After the Literary Master Joined the Underworld

Your name is Asakawa Tsurumi, and your goal is to revive Japan's literary scene after its great authors became obsessed with joining the military and abandoned writing.

Hahaha, what kind of joke is that? Great authors joining the mafia?

Even though I bombed my final exams the other day and was afraid of getting scolded, Li Bai somehow talked me into drowning my sorrows in alcohol like he does. I got drunk and went on a rampage, smashing most of the gold and stone antiques at Li Qingzhao's house. That night, Zhao Mingcheng appeared in my dream and scared me so badly that I smashed Teacher Wang Wei's pipa. To apologize, I studied cooking with Teacher Su Dongpo and made a dish as a gift, but the osmanthus wine I brewed accidentally poisoned Teacher Xu Wenchang when he tried it. If Mr. Zhou Shuren hadn't happened to drop by, I might have helped Teacher Xu Wenchang complete his tenth suicide attempt. Then, worried the two teachers would make the year-end exam difficult and double my homework, I bribed Teacher Wen Tingyun to teach me a hundred ways to cheat. Unfortunately, Teacher Ouyang Xiu caught me red-handed...

But I know [loudly], that great authors are proper great authors, and I'm a proper Chinese person too.

No, haven't you already transmigrated? You even asked to do it yourself after discovering you failed yesterday's exam too. Legally speaking, you're Japanese now. No, ah, you've got me all confused.

Come on, let's get back to the point. Did you notice you're only 1.35 meters tall? That's punishment for failing your exams. Want to get back to 1.75 meters? The Akutagawa Prize gets you to 1.6, the Murasaki Shikibu Prize to 1.54, and the Naoki Prize to 1.5. Publish a work that helps revive the literary world and grow three centimeters. There are more special offers, too. The more you write, the more you gain!

You're right. In this world, Japan's great authors all took up arms, and its literary scene has been in decline ever since. We are deeply saddened. Literature is a matter of great importance to the world, and we must have works like The Sorrow of the Cherry Blossoms. Reviving the literary scene would be a truly wonderful thing. From today on, my goal is to grow taller. Ah, no! Let me start again: to revive the literary scene!

Aaaah! You tricked me! This world doesn't have any Akutagawa or Naoki Prizes! [pouting] It only has a weirdo in bandages, his obsessed fanboy, and a detective who's been missing for years.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that those prizes will only be established if you get them to focus on writing. Don't hit me [covering my head, doge]. How about this: besides publishing your own work, you can also grow three centimeters if any one of these great authors, Akutagawa, Dazai, or the others, publishes a work on par with literature from the normal world. If they give up fighting and take up writing, you'll grow five centimeters. And you'll get a commission, too. How's that? The more people you recruit, the taller you'll get!

Also known as: Those years I wrote books while using secret identities to poach people from the Port Mafia and the Detective Agency. In short: The Height-Growing Chronicles

The story contains a story within the story. The original work is not a plagiarism. Please forgive the writing quality. The protagonist's first book will flop (in terms of helping him grow taller), and he'll improve over time. Also, since the modern Japanese writers in Bungo Stray Dogs abandoned their pens to join the military, literature needs the wisdom of those who came before to plant seeds and nurture them. With so many people gone, and only a few like Murasaki and Matsuo in the past, there aren't enough to inspire and raise the next generation of writers, so Japan's literary scene is set as very weak.

The Chinese poets mentioned above exist as personifications because of their great influence. They didn't join the military, most of them don't have special abilities, and they have little contact with the other world (where the Japanese writers are from the Bungo Stray Dogs game; they may make cameo appearances in the story), so they weren't affected and are still writing.

To reiterate: Japan's literary scene in this story is genuinely very weak. So don't complain that the protagonist's goal is too grand.

Updates may only come once a month, but I promise I won't abandon the story.

Theme: Literature is a candle burning before dawn, shielded by one's hands in a dark blizzard, kindling a glimmer of light for oneself and others. Even as flesh and blood are scorched, one has no regrets