95. The Empire's Crisis?
95. The Empire's Crisis?
Question.
A younger sister and her older brother meet on the same filming set.
What kind of conversation would they have?
The answer is that they pretend not to know each other, like total strangers.
Now, let's add one more condition here.
What if the younger sister happened to play a younger sister role in the production, and that younger sister role happened to be one with a slight brother complex—what reaction would the older brother show?
A younger sister and her older brother met again after a long separation. What would they do?
Yeah.
That was exactly what was happening right in front of my eyes.
"Urghh..."
That was the reaction Riv showed the moment he entered the studio.
Before his master's lecture officially began, he had been ordered, as the teaching assistant, to take charge of the lecture room—that was, the studio—so he had returned to Hetairo with Riv.
In other words, he hadn't exactly come here to see his younger sister in the studio.
But reality, cruel as it was, had summoned Dina right before him.
And not just any Dina—Dina in full brother-complex mode.
"Brother. Feed me."
"Urghh..."
At Dina's petulant whining, Riv's hands began trembling.
Let me clarify so there's no misunderstanding—I said Dina in brother-complex mode, not Diane.
The person she was currently calling 'Brother' was me, meaning I was using the Riv avatar.
Right now, we were each using the Dina and Riv avatars, performing right in front of the real Riv.
The reason was to give him a live demonstration of how the set operated, what kind of direction we preferred, and so on.
Originally, I hadn't wanted to do sibling acting in front of him either.
If possible, I'd wanted to show him a scene with Ceres or Kylie.
But Ceres and Kylie were making cameo appearances at another magical girl studio today, so they couldn't come to the studio.
So I was agonizing over whether to just do a pantomime by myself, when Diane, just back from the family home, happened to scuttle past the front of the set.
I had considered that Diane might feel awkward around her brother, so I suggested demonstrating Tila and John instead of Dina and Riv—
"I forgot my Tila script."
"...Then we'll have to do the sibling scene. Are you all right with that?"
"I'm fine with that. Is there a problem?"
And so we performed.
She acted the brother-complex little sister right in front of her real brother.
Even though her scene partner was a character who shared her brother's name, her performance held no tremor whatsoever.
Instead, her composure threw me so badly that I asked her about it.
"Acting is acting. Reality is reality."
and told me to just focus on the acting.
I already knew she was thick-skinned and did things at her own pace, but this was beyond imagination.
I could admire her professionalism, but...
Watching the real Riv dying on the set in front of her performance, I mostly just felt sorry for him.
"Bwuaaarggh—"
In the end, Riv couldn't hold out and threw up what he'd eaten for lunch.
You might ask how he could react this badly to mere acting, but if my own little sister were simpering and acting all clingy right in front of me while using my name, I might end up the same way.
"Big bwother. Dina's tired. Aaah."
"S-save me..."
Novel.
Usually, the older brothers I knew were hell-bent on teasing their magical girl younger sisters, but here it was the opposite.
The younger sister was completely unfazed while the older brother who was supposed to be doing the teasing was drowning in a fit of Mental Corruption.
Perhaps Edward had anticipated this very scene when he sent him here.
Watching, I found myself amused and began playing along with Diane's acting.
As I became the affectionate older brother spoon-feeding her, the real Riv looked like he was about to outright die.
I felt like I was forgetting something important, but this was fun, so whatever.
Afterward, we merrily tormented the Mental Corruption-stricken Riv for a while longer, and only began the proper studio inspection once we received Edward's call.
*
After securing the directing instructor, what remained was recruiting the staff—meaning the students.
Since this project replaced the regular classes, it was time to select the students through course registration.
Ordinarily, course registration would be first come, first served, but with the special nature of our project, we decided to select students through document screening and interviews.
And for the first round of document screening, Leon, Nikolai, and I took charge.
Naturally, the paperwork was pure torture for me.
I was an American macho man who preferred using my body over my head, after all.
But that didn't mean I was someone who only ever used his body forever.
Just like that American senator I respected, I was also a man who could fully use his head when necessary.
Even more so when it was for the sake of my dream.
And besides, even though I called it torture, it was more enjoyable than anything.
The fact that I'd been given a second chance and could dream like this,
the fact that I could strive desperately toward my dream,
and the fact that I was moving forward not alone but together with everyone—all of it made me smile.
That joy was enough to make even the agony of paperwork fade from memory.
When I shared these feelings with my sworn brother Leon,
"You piece of trash. The only reason you feel that way is because I handled it all."
"Hey, I handled about ten percent too."
"Then what about the other ninety."
"..."
"Oi."
Still, by the standard where strawberry milk gets called strawberry milk with just 0.1% strawberry flavoring...
Ten percent was a hundred times that, so it counted as a significant contribution.
With Leon's free-style rap of curses directed at the back of my head serving as background music, I finished the first document screening.
No matter how I looked at it—kids who seemed so boring we'd probably be beyond resuscitation,
kids whose documents were just too half-assed,
kids who'd written bullshit on their forms determined to get in no matter what,
and lastly, kids who tried to secretly slip a 'token of sincerity' into our back pockets.
As long as they were not one of those types, we passed most of them in the first round.
What awaited them next was the second-round interview.
Each department used a different interview format.
For the props team interview in the Directing Department, Ailey was the interviewer, and she assessed their prop-making skills at the training ground.
"This structure is far too flimsy."
The moment she lightly tapped the building with her magic staff, a ripple spread from its tip and the building came crashing down.
The face of the student who watched their painstaking work collapse in a single second was painted with despair.
But any trace of Ailey's usual soft demeanor was gone as she mercilessly snapped at the student.
"You didn't transmute enough rebar into the main pillar. Did you think you could take me lightly just because I'm the interviewer?"
Her cool gaze pierced the student.
Under the kind of glare you'd expect from a professor, the student was driven out without even managing a defense.
She might have spent every day blowing things up, but she still possessed professor-level knowledge.
Sure, she spends her days dangling from a pole going hueeeeng, but her level of knowledge was that of a professor.
She had come to the academy to learn practical combat out of admiration for me—in theory and real-world application, even I couldn't compare to her.
That was because the Directing Department's interviewer was effectively a professor.
Those who came half-assedly prepared, thinking a fellow student would go easy on them, got a taste of hell right there.
And the same applied to the Cinematography Department.
Though chronically lacking in presence, Carlos had also graduated from the Protection School's direct disciple course.
Even if he wasn't a professor, he was at least at the level of an assistant instructor.
If anything, when it came to sheer grilling, Carlos outclassed Ailey, so that side might be even more hellish.
"Now, why exactly did you raise the lighting?"
"W-well... I thought this scene needed brighter lighting..."
"Do you truly believe that's correct?"
"Uh... sorry..."
"If it was wrong, then why did you raise it? Are you saying you raised the lighting for no reason whatsoever?"
"..."
Just watching made my breath catch in my throat over and over.
I had no idea who Carlos's supervising Elder had been, but they'd done one hell of a job teaching him how to chew people out.
In any case, while interviews were proceeding separately in each department, Nikolai and I conducted the cast interviews.
The interview location was the duel arena.
If I'd had it my way, I'd have loved to spar with them personally, but realistically, time was short and my stamina wouldn't hold out.
So, regrettably, as the next best option, we had the interviewees pair up and spar against each other.
What mattered here was neither victory, defeat, nor spectacle.
Of course, in this world, while the strong could act weak, the weak couldn't perform powerful techniques, so wins and losses weren't completely irrelevant.
But even so, what we were fundamentally casting were actors, not soldiers.
So before the sparring began, we emphasized that they should focus on showcasing their individuality rather than their strength.
As we'd instructed, the students freely displayed everything they had prepared.
Interviewees who couldn't show their full individuality were given one more chance with a golem, and we selected the cast accordingly.
And in my hand, as I screened them, I held not just their first-round documents but another set of papers as well.
"This person looks like they've grown a lot more than a year ago. Let's pass them."
Those other papers were the application files from the earlier first-round interviews.
Back then, some kids had been rejected because they didn't fit Mari's concept, but for those whose concept or skills had caught my eye, I'd stamped them, placed them carefully in the vault, and stowed them away.
And now, for these interviews, I'd pulled those documents back out of the vault.
We passed most of the applicants I'd marked in advance, along with those who hadn't stood out then but had grown over the past year.
As the interviews went on, the number of actors who'd be participating in this film quickly approached the triple digits.
Someone might ask that question.
Do you really need that many actors?
And the answer was 'yes.'
Given the nature of an academy battle series, it required even more people than a magical girl show.
Even taking just that one film where the protagonist is a wizard with a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, if you combined the supporting cast, that was fifty people, and if you added every extra role with any presence at all, it hit triple digits.
So the hundred or so people we were casting weren't actually that many.
The only issue was that with just Nikolai and me screening that many candidates, a headache was creeping in.
But you couldn't halt interviews just because the interviewers had a headache, so we pressed on.
"Come in."
Following the announcement over the duel arena's microphone, the next two interviewees entered.
The female student was from the Martial Arts Department, and the male student was from the Swordsmanship Department.
And they were both people I knew.
The young lady of the Charlotte barony and her Butler.
I remembered them because I'd met them once or twice at a social gathering I'd barely bothered to attend.
'Her name was Anna Charlotte, I think.'
As I was warmly watching the two of them, who were visibly tense as if this might be their first duel inside a Sanctuary, a dumbfounded voice sounded beside me.
"Huh?"
Nikolai was flustered looking at the two of them.
Nikolai looked flustered as he stared at the two of them.
"What's wrong? You know them too?"
"I know of them. More precisely, I'm the only one who knows them."
"What do you mean... Ah."
No way.
Nikolai wrinkled his lower lip and affirmed my suspicion with a sour look.
"Yes. She's the protagonist of the novel I was reading before I transmigrated."
"...Wow."
At Nikolai's words, I was mildly impressed.
To put it another way, that was the exact extent of my reaction.
The fact that a novel's protagonist was someone I'd met at a social gathering was certainly unusual, but not something worth gaping at in amazement.
When Nikolai explained the background of his transmigration, he had said that the novel was set at an academy.
Since Leon appeared as the heroine's upperclassman, I'd already expected her to enroll here.
And there was no reason to be surprised that she'd applied to our studio either.
I mean, look at how much shit I'd already stirred up.
If I started acting shocked now that things weren't following the original story, that'd basically be my conscience imploding.
But Nikolai's subsequent muttering was something I absolutely could not let pass by.
"They aren't supposed to be in the Martial Arts Department."
"...What do you mean by that."
"The heroine—no, I mean, Anna. The story originally started with her enrolling as a special talent student in the Magic Department, you know? So why is she in the Martial Arts Department?"
"???"
What the hell.
So was the woman in front of me a legendary muscle wizard or something?
My question was quickly resolved.
Her fist had been imbued with a very familiar type of mana.
That magical energy. That stance. That method of application.
Ah.
It was Magical Mari's fighting style.
She then went on to summon a spirit, her outfit transformed, and she delivered the finishing blow.
Even Nikolai, who didn't know the magical energy application method, seemed to grasp the situation the moment he saw her transform.
As I watched her magic-wreathed fist smash through the rapier head-on, I asked Nikolai,
Though it was belated, I figured I should at least know what kind of novel the original story he'd read was.
"That novel you read—was it a reverse harem, a harem, or yuri?"
"Pure love."
"Not the outcome. I mean the process. Wasn't there anything in the middle? Like, multiple guys showing up fighting over the heroine."
"Nothing like that. It was just a single-minded pure love story."
"...And the capture target, by any chance?"
"...Prince Leon."
"Fuck me. You tell me that now."
"You never asked, Boss."
"For critical intel like that, you're supposed to volunteer it on your own."
I began seriously worrying about the future mother of the nation having changed class from wizard to martial artist—or more precisely, magical girl.
The conclusion I'd reached was that it was probably fine.
What was wrong with being a magical girl?
I couldn't deny that, compared to a traditional wizard, it made the future Empress's class change rather dramatic and visually strange, but I didn't see it as a serious problem.
No one but us knew that the future had changed anyway, so it wasn't as though anyone would complain.
Then, suddenly, an important fact flashed through my mind, so I asked Nikolai.
"Just asking to be sure—what is she, out of the regression-possession-reincarnation trio?"
"...Native regression."
Well now. That completes the regression-possession-reincarnation trio.
Still, if it was regression, that was far better.
At least it meant she wasn't a TS, right?
If the future Empress and my future sister-in-law had some bastard man inside her, I might have tried to kill her on the spot.
Still, I asked just in case.
"Not a TS, right?"
"If she's a native regressor, how could there be a TS?"
"Who knows. While I was fighting the war, that kind of thing might have been trendy in your world."
"There wasn't that kind of thing in our world either... Probably."
At any rate, I was relieved.
The future Empress becoming a magical girl bothered me juuust a little, but I decided this was still acceptable and let it go.
At that very moment, a line that should never have come out of our future Empress reached our ears.
"Explosive Fist!"
Along with that vicious technique name, Stardust Impact—her signature move—manifested from her fist.
The butler, having lost his rapier, was caught in the explosion before he could even resist.
When the blast cleared, the spar ended with a person-shaped scorch mark showing where the butler had once stood.
While Nikolai and I stood there speechless at that brutal scene,
she turned to us with a bright smile befitting the heroine of a romance story and asked,
"At this level, could I become as splendid a Hero as Ceres?"
Fuck.
I'm sorry.
Leon.