Homunculus girl is the Witch Queen's apprentice, so they want to try and take her to steal the Witch Queen's magical secrets, making it a really good read if you like thrillers and character dramas. D'ya get all that?"

"..."

Superfluous and utterly unnecessary exposition that could have probably been truncated to a third of what it was, vomited out of Ina's mouth in what seemed like less than three impeccably sustained breaths.

I think I caught less than ten percent of the meaningless words she ejected.

"Sorry, could you repeat that?"

"On the other hand--"

"Ina."

As soon as the first syllable exited her mouth I realised she was about to go for round two, so before she had the chance, I cut in.

"I didn't get any of what you sai--"

"Hold on a second. So, because the Homunculus girl is--"

"I'm gonna leave if you keep messing around."

"Tsk, boo. Can't you have enough patience to listen to the explanation just once?"

"You're awful at explaining."

It took longer than it honestly should have to get somewhere without continued stalling, but once the ball got rolling, we eventually managed to get to the core of the issue Ina was having with adapting the book from words to the screen.

This chapter is updat𝓮d by freēnovelkiss.com.

"You don't know what to cut out?"

In short, that was it.

"No, not exactly. I know what needs cutting, I'm just trying to figure out how to show some parts of it instead. It has to be done in a way that'll appeal through a visual medium since we obviously can't just have a ton of voiceover or text on the screen as exposition... Because there isn't a whole lot of dialogue in the book, we can't rely on that too much either."

Or not?

Anyway, most people were aware that when movies and TV series are adapted from novels or other original sources, much of the information, plot, or scenes present in the source material are shown as occurring through other means, off-screen, or sometimes even cut from the show entirely.

It can easily result in fans of the original disliking the adapted version, since so many things are different or cut from the original story, but the reality is that it's a necessity.

That is, unless the adapted version of the book was going to adapt absolutely everything, which doesn't happen in most cases. Even when it does, things are still usually changed to fit the story to a visual medium anyway.

I myself have also experienced such disappointment, and I knew for a fact that Ina was the same, even as someone who is tasked with doing just that sort of adaptation right now.

Obviously, exposition in a book and a movie or show is completely different―For the latter two it's especially tough since you need to show the audience visually what the plot is about and what the characters are thinking internally without stating it explicitly.

I've heard a lot about it over the years from Ina because figuring out that sort of thing is part of her job, but even with my lacking expertise it's easy to tell that it can be quite a challenge, and this time seems to be rather particular in that the book's dialogue is sparse.

"Okay... well, there doesn't have to be loads of things happening all the time, right? It would be more cinematic to just have a lot of quiet scenes; that feels like it would fit the tone of the story more, too, from how you described it."

"Mmhm, that's the plan. I'm just struggling with some parts of it... oh, I guess I could add a scene like that at the beginning...?"

Seemingly having received an epiphany, Ina suddenly jolted; swivelling around on her chair, she began typing furiously on the keyboard before her.

I waited for about thirty seconds or so, but seeing how she continued as if completely disregarding my presence and without any indication of slowing down, I took the opportunity to slip out.

In the end, I turned out to be of no help at all, and helping Ina was just a huge waste of time...

Acting freely without the knowledge that, one day, I would look back to this time with regret.