"Look... at my face."
Max reached up with trembling hands to remove his mask, revealing his true face.
"Don't you... recognize me?"
"I-It's you…!"
Lucan reflexively replied, recognizing Max, making it very convincing.
When it came to the actual play, everything was pure improvisation, of course.
There was no real blood connection between them.
But they did resemble each other in a way due to their similar colors in the hair and eyes.
Still, Max's performance was so convincing, his pain so genuine from Junior's spell, that another hush fell over the theater.
"Impossible," Lucan whispered, lowering his sword slowly.
Fortunately, Lucan managed to continue without breaking out of character.
"We were... separated. When the darkness... first came. I was taken... you were spared. Our queen mother... her last act... was to hide you with... the village elder."
Lucan's eyes widened.
Max had actually aligned with elements of the original play's storyline about the hero's mysterious origins.
"The pendant…"
Max whispered, gesturing weakly to the flame pendant Lucan wore.
"Father made... two."
With shaking hands, Max withdrew the enrollment crystal from his pocket. In the stage lighting, its natural red glow resembled the core of the pendant, just enough to create a plausible connection.
"Mine was... corrupted by shadow. As was I."
Junior, momentarily stunned by this turn of events, found his voice again.
"RIDICULOUS! RIDICULOUS! LIES! THAT'S MY ENROLLMENT CRYSTAL!"
But his screaming protests were drowned out by the audience's rapt attention. They were witnessing what appeared to be a masterful plot twist that recontextualized the entire performance.
Max coughed again, more blood onto the stage.
"I fought it... for years. The darkness. Tried to... find you. But by the time I did... it was too late. I had become... what I feared."
Lucan, completely swept up in the emotion of the moment, knelt beside Max.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner, brother? I could have helped you!"
"Pride. Shame. And then... anger. If I couldn't escape the darkness... why should anyone live in light?"
He winced in what appeared to be pain but was actually a reaction to how melodramatic his own dialogue had become. He honestly wasn't cut out for this.
"But seeing you now... your courage... your mercy... your choice to remain true to your words…"
He pressed the crystal into Lucan's hand, closing the hero's fingers around it.
"Use it... let the flame purify what remains of me. But remember... the line between light and shadow... is thinner than we pretend. And… do not in under any circumstance lose it."
Max's dying eyes that locked with Lucan's eyes looked very fierce towards the end of his words, warning him.
Seriously, don't you dare lose it.
Max looked past Lucan to the audience, many of whom were leaning forward in their seats, completely engrossed.
"We choose... our path. But our choices... are shaped by forces... beyond our control. Had our fates been reversed... would you be the villain... and I the hero?"
The philosophical question hung heavy in the air, creating a moment of profoundness in the silence of the theater.
!!
Suddenly, a flash of recognition lit Max's eyes as he remembered something crucial from the novel—Lucan's role.
A gag character.
An unimportant, throwaway gag character.
He was Lucan Brighsire, the optimistic, heroic second-year who eventually suffered a series of devastating failures. In the original story, his idealism had been crushed until, broken by loss and manipulation. In the end, he became corrupted and transformed into one of the demons.
And his death in the story was seen as a joke in the story: a wannabe hero dying as a third-rate villain.
Really stupid but…
Max added a final, unplanned whisper:
"Stay true... to your words, brother... no matter how dark... the world becomes in the future. Where I failed... you must... remain strong."
With these meaningful words, Max slumped forward, appearing to succumb to his wounds.
"BROTHER!!"
Lucan's anguished cry tore through the silence of the theater.
His voice cracked with emotion as he caught Max's falling body.
Tears streamed freely down his face, creating clean tracks through the stage makeup on his cheeks.
His shoulders shook with barely contained sobs as he cradled his 'brother's' head.
"No, no, no…You found your way back to the light. You can't leave now!"
In the audience, several students openly sobbed. A group of first-years clung to each other, overwhelmed by the emotional power of the scene. The noble ladies pressed their handkerchiefs to their faces. Even the hardened aura path seniors stood rigid, manly tears streaming from their eyes.
"I'll remember."
Lucan promised through his tears, responding to Max's final request without fully understanding what Max truly meant.
"I'll stay true to the light, brother. For both of us."
His voice broke on the last word, and he bowed his head in a moment of silent mourning.
Then, gathering his composure, Lucan gently laid Max's body down and rose to his feet.
With tears still streaming down his face, he removed his pendant and wrapped it around the crystal.
And like a torchbearer honoring a fallen soul, he raised the crystal high.
Fwoooosh!
The stage was bathed in a reddish-gold light.
"May the flame eternally guide you to peace, brother. Your final choice redeems you."
In Lucan's heroic worldview, this final choice to turn away from evil, even at the cost of great power or one's life, is sufficient for redemption.
It was never too late to choose the right path and that a single act of goodness can begin to outweigh a lifetime of wrongdoing.
A classic hero belief.
And thus,
the darkness fell against a bond rediscovered,
and from the ashes of sacrifice,
a new fire was born—
The Eternal Flame.
A sacred light that would forever protect the realm and guide the souls of all for all ages to come.
~ The EN— ~
"ENOUGH!"
With the light reaching its peak intensity, Junior found his opportunity slipping away.
He lunged forward with a snarl.
"ENOUGH!"
"ENOUGH!"
"ENOUGH!"
Junior Carrington had gone ballistic, no longer bothering with Max.
His transformed hand reaching for the crystal in Lucan's grasp.
"NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS AFTER! THAT WILL BE MINE!"
The audience gasped.
The emotional climax was disrupted.
Junior's timing couldn't have been worse, breaking the immersion of the performance just as it was about to reach its grand conclusion.
That idiot.
Max, though appearing badly wounded, reacted with surprising speed. As Junior's hand closed in, Max's eyes snapped open. He whispered, Earthen Grip, activating his spell directly beneath Junior's feet.
The stage floor softened imperceptibly, causing Junior to stumble forward just as Max triggered the trapdoor mechanism.
Through the combined effect, Junior face-planted spectacularly, momentum carrying him into a wild tumble that sent him rolling off the front of the stage.
Max disappeared beneath the stage as planned, the trapdoor closing seamlessly above him just as the reddish-gold light reached blinding intensity.
The curtains to the show had come to a close.
Despite the disruption, the audience erupted in thunderous applause, many rising to their feet.
"Bravo!" shouted an elderly professor near the front. "Absolute masterpiece!"
"The symbolism of the corrupted minion being cast out—brilliant!" declared a student critic who was already mentally composing his 10k word review.
This student obviously over analyzed the story and, thus, his head was in another space.
"I've never seen such innovative staging."
A noblewoman, was unable to stop the streams of tears gushing from her eyes.
"The brotherhood revelation was simply heart-wrenching!"
Beneath the stage, in the darkness of the crawlspace, Max heard the muffled eruption of applause and couldn't help but grin.
Though his mind was focused on Junior Carrington.
Sheesh. These guys always fall for the same tricks. And can't that idiot read the room? At least his lackeys had some conscience not to disrupt the ending.
Meanwhile, Junior Carrington struggled to his feet.
His fine clothes were torn and stained.
His neatly groomed hair was disheveled, and his dignity was crushed to the dirt.
The transformation potion had worn off completely, leaving him looking like a disgraced noble, cast out and disowned for bringing shame upon his house.
As he staggered back into view, the applause had changed to excited discussion.
No one offered to help him up or check if he was injured. Instead, he found himself facing a wall of disapproving stares.
"Way to ruin the final scene," a student remarked.
"That was completely unnecessary," added another. "The villain's redemption was the whole point!"
"Did you see how he just charged in?"
A girl whispered to her friend, not bothering to lower her voice.
"Completely broke the emotional moment of the scene."
A theater student shook his head in utter disgust.
"Fucking Amateur. Completely missed his cue and overacted the whole time."
Most devastating of all was a noble child. Not the Irofarn heir, but another young aristocrat who looked up at Junior with genuine disappointment.
"You were a really bad monster," the child said, hitting him with the truth.
"The Dark Lord was so much better. You just seemed angry all the time."
Junior's face burned with humiliation.
Not only had he failed to retrieve the crystal, not only had he been transformed, chased around, and made to look foolish, but now the entire academy thought he was merely a subpar actor who had ruined a groundbreaking performance.
His five hired lackeys kept their distance, unwilling to be associated with such an embarrassment. They melted into the departing crowd, already constructing explanations for their own involvement that minimized their connection to Junior.
In their hearts, they all had unanimously decided to no longer work with him.
No matter what threats Junior made, could it be worse than the experience they just went through?
Director Taellon had turned a complete 180. He was now remarkably accepting congratulations from faculty members, having smoothly transitioned from end-of-the-world panic, to claiming this was all intentional: a theater play directed by an artistic genius.
"Ah yes, the audience integration was always part of the vision!"
He firmly shook hands with a senior professor.
"Theater should challenge the barrier between spectator and participant."
Junior crunched down on his jaw so hard he tasted blood.
The humiliation had gone too far.
This wasn't about the enrollment crystal anymore.
This was personal.
He had been excruciatingly publicly humiliated, made a fool of, transformed against his will, and cast as the villain in someone else's story.
He would have revenge, no matter what it took.
With trembling hands, eyes full of hatred, he extracted a small communication device from his pocket. One of the perks of being the son of an noble administrator.
He activated it with a touch of mana.
"Father."
Junior hissed, his voice tight with barely controlled rage.
"We need to talk. Now."
He would find Max Draeven.
And when he did, a missing enrollment crystal would be the least of that commoner's concerns.
Unlike other third-rate villains, Junior Carrington will not give that peasant even a chance to catch his breath.