Chapter 001
“Angel, bestow the truth upon this creature.”
On stage, an actor bathed in the spotlight sang with all his might. It was a play spanning a full three hours. Gentlemen and ladies seated in the box stalls, and children who had snuck to the foot of the stairs, were all anticipating the coming climax.
“So that one may be free from death—”
The thunderous voice striking the eardrums was a sound meant to replicate the very voice of God. Leaving behind the audience bursting into tears, it was the exact moment the actor reached beyond his long sleeves and pressed a button for a hidden mechanical device outside the spotlight.
Pop!
With a roar, all the lights exploded. In a field of vision turned completely pitch black, theater laborers began to run around hectically amidst the small screams of the audience.
“Calm down! It could be dangerous, so please wait in your seats!”
Soon, the moment a laborer switched on a flashlight to inspect the stage—
The back of a gentleman sitting in the very front row went rigid. The gaze of the noblewoman in the seat next to him followed the gentleman’s toward the stage.
Faint smoke was leaking from the actor sprawled on the floor. Along with the smell of burning flesh.
“Kyaaaaah!”
“The actor is dead!”
“An accident! Another accident has happened!”
It was the moment the third victim of the so-called ‘Serial Actress Death Case’ occurred.
* * *
The Kingdom’s theater industry was enjoying a literal grand boom. As many people had died during the previous era’s reckless wars of territorial expansion, the people of the new era desperately craved peace. Along with an exploding population, intellectuals, philosophers, and engineers emerged one after another, and now the commoners wanted entertainment. Something a bit more fun, a bit more flashy, and a bit more precious.
Furthermore, since high nobles had taken the lead in debuting theaters, if things had simply continued this way, the Kingdom could have truly become a leader in the arts industry.
That is, if three actresses hadn’t died in terrible accidents.
“They say it’s already the third time in this theater alone.”
“I know. It’s chilling. I feel a bit of a draft for no reason.”
“Is it really an accident?”
“That’s what they say in the newspapers. That it’s a coincidence.”
The Garcier Theater restroom. Women who appeared to be audience members shivered their shoulders.
The Serial Actress Death Case.
An incident where three actresses of the Garcier Theater died due to mechanical device accidents during performances. The police had also launched an investigation in secret, but it had all been in vain. Now, only the sole commonality of the three accidents remained: ‘The victims all died while using mechanical devices created by the theater owner, Jeremiah Garcier.’
“Surely someone else won’t die.”
“Right, surely. Especially in the performance we’re watching.”
However, in those voices feigning innocence, a thread of expectation could certainly be found. Though they hid it immediately the moment they discovered Mia Celestine, who had been watching the two of them.
The restroom where the women had left. Left alone, Mia chewed over the vivid unpleasantness.
It was a problem that people were dying too often for it to be a coincidence, and the audience members who showed curiosity, wondering if they might witness that death like the women who just left, were also a problem.
However, speaking from the police’s position, the biggest problem was that the primary suspect, Jeremiah Garcier, was none other than the heir to a ducal house.
‘Thanks to that, I’m going through all this trouble.’
Reflected in the mirror, the woman with frizzy brown hair and dark green eyes was merely of a passable impression, one that could be seen often enough on the street.
Mia stopped staring sullenly at the mirror. Instead, she used that time to fix her makeup and practice smiling more brightly. Smiling looked a bit better.
“Miss Mia Celestine?”
Someone shouted from outside the restroom.
As she quickly stepped out into the hallway, a man with a strict impression who looked like an interviewer was waiting for her.
“Follow me.”
More strength went into her footsteps as she stepped onto the crimson carpet.
The man stopped walking upon reaching a certain door. He knocked lightly on Mia’s behalf and then took a step back.
“Go on in.”
It felt like walking into a lion’s mouth of her own volition.
Shaking off the tension with a single sigh, she put on a clean smile.
“Yes.”
A member of the Kingdom’s Secret Police, she had come to the Garcier Theater today for an undercover job.
* * *
The moment she entered the room, sunlight hit her head-on. As she barely opened her narrowed eyes, someone was just drawing the curtains aside.
It was a tall man. Beneath his wavy black hair, the bridge of his nose stretched sharply, carving out shadows. One of the top buttons of his white shirt was undone. If she turned her head slightly, it wasn’t hard to find the navy tie he must have originally been wearing.
The man, seemingly quite hot, approached the sofa only after throwing the window wide open. Catching the documents fluttering in the wind, he checked them twice from top to bottom before turning his gaze to Mia.
Golden eyes shining like a cat’s. Deep shadows beneath prominent brow bones, leading down to a smooth bridge of the nose and thin lips. A noble man with a flamboyant appearance inherited from his mother.
Mia was certain.
‘It’s Jeremiah Garcier.’
The most likely suspect in the Serial Actress Death Case, and at the same time, the possessor of power who could kill three or four commoners with a mere gesture without needing to stage such bizarre accidents.
She had come to monitor this man, but she hadn’t expected to see him the moment she arrived.
As she perched her hips on the opposite sofa, the interview began.
“Do you have any prior acting experience?”
“No.”
“I assume you applied knowing what the role is?”
“I was told it’s a role where I get slapped.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“Of course. It’s the Garcier Troupe. It’s an honor just to get in.”
Mia answered, putting more strength into the corners of her upturned lips. Like a foolish woman who couldn’t think of the rumors spread in the world and only chased the Garcier name.
He stared at Mia intently without a word. His emotionless gaze, as if looking at an object, seemed to be measuring something.
Mia, enduring the tingling skin of her face, finally asked.
“Um, is something the matter?”
The man slowly finished his observation. He shook his head.
“Several people have died recently in our theater.”
“Ah, yes.”
“And if someone else were to die, I feel like it would definitely be someone like you, Miss.”
“……Pardon?”
It was a calm tone, as if talking about the weather. If it were a bad joke, that would be one thing, but the voice speaking so matter-of-factly sent a sudden chill down her spine.
‘Did he just…… give a murder notice?’
Before she could react, Jeremiah continued.
“You checked that you need room and board; what is your current residence?”
“……I came up after staying at a factory until recently. I don’t have a specific residence right now. But what did you mean just now—”
“Forget it.”
Jeremiah’s indifferent gaze returned downward to Mia’s membership application.
“There are no disqualifying factors for your admission. The performance is tonight, so prepare for it.”
Mia suddenly snapped to her senses.
“Wait a moment. Tonight?”
“It’s a simple role, so it should be fine. Take this script. Your role is marked, so there won’t be anything difficult. I’ll send an assistant to this room at seven o’clock.”
There were barely six hours left until seven o’clock. Even if it was a simple role, putting someone with no experience on stage immediately?
Without a chance to question the nonsensical situation, Jeremiah left the lounge immediately. The sound of his footsteps grew distant beyond the hallway, and soon Mia was truly left alone.
“Ha.”
Mia briefly wondered if her true identity had been discovered. Furthermore, she was still dazed thinking about the chilling remark that had passed by.
‘But…… it’s a good thing. Because I might be able to see that machine tonight.’
Looking at the photos, the machines that caused the accidents all looked large and heavy. Since such things couldn’t be moved easily, they might still be on the stage if she was lucky.
‘To investigate that, do I have to pull off this performance right now?’
Having made her decision, Mia picked up the script.
The name of the play she had to join immediately was The Lady and the Wind. The main content was about a widowed noblewoman who belatedly learns that her husband had an affair during his lifetime and interrogates all the women around her. It had become a hot topic because the theater owner’s mother, Duchess Garcier, had taken the leading role.
Mia’s name was actually printed in the script; considering the fact that she had applied for the job only a week ago, it was frighteningly fast processing.
‘If it’s that Lord Garcier, he might have whipped up a personal printing press easily.’
Mia continued reading the script.
Within the play, Mia’s role seemed truly insignificant. Mia was the Duchess’s maid, who would follow her around and then whisper into the Duchess’s ear at the climax of the play. After hearing Mia’s words, she would be slapped several times by the enraged Duchess and then exit.
Mia had only a single line of dialogue.
“I was wrong, Milady.”
As Jeremiah said, it was an easy line. However, there were more than ten previous supporting actors who had left one after another because they couldn’t endure playing this one-line role.
Thanks to that, Mia was able to go undercover relatively easily, but somehow an uneasy feeling remained.
Six hours later.
As for the feeling of standing on stage for the first time in her life…… she was just frantically busy. Mia had to focus all her attention on finding her place by intuition and, at the same time, checking if that damn mechanical device was there.
Soon, Mia’s turn came. The moment she approached the Duchess and whispered in her ear—
Slap!
She collapsed in an instant. She was surprised by the slap that flew in unexpectedly, but she was bewildered by the fact that the lady had struck with her absolute full strength.
The panting lady didn’t even give her a moment’s rest before grabbing Mia by the throat and slapping her again.
Slap! Slap! Slap!
“It’s all because of you! You’re the problem!”
Like a bolt of lightning, her own line surfaced in Mia’s mind.
“I, I was wrong, Milady!”
A strange excitement flickered within the lady’s wide-open eyes. It seemed she had even forgotten that this was acting. At the same time, it felt as though the lady was on high alert at Mia’s every breath and gesture, as if Mia were the only thing existing in her world.
Mia couldn’t help but be purely impressed, forgetting the situation.
‘Is this what acting is?’
Even in her dazed state, she knelt according to the script. She slammed her head against the floor and began to beg with her palms together.
“I was wrong, Milady. It was all my fault.”
“Disappear! Get out of my sight right now!”
Strength wouldn’t enter her body properly. As if in a dream, Mia stood up unsteadily. She might have been hit in the head incorrectly.
To exit, she had to take a boat. A small rowboat that implied the ending where ‘Mia’ leaves for a foreign country.
On the unfamiliar stage, Mia luckily found two small boats.
‘They said to take the downbound one. The downbound one is on the right……’
As she stepped onto the stern, blue smoke billowed from the bottom, and the oars, standing upright without a person, swayed their bodies. The boat made a clunk! metallic sound and then carried Mia along the track toward the backstage, the underground warehouse.
The Duchess’s aria leaked through from behind. In the pitch-black warehouse, Mia had to quietly catch her breath, using that sharp and flamboyant singing as comfort.
‘With this…… is my role finished?’
Even thinking back to the script in her head, no more scenes for Mia came to mind. Although she hadn’t found the mechanical device used in the accidents, a sense of relief rushed in from the fact that she had finished this play safely for now.
It was the moment Mia was about to sit down on the floor.
The warehouse door, which had been sending in a single ray of light, slammed shut. It was dark before her eyes, but she heard footsteps from somewhere, thump, thump. The quick footsteps passed Mia, and then a candle flickered to life.
Eyes containing gold were glaring at her. It was Jeremiah, whom she had seen just this afternoon.
“Have you lost your mind?”
