Chapter 104
The quiet old library building, usually deserted, was unusually noisy today.
“Ugh... what on earth is going on...”
Thomas, the vice president of the Ghost Story Research Club and an utterly ordinary second-year Economics student, muttered to himself with a miserable expression.
To be honest, the air had grown so heavy that he felt as though his breath would catch in his throat and kill him.
The already cramped clubroom had been divided exactly in half by an invisible boundary.
Even so, there was plenty of physical space on Thomas's side.
Including the club president, Silvia, the member Claire, and himself, there were four people at most.
The problem was the opposite side.
“...”
“...”
Students with nothing to do with ghost stories had flocked there in droves.
Even calling them a group failed to capture how formidable every single one of them was.
That male student was the second-ranked third-year in the Department of Political Science, while that female student was the cherished only daughter of a prominent count's family.
In other words, they were all either students whose names appeared at the very top of Elterion Academy's rankings or successful students of noble birth.
And at the center of that elite group stood...
“Well... this is unexpected, Princess Celestina.”
Miriel Adrian, the most glamorous and arrogant lady of Elterion.
“I heard some time ago that you had joined a club unbecoming of the royal family's name, called the Ghost Story Research Club... but I never expected you to still be active in it.”
Miriel covered her mouth with one hand as she spoke elegantly.
Her barbed words were neatly wrapped in a polite tone.
“Hehe, that's how appealing the club is.”
The princess seated across from her, Celestina, smiled sweetly in return without yielding an inch.
“Isn't that why Senior Miriel took an interest in this place and brought so many other students along?”
Invisible sparks crackled in the air.
It was a battle of nerves between the academy's two highest-ranking figures by status: the princess and the duke's daughter.
The looks they exchanged were frighteningly fierce.
In fact, it hadn't been this bad during the first semester.
Back then, Princess Celestina had lacked confidence in herself, and she would often be cowed by Miriel's forceful presence and quietly back down.
But things were different now.
The princess no longer retreated.
Instead, she straightened her back and met Miriel's gaze head-on.
Miriel, in turn, seemed to give way ever so slightly before that confident bearing.
Not bad, Miriel thought, clicking her tongue inwardly.
She had thought of her as nothing more than a princess who had lost the succession struggle and fled to the academy, cut off from all support. Had she learned that shamelessness from sticking so close to Lunaris?
Miriel deliberately adopted a relaxed expression and changed the subject.
“By the way, it seems like it's been ages since I last saw you, Princess.”
“Yes. The vacation was rather long.”
“Even so, I thought I would see you at the archmage investiture ceremony, but you didn't attend.”
Miriel continued with a sly smile.
“It was the ceremony where your closest friend was appointed an archmage. Shouldn't you have come?”
Her sarcastic tone was quite blatant: she was saying that although Celestina called herself a friend, she hadn't even shown her face at such an important occasion.
But Princess Celestina didn't even blink.
“I had another appointment.”
“What could possibly have been important enough to take precedence over your friend's investiture, even among the imperial family's affairs?”
“I don't think I have any reason to share my private schedule. In any case, I made time to congratulate her separately.”
The corners of Princess Celestina's lips curled upward.
“Rather than offer a ceremonial congratulations among a crowd of other people... I wanted to convey my sincerity separately, when it was just the two of us.”
“...!”
“Luna liked that better, too.”
Miriel's eyes twitched ever so slightly.
Just the two of them. Privately.
Those two words bothered her for some reason.
There were so many things she wanted to ask.
Had Celestina really succeeded in drawing Lunaris into her faction? How much of their innermost thoughts had they shared?
“Well, I did hear that you've been spending quite a bit of time with Junior Lunaris lately.”
Miriel forced down her questions and began speaking one by one, slowly.
“But... Lunaris isn't here today?”
“Ah, Luna isn't coming today.”
At that moment, Claire, who had been standing behind Princess Celestina, quietly joined the conversation.
When Miriel narrowed her eyes and shot her a sharp glare, Claire let out a shrill squeak and hid behind Silvia's back.
Then she added in an irritatingly smug tone,
“She said she was going to visit another club today.”
“...What?”
For a moment, Miriel's poker face completely collapsed.
She asked again with an expression as though she had just been struck.
“V-Visit? Lunaris...?”
“Yes. She said she didn't know whether she would join, but wanted to look around first...”
How could they have missed each other this badly?
More importantly, was Lunaris actually thinking of joining another club?
“...Where exactly did she go?”
“Um... she said she was going to the theater club...”
“...?”
*
“Hey, that's her, right? The archmage from the rumors.”
“Yeah. The top-ranked student in the entire first year. Lunaris Evermoon.”
“...Why is she here?”
“I-I don't know. I'm scared...”
As I walked around the auditorium, I could hear people whispering nearby.
Lately, my image at the academy seemed to be spreading as something like a walking calamity, or perhaps the worst natural disaster in history.
Honestly, it wasn't my problem. If people were too afraid to bother me, all the better.
Just then, a male student from the stage cautiously approached me.
“Um... may I ask what brings you here?”
His expression was so tense that it could hardly have been more awkward.
It wasn't as though I went around making stars fall wherever I went.
“I came to look around. More importantly, you can speak informally with me.”
“Ah, yes... Ah, no. Um...”
I could hardly breathe myself.
“B-By the way, if you're here to look around... are you thinking about joining our theater club?”
“I'll think about that. For now, could you show me around?”
“Uh, uh... sure.”
“More importantly, the club-visiting period isn't over yet, right?”
“It's only the second week, so this is technically the final period... We were just in the middle of rehearsal. Would you like to watch?”
When I nodded, the male student let out a relieved sigh.
His expression relaxed a little, which was a relief.
“By the way, I'm Derren, a third-year in the Department of Magic and the president of the theater club.”
“Ah, I'm...”
“I know. At least in the Departments of Magic and Magic Engineering, I don't think there's anyone who doesn't know your name, Junior Lunaris.”
*
“So, what did you think? Was it worth watching?”
The acting rehearsal continued for about an hour.
After watching silently the whole time, Senior Derren suddenly handed me a water bottle and asked.
Resting my chin in my hand, I gave him my honest assessment.
“Hmm, it's a little dull.”
To be frank, even being generous, the theater in this world was at the level of a school play.
There were far too many shortcomings to dismiss them as limitations of the theater genre.
The stage set was nothing more than some wooden plywood thrown together, and the actors did nothing but read their lines.
More than anything, the content was bland.
How should I put it? That thrilling quality, perhaps? It was lacking in dopamine.
Even so, I found it more entertaining than I had expected.
Since there was barely anything resembling direction, the actors' abilities became all the more important. Without acting skills, the result was bound to be incredibly bland.
If I had to compare it to food, it had a clean, healthy flavor. The ingredients were good, so if I added plenty of seasoning, something really worthwhile might come out of it.
“Have you considered using special effects in your productions?”
“Special effects?”
“Yes. Using magic to create the background, or blowing something up with fire magic.”
Derren smiled awkwardly at my suggestion.
“Well, it's not as though we haven't thought about it at all, but maintaining enough magic to encompass the entire stage is beyond our abilities.”
As he said this, he cast a sidelong glance at me.
“Unless, of course, an extraordinarily capable archmage were to help us.”
The recruitment pitch was remarkably blatant.
I gave a short laugh and stood up.
“Could I watch some other performances as well? If that's difficult, I'd like to look at the scripts instead.”
“The scripts? Wait a moment. Hey! Someone bring me some scripts!”
At Senior Derren's gesture, someone brought over a large bundle of dusty scripts.
I accepted them and flipped through them rapidly.
“Um... are you actually reading those properly?”
“Yes. I'm examining them carefully.”
Looking at the scripts made it even clearer.
There was potential here.
Some had novel stories, while others had wonderfully flavorful dialogue.
With rough gems of this quality, I could turn them into hits with just a little polishing (and a lot of money).
I closed the final script and looked up.
“I'll join the theater club.”
“R-Really?!”
“But I won't be acting. Call me when you have a stage arranged. I'll help a little with the direction and special effects.”
Senior Derren's face flushed red with anticipation.
“Oh, and...”
I pulled two scripts from the pile and set them aside.
“Could you tell me the names of the people who wrote these two? And the names of the actors who played the leads in the performance earlier?”
“Huh? Telling you that wouldn't be difficult, but... why?”
“Well, I want to keep an eye on them.”
“...?”