102. Romantic Dreams and Romance
102. Romantic Dreams and Romance
The unicorn incident was so intense it was easy to forget, but our original objective was to make the Leon-Anna pairing happen.
The good news was that the unicorn horn Anna had held had shown a faint reddish glow.
It meant this woman's romantic feelings weren't completely dried up.
Presumably, her heart had been worn down by repeated regressions, or her poker face kept us from noticing, or—
perhaps she was hiding her emotions out of a sense of professional duty as an actor—for some reason like that, she didn't seem to respond to Leon.
"What if her feelings aren’t directed at Leon right now?"
"Then we're all screwed."
Nikolai had spouted some ominous words midway through, but I decided not to consider that scenario.
In that situation there was nothing we could do about it anyway, so I simply chose to exclude it entirely.
And so, a new member was added today to the haphazardly proceeding <Marry Off Leon Project>.
She was an advisory priest dispatched from the Temple of Love and the tactical advisor for this project.
She was a female wolf beastkin.
A highly trustworthy personnel choice.
Contrary to common belief, the wolf is an animal whose devotion to pure love ranks among the highest, to the point of being called the pinnacle of romantic love.
To put wolf ecology very briefly, wolves were among the rare wild animals that formed lifelong pair bonds and often truly regarded their mates as part of themselves.
Right off the bat, in my previous life, the wolf that was called the Wolf King and toyed with humans for two years was an animal overflowing with romance and romantic ideals—so much so that when his wife was killed by humans, he chose to starve himself to death.
And wolf beastmen inherited these traits as well.
Glimpses of wild wolf traits could occasionally be seen in their tribal traditional culture, the most representative being the anti-ostracism custom.
If a wolf beastman was becoming marginalized or ostracized due to a lack of motivation, they paired them with a suitable member of the opposite sex.
And until those two fell in love and recovered their motivation, the chieftain had the truly peculiar tradition of secretly watching over them from behind.
Therefore, the wolf beastman dispatched to our studio this time was also someone highly trustworthy.
Her name was Kenia.
She was a noble, but had no surname because she planned to take her husband’s anyway. She currently served as a priest at the Temple of Love.
An Academy Priest Department graduate who, from her school days onward, had successfully brought together many pairings—she possessed a rather reassuring track record.
"By the way, what's that person's name?"
"Jace Danielson."
"Hmm. Is that so?"
She had been eyeing Jace and licking her lips the moment she arrived, but as long as she did her own job well, I didn't particularly care.
Fortunately, as expected, she advanced the relationship between Leon and Anna in Nikolai's script.
Watching her technique—first creating an atmosphere of something brewing between Sean and Hannah, then naturally moving things along between the real Leon and Anna—I saw that a pro was a pro.
As the promised compensation, I handed over the contract fee and Jace's schedule to her.
"That's it for Part 2. I look forward to working with you on Part 3 as well."
"Just leave it to me. Anyway, it looks like I'll have to come to this series often because of my husband, too."
"...Just manage things so no scandals break out."
In this Part 2, I was satisfied with elevating Leon's existence, in Anna's mind, from "friend" to approximately "guy friend."
According to Kenia's analysis, Anna was, for some reason, strangely wary of the opposite sex to an abnormal degree.
The analysis was that, in such a situation, trying to blatantly pair her with Leon would only increase her wariness.
Since there were eight more installments remaining anyway, I decided to take it slow, as there was no particular rush.
Right before leaving work, Kenia glanced my way and muttered, "There's more than one person to counsel, I see."
When I looked behind me, the actors were swarming, so I couldn't tell whom she meant, but one thing was certain.
It seemed our studio had one more person in dire need of a pairing, besides Leon.
*
And so, before even half of the second semester had passed, <Liam Walker: The Revealed Threat> wrapped filming as well.
The actors filming this installment had greatly improved in skill compared to Part 1, and since it was a remake of what we shot during the seasonal term, the speed was naturally very fast.
After I'd carefully edited and packaged Part 2 and sent it to theaters, they promoted it enthusiastically even though I hadn't particularly asked.
The people who had reacted lukewarmly when we first brought them Part 1 changed their tune overnight after it succeeded. You could never know how things would turn out.
Well, I couldn't call this spiteful.
The film industry was a business where big money rolled around, so acting conservatively toward an unproven series like that was common sense in this field.
Besides, they were volunteering to promote it themselves like that, worried that we might harbor hard feelings—I couldn't take issue with that.
The problem, however, was that marketing was the distributor's role, and with the theater side taking over the work, I was left with nothing to do.
"I'm bored. Isn't there anything to do?"
Despite how I looked, I held a priest role, so marketing duties were my main work.
But with them taking that over, I had truly become surplus personnel.
Acting?
There were no films for me to appear in right now.
The Magical Girl sequels only summoned Ceres and Isis for cameos.
Dina was a fairly popular actor herself, but the Riv who came attached to her was a major star.
Their budget couldn't handle his appearance fee.
The John series?
Its cooldown hadn't finished yet.
I had the original plan all worked out in my head, but after John 0, the Imperial Household hadn't granted permission yet, so I couldn't make it.
The conclusion was that, right now, I was unemployed until filming for Part 3 began.
As I lounged on the club sofa, soothing my boredom, a tempting suggestion flew in from Nikolai, who was preparing the script for Part 3.
"If you truly have nothing to do, why not go advise the Magical Girl feature film?"
"Oh, that's not bad."
While I was at it, I got up from my seat immediately.
The destination was Brass Snake Studio, which was currently on Ceres's schedule.
Though we had brought a new craze by filming the Liam Walker series right now, the magical girl fever hadn't disappeared from the film market.
Rather, because we were renting out the rights cheaply, small and medium-sized production companies were all churning out magical girl works left and right.
Of course, if dozens of production companies flooded out magical girl works all at once, the image would be ruined in an instant, so I was keeping the number of simultaneously screening series to single digits—but it was still a lot.
It had become one of the best-performing studios among the Magical Girl successors.
The interesting part was that this Brass Snake Studio was the film club right next door to ours.
It was a club with a fair amount of tradition in the academy, and when they asked if they could make a magical girl work, I rented them the rights cheaply.
At first, I had lent them the material without expecting much because they were students and bound to make mistakes. Seeing them now ranked number one in the magical-girl market showed just how unpredictable things could be.
The title of the work was <Magical Girl Ramy>.
Within the magical girl fandom, the atmosphere was already acknowledging Ramy as the semi-official successor.
The reason they were performing so well.
Partly because the production crew were huge Mari fans and the craftsmanship was excellent, but above all because their treatment of the original work was superb.
While elevating Mari, they had a superb sense of balance that kept their own work's Ramy from being buried under her fame.
Moreover, they weren't content with the reputation of the original and kept making attempts to cultivate their own unique identity, which made them a studio I was quite fond of.
'Come to think of it, they were filming that right now, weren't they.'
As it was my favorite studio, we on our end were also extending them quite a few accommodations.
The Ramy feature film.
The title of the work in production was <Magical Girl Magical Mari X Ramy>.
As one could infer from the title, we fully intended to officially acknowledge them as the successor.
In that sense, my being dispatched over there was, in a way, a natural course of events.
As Nikolai suggested, I immediately prepared for the field assignment.
I contacted their club in advance, and with gleeful delight, I packed my gear and prepared to head over.
"I'm off!"
"Don't add some strange directorial flourish while you're supposed to be inspecting it. I've already spoken to their Sage, so just check whether they're butchering the source material and come back."
"Hmph."
Drat. Busted.
=======================================================
Brass Snake Studio was currently filming in the Hyphen Kingdom.
Because it was a feature film, the scale was far too large to judge from a single scene.
They were renting the third floor of our club's Hyphen Kingdom branch office building, and the awards on display as soon as you stepped inside seemed to showcase their pride.
Considering that our studio hadn't existed for even a year, they could easily have pulled rank as industry veterans, but I couldn't remember them ever behaving that way.
They respected us on the principle that artists proved themselves through skill and that history meant nothing; remembering that, their success may have been inevitable.
They must have been waiting ever since I'd contacted them, because a club member who'd been expecting me at the entrance guided me in.
"Welcome, Allen. We’ve been expecting you."
"...Please, you can drop the formalities."
The problem was that an upperclassman from the Academy was addressing me with extreme deference.
But the moment they started going on about how artists prove themselves through skill and all that, all I could do was pray for it to stop.
Following her guidance, I reached the filming set, where tremendous explosive sounds were already ringing out.
They had said the feature film would be spectacular, but this was excessive.
The set unfolded before my eyes, and there was Mari, locked in a hopeless struggle.
Her opponent was a monster so vicious-looking I had no idea where they'd gotten it.
When I casually asked the Sage where this scene fell in the feature film, he said it was in the latter half.
Ramy had gone to stop the final boss, and the monster Mari was confronting was the boss's ace in the hole.
Hearing just that might raise the question of whether Mari was weaker than Ramy, but that wasn't the case.
On the contrary, this monster had been painstakingly created by the final boss specifically to stop Mari; no one else had any hope of dealing with it.
Just its entrance showed that it was a monster among monsters capable of casually blowing away a mountain or two, so it made sense that Mari was the one holding it back.
Amusingly enough, at this moment Mari was the one being utterly overwhelmed by the creature.
But having already received the overall story line, I didn't consider a production choice like this to be a desecration of the source material.
I peered at the filming set with complete leisure.
Inside the set, Ramy's fellow magical girl and mascot, who'd been watching the battle between Mari and the monster, muttered anxiously.
"No way... even Mari can’t do anything about it?"
"No good, woof. The opponent's way too strong, woof."
The monster, armed to the teeth with abilities that seemed tailor-made to counter her at every turn—as if prepared exclusively for Mari—slowly pressed her back.
Unable to stand by any longer, the magical girl tried to jump into the battle to protect Mari.
But beside them, Lirpin, who'd maintained a wholly unruffled attitude from start to finish, held her back.
"Calm down, meow. There's one minute left anyway, meow."
"Huh? What do you mean by that?"
"Just wait, meow."
The minute Lirpin had mentioned passed, and the clock's hour and minute hands both pointed straight to twelve.
And from Mari's back, an immense surge of mana began to erupt.
Three pairs of wings, utterly incomparable to the existing Stardust Mode.
Those were the very wings Mari and her allies had revealed when they defeated the final boss in the previous series.
The difference was that, unlike back then when they'd barely managed to deploy it by combining their power, Mari was now sustaining this mode all on her own.
"Growing stronger isn't a privilege reserved for juniors...!"
Mari wiped the corner of her mouth and flashed a combative grin.
The two Heart Gems set into her gauntlets blazed brilliantly.
According to Lirpin's follow-up explanation, having once tasted that realm, Mari had continued to train relentlessly to re-enter this mode.
And based on the sensation from that time and the power she'd gained at the Warriors' Altar, she had finally reached that level.
When the sun climbed to its zenith, she could store the sun's mana within her body; she could only enter the mode for one minute per day, before the sun set—but in that moment, Mari became invincible.
"Its name... Ultimate Mari!"
Accompanied by Lirpin's excited commentary, Mari clashed with the monster.
Ultimate Mari's power was overwhelming.
Enough to obliterate the monster in five seconds flat.
==============================
With that scene, the day's filming wrapped, and I offered a word of appreciation to the Sage in charge.
When they were filming this well, there really wasn't any need for me to worry.
"So, will the review be finished with just today?"
"No. I'll be coming back tomorrow as well."
Though I felt bad for the Sage, the truth was, my purpose in coming here from the start wasn't that I didn't trust them—I was simply bored.
I knew.
How uncomfortable it was to have personnel dispatched from the head office.
And if that personnel was at the level of the head office's chairman, it must have been like sitting on pins and needles.
But I was bored.
Leaving the Sage, who was visibly sick of it all, behind, I approached our lead actress.
After asking for the crew's understanding, I made my way to where she was—and found Ceres wiping sweat with a towel her manager had handed her.
Her platinum-blonde hair was drenched, which suggested that Ultimate Mode was a considerable strain.
Taking over for the manager, I pressed a cold canteen to her cheek and spoke.
"Good work."
"Ah! What're you doing here?"
"Came to hang out. Was bored."
"Don't stick so close. I'm all sweaty, it's kinda gross."
"That much is nothing. We've rolled around together drenched in sweat before."
"You crazy bastard! Don't say stuff people'll misunderstand if they hear it!"
"Ah, sorry, everyone. Don't misunderstand. I'm talking about sparring. Sparring."
At the sight of the crew stirring, Ceres pressed a hand to her forehead.
But since the people here weren't the type to believe any explanation anyway, she just poured the canteen's contents into her mouth.
Watching her, I asked about something I'd been curious about since earlier.
"That Ultimate Mode. When on earth did you come up with it?"
"That time you fought Pamela. I made it after watching that."
"From that? You made this? Why?"
Something I'd been curious about for a long time—why were there so many people who learned things from me?
Ailey, for one. Pia, for another.
Now Ceres, too, was saying she'd learned something from my combat, but I had no memory whatsoever of teaching anything.
It felt like I was the only one starring in some kind of misunderstanding comedy, but since the people involved insisted they'd learned something, I had nothing to say.
I decided not to question a good thing and let it go.
Tossing her sweat-soaked towel aside, I asked about her next schedule.
"Once this feature film wraps, come visit our studio sometime."
"Yeah, I do."
"So, mind if I drop by and watch that too?"
"...Why?"
"I've got nothing to do until then, I'm telling you."
"That's not what I meant—we're filming together. Why would you 'drop by and watch'?"
"?"
"?"
I checked my schedule.
The Mini Allens in my head searched diligently and recalled the fact that Ceres and I were both set to appear in Part 3 of Liam Walker.
I'd be playing something like Liam's godfather, and Ceres was cast as a graduate.
"Ah, hell."
How the hell had I forgotten something like that.
Sure, I forget Ailey's name all the time, forget assignments, forget all sorts of things—but I'm not someone who ever forgets an acting schedule.
And yet I'd forgotten a schedule.
In all seriousness, I must've been under a lot of stress lately.
"Hoo boy... maybe it's about time I set something off."
Back when I tossed dynamite into the trailer, it had felt like I could last half a year on that.
But that had only meant I could endure it—my mental health was eroding in real time.
I needed to blow something up or stage some action every so often.
No matter how I thought about it, though, the only explosive-worthy thing in Liam Walker was comedic scenes; there wasn't anything else.
While I was seriously worrying about my mental health, one fact came to mind.
'Come to think of it, we'd decided to start adding action from Liam Part 2.'
The actor playing Liam, Jace Danielson, had been cast as the lead after showing off jaw-dropping action in his audition.
Leaving someone like that mothballed in a traditional wizard position felt like a waste, so the plan had been to gradually get things moving from Part 2 onward.
Except Part 2 had already been shot, so no more directorial intervention was possible there—but starting from Part 3, it just might be.
With that thought, the kind of direction I could pull off from Part 3 began assembling itself automatically in my head.
'Explosions are out, but gunplay and hand-to-hand seem doable...'
Even if it wasn't explosions, as long as I got the adrenaline pumping, that'd be enough.
Whatever expression my face had been making while I was thinking, Ceres spoke with a look of disgust.
"Hey. What's with that look on your face?"
Ceres seemed to have sensed something off from my face, but it was already too late.
The personality that had been quarantined among my inner Mini Allens had begun its activities.
"A long season of disgrace it has been. Now it is time to return to Allen Michael Price."
"What're you talking about. You had a middle name?"
"No. I was just saying something."
"...I doubt you'll listen even if I say it, but don't go too overboard."
"Yeah."
In Part 3, I'd just have to keep the heavy-weapons use light.