Chapter 46
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 46
Chapter Title: The Ridiculous Performance
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It doesn't seem to be a living creature.
After finishing some inexplicable preparations, a massive banquet hall came into view.
A fake banquet hall. It felt just like a movie set.
Tables laden with food lined the walls, and delicious aromas wafted through the air, but instinct told me otherwise.
All of it... it's fake.
Despite the grandeur of the hall, not a single person was in sight.
Instead, the countless maids we'd seen earlier stood in neat rows along the edges of the room, hands clasped demurely in front of them, heads slightly bowed, eyes closed.
Please accept this.
The maid who had guided me handed over a small bundle of papers.
"Hm?"
It was a script.
"A script?"
A paper detailing how to act, what lines to say, what expressions to make.
That kind of script.
"No way!!! I can't do it!!!"
That was when it happened.
The moment I whipped around, surging with killing intent at Melissa's furious shout—
One of the banquet hall's doors swung open, revealing a graceful girl with gray hair wearing a red dress.
"You expect me to do this cringeworthy crap with that guy right now?! Are you insane?! He's my brother! My real brother! Take me to whoever's in charge here right now!!"
Good grief, that idiot...
The family disgrace was all at the Family Head's command.
She'd be such a refined, pretty young lady if she'd just keep her mouth shut, but her behavior and speech made it impossible to tell if she was a noble lady or a wild deer bounding through the woods.
I shook my head pitifully and flipped open the first page of the script in my hand.
The content itself was straightforward.
But...
"No way! I can't! Damn it!"
I hurled the script bundle to the floor without hesitation and surged with energy.
"This won't do. Treasure or whatever, let's smash it all."
You must comply according to the rules.
"And what if I don't? What can you even do? Does this make any sense? You want me to do this with that deep-sea giant squid over there?"
"Are you nuts? I'm a primate! Leon's just a baby chimp!"
Melissa seemed to share my sentiments for once.
As we both vehemently protested, the maid fell silent for a moment before clapping her hands.
Clap clap!!
The space warped.
We apologize. If you do not comply with our rules...
The maid's demeanor shifted ominously after a brief pause.
The instant I moved to snap her neck—
We deem this treasure unnecessary for you.
She pulled out a dazzling necklace from who-knows-where.
I tilted my head in confusion, but Melissa narrowed her eyes, rubbed them, then peered at it squintingly again.
"Wait, why is that here... Hey, that thing... Is it real?"
I cannot assess its value. But it seems quite valuable.
I waved her off dismissively at her brazen words.
"Who do you take me for, a beggar? Get lost."
At the same time, Melissa strode forward. Given her temper, she was about to snap the maid's neck any second...
Grab!
"Big Brother, let's do it."
I couldn't help but grimace at her words.
First, because she was using "Big Brother" in a situation with just the two of us, which made my skin crawl.
"Have you lost your mind? Where'd you get that nasal tone from, you twin-headed ogre-lookalike."
She always had an ulterior motive when she acted like this.
"It's the Family Head's orders. Selling just that one piece covers our territory's budget for a whole year!!"
Melissa still desperately needed the money.
The key to claiming this rift's treasure intact wasn't overwhelming force.
We just had to play along with their scripted scenario.
Easy enough, but not exactly welcome for me.
The sound of an orchestra filled the air.
With a stiff expression, I placed my left hand on Melissa's waist and gently took her left hand in my right, stepping into the dance.
"Keep your eyes straight ahead nicely. Unless you want to die."
Melissa spat her venom, but I was full of complaints.
"Does this situation look normal to you right now?"
"Then what? Smash everything? The rift's rules have more binding force than you think. Worst case, the rift collapses suddenly—think even you could survive that?"
The chances were slim, but still...
"Even so..."
"Leon, do you know what that is? It's the 'Twilight of the Queen,' a famous ornament."
"'Twilight of the Queen'? What's that?"
"It's legendary among noble ladies. It belonged to the queen of a kingdom that fell long ago... Rumor has it, wars broke out over it, leading to the kingdom's downfall. It's been lost for about 200 years—I'd only seen pictures myself, and even the original painting of it sold for 2 billion cel."
She fell silent for a moment, then looked back at me.
"If that's the real deal and it hits an auction house, how much do you think it'd fetch? A border count's budget for a crumbling minor house like ours for a year? Don't make me laugh. Royals and imperial families would go red-eyed for it— it wouldn't stop at a single year's budget. We have to auction it."
An auction, huh. Come to think of it, there were rumors of a famous secret auction coming up in a nearby kingdom.
How the hell does something like that end up in a rift like this?
Thinking about it, rifts were mysterious spaces.
Maybe it got sucked in during a spatial distortion amid some war—not impossible.
Even so, this situation felt way too contrived.
"Think about it. The treasures you have could rebuild the family's fortunes... but selling that would cover not just recovering Mother, Father, and Arsha's bodies, but even precious elixirs for you and me..."
I mulled it over quickly.
And reached a decision.
"My lady, gazing upon your form in the moonlight, you are a fairy. Though family opposition blocks our path with trials... my heart remains unchanged."
No reason to hesitate once I'd decided.
The moment I spat out the cringey lines, Melissa's face went pale, but she mustered superhuman endurance and flashed a radiant smile.
"Ahh, Romiel. Why must you be Romiel?"
She threw herself into the role with astonishing dedication.
Some of the maids lining the walls scribbled furiously on the boards in their hands.
"From what I can see, they're scoring this ridiculous play we're putting on..."
Screeech!!
That was when one of the maids blew hard on a whistle-like object.
The music cut off abruptly.
Performance did not meet the threshold. Would you like to retry?
"......"
If not, we will guide you back.
Melissa and I exchanged glances, realizing the power dynamic had shifted.
'Hey, let's just smash it.'
'Don't be ridiculous.'
She beamed brightly, unwilling to let go of the massive fortune at stake.
"Fine. Let's try again."
Perfect steps.
Perfect expressions.
Perfect lines.
And even the gaze.
Only after controlling every last nerve ending did we finally nail the damn banquet scene.
Well done. Perfectly completed.
"Urp..."
"Tch..."
The instant we heard it, Melissa and I—who had been smiling—grimaced and turned away, pretending to vomit.
But how many failures had there been along the way?
Each one had been utterly infuriating.
"There, we're done, right?"
Yes. Thank you for the fine show. Now, on to the next phase...
Grind. Gnash.
Unable to contain my rising fury, I ground my teeth, and Melissa asked,
"What's the point of making us do this?"
Everything has a price. I offered this as compensation, and you accepted.
The maid displayed the ornament again and continued,
The choice is yours.
Her attitude was as if fights were beneath her concern.
"Do rifts ever skip the combat part?"
"They never even had anyone to talk to in the first place. Some rifts have rules, sure. But usually, it's about meeting conditions to spawn the boss—not forcing us into this childish playacting. I've never heard of anything like it."
Which meant this rift was very different from the known ones.
As we hesitated,
One of the waiting maids finally spoke up slowly.
My master is fully satisfied. I will guide you both.
With that, she carefully placed the Twilight of the Queen into an ornate box brought by another maid and handed it to us.
They're really just giving it to us like this?
Melissa gleefully accepted it, but I grew suspicious.
What the hell is this place, anyway?
Is this even a rift to begin with...?
The maid led Melissa and me silently down a long, wide corridor, her footsteps utterly soundless.
"Ehehe. With this, we can pay the servants' wages easy and shop for military supplies without worry."
After walking quite a ways amid Melissa's giddy laughter,
We arrived at a massive hall.
And there...
We beheld a gigantic throne.
But the surrounding scene only heightened our bewilderment.
"What... is this...?"
"What the...?"
The throne's backrest alone towered over five meters, large enough for a person to lie down flat once seated.
Yet the one sitting upon it was tiny, maybe around 150 cm tall at most.
Pink hair cascaded down to her calves, streaked with black highlights like bridges spanning its length.
The girl's age seemed similar to Melissa's.
Her eyes were closed, faint dark circles lingering beneath them.
Even with eyes shut, her head faced us directly, as if she could see us clearly.
She looked human at a glance.
But the bizarre halo floating above her head and her gray angel wings proved she was no such thing.
I'd never seen a demihuman race like that.
Her aura didn't feel like that of a typical living being, either.
[Confirmed. The life response detected from inside the box matches the entity before you.]
‘What’s its identity?’
[Identity confirmation impossible.]
So the lifeform in the box was this bizarre girl.
Too strange to call a monster. I'd seen countless humanoid ones, but nothing like her.