15. Hero's Party Formed!
15. Hero's Party Formed!
Nikolai no longer looked like he was going to run, so I untied the rope I'd bound him with.
Once he learned I'd come purely to hire him, and we'd had a substantial talk under that shared empathy as reincarnators, before I knew it he'd come to understand me too.
"Ah... Boss. So that's how it was."
The interesting thing was that Nikolai and I came from parallel worlds.
I came from a worldline where World War III broke out. Nikolai's was a peaceful one.
- Peace? It was peaceful on the surface, at least. The inside was festering, though, and nobody knew when it might burst...
That was what he said, but still, at least on the outside they put on a show of hypocrisy and pretended to be peaceful.
Once some lunatic pushed the nuclear launch button, even hypocrisy became a luxury.
Nikolai seemed interested in my war stories, but I didn't feel any need to tell them to a guy I was still not very close to.
For now we became friends, having established at least a minimal common ground.
Still, since he was going to be making movies with me, I figured it would be good to let him know at least about my passion for film, so I told him that part in detail.
"Then, Boss, that passion of yours for movies is also...!"
"Don't look at me with eyes like that. It's partly because of my comrades, but it's also because I want to give this life everything I've got."
"Yes, sir. I'll help you every which way I can."
Surprisingly, Nikolai was a guy with decent social skills.
We clicked well, he was capable enough, and in many ways, I liked him.
"This is a bit forward since we've just met, but... what would my wages be?"
I handed him one gold coin.
"To start, the base is one gold a month. I'll raise it depending on how you do."
An elite knight's monthly pay right after graduating from Hetairo Academy was about five gold a month.
Of course, one gold coin was practically passion pay for a directing supervisor cum scenario writer, but for an untested mere student it was an exceptional amount as a starting offer.
Besides, hadn't I explicitly made it conditional on how well he performed?
In the film business originally, you took your base and then bonuses based on box office results tended to be larger.
Maybe Nikolai knew a thing or two about this industry, because he immediately accepted the amount I offered.
"Boss, you seem to be loaded?"
"I am. I'm John Armstrong."
"Well, if you're John Armstrong, that would explain it... Wait, what?"
"At this point, I've already spilled even my past life. What's the use of keeping secrets? Know that."
"Huh? Boss? Or... should I call you Sir?"
Nikolai, who had briefly fallen into a state of confusion, quickly got a hold of himself and pulled out a question he'd been saving.
"Um... Boss. You said you figured out I was a reincarnator from my personal statement?"
"Right?"
"Then why me, of all people? I didn't work in any artistic field before my reincarnation... Even if you have really high expectations, I don't have the confidence to live up to them."
"It doesn't matter. Even if you were a regular civilian, you'd still write better than the people of this era."
"Huh?"
"Judging by your reaction, it seems you haven't read any novels since coming to this world."
"Well, books are... I was preparing for admission, reading history books and decoding prophecy books, so I didn't get around to reading them."
"Then read this."
Nikolai looked over the title of the book I handed him, opened it, and speed-read it.
<The Story of the Constellation Alcides>
It was a bestseller in this world.
The book's first sentence probably went like this.
- Oh, great and radiant demigod! Child of Amphitryon and Alcmene, heirs to the blood of the Mycenaean royal family!
And the book's highlight was probably this.
- Alcides, passing by, found a weeping woman and asked what troubled her. 'Why are you crying here?' 'I am destined to be offered to a monster called the Hydra.' 'Then I shall slay it for you.' Alcides promptly killed the Hydra and resumed his journey.
I wasn't summarizing or distorting anything; it was genuinely written like that.
If this was what a bestseller looked like, you could imagine what the rest were like.
For me, accustomed to modern civilization, the literature of this world was so unbearably bland that I simply couldn't stand it.
Nikolai seemed to feel the same way, because he closed the book when he reached that passage.
"What the hell is this."
"What do you think it is? A novel."
"This crap?"
"In this world, this is the average. The tech is near-modern, but cultural forms are medieval, and the art is stuck in ancient Greece. It's all because of theology and magic."
Originally, culture, technology, and art should advance together.
But this world possessed magic, effectively a technological singularity, and humans communicated intimately with gods. Theology therefore held tremendous power.
The result was a strange outcome: tech raced ahead alone, culture advanced slowly, and art was distorted in a weird direction.
Especially in art, it wasn't exactly a regression, but people were so busy praising the gods that it felt almost devoid of any real style.
Only, that's how it looked relative to us who came from an era with no gods and no magic. The people living in this world probably didn't feel any problem at all.
"Even when I was making movies and trying to reference various novels and films, they were all just religion, love, and hero hymns."
"Ah..."
"So I need you. No local could ever write the script I want."
Without recognizing a problem, people couldn't progress.
Even if I pointed things out hundreds of times, a local screenwriter wasn't likely to give me a script I'd be satisfied with.
It was so frustrating that during the whole filming of the John Series, more than half the lines were my ad-libs, and I had to personally rewrite parts of the scenario in between—there was that kind of behind-the-scenes story.
Nikolai seemed to gain confidence from my explanation.
His face plainly said, If this world was this bad, didn't that make him Shakespeare by comparison?
Nikolai, suddenly full of confidence, pounded his chest and boasted.
"Just give me the genre. I may not look it, but in my past life I was a citizen who richly enjoyed culture regardless of genre. Whatever you want, I'll pull it out for you with flair."
*
To sum up Nikolai's specs: a pro who had avidly indulged in culture across genres—movies, novels, comics, anime, you name it.
In other words, he was a super geek.
So he wasn't afraid, whatever kind of work Allen might demand.
Romance? He'd been reading that when he reincarnated.
Horror? Every summer he'd go to the cinema alone to watch it—that was his genre.
Action? Need I say more. His own favorite genre.
Anticipating the first genre Allen would name, he ran through his mental catalog of works.
But a madman could never understand an ordinary person, and the reverse was equally true.
"Magical girl."
"...?"
*
It took a little while to correct Nikolai's misunderstanding.
"Who exactly would be demanding a frilly dress on this muscular body?"
"Haha..."
What I wanted to make was, ultimately, a promotional video.
Our club currently had a filming crew, but no actors.
Even I couldn't play all the roles alone.
Recruiting actors was the first priority.
The fortunate thing was, this was Hetairo Academy.
Most of the students walking down the street were potential actor candidates.
As long as we had enough publicity, securing actors wouldn't be hard.
"What about a normal promo video?"
"How many other film clubs are there in this academy besides ours right now? If we promote it in a normal way, you think people are really going to come? Right?"
"That's true..."
Rather than show an ordinary promotional video, it was far more effective to proclaim, Our club was this damn awesome!
That might raise one question.
Why magical girl, of all things?
There was a rational reason.
I'd thought of plenty of other genres in my head.
But most of them were unsuitable for a recruitment video.
A genre that men and women alike would find interesting, that would stand out from other clubs, and that my age group would like.
I couldn't think of anything besides magical girl.
Of course, not the kind made for really little kids.
There were those high school Moon Warriors, weren't there.
The ones everyone, young and old, went crazy for.
That was my model.
"Yeah... You're right, Boss. That is correct. It's just... Ugh..."
"So, can you write a magical girl script, or not?"
Unfortunately, I hadn't watched magical girl shows.
How could I watch that in the military.
"I can do it. But the magical girl genre is a little hard to write right now. It's not an event-driven genre; it's more omnibus-style, so you have to set the characters and then develop the events around them."
"You mean you need the actors playing the magical girls and the villains to be set before you can write a script that fits them?"
"Yes."
"If that's all, leave it to me."
*
The next day.
When Nikolai, summoned by Allen, arrived at the set in the Hero Department, this was what he saw.
A curly blue-haired man grumbling while holding a recording crystal ball.
A blond youth with dark circles under his eyes, hunched in a corner over a desk, wrestling with paperwork.
And finally, a purple-haired girl in twin tails, wearing a frilly dress, her eyes dead and lifeless.
The one who grabbed the eye the most was that last person.
Allen, the only one in high spirits on the funeral-like set, spotted Nikolai frozen at the door.
"Alright, now that the director's here, let's get started right away."
Nikolai already wanted to run away.
============================
In Hetairo Island, where carriages peacefully roamed the roads.
Calamity struck without warning while people went about their ordinary lives.
Boom!
A masked figure wearing a skull mask and covered head to toe in a black suit dropped onto the middle of the road.
A truck driver, driving as usual that day, slammed the brakes when he saw the stranger suddenly land in front of him.
Screech!
The sound of tires scraping the road came belatedly.
But the truck didn't stop; it hurtled toward the masked figure.
That was the moment.
Crunch.
The masked figure didn't avoid the truck—he slammed straight into it, crushing the truck's front half and the driver alike.
From the driver's seat, red blood dripped, signifying that a person had been there moments before.
The remaining half of the truck wobbled for a moment, then toppled over sideways.
Vehicles swerved to avoid the falling half-truck and collided with one another, and the road instantly turned into chaos.
Amid the cacophony of screeching brakes, crashing metal, and screams, the masked figure calmly surveyed his surroundings.
Then he selected a suitable shop building and walked inside.
Crash.
Not long after, from the top floor of that shop, the building's owner—dressed in luxurious clothes—came flying out through a window, the glass shattering.
The shop owner landed on the ground, his neck twisted backward.
Through the broken window, the intruder looked down.
Only when everyone's attention was fixed on him did he speak for the first time.
"My name is Riv. Emissary of the Twilight Council. Listen, sinners of Hetairo Island. You have rejected the Council's rightful authority and murdered our diplomatic envoy, thereby insulting the Council. Accordingly, by the decision of ten councilors, I now pronounce the following verdict."
-Total annihilation.
The moment the verdict fell, explosions erupted throughout the city.
Roads split open; buildings collapsed.
Fleeing people were either caught in the blasts, crushed by debris, or fell into the gaps in the road. One of the three fates.
Riv looked down from the shop building at the city being destroyed.
Flames shot up here and there, and screams filled the air.
Just then, he saw a beam of light in the distance.
"Hm?"
Clang—!
He swiftly deflected the beam aimed at him with his gauntlet.
Then, glaring toward the direction of the attack, he muttered.
"Magical girl..."
As if answering his mutter, the air flashed with light and a young-looking girl appeared.
"Ma... Magical Girl! Magical Mari! Like a shooting star spreading hope—I arrive on the scene!"
The girl with pink hair tied in twin tails wore a dress with fluttering frills.
Her staff, set with a heart gem, pointed at Riv.
Riv, wary of the sudden magical girl, checked his own gauntlet.
The gauntlet that had blocked the beam was crumpled, smoke rising from it.
He threw off the now-useless gauntlet and took a stance against the woman who called herself Magical Mari.
"Have you come to hinder me again? How tiresome."
"As long as you threaten peace, I will—ah!"
Before she could finish her line, Riv appeared before her in an instant and his fist exploded forward.
A tackle followed as she dodged the attack.
She nearly tripped when her legs were hooked, but the magical girl used flight magic to stabilize herself in midair.
After creating a pink explosion to force Riv back, she called out her line again.
"That's so unfair! Attacking while I'm delivering my lines!"
"Didn't you ambush me first?"
"Oh? Really? No, that's not—"
She couldn't finish.
Riv had resumed his attack.
Mari prepared a spell against the eerie skull rushing toward her.
*
The battle unfolded in Riv's favor.
At the last moment, however, Mari showed her ingenuity. She blinded Riv with a flash, then drove her finishing move down at him from the rooftop.
- Sky Falling Buster!!!!
A colossal beam tore through the atmosphere and slammed into the ground, raising a mushroom cloud.
After the dust finally settled, the skull mask emerged through the smoke.
He was alive, but his grotesquely twisted limbs showed that he could no longer continue the fight.
"Just you wait, Magical Girl."
He activated the skull-shaped emblem. Red light flared in the skull's eyes, and he vanished.
Thus, the battle ended in the magical girl's victory.
Later, just as she was about to cancel her transformation—
===============================
[- Curious about what happens next? Bon Voyage Studio is waiting for actors.]
Sitting on the club-room sofa, Nikolai watched the commercial on television with satisfaction.
It was his own script, but it had turned out truly well.
Was this what a sense of accomplishment felt like?
It was only a five-minute club promotional video.
Yet filming those five minutes had required dozens of retakes and an entire weekend devoted to shooting.
Finishing the production had not been the end of it.
Negotiating advertising time with the broadcast Magic Tower at Hetairo Academy had been grueling.
But as if to reward all that hardship, the commercial appearing on the screen at regular intervals filled Nikolai with satisfaction.
'This should bring in plenty of club applications.'
Nikolai had always considered himself far removed from an artist.
But creating something himself had made him realize it.
He loved writing scripts.
Had he never met Allen, he would have buried himself in the unrewarding smell of ink and consoled himself by calling it happiness.
And he doubted he was the only one.
There had to be people who desperately denied the artistic souls within them.
This commercial would set those students' souls alight.
His heart was already fluttering so badly that he could not calm down, and he paced around the club room alone.
BANG!
"Hey, we've got a huge problem!"
Allen's entrance jolted Nikolai almost forcibly from his reverie.
What on earth was going on for him to make such a fuss?
Since he came looking for Nikolai specifically, it was probably about this ad...
"Our ad went way too viral!"
"Come on. Making a fuss over something like that—"
"You think I'd use the word 'way too' for no reason? Draw the curtains and look out the window right now!"
At Allen's scolding, Nikolai cocked his head but did as he said and drew back the curtains.
And what greeted him outside the window were protesters wielding torches and Molotov cocktails.
"?"
In the middle of the crowd of protesters,
a nobleman in expensive clothes stood on a makeshift platform, shouting into an amplification spell.
[Evil forces like cultists are operating in the shadows of this world!
Those who forcibly kill off the protagonist and shatter all plausibility!
Those who obstruct a beautiful ending for money's sake and end up creating a trash work!
Those who shove their own ideology into their works and impose it on others!
Among them, the most vicious are those who release episode 1 and never release episode 2!]
""Well said! Well said!!""
[And this studio is the worst of them all—they only put out a 0.1 episode under the guise of an ad and never even released episode 1!! My list proves that they are a covert organization!!!]
""Waaaaaah!!!!""
And behind the platform, a familiar purple-haired girl was dangling from a pole.
"Hooeeeeng!!! Allen!!! Save me!!!"
Nikolai closed the curtain and looked at Allen.
"What do we do?"
"What do you mean, what?"
We film. If we want to live.
Nikolai sincerely felt like quitting.