Editor 137

Amphitheater (2)

“Well, I guess that’s just adult circumstances. Breaking up doesn’t mean you stop loving each other.”

“Ugh, I don’t get it.”

The emperor of Rome urges Berenice to leave, yet tells her she is the only one he’ll love and desire until he dies.

‘Hmm. This is really too subtle a story for an eighteen-year-old. Seriously, dear author, this is not it.’

Cleio was starting to miss the video content rating system he always used to criticize.

“Whether you get it or not, at least watching this makes time go by, right? It’s been almost two hours already.”

While the two of them bickered, ended. The sky had darkened, and lights were lit throughout the theater.

The water clock, with its gears and cylinder inside, was a mechanism that moved the markings as the water level rose.

At some point, the angel on the water clock had moved up two notches.

The uproar of the spirits, who had cheered so loudly that the sound was amplified in the round theater, settled down.

A new play began.

Cleio, watching with a skeptical eye, wondering what world classic they would pull out next, straightened his slouched back the moment he heard the first monologue from the tall man who entered the stage.

A man with bloodstained hands and a dagger, in deeper despair than even the queen who had parted from the Roman emperor, called out a name.

“Erato!?”

Even from this far, the man’s navy eyes, black hair, and towering height caught the eye.

The stage lights flared, illuminating the back of a woman lying at his feet.

And in the next scene, all the audience echoed the name of the dead woman like a reverberation.

‘Erato!’

The dead woman was Erato.

The man was the one who killed Erato.

Cleio hastily activated “Perception.”

Using the skill, he was sure. The spirit on stage had a face exactly like Taethurn Tristain. Glancing at Arthur, he saw that Arthur was barely paying attention to the stage, yawning absently. He didn’t seem to care about the spirit’s appearance at all.

‘What is this.’

No matter how much he searched his “Memory,” there was no mention in the previous manuscript of the content of the play performed in the amphitheater dungeon.

He could only assume it was because the ones who entered the dungeon before were Arthur and Isiel.

‘A play within a play is usually an overt device to hint at or reveal the core of the narrative… I can’t believe such an important device was hidden here.’

“Arthur, have you ever seen these plays in your visions?”

Arthur grumbled,

“If my visions ever showed me something as interesting as a play, wouldn’t that have been nice? But unfortunately, that’s never happened.”

“Yeah, got it.”

“It’s my first time seeing these stories, but what amazes me is how you’re not surprised at all.”

“It’s thanks to ‘Prediction,’ nothing to be amazed about.”

Arthur didn’t seem to be lying. If so, the one Cleio needed to suspect was the author, or perhaps the world’s system of “scripture” (記述).

‘When narrative involvement is low, it said information can only be delivered in a way I can accept. That’s why even Clio’s message came by email.’

If so, maybe this play within a play was also a device inserted to convey something to Cleio?

Cleio focused intently on the play.

Next, a masked chorus flooded in from the left of the stage, and one stepped forward.

The chorus leader asked the man on stage,

“Why did you kill the god??”

“Because humans cannot possess gods. Because divine love is equally shared among all.”

“Was the grace bestowed by the god of love insufficient??”

“It was more than enough, but it was not unique.”

The man, as a sentient creation, loved the goddess Erato who spun the world, and thus understood that she could not belong to him alone.

The god who loved the whole world unconditionally, who never answered him alone, who wrote the world with a stylus on a tablet—he killed her.

A dozen chorus members sang a lament in unison.

The stage was equipped with a mechanism, and as the pulley below moved, the set could be retracted behind the backdrop.

While the bodies of the man and goddess disappeared from sight, the chorus continued on the semicircular orchestra stage.

“Goddess, tell us about this oldest being. About Erato, your sister, who was the first line of the first story.”

All epic poetry was originally the song of the Muse. The first authors of humanity began their first lines by asking her for a tale.

When the stage moved again, the man’s knife was buried in his own heart, and he died on his knees beside the woman.

The chorus on the right side of the stage sang even louder.

“And so the first world was destroyed by love. The history and myth of the first world were stillborn, tangled in the umbilical cord.”

“Love is weak, prone to failure, and offers no guarantees, so Erato’s world met its end before civilization even began. The goddess will sing this tragedy.”

“When the world dies, humanity dies. That painful annihilation, that unspeakable agony. And then, where do the gods go??”

“Second. To the second world. To the birthplace of our chorus.”

“If the second world ends?”

“To the third world. To the night when the lineage of stars was born.”

was a very difficult play.

As the backdrop changed, the world changed, and each time, the man called his counterpart by a different name and pleaded his love, but the other never turned back.

The ending was always the same. The man killed the object of his love.

The actor whose face was never shown was first a woman, then a youth, then an old woman, then a boy. But clearly, it was the same spirit with continuity.

The lines of the spirit resembling Taethurn grew shorter, and the deaths of the two became more and more abbreviated.

This time, the chorus on the left side of the stage sang,

“History was repeated countless times.”

“Before reaching history?”

“Even after reaching history?”

After repeating the same mistake dozens of times, the man’s spirit cried out,

“I do not ask for love. That is too much for humans. All I ask of my god is eternity. Even if we cannot be born together, let me die for the god. I want a uniqueness that will not be corrupted by love.”

The counterpart who had turned away from the man’s cries only moved their chin to look down at the pitiable creation after the final line.

Not even despising the one who had added another sin to the history of sin.

The darkness barely let the audience see the spirit’s cheek, the tip of their nose, and the chin beneath. Yet the shadow did not diminish the beauty of the being. If anything, it eloquently conveyed a kind of beauty that cannot be witnessed.

Cleio found it hard to believe what he was seeing. But that form was unique and singular, not analogous to any other.

‘…That spirit is the spitting image of Melchior.’

Until now, Cleio had thought the goddess who protected Melchior was Erato. He also thought calling this world the ‘last world’ referred to the being revised for the last time.

But what if this manuscript wasn’t the only one written eight times?

‘Arthur, Melchior, and Aslan keep being rewritten with the same roles and names, but Erato on stage changes identity. If she keeps reincarnating as different people, she would eventually break completely away from .’

At that moment, “the Promise” flashed and “Memory” rewound. The clue was drawn from the past.

‘Reincarnate of □□.’

It was the only title given to Taethurn among all the characters in the manuscript. Countless hypotheses tangled and unraveled in Cleio’s mind.

Could it be that this is, literally, the ‘last world’ that came after the previous worlds?

‘Characters who live repeated lives within this manuscript aren’t called reincarnates. So does that mean Taethurn was brought in from a world other than ?’

This hypothesis felt a bit off. Because it couldn’t explain the existence of Erato, or Melchior.

Clio had definitely said this about Melchior:

‘He is someone completely bound to the world, a character who has belonged here since the moment the last world was born.’

‘…Anyway, one thing is clear. There’s a prehistory between Taethurn and Melchior that’s longer than the eight revisions.’

And the author wants their editor to know that fact.

Guessing any further was impossible.

A curse slipped out from Cleio’s lips.

‘Damn. I’ve already proofread half the volume, and now you’re telling me this isn’t a standalone but the last of a series?!’

Whether Cleio brooded or not, the stage lights went out and the play ended.

While the performance paused, a strange noise mixed into the spirits’ murmuring.

Snore—phoo—

Cleio had been so focused on the stage that he hadn’t noticed his neighbor until now.

That easygoing guy was nodding off without a care in the world.

Cleio was dumbfounded.

‘After all those assassination attempts, how do you fall asleep in a dungeon?’

Cleio tapped Arthur’s ankle.

“Arthur, hey, wake up. You’ve been totally out of it lately.”

“Huh, huh? Is it time?”

“Even if there’s no attack, who sleeps in a dungeon? Are you out of your mind?”

“Ray, you were just so into watching the play… I didn’t even realize. There’s nothing here that’s even aware of me, let alone threatening. This feeling of being completely ignored is so comfortable, I just….”

Arthur was telling the truth.

As long as they watched the play, the spirits paid them absolutely no attention.

“Still, you actually fell asleep? What if something happens. Tsk.”

“I wasn’t really asleep, just resting my eyes.”

It wasn’t all Arthur’s fault, but Cleio frowned in displeasure.

“You said yourself before—a high-level knight can go days without sleep. Did you pull an all-nighter before the semester started?”

“Gasp, how did you know? Was it obvious?”

“Since you’re sleeping in a place like this… No, what happened this time?”

“Ha, can’t fool your eyes, Ray. Well, it’s just—since training at school stands out too much, I wondered if I could maybe level up once more, so I went up the mountain… Didn’t expect the aftereffects to hit me like this.”

The magician’s frown didn’t ease, only deepened. No wonder Arthur got drunk faster than usual.

‘I get that he’s a hardworking protagonist, but seriously. Level 6 at eighteen is legendary, so what’s he pushing for?’

“Never mind what’s done, but if you even think of dozing off now, you’ll find out exactly what [Heat] magic can do.”

“Hey, hey, you’re not really going to roast me, are you? That’s a bad idea, you should save your ether.”

Cleio lifted the corners of his mouth in a formal smile—the kind that made others say he looked just like Baron Asher.

“Don’t worry about ether. I’m not doing it myself, magic stone ruby will handle it.”

Even after making a magic stone heater, Cleio still had over half a box of ruby stones left. When he shook his ever-present subspace wallet, Arthur dramatically sat up straight.

“Okay, okay. I won’t doze off.”

“There’s only a couple hours left, so stay sharp.”

Cleio’s voice had grown quieter, drained of energy.

Sitting on the stone steps was nothing for Arthur, but for Cleio it was agony—his back ached and his tailbone was numb.

‘Watching three plays in a row… Even two movies back-to-back is my limit. How did I end up… sigh.’

While Jeongjin’s inner laments dragged on, the curtain rose on the final play.

With Thebes’ palace as backdrop, Antigone and Ismene, two women, began their conversation.

No matter how you looked, it was .

Cleio felt like crying. It was the perfect Sophoclean tragedy for an amphitheater, but to watch it at 10 p.m. on a tired body was pure torture.

‘The author really has no mercy. After scolding that guy for dozing off, what would it look like if I fell asleep?’