Chapter 94
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 94
Chapter Title: Play (4)
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─Where have you been until now, Duke?
The prince asked Duke properly once more. Duke gave no reply. He merely swept his gaze over Baron Jolrang's corpse, the blood and rain scattered across the lawn, and the area around it before slowly kneeling down. He gently closed the eyes of the baron, who had died with them wide open.
That tender gesture was bizarre. It was utterly soft, completely different from the sneer he'd worn while looking at the dead baron just five seconds earlier.
─...Bard. You said the culprit is inside this palace.
Seeming to give up on a response from Duke, the prince turned to Bard again.
─When you think about it, it's simple. Look here, everyone.
The prince grinned crookedly as he gestured around at the extras on site—the retainers.
─The murders started after Bard here arrived. So who should we suspect?
All the retainers' eyes turned to Bard. Their gazes were filled with suspicion.
─It's simple, isn't it? It's Bard, right?
─...I'm just a bard who recites songs and retells tales.
─Ha! Nonsense. I've been suspicious from the start that a mere clown knows Latynel.
─I learned it from one of the noble audience members.
Just then, Duke rose to his feet. The prince asked him,
─What do you think, Duke? Don't you agree?
Duke turned to the prince. His face held no expression. No emotion or color. It was pale like a corpse and empty like a murderer's.
Duke said just one thing to him.
─Your Highness. You talk too much.
At that moment, the prince's expression hardened. He glared at Duke, trembling faintly, then turned on his heel with his cloak billowing. The other retainer extras followed behind him.
Drip... Drip...
On the rain-soaked lawn, Bard was left alone with Duke.
She looked at Duke in his immaculate uniform, and Duke met Bard's eyes.
─...Bard.
He said.
Duke, not as Miller, but as Sion Askal.
To Elise, his Duke felt terribly out of place and terribly uncomfortable. Yet there was an inexplicable allure.
One that briefly pulled her back to Elise, if only for a moment.
─It was lying on the lawn.
Duke approached Bard and held something out to her.
Bard looked at it. It was a button. Perhaps the evidence of the murderer.
Duke had picked up the button from the lawn under the pretense of closing Jolrang's eyes.
─...It's not mine.
Bard replied. Duke gazed at her with impassive eyes. There was depth in that dry stare.
A silence of five seconds passed with no lines spoken.
By the time even the audience's breathing could be heard clearly.
Duke soon twisted one corner of his mouth.
─I didn't ask if it was yours. I just said it was lying there.
Bard's shoulders trembled slightly. Duke let the button drop into the air.
─It might not be yours.
Rustle—the sound of the button hitting the lawn rang out unusually loud.
In fact, the echo reverberated massively, piercing the audience's ears.
With that, Duke exited the stage.
Bard hesitantly picked up the button from the lawn. She stared at it, glistening wet from the rain, and murmured,
─No way. Me...?
Whether it meant she herself was the culprit, or that Duke was trying to frame Bard as the culprit.
With that ambiguous nuance, Act 1 came to an end.
The blackout curtain enveloped the entire stage.
"Hoo..."
After Act 1, backstage, Elise took a deep breath. Sion stood not far away. He was quickly surrounded by staff.
It was well deserved. Though his appearance lasted only about ten minutes, he'd stolen every scene from start to finish.
─Keep holding onto that emotion! We won't bother you!
With those words, the staff retreated, leaving Sion alone. Elise didn't bother speaking to him.
But Sion yawned and muttered,
"Ugh, I don't wanna."
It was a remark laced with genuine feeling.
"...What the hell is with him."
After already nailing it, saying he didn't want to—what's that about?
In any case, there was no more need to suspect Sion. She just had to keep acting for Sermones Laerteni.
And honestly, Elise wasn't tense anymore.
Her body had mostly loosened up, but while acting, she'd also sneakily glanced at the VIP seats, pretending not to.
One seat had been empty from start to finish.
It was the seat Elise had gifted to her father.
She'd peeked just in case he might be in the audience, but he was nowhere.
He hadn't come.
So there was no need to steel herself with resolve and anxiety. She could take it easy. Take it easy...
Elise quietly took a deep breath.
Intermission.
The break between Act 1 and Act 2.
The interval, as it were.
The audience, immersed in the afterglow, sat in their seats for a while, chatting with each other. Not just about the dramatic fun and the flashy blackout curtain effects, but also about who the culprit might be.
Jade felt his mouth itching similarly, but he soon heaved his heavy body up.
Already 45 minutes had passed. He couldn't dawdle here any longer.
"Oh, are you leaving? Duke Jade?"
"I heard you're busy. Such a shame."
"I hope we meet again sometime."
The VIP seat celebrities didn't even see him off—they just stood from their spots to greet him before sitting right back down. The same ones who'd initially pretended not to know him.
Of course, some allowance could be made. Even he himself found it hard to tear his feet away.
"Enjoy the show."
Jade left the theater alone, feeling desolate. Outside, a sedan was already waiting. The driver opened the rear door and murmured lowly,
"The play team's staff tipped us off. They said they're recording the play with cameras, so they'll send the footage later."
"...Tell them to do as they please."
It was fortunate news, at least.
Well, inviting Libra's Jade warranted at least this much service.
Jade boarded the sedan. It felt like he'd watched an intriguing art play for the first time in ages. Though it ended mid-shit.
"Cassio. Did you watch the play too?"
He asked the driver.
"Yes. I watched from the back."
"...Who do you think the culprit is?"
Jade finally voiced what had been itching at him.
"I just thought it was Bard outright."
"Ha. Only amateurs think that. Pretending to close Jolrang's eyes and bending down to pick up the only 'evidence' from the lawn. Handing it to Bard to frame her. The culprit is Duke."
Jade spoke as if he'd seen through it all. The driver mustered all his effort to express admiration.
"As expected... You're incredible."
"Incredible? It's just boring."
He muttered unnecessarily and sank into the seat.
His sedan pulled away from the festival thronged with crowds onto a quiet road.
In the audience seats, Soliet was eagerly awaiting Act 2 while surfing communities on his smartphone.
Came to Endex festival but is the play quality for real?? ㄷㄷ
He'd even written a few posts. His trolling skills weren't great, though.
"It's fun, isn't it?"
Suddenly, a man in the next seat murmured. Soliet glanced over.
A man with bandages around his neck and a cap on his head.
He grinned brightly.
"Right?"
"Ah, yeah."
Soliet replied nonchalantly. As a somewhat famous prospect himself, strangers acting familiar was common.
"It'll get even more fun."
The man pulled a doll from his pocket.
"...What's that?"
"A doll. Thanks to this, the sword fight will feel real."
"Pardon?"
He shook the doll and murmured,
"This doll's connected to the prince. You can look forward to it."
He seemed a bit unhinged.
"...Ah, yeah. I see."
Soliet subtly leaned his body away.
Just then, the curtain rose.
Act 2 began.
[Act 2]
As the blackout curtain lifted, Bard appeared first.
─...
Bard sat silently in her room, staring into a mirror. In her hand was a note clutched tight.
It bore the name [Isabel]. She gazed at it for a long while, as if knowing something, then carefully folded it away.
The blackout curtain fell, then rose again, switching scenes.
This time, Duke's room. He lay on the bed as if recalling some past memory, staring blankly at the ceiling in disheveled repose.
Lost in that daze, he sat up and let out a hollow chuckle.
─...Isabel.
He murmured the name 'Isabel' softly.
Whoever Isabel was, it was clearly the most pivotal key in this play.
Whoooosh...
With the blowing wind, the scene changed for the third time.
The king's chambers. The queen frowned at the note in her hand. It too read [Isabel].
─What will you do?
The queen asked the king. His face was already mentally ravaged.
─What do you mean, what... I don't know. Is she even alive?
─Impossible, Your Majesty. Isabel died over ten years ago.
─Ah...
The king's face twisted. Groaning, he murmured as if weeping,
─It shouldn't have been like that. I shouldn't have driven her away...
─Enough of that weak nonsense!
Slap—! The queen struck the king's cheek.
But the aged, sickly king's sobs didn't stop. The queen viciously shoved him onto the bed and stormed out of the chambers.
─There's a fiend possessed by Isabel's ghost here. I must find it and kill it...
With the queen's face twisted like a demon, the scene shifted again.
─Damn it. That worm!
This time, the prince's bedchamber. The prince gulped from a liquor bottle clutched in his fist.
─Incompetent fools. Can't catch the murderer running rampant... Or is it that they won't?
Suddenly, as if struck by a thought, the prince furrowed his brow.
─Duke... Could that bastard... Right. Where the hell has Duke been until he pops up now... Damn it!
Muttering curses, the prince loaded a record onto the player.
The gentle strains of a Latynel song filled the air. Like a lullaby, the prince steadied his ragged breaths and sat in a chair.
─Damn Duke brat...
As he dozed off like sleep-talking.
...Creak.
The bedchamber window opened. Beyond it appeared the murderer, face fully masked. He approached the prince and raised a dagger gripped in reverse overhead.
However.
─...I knew you'd come.
The prince smirked sinisterly and opened his eyes. At the same instant, the wardrobe burst open, and knights poured out. Clad in full plate mail, they charged straight at the murderer.
Clang—! Clang—!
The murderer clashed swords with them. Sparks flew fiercely.
─Kill... him.
A duel dazzling the eyes with actual mana unleashed.
Ugh—! Grk—! Gaaack!
The prince's knights fell back after their promised formation play.
But.
Claaaang——!
The prince was the weird one.
James.
An Endex senior, he swung the real sword with full power.
"Guh!"
Bard—Elise was thoroughly flustered.
Clang—! Clang—! Clang—!
Their swords locked three times. Elise was pushed back in an instant. The prince's weapon was a heavy broadsword, while Elise's was a dagger.
Moreover, the opponent's strength was robust as if Mana Body were active. His swordsmanship was unfiltered, brutally violent.
As if trying to hunt a beast.
Claaaaaaang——!
The dagger and broadsword collided. The dagger bounced away. Elise's grip tore slightly.
She hurriedly looked up at the prince.
His eyes were vacant. Utterly empty.
As if manipulated by someone.
─Die...!
His lines came out eerily distorted. As he swung the broadsword down over his head.
"Hup!"
Someone flew onto the stage. He wrapped around her protectively and thrust his sword. He blocked the prince's strike.
———!
Clear sparks flew. He immediately thrust again, pushing the prince back.
"..."
She blinked dazedly for a moment. She looked at the sudden arrival.
Duke.
Elise, held in his arms—no, just sort of draped over, but anyway. She unconsciously sniffed.
The scent from him, the warmth transmitted, the tactile sensation touching... It resembled what she'd once felt there.
The 4th floor of Hollenz, that nightmare hotel.