(3rd Person POV)
The paperwork moved quickly — far more quickly than it would have back home, where the same process would have consumed weeks of back-and-forth and bureaucratic delay. Here it was direct and unadorned: a few hours of discussion, a formal appearance before the council, and an oath sworn to the Origin itself. By the time Arthur and Lykan set their names to the contract, the Eastern Theatre had a new owner.
"I will have the payment to you shortly," Arthur said.
Lykan nodded. "I trust that you will."
And he meant it. They had sworn before the council with the Origin as witness — if Arthur defaulted, the consequences would fall swiftly and without mercy. Imprisonment, damages owed to Lykan, the contract voided in full. A man willing to put himself under those terms was not a man planning to deceive anyone.
They returned to the theatre, where Arthur asked the troupe to gather at the backstage. He wanted a proper look.
Lykan and Leonard stood off to the side, watching with thinly concealed unease. The troupe was Arthur's to deal with now — that was simply the reality of ownership. The clause in the contract gave the father and son their continued presence in the building, and Arthur still had three months to prove the theatre could be revived before the ownership question was revisited. But the people on that stage were another matter entirely.
Arthur looked at the young woman standing at the front of the group.
"Your name?"
She lowered her head slightly. "Hazel. I have no family name — I am below commoner, as I carry no magic."
Arthur's brow drew together. Reiner and Saza had covered a great deal in their explanations — the demon situation, the broad mechanics of the Origin, the laws governing foreign deities. But this particular layer of society had never come up.
"Below commoner on account of having no magic?"
Lykan stepped in from the side, his voice careful. "Hazel has been with the troupe since she was very young. Her parents gave her up when it became clear she carried no mana." He paused. "She is a good girl. And she does her work better than most."
The worry in his voice was plain. He was making a case for her, whether he admitted it or not.
Hazel stood very still, her eyes fixed somewhere near the floor.
"I know she is," Arthur said. "I watched the performance."
Something in her posture eased, just slightly.
"That is precisely why I intend to give her a new role. For a new project."
The word moved through the group like a current.
"A new project?" several of them said at once.
"Yes. And I will be selecting from the troupe who will be part of it."
The air in the room changed completely.
A selection. Which meant not everyone would be chosen. Which meant some of them would not be.
In their eyes, Arthur's gaze sweeping across them was like a predator sizing up its prey — unhurried, calculating, ready to strike the moment it had decided. Every time his eyes passed over someone, that person seemed to hold their breath.
Even Leonard leaned toward his father and whispered, "Dad, this—"
Lykan gave a small, quiet shake of his head.
"You — the one who played the hero." Arthur's eyes settled on the male lead. "Your name?"
The blonde young man straightened reflexively. "R-Ryze, master. Below commoner as well."
"Your performance was not bad," Arthur said plainly.
"Thank you, master." The relief in his voice was audible. The others looked at him with barely concealed envy.
Arthur moved through the rest of them methodically, asking names, watching faces. He pulled ten from the twenty-eight — those who had caught his eye during the performance.
The remaining eighteen watched the selections accumulate with growing dread.
"That should be the cast for the project," Arthur said. "Ten is sufficient. All of you, be prepared for rehearsals—"
"W-wait." A voice from the back, strained with anxiety. "What of the rest of us?"
Arthur tapped his chin. He looked at the eighteen who hadn't been called.
'They aren't useless. Crew work, production, the hundred things that happen behind the scene — they could manage that.'
He hadn't intended to dismiss anyone. He simply hadn't gotten there yet.
But the room had already decided what his silence meant, and panic was doing its work.
"Sir Arthur." Leonard's voice came through clearly, measured and respectful despite the weight behind it. "Forgive me for speaking out of turn — but without the rest of the troupe, I doubt very much that any production gets off the ground. Let alone revives a theatre."
The eighteen looked at Leonard as though he had just pulled them back from a ledge.
Arthur looked at Leonard. "Ten is quite enough for the production itself. There will be extras here and there, but ten principal actors will do."
Leonard and Lykan exchanged a glance. The troupe exchanged several.
None of them could quite follow that logic.
"Sir Arthur." Lykan's voice carried a quiet hurt to it. "Do you truly intend to dismiss the rest of them?"
"Dismiss?" Arthur blinked, then laughed softly. "No. I think there has been a misunderstanding."
He looked past Lykan to the eighteen standing anxiously at the back. "I have a separate role in mind for them. I have no intention of letting anyone go."
The relief that moved through the room was almost physical. Even the ten who had already been selected looked surprised.
"Then what would that role be?" Leonard asked, leaning forward slightly.
"They would not be performing. They would be working behind the scenes — handling everything that makes a production run without ever stepping in front of it."
The eighteen looked at one another. It wasn't what any of them had imagined, but it was work. It was a place here. That was more than enough.
"Before any of that begins, however, there is something all of you will need to learn first." Arthur continued. "The project I have in mind will be entirely unfamiliar to you. I want to be clear about that from the start."
Lykan straightened with the mild indignation of a man defending his life's work. "With respect, Sir Arthur — my troupe is well seasoned. They have years on the stage. There is very little about a production they have not encountered."
The troupe nodded firmly behind him.
"I do not doubt that," Arthur said. "But this project is not a stage play."
Silence.
Lykan's brows went up slowly. "...Not a stage play."
"Not a stage play."
"Then what, precisely, is it?" Lykan looked genuinely at a loss. "This is a theatre. A theatre is for stage plays. That is rather the point of a theatre."
"Not necessarily," Arthur said. "I made a promise to restore this theatre and revive it. I said nothing about doing it through stage plays."
That landed on the room like a stone into still water, and the ripples went in every direction at once. Confused looks, murmured exchanges, Lykan opening and closing his mouth without finding a suitable response.
Arthur smiled and left it there. "You will all understand soon enough."
He had no intention of explaining cameras and film to them today. Let the mystery sit for a night.
---
By the time the group reconvened at the inn, the hour had crept toward five in the evening. The room was spacious and well-appointed — the kind of lodging that cost enough to keep it quiet.
Arthur listened as Firfel recounted the afternoon with Apollonia and Sylwen, the market stalls and novelties and the particular chaos of three women let loose in an unfamiliar city with time on their hands. Kaiser and Keanu gave their own account, shorter and more measured, though the nostalgia of the Adventurer Guild still sat warmly in both of them.
Then Kaiser set down his cup. "Arthur. We have something for you tomorrow."
Arthur looked over. "Oh?"
"A young man. We came across him today and believe he could be of genuine use to you here." Keanu added, "We have already arranged a meeting. You should see him for yourself."
"Is that so." Arthur settled back, interest quietly kindled. If both Kaiser and Keanu were vouching for someone, that was not nothing. "Then I will look forward to it."