Chapter 1
The play now had just one line remaining.
A supporting actor stepped to the forestage and posed a question to the protagonist. The question was addressed to the main character, yet the actor’s gaze was fixed on the audience.
“Do you truly believe such a thing as a perfect work of art exists?”
Ask the question calmly, without emphasizing any words.
That was my directive.
It was also explicitly stated in my Director’s Notes.
Director’s Notes.
These are detailed blueprints primarily used by theatre directors. Prepared alongside the script, they outline the precise plan for staging the play, encompassing the concept, set design, blocking, acting performance, sound, and lighting. Some directors downplay their importance, but I do not. I was the person who planned more meticulously than anyone else, drilling this plan into every member of the cast and crew countless times.
Now, the actor was executing my directions flawlessly.
The same was true for the audience. The stiff backs of everyone seated in the last row of the balcony seats. They were utterly breathless, held captive by the actor’s performance. Each audience member was internally formulating their own definition of ‘perfect art’ in response to the question.
Silence enveloped the theatre.
Only those who have experienced this in a live theatre can truly understand: sometimes, this silence is deafening. A strange, palpable heat swelled, on the verge of bursting from the tense friction between the actors and the audience. All eyes were on the protagonist, waiting for the answer.
For thirty years, the protagonist had championed his own form of art. Now, standing on the precipice of ruin, his final answer was due.
Everyone waited.
The protagonist looked out at the audience. The brush in his hand dropped slightly from the canvas. His lips, which had begun to move as if to speak, halted. Silence reigned once more.
But instead of answering, the protagonist turned away and returned the brush to the canvas.
Simultaneously, the lights abruptly cut out.
Darkness.
A brief technical instruction noted in the director’s manuscript.
The protagonist’s answer was buried in the gloom, and my eyes gradually adjusted to the dark. Everyone knew the play was over, but no one moved. The audience had not yet been released from the world of the performance.
On stage, the lights must come on to permit the audience to escape the play’s sacred space.
One minute.
That is the time required for them to acknowledge that the stage is merely a slightly raised platform of wood and that this is nothing more than a large building called a theatre.
Exactly one minute later, the applause erupted.
Hearing the roar, I smiled from my dark seat in the back. A wave of joy washed over me.
‘It worked.’
The arc I charted, the lighting and sound I orchestrated, the acting I directed—this euphoria, this joy, is only felt when everything reaches the audience exactly as intended.
I had absolute control over this small world known as the theatre. For the duration of this play, I felt like a god. Throughout the rehearsal period, I had gripped the worn-out production notes tightly in my hands.
The lights returned, and the actors, their faces flushed, emerged onto the stage for the curtain call.
As was my habit, I was the first to leave the theatre, even as it filled with cheers and applause. No, I was trying to leave.
[The Guardian Deity of Mecenat bestows a Quest upon you. Acceptance…]
…until this bizarre text materialized before my eyes.
What?
There was no instruction to fire a beam projector in my Director’s Notes.
I urgently reached out to brush away the jade-colored intrusion. The text in front of me flickered like an error screen, then vanished.
“…Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
As I glanced aside, the surroundings suddenly brightened, and the audience was filing out of their seats. The curtain call seemed to have finished while I was seeing that vision.
An illusion?
Those vivid letters were just a hallucination? Was I so strained by my directorial debut that my senses faltered?
Well, what else could I call it if not an illusion?
Quick assessment and acceptance: that was always my greatest strength.
I stormed out of the theatre after the show and looked at a man sitting motionless in the seat next to me.
“Shin Seong-hyeon.”
He is my half-brother. In our family, he is referred to as Father’s only son.
I am the daughter my father, the second son of the Shinsung Group, had out of wedlock. Publicly, I am a child who does not exist; privately, I am a child they wish had never existed. However, thanks to the legal documents drawn up between my father and my mother—an actress whose face is memorable, even if her name is not—a significant portion of my father’s property was transferred to me after his death. Furthermore, with the rise of social media, business figures are no longer entirely immune to public scrutiny. Therefore, all the relevant people were aware of my existence.
My grandfather, who must have anticipated this from the moment he first brought me into the family, ordered my father to raise me properly.
‘She must be pleasing to the eye, dignified in conversation, and emotionally stable enough not to needlessly create a suicidal scene.’
At the time, my grandfather had a hobby of collecting orchid paintings, so he added:
‘Yes. Just like the painting. I mean, raise her to be aesthetically pleasing.’
And so, my name became Shingeum (meaning ‘Gold of Trust/Image’). A life lived without any blemishes, just like the picture. A life where good cars, houses, and food were provided, where children could call their father “father” and their mother “mother.” The life I was given was indeed beautiful to behold.
“Why are you here?”
Except for that damned Shin Seong-hyeon.
My handsome, unfortunate half-brother, the legitimate eldest son of my father, who always seeks to provoke me. He was born with a diamond spoon, a legitimate heir taking steps toward the family succession. He is also a lunatic who only finds release by crushing his half-sister, who pursues the performing arts—a field utterly irrelevant to the Group.
“What sort of web novel are you adapting into a musical?”
This refers to an email I received about a week ago from a production company. A company called Chorus had sent an email saying they had acquired the rights (IP) to a web novel and were seeking an adaptor and director.
[It will be fun.]
They didn’t promise a large sum of money, but they promised it would be fun. I found the proposal’s phrasing amusing and mentioned it to my assistant director. The comment immediately reached Shin Seong-hyeon’s ears.
“You direct plays, not musicals. Even a magpie has decency, but you, a little bastard, don’t recognize the grace that raised you. What is the point of ordering you to burn our family’s money on a play that is neither profitable, nor art that can be used for money laundering, nor useful? I’m telling you to shut up and live quietly, Geum. Why can’t you live up to your name?”
Name value.
The fact that he had the dedication to travel all the way here just to deliver this exact message was his greatest weakness. Was he so dedicated to tormenting me? This level of sincerity was enough to awaken ‘feelings’ I usually suppressed.
“Why? Do you think I’d grant an interview if I became famous?”
“Famous? You? And you don’t go to the media for an interview.”
Shin Seong-hyeon’s face suddenly hardened at the mention of an interview. The look in his eyes as he stared at me, sitting next to him, was filled with disdain, as if looking at garbage.
“That expression… He’s just like his father.”
“What?”
“Can I record a video? I could use it for directing my actors later.”
“Are you serious?”
When I pretended to reach for my phone, Shin Seong-hyeon, who had been about to violently slap my hand away, caught the eye of the usher who had entered to clean the seats, and smiled.
A prank. Just a prank.
Shin Seong-hyeon ruffled my hair and whispered softly, “Come to the dressing room.”
The dressing room? Why would I go there?
I stared at the empty stage, waiting for Shin Seong-hyeon to leave with a grunt. A desolate stage: no passionate actors, no lights, no audience. The moment of joy was fleeting, and the void that followed was long and tedious.
I wanted to go back. I wanted to witness again the moment the audience grasps their tickets, settles into their seats, the lights dim, the actors appear, and I look down at the backs of countless spectators filled with anticipation.
It would be fun. Far more so than this boring, ‘picture-perfect’ reality. That moment when your hands grow cold from tension and nervousness, yet an uncontainable excitement swells in your heart.
…As I pondered this, the lights went out again.
Is it time to leave now?
Just as I was about to stand up, a pin light shone onto the stage.
“……?”
Frowning, I looked up at the lighting booth, but it was empty. Just as I suspected a technical glitch, someone suddenly appeared on the stage.
“Are you still considering our proposal? I’m disappointed, Director. Our theatre company, Chorus, is even considering hiring you as the Artistic Director.”
A dwarf with long, curly hair that reached his feet. I was instantly captivated by the visual spectacle. An actor’s first appearance must be striking. This was one of my directing principles.
But setting that aside, why was a person like this here?
And if it was Chorus… wasn’t that a production company, not a theatre company? The one who sent me the email.
“Honestly, you found the novel file we sent you fun, didn’t you?”
Perfect vocalization and pronunciation. I finally understood.
This person was an actor.
Actors are inherently driven to stand out and distinguish themselves, believing it’s the only way to be chosen and loved. So, like my biological mother, they often resort to eccentric and peculiar behavior in front of the director.
“If this is your way of auditioning for me—”
The moment I was about to say, “—it’s quite a display,” a window appeared before me.
[Main Quest: Adaptation.]
[Let’s become a character in the novel and begin the adaptation.]
What? What—
“Of course, a game screen is the most intuitive, isn’t it?”
The actor’s voice echoed through the darkness.
My body floated with the sensation that the floor was shaking.
CRASH!
I hit something. I felt the pain of my entire body being ripped apart. No… I should be feeling it…
Slowly, my eyes adapted to the dark. Before I knew it, I was sitting in an old-fashioned theatre. Not a modern proscenium stage.
The Mecenat—a massive ducal family that once monopolized the Empire’s wealth and prestige—had collapsed.
Mecenat’s numerous direct descendants, the heads of the collateral families, and the creditors who had financed the Dukedom gathered to divide the Mecenat’s vast legacy. The sword given to the First Duke of Mecenat by the Emperor was sold for a paltry sum, and the jeers of the debtors, who received nothing, were sharp.
It was a time when the now-tarnished ducal heritage was continuously being sold off at auction houses.
Finally, the White Friars Theatre in the Mecenat Dukedom—beloved by the First Duke—was put up for auction. The auction itself was taking place within the theatre.
“This theatre was the cultural heart of the Dukedom, where countless audiences gathered to watch performances.”
“That is a story of the past. In a ruined Dukedom, where are the people left to write, and who is left to act?”
As the theatre went up for bidding, people continued to criticize it harshly. Most had no real desire to run a theatre that lacked proper actors or writers. The host raised his voice, urging someone to buy the property, but no one came forward willingly.
Theatre was a highly profitable venture if managed well, but it was also a business that could quickly lead to debt if poorly managed. And these were people who had invested in a failing Dukedom and barely avoided ruin themselves. No one wanted to take a risky investment anymore.
Just one person.
“…Wait, I think someone is holding up a sign?”
Except for the woman sitting quietly in the back row of the box seat, holding a bidding paddle.
Red eyes that were not merely calm, but utterly cold. Gorgeously braided black hair.
She was the Dukedom’s sole Princess, renowned throughout the Empire for her extravagance, and often called the Empire’s most wicked woman. She was the original owner of these very auction items.
When the woman raised her hand, the room fell silent.
“Well then, if there is no other bidder than that lady, the auction is yours.”
CLACK!
As if he had been waiting, the host struck his gavel and awarded the bid. While the certificate was hastily handed to the woman, the jet-black-haired woman muttered to herself:
“…I raised my hand because I wanted to ask a question.”
No, so where exactly is this? What is this old stage that feels like the Shakespearean era?
But before she could speak, a servant had already presented her with the certificate.
“As expected, you are the last Princess of Mecenat! You wanted to protect the First Duke’s legacy, didn’t you? Contrary to the rumors, you are a great person!”
Hearing those words, the Princess of Mecenat, or rather Shingeum, thought:
I don’t know the full story, but it seems I’ve been possessed as the last princess of a ruined Dukedom.
