71. Equivalent Exchange
71. Equivalent Exchange
A plague was roaming the world.
A plague called favoritism toward one's favorite.
The Mari Fandom and Isis Worship Group had formed an alliance to hunt down this plague.
- Author: Nikolai Cervantes
The moment I received this memoir Nikolai had written for me, I couldn't help but ask.
"Were you a communist or something?"
"That's not it, but nothing explains this situation better, don't you think?"
"...You're not wrong."
I clicked my tongue and gazed out the window.
Outside, the resurrected Dina Knight Order was whooping it up as always.
It was good to see people so full of life.
The problem was that they had dark-evolved into toxic fanatics.
It was fine that they felt proud their characters had been given this much narrative, but they kept using it to needle the neighboring fandoms.
- Your favorite never got a push like this, did she?
- Aaaargh!
And the fact that my own mother was at the very forefront of that dark fandom made my state of mind even more wretched.
She'd apparently been gloating about it to other noblewomen and wizards at social gatherings until someone challenged her to a duel. When Father called to tell me, I nearly fainted.
Magical Mari was practically tearing itself apart.
This, however, was something Nikolai and I had anticipated.
In a work with many main characters, if you create individual character episodes, complaints from other fandoms are bound to arise.
A modern person familiar with idol shows or episodic structures might still wait, thinking their own character would get a push someday, but this world didn't seem used enough to the genre yet to exercise patience.
Or maybe it was just the Dina Knight Order intentionally needling the other fandoms.
In any case, the solution to this mess was to continue the narrative for the other characters as planned.
I asked our Sage about the upcoming narrative progression.
"Hey, what's the episode order for these guys?"
"For now, the individual episodes are planned to conclude in the order Isis-Dina-Mari."
Ideally, you'd start with Dina, who joined last, and finish in the order Dina-Isis-Mari.
In stories like this, it was standard practice to let a brainwashed character's plotline simmer before resolving it.
"So right now it's Isis's turn?"
"Yes. Combat power aside, I want to focus a bit more on Isis's inner growth."
In the setting, Isis's sword was powerful, but a hint of hesitation remained whenever she cut someone down.
As a detail for that, he'd asked Kylie, who played Isis, to put a slight tremor into her sword.
This episode was meant to show her achieving inner growth and completing the ideal of the "Gentle Sword."
Right.
Up to that point, there was no problem at all.
The problem was that the pace of putting together this Isis episode was far too sluggish.
It wasn't that Nikolai had run out of material.
He was still overflowing with ideas and material.
The problem was that he was overflowing in the wrong direction.
"Boss. What about two spoonfuls of despair and one spoonful of regret..."
"Take both out. The viewers'll get indigestion."
"Tch... but that's the good stuff. Can't Isis suffer just a little more?"
"You call getting a finger cut off and reattached ‘a little suffering’? Delete it."
Amazingly enough, I was now giving Nikolai notes on his script.
Normally our meetings went in the direction of Nikolai reining me in when I went overboard with the directing, but right now it was the opposite.
Ever since a little while ago, he'd been trying to steer the magical girl genre—full of dreams and hope—onto a completely different track.
Nikolai had suddenly turned like this because, during the Dina episode, he'd awakened to what he called the exquisite pleasure of anguish.
What he said right after the Dina episode wrapped perfectly encapsulated his condition.
- When a beautiful heroine is driven to extremes, when outward wounds and inner steely will coexist, and when those two strike a precarious balance... that is when a person is most beautiful.
So I was keeping him in check.
Fortunately, he knew his current state was abnormal, so he'd gone to the temple to pray, gone to confession, and even asked me to interfere with his scriptwriting from beginning to end.
Even then, his inner demon kept bursting out, so Nikolai was practically reenacting Jekyll and Hyde.
"Boss. Then how about a scar on her stomach..."
"This isn't working. Go get some rest."
"I think I'd better."
"Go watch some religious films and purge some of that inner poison."
I handed Nikolai a ticket for an ordinary film of this world. He nodded somberly and took it.
It supposedly used religion as a backdrop, but it followed a divine Apostle's adventures until their ascension and was considered something of a masterpiece.
Even so, our dopamine-and-adrenaline-addled brains would've found that film unbearably dull, but there was no other way to purge the poison inside him.
*
Nikolai clutched the script and agonized over it alone.
The rough synopsis was already settled, and there was no problem with the direction because I was handling it; the specific development was the issue.
Isis currently needed inner growth.
So instead of pushing her physically, we had decided to corner her with politics and law.
The problem was, I was fairly weak in that area.
As I sat there with my head in my hands, staring at the paper with the note "Politics, Law, & Hardship" written on it, someone's fingertip touched my shoulder.
"Pia?"
"Shouldn't most people be startled?"
"How many people on this island do you think can slip past my senses and stand right behind me?"
"It could be an assassin sent by the cultists."
"With you here, I don't think they'd be able to reach me."
"Hehe, is that so?"
Pia naturally sat down on my lap.
She was certainly a beauty of fairly tall stature, but my build was so far outside the norm that she felt relatively small.
As I breathed in the scent of Pia's hair from above, her voice came up from below me.
"What's this note about?"
"Ah, it's Isis's individual episode..."
I summarized the situation so far for Pia.
That Nikolai had turned into Jekyll and Hyde, that it happened to be right when we were preparing Isis's episode, and that I was an ignoramus in law and politics so I couldn't make any progress at all.
After hearing my explanation, Pia leaned her back against my chest and went "Hmm..." as she thought.
Then she snapped her fingers, picked up a pen, and started writing out various scenarios in her elegant handwriting.
"How about this?"
"There was a law like this?"
"Hehe. You wouldn't know unless you studied law. Wicked nobles often use that clause to exploit commoners, so it'd be historically accurate too."
"Good girl. That's my Pia."
I patted Pia's head as she sat in my arms.
After doing that for about ten minutes, I set her down from my lap and headed out of the office with her to discuss things with the actors.
Judging by how red her earlobes were, I'd have to be more careful around her ears next time.
=========<Magical Mari Start>==========
After learning Riv's true identity, Dina had fallen into depression but, through several incidents, ultimately recovered.
- "I'll bring Big Brother back, no matter what!"
And so the magical girl trio was revived once more and continued their activities.
One time, a councilor who proclaimed himself Rank 3 appeared before Isis.
But Isis joined forces with her comrades and succeeded in defeating him, and the power of their Bonds grew ever stronger.
Just as they were riding that momentum, a councilor this time claiming Rank 5 appeared before them.
That councilor, who believed position and rank made a person superior, was, true to his convictions, in reality a count who governed a territory.
The magical girls tried to defeat him despite the political burden, but their resolve came to nothing when every attack failed.
His territory was governed by a rule: status was determined by fame, and those of higher status could command those beneath them according to the difference in status.
The magical girls had begun as unknown outsiders, fallen into the lowest caste, and suffered every kind of injustice throughout the territory.
But the situation changed dramatically when a minstrel who had received their help in the past visited the territory.
With his aid, the magical girls rose to a status equal to the count, and they beat him up just short of killing him.
"Spare me! Without me, this territory is doomed!"
At his plea, the magical girls had no choice but to let him live.
Although he had treated them cruelly, the territory he governed was, objectively speaking, well-run.
If they pulled him out of that position, the daily lives of the territory's residents could be ruined.
So they forgave the lord.
But the lord was more wicked than they had ever imagined.
The moment they turned their backs, he launched a surprise attack on them.
"It's useless."
But against Isis, who had grown internally through this episode, such cheap tricks didn't work.
Yet even this was just as the lord had expected.
His goal was to make them focus all their attention on blocking the surprise attack.
His true objective was to kill the territory's residents.
Status was relative.
If he killed the territory's residents who supported the magical girls, he could be of higher status once more.
Just as the lord's clutches were about to reach the residents who supported the magical girls, a flippant voice seized control of the atmosphere in the room.
"Goodness, Councilor. This is rated for all ages. If you use such a gruesome technique, how are we supposed to make a living?"
The voice wasn't loud, nor was it a shout; it was ordinary in volume, yet sounded as close as someone wisecracking right beside them.
When I turned toward the direction of the voice, there was Ignos, wearing colorful sunglasses over his mask and, by some principle I couldn't fathom, eating popcorn through his masked face.
At Ignos's appearance, the lord sneered at him.
"You, a mere Rank 8, dare stick your nose in here? Haven't you forgotten that with Optepe and Eternal Being gone, you're now the lowest-ranked one?"
"Oh my! My apologies. For a pathetic Rank 8 like me to presume to advise someone of Rank 5. Then how about this?"
Ignos produced a card with an enormous 8 printed on it.
And when he folded that card in half, a 3 appeared.
The lord's face went utterly pale at the sight.
"W-Wait...!"
But the voice emerging from behind Ignos's mask was nothing like his usual flippancy; it sounded as though several people were speaking at once.
"How ugly, Councilor. There is nothing amusing or beautiful about you."
Ignos's mask came off, and from within it, a deep, deep darkness and blazing red eyes were revealed.
From that darkness issued a grotesque voice that instinctively evoked the word hell.
"So please die with dignity, while you can still be at your most beautiful."
A solar eclipse began.
The territory was shrouded in shadow, and from those shadows, monsters burst forth.
The amorphous monsters closed in on the lord, tightening the circle to surround him.
And the lord vanished into the shadows with a scream.
As soon as the lord was gone, the shadows too vanished as if they had never been there.
And in that spot, only the lord's Heart Gem was left lying conspicuously alone.
While everyone else stood stunned by the shocking spectacle, Ignos trudged over to where the Heart Gem lay.
He picked it up...
And tossed it to Isis.
"Huh?"
"You are the victor, so this rightfully belongs to you."
"What?"
"Surely you didn't think I'd take it for myself? That wouldn't be beautiful at all, nor delightful."
Leaving only those words behind, Ignos waved his hand and disappeared into the crowd of citizens.
He also promised that they would meet again.
=========<End of Magical Mari>==========
While Isis's episode was airing, the discontent within the Isis fandom had been steadily mounting.
Sure, they admitted Ignos was cool. And it was fine that Isis had been acknowledged as his nemesis. But wasn't the production lacking the same shocking impact as Dina's had? It felt too bland.
To quell the dissatisfaction, we had ambitiously prepared the next episode as well, but even that failed to pacify them.
Objectively, Isis's production wasn't bad.
On the contrary, compared to her first appearance scene, it had made tremendous strides.
The problem was that Dina's nemesis had been Riv, played by John, and the two hastily prepared events hitting back-to-back had desensitized people's brains to stimuli.
In other words, they were acting like that because of a sense of relative deprivation.
Before long, a rumor that the production company was mistreating Isis and excessively pushing Dina spread like the specter of communism, rippling through the fandom in waves.
- Stop the mistreatment of Isis!
- Are they blatantly pushing Dina just because her actor is a duke's daughter?!
- They're discriminating against the actor who plays Isis just because she's a commoner!
- Protest! We want equality! We have nothing to lose but discrimination, and equality to gain!
- Isis Worship Group, unite!
They were genuinely turning into communists, and those communists blamed me and Diane for everything.
"This whole situation occurred because Priest Price single-handedly mistreated Isis while Sage Cervantes was away recuperating!"
"Hear, hear!"
"And it's also because Priest Price is favoring Dina Karamzin!"
"That's right!"
"Allen Price, step down! Give us back Sage Cervantes!"
Even if we told those protesters the truth—that Sage Cervantes's condition had gotten so strange we'd sent him off to go heal—there was no way they'd understand.
Who'd believe us if we said we'd sent the director away to recuperate because he'd discovered a taste for suffering?
Besides, right now they just wanted someone to blame, so even if we told them the truth, they wouldn't listen.
With the protests happening practically every day, I rescued Ailey from the mob and gathered the actors.
For a crowd like that, the right response was to answer with the quality of the work, not long-winded excuses.
But we lacked the ability to replace Nikolai's narrative development skills.
As the protesters' discontent continued to accumulate like that, the incident finally blew up.
On her way to the academy, Diane had a tomato thrown at her by the Isis Worship Group.
She said she was fine, so I decided to trust her.
"Fine. If that's what you want so badly."
I summoned Nikolai, whose healing still wasn't complete, to the office.
And I handed him a blank sheet of paper, presenting the conditions for the script.
"Write freely, excluding gore, brutal death, and sexual acts."
"What about bloodshed?"
"You can spill up to 1.5 liters of blood per person."
"Hehe. Then... two scoops of conflict, one scoop of crisis, five scoops of regret, and misery... Oh, I spilled it."
I left the muttering Nikolai behind and prepared the event.
'You want events this badly? Fine, I'll throw you some event fodder.'
=========<Magical Mari Start>==========
A few days ago, an article appeared stating that at an official press conference, Priest Allen had apologized to the Isis fandom, explaining that while Sage Cervantes had been on leave due to personal circumstances, he had returned for this episode.
The Isis Worship Group all cheered at the news.
They held a festival and declared victory, saying Sage Cervantes would make their beloved Isis shine even brighter.
They named this monumental day the "Isis Revolution" and gathered together to watch the live broadcast of Sage Cervantes's Isis episode.
True to Sage Cervantes's return, the confrontation between Isis and Ignos was quite well-constructed.
The countless illusions and the gimmick of a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream drew applause from everyone.
But this wasn't enough.
What they wanted wasn't novel production tricks—it was a fully realized narrative like Dina's and Dina-level fan service. And just as their discontent was about to rear its head again, the situation began to take a strange turn.
"Isis. There's killing intent seeping into your sword. Be careful."
It started with the mascot's nagging.
But Isis shrugged off that nagging as unimportant.
"Milady. I am sorry."
Then one day, the conflict began when one of her subordinates stopped her just as she was about to finish off a monster, blocking her way.
"Why are you stopping me?"
"Milady, you were nearly consumed by murderous intent just now."
While they were holding Isis back, the monster escaped.
At the fact that she'd let a monster get away, Isis felt both anxiety and responsibility, and she pressed her subordinates hard.
"We've been taking down monsters just fine all this time—why bring this up now?!"
"Until now, Milady's sword was wielded to protect dreams. But recently, you've been swinging your sword not to protect people, but to kill monsters."
When Isis shot back asking how they could know that, one of her subordinates pointed out her mana.
He said the proof was that her mana color, once a luminous blue like the Milky Way, was gradually growing murkier.
The argument itself was sound.
Isis herself was aware that she was changing.
But perhaps her pride wouldn't let her admit it, and in the end, she said something she never should have.
"All that nagging, when you're weaker than me and can't even help."
With those words, her relationship with her subordinates took a severe turn for the worse.
He only issued commands such as “Clothes,” “Water,” and “Drive.”
The stress that began here also made her relationships with the other magical girls awkward and strained.
Eventually, when citizens who had been harmed by the monster she'd let escape began pointing fingers at her, she gained a twisted conviction that she had been right all along.
And so, as she hunted countless monsters as a solitary, lonely ninja, Ignos appeared before her for the first time in a long while.
The moment she saw him, Isis swung her sword without a word.
In the end, just like last time, she even broke through all of Ignos's illusions and the dreams within dreams, succeeding in slicing off his arm.
"I guess you can't swing that fancy wand of yours anymore now, can you?"
At Isis's sarcasm, Ignos tilted his head.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Do I have to explain my sarcasm for you?"
"No, no. I mean, why are you saying that to me?"
"What?"
While Isis stood bewildered, Mari and Dina—having heard the commotion caused by Ignos and Isis—arrived belatedly on the scene.
Their reactions upon arriving were dramatic.
Dina clapped a hand over her mouth and dry-heaved, and Mari was so shocked her body froze and she couldn't move.
At least aware that they were still in the midst of battle, Mari was the first to regain her senses and shouted at Isis.
"Isis! What the hell are you doing right now?!"
"Huh?"
The moment Mari shouted, the scene in Isis's vision changed.
Her own subordinate, Beta, was clutching her severed arm and trying to staunch the bleeding.
The blood spurting from the cleanly severed stump pooled on the ground, dyeing Beta's shoes red.
And Ignos was perched on the rooftop of a building, looking down on it all.
"Mila...dy... I'm glad... you've come to your senses..."
Splash.
Beta collapsed into the pool of blood.
Isis's sword fell to the ground as well.
"Huh?"
And at that moment, the popcorn of the Isis Worship Group—who had all been watching this scene together—fell to the ground too.