Chapter 01
Only a single line remained before the play reached its end.
A supporting actor stepped to the front of the stage and posed a question to the protagonist. The question was directed at the protagonist, but the actor’s eyes were fixed on the audience.
Do you think there is such a thing as a truly perfect work of art?
No emphasis on any particular word. Just ask the question plainly, without emotion.
That had been my direction.
It was written clearly in my director’s notebook even now.
A director’s notebook.
Every theatre director had one—a meticulous plan containing the production’s concept, stage design, blocking, acting notes, sound cues, lighting cues, and everything else needed to bring a play to life.
Some directors barely cared about theirs.
I wasn’t one of them.
I planned every detail more thoroughly than anyone else and drilled those plans into my actors and crew through endless rehearsals.
Now the actors were moving exactly as I had instructed.
The audience was as well.
From the last seat in the second-floor balcony, I looked down at the sea of backs before me.
Every single one sat rigid, barely daring to breathe beneath the weight of the performance.
Each audience member was undoubtedly searching for their own answer to the question:
What is perfect art?
Silence filled the theatre.
Anyone who had ever watched a stage play knew that sometimes silence could be louder than applause.
The tension stretched taut between actors and audience until it seemed ready to burst.
Everyone waited for the protagonist’s answer.
A man who had stubbornly pursued his own vision of art for thirty years, only to find himself standing at the edge of ruin.
Everyone waited.
The protagonist looked toward the audience.
The brush in his hand lifted gently from the canvas.
His lips parted as though to answer…
…then stopped.
Silence swallowed the theatre once again.
Without saying a word, he turned back to his canvas and placed his brush against it once more.
At the same moment—
The lights went out.
Blackout.
A brief technical cue written neatly in my notebook.
The protagonist’s answer disappeared into darkness.
My eyes slowly adjusted.
Everyone knew the play had ended.
Yet not a single audience member moved.
They were still trapped inside the world of the play.
Only when the stage lights returned could they accept that the sacred world before them was nothing more than a wooden platform inside an ordinary theatre.
One minute.
Exactly one minute passed before applause finally erupted.
Listening to the deafening ovation, I smiled from the darkness of the final row.
A thrill surged through me.
It landed.
Every movement I had blocked.
Every lighting cue.
Every sound effect.
Every performance I had shaped.
Everything had reached the audience exactly as I had envisioned.
Within this small world called theatre…
I had become a god.
I clutched the director’s notebook, worn ragged from months of rehearsals.
The lights rose again, and the flushed actors stepped onto the stage for their curtain call.
As always, I left the theatre before anyone else.
Or rather…
I was about to.
[The Patron Deity of Maecenas offers you a quest.]
[Accept…?]
Strange words suddenly floated before my eyes.
What…?
There wasn’t any cue in my notebook about projecting text in front of my face.
As I reached out in alarm to brush away the blemish on my flawless production, the words flickered like a glitched screen—
—and vanished.
“…Why do you never answer your phone?”
I turned.
The theatre was bright again.
Audience members were filing out of their seats.
Apparently the curtain call had already ended while I’d been staring at the hallucination.
A hallucination?
Those vivid words had been one?
Maybe I’d been too tense over opening night.
What else could it have been?
Quick judgment.
Quick acceptance.
Those were my greatest strengths.
I looked at the man who had somehow appeared beside me, sitting perfectly still in the empty theatre.
“Shin Seong-hyeon.”
My half-brother.
In our family, he was called Father’s only son.
I was the daughter my father—the second son of the Shinseong Group—had fathered outside his marriage.
Officially, I didn’t exist.
Unofficially, everyone wished I hadn’t.
My mother had once been an actress.
People might not remember her name, but they’d recognise her face with an “Oh… wasn’t she…?”
Thanks to the legal paperwork connecting my parents, however, a sizeable inheritance would eventually come to me after Father’s death.
With social media making public opinion harder for wealthy families to ignore, those who mattered all knew of my existence.
Perhaps Grandfather had foreseen this.
The first time he allowed me into the family, he ordered Father:
“Raise her properly.”
Then he elaborated.
“Make her pleasant to look at.
Refined when she speaks.
Emotionally stable enough that she won’t cause some embarrassing suicide scandal.”
Grandfather collected paintings of orchids.
So he added one more thing.
“Like a painting.
Raise her beautifully.”
That was why I was named Shin Geurim.
“Geurim” meant painting.
A life as flawless as a beautiful painting.
A luxurious home.
Luxury cars.
The finest food.
Even as an illegitimate child, I was allowed to call Father “Father.”
I was even permitted to call his wife “Mother.”
My life was, by every appearance…
Picture perfect.
“Why are you here?”
…except for that damned Shin Seong-hyeon.
Father’s legitimate heir.
The man who never missed an opportunity to make my life miserable.
Born with every privilege imaginable.
Carefully groomed as successor to the Shinseong Group.
Yet somehow he still found time to crush the half-sister whose career had nothing to do with the family business.
“Didn’t I hear you’re adapting some web novel into a musical?”
He was referring to an email I’d received a week earlier.
A production company called Chorus had purchased the rights to a web novel and was looking for someone to adapt and direct it.
The proposal had included only one memorable sentence.
It’ll be fun.
Not a promise of generous pay.
Just…
“It’ll be fun.”
I’d laughed about it with my assistant director.
Apparently word had reached Shin Seong-hyeon.
“Forget musicals. Stick to plays. Even magpies know how to repay kindness, but you’re completely ungrateful.”
He sneered.
“Do you know why this family spent money letting you play around with theatre instead of making films or collecting artwork for money laundering?”
His voice dripped with contempt.
“Because plays don’t make money.
They’re useless.
We let you do them so you’d stay quiet.
Geurim.
Why can’t you live up to your name?”
Live up to my name.
He had come all this way…
Just to say that.
That was his worst trait.
His dedication to tormenting me.
Did he really have to work this hard?
He was so absurdly diligent that even someone as emotionally detached as me sometimes found herself…
…feeling something.
“What?”
I smiled faintly.
“Afraid I’ll become famous enough to give interviews?”
“You? Famous?”
He laughed.
“And even if you were interviewed, the media wouldn’t publish it.”
The moment I mentioned interviews, his expression froze.
He looked at me as though I were something filthy.
“That expression…”
I tilted my head.
“It’s exactly like Father’s.”
“What?”
“I should record it.”
I casually reached for my phone.
“It’ll make useful reference the next time I’m directing actors.”
“You think I’d let you?”
He swatted at my hand—
Then noticed an usher entering the auditorium.
Instantly, his vicious expression melted into a warm smile.
“Just kidding.”
Ruffling my hair affectionately, he leaned close enough that only I could hear.
“Come to the dressing room.”
As if.
Why would I?
I waited for him to leave before turning my gaze toward the empty stage.
The actors were gone.
The lights were out.
The audience had disappeared.
Only the hollow shell remained.
The thrill of success was always brief.
The emptiness afterward…
…lasted much longer.
I wanted to go back.
Back to the moment before the lights dimmed.
When the audience settled into their seats.
When anticipation spread through the theatre.
When I looked down upon hundreds of backs filled with expectation.
It’s going to be fun.
Far more exciting than this dull life that looked so perfect from the outside.
Just imagining that familiar tension—
The cold hands.
The racing heartbeat.
The quiet excitement—
The lights suddenly went out.
Was it time to leave?
I rose—
A single spotlight snapped on above the stage.
“…?”
I frowned and looked toward the lighting booth.
No one was there.
A technical malfunction?
Then—
Someone appeared on stage.
“So… you’re still considering our offer?”
The stranger smiled.
“I’m heartbroken, Director.
At Chorus, we’re even thinking about making you the head of our troupe.”
My attention wasn’t on his words.
His appearance overwhelmed everything else.
A dwarf.
With wildly curled hair cascading all the way to his feet.
A performer’s entrance should always leave an unforgettable first impression.
That was one of my directing principles.
But regardless—
Why was someone like that here?
And…
Chorus?
Wasn’t it a production company?
The one that had emailed me?
“You enjoyed the novel we sent you, didn’t you?”
Perfect projection.
Perfect articulation.
Only then did I realise.
He’s an actor.
Actors were always like this.
They believed standing out was the only way to be chosen.
The only way to be loved.
My birth mother had been exactly the same.
“If this is your idea of an audition—”
I was about to say I’m not interested.
Then another window appeared.
[Main Quest: Adaptation]
[Become a character inside the novel and begin the adaptation.]
…What?
What is this—
“Game-style interfaces are the clearest form of direction, don’t you think?”
The actor’s voice echoed through the darkness.
The floor lurched violently.
My body was thrown into the air.
CRASH!
I slammed into something.
Pain exploded through every inch of me.
Or rather…
It should have.
As my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness…
I found myself sitting inside an old-fashioned theatre.
Not a modern proscenium stage.
＊ ＊ ＊
The once-mighty Duchy of Maecenas, which had monopolised the Empire’s wealth and prestige, had fallen.
Its countless direct descendants, branch families, and creditors gathered together to divide what remained of its legacy.
The sword bestowed upon the First Duke by the Emperor was sold for a pittance.
The creditors who gained nothing jeered from the sidelines.
One by one, the treasures of the ruined duchy were auctioned away.
Finally—
The last item.
The White Friars Theatre of Maecenas.
The very theatre in which the auction itself was being held.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the auctioneer announced, “this theatre was once the cultural heart of the duchy, drawing audiences from every corner—”
“That was a long time ago.”
Someone scoffed.
“The duchy’s dead.
Who’s left to write plays?
Who’s left to perform them?”
The room erupted in mocking laughter.
No one wanted to own a theatre anymore.
If managed well, it could be enormously profitable.
Managed poorly…
It became a bottomless pit of debt.
And everyone present had nearly gone bankrupt already by investing in the doomed duchy.
No one wished to take another risk.
Except one person.
“…It appears someone has raised a bidding paddle?”
The auctioneer blinked.
At the very back of a private box sat a lone woman, calmly holding up her paddle.
Cold crimson eyes.
Long black hair elegantly braided.
The duchy’s sole remaining princess.
A notorious spendthrift known throughout the Empire as its greatest villainess.
The original owner of every item being auctioned.
As she raised her hand, silence fell.
“If there are no further bids…”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Sold!”
The certificate of ownership was hurried over to her.
Staring at it, the black-haired woman muttered to herself,
“…I only raised my hand because I wanted to ask a question.”
No…
Seriously.
Where am I?
Why does this look like a theatre from Shakespeare’s era?
Before she could ask anything, a servant rushed over and handed her the deed.
“As expected of the last Princess of Maecenas! You wished to protect the First Duke’s legacy until the very end. Contrary to the rumours, you’re truly admirable!”
Listening to those words…
The Princess of Maecenas—
Or rather,
Shin Geurim—
came to one conclusion.
I don’t know exactly what happened…
…but it looks like I’ve transmigrated into the body of the last princess of a fallen duchy.
