The Princess in Love
[The Princess and the Knight]
📍 Director: Pseudonym (Director)
The curtain rises. The Princess enters not from the stage, but from the audience seating.
Princess: Rebellion, Rebellion!
The Princess cries out a name with desperate longing.
Princess:(In a tearful tone) Rebellion, my love! Where on earth have you gone!
Stumbling, the Princess climbs onto the stage. Kneeling there, she breaks into sobs. After weeping for a long time, she lifts her head toward the sky and clasps her hands together.
Princess: Ah, Almighty XXXXX, please… please watch over Rebellion…!
A screen descends, displaying the title.
[The Princess and the Knight]
Stage Lighting: Dark crimson.
The center of the stage is filled with thorny roses. It is a garden of roses.
The roses droop downward, as if burdened by sin.
At the edge of the garden are floating statues, an inverted ancient tree, and a fountain that flows from bottom to top—but instead of water, blood erupts from it.
The Princess walks slowly from the left side of the stage toward the central fountain.
The thorns of the roses are like sharpened swords, yet they fail to pierce the Princess's skin.
Her dress begins to tear into tatters, yet she shows no sign of pain, and not a drop of blood spills from her.
Princess:(Whispering to someone) I heard that love… is as countless as the stars in the universe.
Princess:(With a self-deprecating sigh) But I have never… not even once… met a single star.
The Princess plucks a thorny rose and strokes it gently. Her fingers remain unharmed.
Suddenly, the roses in the garden lift their heads and gaze toward the right side of the stage.
A Knight enters slowly from that direction.
His helmet remains on, obscuring his face.
His black cloak flutters, though not a single breeze blows on the stage.
The Princess takes a step toward the Knight, trampling the thorny bushes with her bare feet.
Princess:(In a voice full of wariness, wearing a fearful expression) Who are you…? Why have you come to my garden… to my suffering…
The Knight does not answer, walking silently toward her.
Princess:(Approaching the Knight with quickening steps) Tell me your identity! Or… or I shall verify it myself.
The Knight stops in front of the Princess. She stops before him.
She reaches out to remove his helmet.
A sound of boiling, agonizing wails begins to emanate from within the helmet.
The Knight turns his back to the audience. The Princess removes the helmet. The audience cannot see the Knight's face.
Princess:(Confused, but then she smiles) …Ah, so it is love! The saying that one falls in love at first sight! That is what true love is, isn't it?
The Knight affirms with silence.
Scene Change: Lights fade, then shift to blue.
The stage background changes. Inside a grand cathedral where brilliant light filters in.
The strange cathedral has no ceiling. Instead, countless clusters of stars float in the sky. At a glance, they look like snow.
The Princess is in the center of the stage.
She kneels, looking up at the sky in prayer, caressing the thorny rose.
She speaks to the Knight, who stands on the right.
Princess:(With an enlightened expression) If I remain only your Princess, will you remain only my Knight?
The Knight neither denies nor affirms.
Princess: If I give up everything for you, can you also give up everything for me?
The Knight does not answer. Instead, he lays his sword on the stage floor.
Where the sword touches, roses bloom.
Unlike the dark crimson roses from her garden, these are a pale, ghostly blue.
Princess: Very well. Then I shall… give up everything for you. Even myself.
The stage background changes once more.
The clusters of stars—the stars—that adorned the ceiling vanish in an instant.
Instead, a single, massive eye rises from the center of the ceiling.
The eye is expressionless, but it slowly begins to look as if it is smiling.
The Princess closes her eyes. She wears a resolute expression.
Nodding, she grips the thorny rose tightly.
And then.
From the Princess's hand.
Blood begins to flow.
She looks at the Knight.
Princess: I am… from this moment on, your fervent follower, and your only Princess.
"..."
Yoo Iseul was flustered.
Yoo Iseul was a person so cold that her own colleagues called her "a witch, not a human." Even if a few Awakened died due to an anomaly, she would only toss out a casual "That's unfortunate" and never feel genuine sorrow or panic. There was only one thing in the world that could make her flustered: an incident involving Lee Jia.
And right now, Yoo Iseul wore an expression closer to "horror" than mere fluster.
'...This is impossible.'
Blood was flowing from Lee Jia's hand.
Yoo Iseul was certain she knew better than anyone what this meant.
...Is this what it means to lose one's ego?
Lee Jia's skin was as hard as steel, impenetrable even by sharp blades. Yet, for her to bleed from a mere thorny rose meant…
It meant that Lee Jia was no longer a "Fervent Follower of the Shining Stars."
'Does that even make sense?'
It was a contradiction.
Though it wasn't a conventional guess, having watched everything unfold, Yoo Iseul had no choice but to acknowledge the existence of the Great One known as the "Shining Stars." The Shining Stars liked Lee Jia. Even though the entity had stolen Lee Jia's free will through "duty," it still favored her.
And yet, the Shining Stars hadn't intervened in this farce until Lee Jia completely shed the racial traits of a "Fervent Follower." Even Yoo Iseul knew which was stronger: the power of a mere follower or the power of the Shining Stars. If it had wanted to intervene, it could have.
The fact that it hadn't meant…
'One of two things. Either this is also the intention of the Shining Stars, or…'
That woman with the pink hair, at least for the duration of this play, was not "Lee Jia," the Fervent Follower. She was either a pitiful heroine named "Princess," a character within the play, or—it was one of the two.
If it were the former, there was no need to worry too much. Yoo Iseul now trusted the Shining Stars. Not out of religious faith, but because she trusted the entity's "ability." If all of this was the Shining Stars' intention, Lee Jia dropping her racial traits wouldn't be a major problem.
However, if it were the latter—if for some reason the Shining Stars couldn't intervene—
'...The intermission will be the turning point.'
During the intermission, Lee Jia's ego would return. If her ego returned, she would regain her racial traits as a "Fervent Follower." Then, she could simply chant the spell to cancel the Sanctum summoning.
Of course, considering the "rules of the play," if an actor refused their role and forcibly stopped the performance… the Director might intervene. But it didn't matter. If the Sanctum summoning were canceled, the "rules of the play" would vanish instantly.
The play continued. To be honest, it was banal. Scenes 3 through 13 were just a common, cliché love story between a Princess and a Knight. The Princess would suddenly sing happily, embrace the Knight, or engage in light skinship. Throughout it all, the Knight never once removed his helmet. It was, quite literally, a farce.
And that massive eye still floating in the sky. It was by no means an ordinary eye. Before it appeared, there had been countless clusters of stars. Because they were so far away, they had looked like specks of dust due to perspective. While it was impossible to measure the distance between stars and humans with the naked eye, Yoo Iseul had accurately gauged the distance and size of the stars thanks to an item she possessed.
It was an item that allowed her to measure the distance between the "target" and the "item holder." Driven by the single-minded goal of "beating a Fervent Follower to a pulp," she had packed every item that might be useful, unlike other times. Having realized through experience that spatial perception vanishes inside a Fervent Follower's Sanctum, it was her trump card.
As the play progressed, the star clusters vanished, and that massive eye rose in the sky. It was, quite literally, a massive eye. The distance between that eye and Yoo Iseul was an astronomical figure, far greater than the distance between the stars and her. Yet, the fact that she perceived it as "massive" meant…
…It meant that the size of that eye was far greater than the sum of hundreds of millions of giant stars.
'Well, it must be a stage effect.'
It bothered her, but what mattered right now was Lee Jia. The play continued. Scene 13 ended, and Scene 14 was about to begin. If Scene 14 ended, the "rules of the play" would trigger an intermission.
They said the wiki never lied. No matter how much of a "Director" it was, it couldn't stop the intermission.
That was when someone slowly approached Yoo Iseul. It was the Director.
Yoo Iseul glared at the approaching Director and said,
"What, you fucking asshole."
The Director, who hadn't said a word, finally opened its mouth toward Yoo Iseul.
Yoo Iseul thought: Ah, I want to cut it down.
If only she could hold her sword, she could have sliced this Director in one stroke, whether it was a Fervent Follower or whatever else. Yoo Iseul scoffed.
"Stop spouting nonsense I can't understand and just keep the play going."
"…Even if you're the Director, is it really okay to do whatever you want? I am an audience member of this play."
Yoo Iseul believed that the most important thing in this farce was the "rules," and that those rules couldn't be easily changed, even by the owner of the Sanctum. Yoo Iseul's thought was not wrong.
"Are you just making things up as you go? There were no errors, so shut up and keep going."
"I am the audience."
"'Audience' is a word for people watching a play, you stupid bastard. Are you even a Director?"
"I see it. It's a stage effect. What, are you worried I'd be scared of some shitty-looking eye?"
"…What?"