96. Survival Is the Rule in Academy Stories
96. Survival Is the Rule in Academy Stories
"Why've you been so damn nice to me lately?"
"Got my reasons."
Several days had passed since the decision was made that the future Empress of the Parma Empire would become a magical girl.
Since that day, Allen's attitude toward Leon had turned strangely kind.
He brought out tea he never used to serve, paid close attention to Leon's mood when he spoke—that sort of thing.
To Leon, it was worrying enough to wonder if the kid had suddenly gotten a terminal diagnosis.
So when he asked Allen, who was serving coffee, what kind of trouble he'd caused:
"You think I'd only act like this if I caused trouble?"
"Then are you planning to cause trouble?"
"Hey. Give that cup back."
Slurp.
Leon downed the coffee in one gulp and handed the empty cup back to Allen.
Then he even cocked one eyebrow in a thoroughly infuriating manner.
Normally Allen would have pretended to crack him over the head with the cup, but for some reason he silently accepted the empty cup and came back with more coffee.
By now, Leon was honestly starting to get curious.
So when he finally pressed Allen for an answer, what came back was:
"I'm sorry. For everything up 'til now. Just... suddenly had that thought."
Still unable to trust Allen, Leon deployed his entire information network at full power to investigate his recent activities.
But no matter how much he looked, neither trouble already caused nor trouble about to be caused turned up.
Only then, believing Allen's words were sincere, did Leon feel deeply moved.
"At last... you've become an adult...!"
Like an older brother moved by his immature younger brother finally growing up, Leon was genuinely delighted by Allen's growth.
Nikolai watched Leon's reaction and thought:
'How the hell do I explain this.'
Your future wife became a magical girl. One with physical-combat features installed.
Leon would probably never learn that truth, and Allen would probably never be able to explain it.
And Allen's atonement would probably never be accepted.
Nikolai agonized for a moment over how to resolve this infinite karmic cycle, then simply let it go.
It wasn't like he had any way to fix it anyway, and a future that had already changed wasn't going to change again just because someone apologized for it.
And above all, watching this spectacle unfold was pretty damn entertaining.
And so, the Future Empress Magical-Girl-ification Incident vanished beyond a parallel world no one would ever know about, buried beneath Nikolai's silence.
*
Anyway, one way or another, all the actors had been gathered.
Next came assigning their roles... but before that, they needed training.
We had recruited a lot of people, but honestly, there was no way every one of these kids had acting talent.
In the case of Magical Mari, Ceres had spent half of her long lifespan practicing acting even before she became a magical girl, and Kylie had a natural talent that let her become an actor right away.
And the other actors in Magical Mari hadn't required much separate training either.
So apart from Pia, there hadn't been any real need for training during the Magical Mari shoot.
But this time was different.
The kids we had gathered were almost all still severely lacking as actors.
They'd have to do some training and selection here, and only by putting the genuinely talented ones in the main roles could the movie get rolling—or at least function at all.
The target period was one month.
Within a month, we planned to identify the actors suited to leads and supporting roles.
Too short?
In my experience, one month was plenty of time to sort out rough talent.
And since they'd already filtered out the completely hopeless cases during the interviews, a month would be enough to separate wheat from chaff.
So here was the question.
What kind of lessons would they run for that month?
Naturally, it was already decided.
The iron rule of the academy.
Battle royale—
"You goddamn lunatic!!"
Leon vetoed it.
He threw the proposal in my face, demanding to know what the hell I was doing with other people's precious children.
Apparently, even in a barbaric medieval era, this was crossing a line.
Come to think of it, there were foreign noble children here too, and he said something like a deathmatch would cause diplomatic problems.
Honestly, I'd thrown out the battle royale idea as a joke and hadn't expected it to pass.
If it actually had passed... well, somehow or other, wouldn't it have worked out?
Anyway, I put away the joke proposal and handed over the real one.
"Survi... val? Audition? What is this?"
Leon was flustered by the sudden string of unfamiliar words.
Ah, you don't know, you uncivilized medieval man.
That was what a survival audition program was.
It was the best way to select people on a tight schedule.
Naturally, telling Leon that directly would've gotten me smacked with a mining pick, so I explained it kindly.
With the same feeling as briefing an old division commander who didn't know MZ culture, I walked him through the terminology step by step, and Leon nodded and approved the plan.
"Oh yeah."
After Leon, I also got approval from the heads of each department.
The moment the approvals were in, I sprinted to the props team.
As it happened, Ailey was there teaching the team members hands-on transmutation techniques.
When I showed her the props plan for the audition venue, she accepted it readily, her face utterly innocent.
"This much is easy."
Then, on the spot, she drew up detailed prop plans and distributed them to the team members.
"This is your first project!"
But the expressions on the team members who received the blueprints were not particularly bright.
Wondering why, I sneaked a glance at them, but all I managed to glean was one thing.
"Hm. So this is a straight line, and this is a square."
That was it.
It was too complicated.
It was covered in symbols and annotations—so many that I simply couldn't make sense of them.
The team members were also struggling to keep up with Ailey's pace, several of them crowding around a single diagram with their heads together.
But she only questioned why any of this was complicated to begin with and simply urged them to move faster.
Under Ailey's relentless pressure, one of the wizards compacting the foundation for the stage muttered:
"The professor... doesn't understand the students...!"
*
There was a bit of chaos, but with the audition venue completed, the survival audition began right away.
The location was the very same dome where Allen had performed his ballpoint-pen magic.
The audition was broadcast live, and in-person tickets were also sold.
The rules didn't need any lengthy explanation.
Originally, survival auditions had simple enough rules that even when they first burst onto the scene in the modern world, people caught on almost instantly.
A tournament where you advanced by competing over who looked cooler.
In the modern world, the theme was usually singing or dancing, but since what we were looking for was actors, the format was: we threw out a theme, and they battled over acting ability to climb the ladder.
It was simple, but also a reliable way to sort people in a short time.
First, I brought in the MC I'd had my eye on for a long time.
[It's been a while, everyone! I, Atreus, greet you as the MC for this glorious audition!]
Yep, the same MC who'd done the commentary every time I had a duel.
I'd already seen how excellent his gift of gab was.
So I called him in.
And as expected, he accepted without hesitation.
On stage, he ran his mouth with tireless enthusiasm in his role as MC.
Watching him, it was almost hard to tell who the main character was.
For reference, the entire audition was being broadcast live.
Live broadcasts were the standard for survival auditions.
We decided not to use viewer voting, however.
Like with Wrestle Kingdom, voting was possible, but the problem was that our goal was to select the actors we wanted, so letting things flow according to the viewers' tastes posed too many practical issues.
In the worst case, an actor who didn't fit the pre-written synopsis at all could end up as the protagonist, so we had no choice but to exclude that.
Instead, we allowed viewers to participate in the popularity vote and the second-chance match.
That way, viewers could still feel some of the fun of picking actors with their own hands.
*
[This audition is being broadcast simultaneously on the Body-Strengthening, Golden, Necromancy, and Illusion Magic Towers, and...]
While the MC delivered his opening spiel, the actor candidates were getting ready backstage.
As the organizers had announced, the first week would test the candidates' shamelessness.
After all, an actor had to be shameless.
Even professional actors often broke into laughter and caused an NG, but in the end they still powered through the most embarrassing performances.
They had to invest emotion in fake props, keep a serious expression in ridiculous situations, and remain unfazed even when a camera was shoved into their faces.
That was why shamelessness could be considered a fundamental principle of acting.
[And now! We will be-giiin— <Hetairo's Got Talent>—right now!]
Along with the MC's opening words, a hundred candidates took the stage.
It was to get everyone on camera once before the main audition began.
The lights swept once over the actors as they lined up on stage, then shifted to illuminate the judges' seats.
A total of five judges awaited them from beyond a thin veil of smoke.
At one end of the five seats, the smoke cleared, and the spotlight shone upon the figure revealed there.
The MC energetically called out the name of the judge revealed beneath the light.
[The warrior of starlight who brings dreams and hope! Hetairo Academy's greatest actor! Celestia Claudius!]
Celestia waved her hand vigorously with a bright smile.
Her popularity was so absolute that many of this year's new students had chosen the actor's path specifically because they admired her.
Amid the cheers of the actors and audience, she briefly switched into her Magical Mari transformation form, and the crowd's frenzy erupted even more explosively.
She felt embarrassed transforming back home, but strangely enough, doing it at an official event did not embarrass her much.
With Ceres's introduction finished, it was time for the opposite end to be introduced.
[The John series' ultimate femme fatale, Tila—and the versatile actress who also played Magical Mari's beloved little sister, Dina! Diane Karamzin!]
If Mari was the symbol of popularity, Diane was the symbol of acting ability.
She had brilliantly portrayed two personalities at opposite extremes, and after displaying tremendous presence in both films, she had risen into the ranks of great actors.
If Celestia was a supernova, Diane had the image of the North Star.
There were that many people who admired her, and cheers no less intense than Celestia's welcomed her.
Like Mari, Diane also did one transformation for the crowd before sitting back down.
Next up, the third judge.
[Head of the Hero Department and Archwizard—Heinkel Faust!]
For a department head, the cheers that poured toward him were fervent.
As if to prove that the title of Archmage was not for nothing, his popularity was no less than the magical girls'.
The Department Head simply joked that people disliked hearing an old man like him ramble, then sat down immediately.
At that de-authoritative display, the audience and candidates alike all cheered.
Now there were two left.
There was no need to say who these two were.
[A symbol of success for today's young Sages! Sage Nikolai Cervantes!]
Though he had only produced one work, a magical girl one at that, no one could deny that its story and direction were revolutionary.
Thus, Nikolai's renown had already risen to a level comparable to that of any established great Sage.
However, unlike the other actors who were used to the applause, Nikolai didn't particularly enjoy appearing at official functions, so he gave a brief word of thanks and shyly sat down.
The problem was that some people found even that adorable and went wild over it.
In any case, with Nikolai's introduction complete, the last remaining seat was the center seat among the judges.
It was hidden by smoke, but that massive, brawny height was roughly visible as a silhouette.
Honestly, there was no way the ultimate attention whore would miss an occasion like this, so people were already guessing his identity.
And so, amid that secret everyone openly knew, the judge in the very center revealed himself.
[Hetairo Academy's stormbringer, the superstar who drives both fans and haters insane! Allen Price!]
The smoke cleared.
The spotlights shone on him.
And what the lights revealed was...
a freak in white pants and a flower-patterned shirt.
Butterfly sunglasses and a harmonica came as bonuses, completing the look.
While everyone stood dumbfounded, Allen pulled a conical party hat out from under the desk, put it on, and blew into the mic.
[Pwoo-!]
Pfft!
Laughter burst out from some of the actors.
As if he had been waiting for that, Allen spoke into the microphone in an incongruously serious voice.
"I told you, didn't I? This week's theme is shamelessness. Those of you who just laughed—if the audition had started, that would've been a deduction."
Only then did the actors realize it.
This first week.
It was going to be hell.