Master had once told me that a long time ago, the world was a chaotic realm filled with monsters, demons, and beasts. Each group of mortalkind adapted different solutions to different problems in other to survive and overcome the challenges brought forth by this world.

Humanity, for instance, had the magical ability called ‘endurance running’. My ancestors probably spent a lot of time on the move, forcing their legs to outlast its preys and enemies. Now they are probably in Paradise, enjoying their life as they looked down upon their descendants like me.

So please.

PLEASE!

ANCESTORS! LEND ME YOUR POWERS!

“We march straight into the depths of hell!”

“Because we fear nothing at all!”

“We won’t even stop if The Abyss comes!”

“Because we fear nothing at all!”

“We don’t bow to anyone, not even Death!”

“Because we fear nothing at all!”

As that lunatic madman sang marching songs, we all struggled to keep up. It was almost as if singing along with him was the only thing keeping our minds from shutting down.

After only a day of rest, the second phase of what we students had dubbed ‘Hell Regime’ begun. Compared to the first phase, the second phase was much simpler on paper. All we had to do was to run around Cahalot.

The problem?

Cahalot was a magical city built by sorcerer-architects. The streets were constantly shifting, buildings shook and spun, and there were random portals popping out of nowhere in the middle of the walkway.

Instead of a simple run across the city, it was like an obstacle course in itself. We had to crawl, jump, and sometimes even launch ourselves up into the air to keep up with that lunatic teacher.

Despite the fact that I was the shortest and least fit of the class, I still struggled to be at the front of the entire class. At the beginning of the run, I was thinking of giving up, but then…

“My legs! I… I can’t!” A girl in the back fell over and cried.

Before any of us could stop to help her, she got blown up high into the air. She spun up in the air as she screamed before disappearing off into the distance. I scanned the buildings, and found a figure standing on a floating building. There was a smoke trail from where she was standing, and I confirmed that she was indeed the spell caster.

If any of us even stopped for a second, the wood nymph would blow us up with an explosion spell which wouldn’t harm anyone and anything. The fact that they were willing to use such a highly complex and advanced spell just to torture us just showed how insane this entire training regime was.

According to Master, the students that dared to slack off gets blown all the way back to the starting line, and they had to do the entire marathon once more from the beginning.

As I was thinking about how this monster of a teacher wasn’t even tired at all, I realized that we were running up on an open tower. It was just a pillar with a long flight of stair reaching all the way up. At the end of it, there was nothing.

Is this the end? Have we survived the second phase? Will we finally get rest?

I thought of what I would do to give my apologies to my legs, then realized that the entire tower was shaking. I looked down and noticed that a tornado was tearing the tower apart.

“You won’t die from the tornado, but I’d wager that your brain would turn into omelette for a while!” Master warned.

We were close to the top of the tower, and I was hoping that it would be the end of this hellish day, but...

“For this task, I hope you know how to fly to some extent!” Master shouted, and began running up in the air once he reached the top of the stairs. It was almost like he was stepping on invisible platforms, but when a student tried to copy him, the poor bastard dived straight down to the mouth of the tornado.

I wanted to stop and make a witty retort, but the tornado was starting to get bigger. Some students who were behind fell into the tornado and began to spin around.

‘Up! Up! UP!’ I thought to myself as I began snapping my fingers.

I imagined that there really was an invisible flight of stairs, and forced reality to accept that fact. There was no time to check if it worked, so I began running up the invisible stairs.

When I felt something hard, I didn’t even have time to be grateful that it worked. I had to keep running up!

Other students launched themselves up with various kinds of spells, while other students used earth magic to create more stairs to catch up with Master.

Ha ha! Get on my back!

No way! Go away! You don’t exist!

One of the clowns tried to offer his back, but I knew he was trying messing with me. These damned things were nothing but nuisances the moment I would use Master’s magic!

I could feel as if I was knee deep in mud, but I was still high up in the air following Master behind. Without a doubt, this was the work of those clowns! When their numbers increased, they began to exert more power against me!

Once I’m done with this ‘Hell Regime’, you all will pay for this!

At last, Master stopped. He created a platform of ice beneath his feet, and every student struggled to get on top of it. One of them was stupid enough to slip and fell down.

To be fair, I also slipped and almost fell down, but I used another student as a wall to crash against. He fell down instead of me.

“You liiittttllleee squiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrt!” he yelled as he fell from the platform. Oh, it was that guy that Master froze in the first day of class.

“Ha… Are…. Hah… we done?” I muttered while my entire body was slumped across the icy platform.

“Yup!” Master answered with a thumbs up.

“YES! THE GODDESS EXISTS!”

“Thank you, mother and father! Your daughter has finally fulfilled her purpose in life!”

“I can see the light! The light is coming!”

“As long as you can safely make it down.” Master pointed down and we all took a peek down.

Although the tornado was gone, we were far, far too high up in the air. It wasn’t that high that oxygen deprivation was starting to kill us, but if we fell from here…

“Well, class dismissed!” Master announced without warning as the ice platform crumbled.

*

*

*

Ah. How I missed drilling children in the Old Sorcery Method!

Unfortunately for the students, they were still in the second phase of milit-... I mean… training exercise.

But I am the ever benevolent Archlich, so gracious in my own name that I took the consideration that these softies might not be able to keep up with the hellish training regime of the old, so I took some compromise.

For example, during the first phase where the students were stuck in the dungeon, I had the priestess girl look over the obstacle course as the overseer. Since I was sure that priests and priestesses were probably softer in the heart or something, she probably went super easy on them. Yet, a lot of them still came back injured or worse!

Pathetic!

Needless to say, I didn’t do much work, so whenever I was away, I spent time touring Cahalot. Compared to the old days, sorcerer cities had gone a long way. It used to be so dull, almost like you couldn’t tell if you were at some ordinary town or a sorcerer settlement.

Then again, most sorcerer settlements were usually warzones. Compared to the massive armies fielded by ordinary nations, sorcerer wars were far smaller in scale, but the destructive levels were much greater to the point that some of the mountains still standing were made from a catastrophic battle between two sorcerer states.

After all, what was the point of bringing tens of thousands of soldiers when most of them would get blown up within seconds?

With the last few remaining sorcerer states grouped up in one large region, it seemed that they had stopped destroying each other entirely. I could see some benefits to having a relatively peaceful time, I suppose.

During the time I toured Cahalot, an idea hit me. I should take the kids to a marathon around Cahalot while touring the place! Kill two birds with one explosion spell! And that was how the second phase of the training exercise was born.

The next few days were spent the same. The students were drilled, and prepared for war-... I mean, for the interstate games. Even all their other classes were cancelled to give more time for training.

The good thing was that the students’ parents were mostly sorcerers who didn’t spend much time outside of their towers. The others were foreigners from other countries, expecting their children to get good magical education, which I was doing, of course. Without a doubt, this was the best magical education in the entire world.

I hope they bring my teaching back to their home, and make sorcery great again!

“So, you must be Professor Boss,” a young voice called out to me from behind as I toured an empty plaza during an off-day. Although I spent most of my days lazing around, I still had to maintain a facade of teaching the students, so I still needed to supervise the students while they go through training. It was during my off-times that I could freely enjoy my free time without excuses.

I turned back to him and studied the stranger.

He was wearing a purple cloak, and I could tell that he had a young face which seemed to look indifferent towards me.

“What’s it to you?”

“You don’t need to know who I am. Just know that Cahalot’s eyes are-... Wait, why are you coming closer?” The young man took a step back as I approached him.

“Who are you, punk? You looking to die?” I grabbed him by the collars and lifted him up.

“Wait, wait! Don’t hurt me! I’m just a Cahalotian Secret Service agent!” he fessed up immediately.

“Should a secret agent like you tell me that?” I asked.

“H-How would I know? I didn’t want to do this, not after I heard reports that you could conjure tornados, complex explosions, and even teleport groups of people!” he cried.

Hold on. Except for the last part, I never did any of those when disciplining the students! Most of them were from Satel!

I looked over my shoulders and asked, “And them? Are they with you?”

A few cloaked figures hiding in the distance flinched then ran away.

“Y-Yes! I mean, I guess now they’re not!”

I let go off him, and he fell onto the ground on his butt. He cried about the pain, but got up immediately.

“What do you want?” I immediately interrogated him.

“Yeah, well, some people were interested in you so they told me to send you a message.”

“Who are they?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you that informa-...”

“Do you want to die?” I raised my fist.

“It’s… It’s the Council of Cahalot! Don’t kill me! I got some much to live for!” He cowered in fear, burying his face under his arms.

“Are all secret agents as pathetic as you are?”

“That’s really mean to say, you know? I don’t get paid much, or at least not enough for this kind of problem...” he grumbled.

“Wait, what is the Council of Cahalot?”

“What? You’ve been here for a few months and you still don’t know?”

“Want to get hit?”

“P-Please don’t! I’m sorry! It’s the ruling council of Cahalot headed by a secret group of sorcerers!”

“I’m surprised Cahalot has a government. I would’ve thought that everyone collectively agreed to not bother each other, especially since you bookworms couldn’t be bothered to get off your research stations to meet up.”

“About that… They really don’t meet up that often, they just happen to meet up at the same time by coincidence.”

“How in the Abyss does this city still function?”

“I- I don’t know! I’m just a secret agent!”

“I see…” I mumbled as I tapped my mask. “Is Yomi one of them?”

“Nobody knows who they-” I raised my fist to cut him off.

“W-Wait! Yes! Yes, she is!” He once again crouched down while covering his head with his arms.

“Alright. What do the Lords of Introvertness want from me?” I crossed my arm as I impatiently waited for an answer to let him know that there won’t be any more warnings.

“Ah! You see, the delegation of the Interstate Academia Games is coming some time after the selection process, but they’re mostly consisted of sorcerers from the other city-states so they’re wary that one of them might be a spy, so they want you to watch over the students and protect them if need be!”

“Will I get paid?” I asked.

“Yes! C-Can I go now? I feel like I’m going to have a breakdown…”

“What’s the delegation here for?”

“It’s to check the chosen candidates and to give their official approval. They need to file the students’ information from every city-state, after all,” he answered promptly.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Is that so? Then, off you go, shoo.”

“Happily!” He ran off into the distance, leaving me alone in the empty plaza once more.

Honestly speaking, I didn’t really think that my students would really be in mortal danger from anyone. But if they do met an untimely end, I will be sure to bring them back to strangle them myself.

I could only think of how unlucky anyone dumb enough to tempt fate would be.

*

*

*

My bones hurt.

My legs hurt.

My everything hurts.

The demonic teacher known as my master (and teacher) who took up the ambiguous name of ‘Boss’ drilled us every single day, pushing us further than a training instructor in one of the southern nations’ armies.

No, I surmised that it would’ve been impossible and inhumane to train anyone this way, so why were we still alive? Just to suffer?

Never mind that. My room was there. I could vaguely read the crooked plaque which said ‘Kendra’s Room’ hanging on my door, and I was beginning to hallucinate that it said ‘Paradise’.

I dragged my weary body forward, and pushed through my door after unlocking it. I lowered my head in relief, then started shuffling towards my bed until I realized something was off.

“Greetings,” Master said as he sat on my chair cross legged while reading a book.

My body which barely listened to my orders suddenly got lively. My legs were ready to sprint away as my mind overclocked, looking for ways to get out.

It can’t be it, right?! The third phase of Hell Regime had started?!

Do I have time to make it out of my room? Impossible. The other day, he drew a massive complex teleportation pad on the classroom floor, and none of us spotted that until it was too late.

Then do I have time to take my life? My dagger was always by my waist, so this will do!

“Woah, woah! What are you doing?!”

“The third phase of Hell Regime had started, right?! You’ll never take me alive!” I screamed as I readied my dagger.

“You idiot! It’s already off-time! I don’t like doing work outside of my assigned hours unless deemed necessary. In fact, if I wanted work to be done, you would see the priestess, Satel, or maybe Lard,” Master chided.

“Oh… right. Then why are you here? Don’t you know it’s rude to intrude upon a girl’s room?” I loosened my grip on my blade, but my body was still tense. After all, it could’ve been a ruse to let my guard down.

“Last time, you experienced a bit of true magic by yourself. I’d like you to get used to a more… stable version of the same magic you used.”

“You’re going to fire bolts of lightning at me?”

“What? No! I mean, when you fought the fairy-... I mean demon a few months before!” He waved his hand in a circular manner, as if that would help his point get across.

“So this is part of the apprenticeship?” I asked skeptically.

“Of course. Besides, I also want to ask you a few things which are related to Iova,” he said while nodding.

I stared at him for a while, thinking of what evil master plan he was cooking up, but then I realized that it wasn’t like him to deliberately attack other people when it was too troublesome to do so.

At last, I reluctantly agreed. “Alright, what do I have to do?”

“Simple, just take a seat there,” he instructed as he pointed.

“Where?” I gazed at the direction his finger was pointing at and realized that the surroundings had changed.

White.

Pure white everywhere.

I thought that I was in an empty void of space, but I could feel something coarse and rough running through my feet. Looking down, I was standing on what seemed to be an endless sea of white sand.

When I turned back to Master, he was sitting on the sandy ground, waiting for me.

I hesitantly and slowly crouched down, then ran my hand against the sand.

“What is this?” I asked.

“What do you think is it?” Master asked back.

“I think it’s sand. Are we on a desert?”

“Maybe. I guess it’s pretty warm, so you might be right.” He leaned back and supported his body with his arms, soaking up the empty white ‘light’ emanating from seemingly nowhere.

“You don’t know? Didn’t you take us here? How did you do that?”

“How do you think we got here?” He turned his head away, then stared off into the distance.

I finally sat down and thought about the question for a moment. As I did, I continued to run my hand against the sand, almost like I was playing with it.

“I guess those clown bastards did this?”

“Not quite. Let me tell you this. Imagine if the world is just a theatrical stage, and everyone is an actor. Except the actors don’t realize they’re part of the play. They think they’re living an actual life. The farmer thinks he’s a farmer. The prince thinks he’s a prince. And so on.”

“That doesn’t make sense. How would the actors not know?”

“Because the stage was so made realistically, you couldn’t even tell from the inside if it was a play or not.”

I was taken aback by his answer, then tilted my head. “Is our world just a stage?”

“What? I said imagine. Don’t suddenly start an existential crisis based on a hypothesis. Anyway, the first phase of true magic would be something like an actor realizing he is, in fact, just an actor.”

“So he becomes self-aware? He knows that he’s an actor? But how would that work? If he lived his life being, say, a farmer, then wouldn’t he just be a farmer?”

Boss raised a finger, then held his hand out. “The important thing is that a play has a set of actors which needs to play out their roles. Let’s say that the actor that became self-aware was the apple seller that needs to sell a poisoned apple to a princess? What if the actor refuses to sell the apple?”

“Then the whole play gets thrown off-course.”

“Indeed. But the play must go on. The actors are so talented that the play evolved to circumvent around this problem. That is to say, the story changed.”

“The story avoid the character entirely? Why not just remove the actor? Isn’t there a director to handle these kind of problems?”

Boss took a deep breathe, then lied down against the sand. His arms were sprawled out lazily, and he looked like he got ran over by a carriage. “Perhaps the director couldn’t intervene in the middle of the play, right? If the story keeps going, then why bother intervening. As long as the story goes on.”

“Wouldn’t the director feel angry that his story got changed?”

“Who said that the playwright and the director are the same people?”

I opened my mouth, but the words I wanted to say escaped my mind. No. It was more like it never came to my mind. I rested my head against my hand, then urged, “Let’s disregard that for a moment. What happens to the self-aware actor?”

“The self-aware actor is free to do what he wish, and it is up to him.”

“So he’s free to exit the stage, right?”

Master gave a low chuckle, then began to slowly bury himself in white sand using his arm. “If only he could find the exit…”

“What do you mean?”

“The stage was made so realistically that he couldn’t tell whether he was out of the stage or not.”

“That… By the Abyss… That’s scary to think about…” I mumbled as I raised my head. Despite a chilling sensation crawling up on my spine, Boss remained carefree as he lazily deposited more sand over his chest with his arms.

“Tell me, Kendra. What is an actor first and foremost?” he asked without raising his head.

“Er… a… person?”

“No. An actor. The only thing he could do is to continue being an actor.”

“Continue…” I paused for a moment, then continued, “being an actor?”

Master tried to nod, but since the sand was slowly taking over his neck, he only looked like he was squirming his way up. “Even as the story continued to progress, the actor played roles that may or may not exist. Maybe he took over as the prince. Maybe he took over as the evil knight. Maybe he even made up a new role called the halfling assassin.”

“What’s a halfling?” I knitted my brows in confusion.

“Er… I mean dwarf? Never mind. What matters is that he could be anything he wanted.”

“And the story would still continue?”

“Yup. Ever evolving. He could arbitrarily kill someone, and the story would incorporate that person’s death. Or perhaps bring them back, with the help of substitute actors.”

I kneaded my head as I stared at the white sand sprawled all over ground. Was Iova just replaced? Was that it?

“Just in case you are thinking what you think it is, no. Iova was not replaced.”

Is this guy a psychic?

“Hmpf. I know you are thinking of a dog to distract your thoughts!” he confidently declared.

“No, I’m not.” I rolled my eyes as I got my answer. I lied down on the sand and supported my head with my hand, twirling the sand around with my finger. “Then what? Does the guy just continue stealing roles or making up roles?”

“The second stage is akin to the following phase of understanding true magic. He learns what is real, and what isn’t.”

“I thought the world was so realistically made that one couldn’t tell from the inside?”

“Yes. But he could tell if the story was a different one.”

“Ha?”

“I didn’t say that only one story was being played. I said it was a theatrical stage. There could be multiple plays being made at the same time. Plays of different versions all being carried out by different actors. He could continue to mess with the story, and not just his own.” He threw handfuls of sand away from himself, trying to find a more comfortable position to shift to.

“I don’t understand. So all these plays share one stage?”

“A stage could be divided by walls, and made different with props. Actors are props, too, you know?”

I built a small mound of sand in front of me, then asked, “Alright, he learns to be an ass in other plays and ruin them too. What happens next? Does he get out?”

“Nope. He becomes what we discussed earlier - he becomes a director. The man in charge. The one that others must bend to.”

“I thought directors couldn’t intervene?”

“I said perhaps. Directors could always subtly direct the course of a play. For example, he could tell the stage operators to drop a bag of sand over an annoying actor.”

“Yeesh. That’s murder.” I nonchalantly patted the sides of the sand mound to form a squarish shape then realized something. “Are the clowns the stage operators?”

“Nope.”

“Oh,” I huffed as my excitement immediately crashed to rock bottom. Just as I thought I got an answer, it turned out that it was simply just a delusion. “Wait. It’s a play, and the clowns say that they are always watching… Are they the audience?”

Unexpectedly, Boss made a cheery laugh going ‘Ho ho ho!’. “That… is not true, but at the same time not wrong.”

“Then what are they?”

“How would I know?” he asked as if I had asked one of the dumbest questions in the history of questions.

“I thought you’re the expert here!” I retorted.

“Let me explain this. The director is sort of like the snobbish noble who made his own version of a play to entertain himself. The clowns’ only job is to make sure there are no discrepancies in the story. I honestly don’t know if they’re also the audience, but what I do know is that their job is to tie the story back to the original. After all, even if a story changes too much, it never turns into its own story. It is simply a variant of the original.”

“The original…” I muttered as I patted the top of my sand square. “Wait. The point of origin… The zero-dimension.”

“The source. Mana is there to make sense of the holes we create. They plug in the mistakes, and connect it to the original.”

“But they’re clowns? They’re like summoning the things out of air, right? Didn’t you say that they’re mana? Are they the true mages?”

“They are just a physical manifestation of what you perceive them to be. Isn’t the common agreement that mana is some kind of ‘invisible air or element that turns into anything’? Mind you, I have already proven that theory wrong, but you understand that they are what you see think of them as. Honestly, I don’t know why you see them as faceless clowns.”

Once again, I found myself staring at the mound of white sand I made, unable to understand or think of anything. “What are the holes we make? I mean, you said that mana is used to plug in the holes we made, right?”

“Our truth.”

“The fact?”

“Wrong. The truth doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the fact.”

“Then that’s a lie,” I argued.

“Tell me, Kendra. What is the color of the sand you’re seeing?” he asked.

“White.”

“Alright. But how are you sure my white is the same as your white?”

I turned my head towards the half-buried robed man, then shot him a glare. “What? In Commons, please?”

“Our eyes could be perceiving different things, even though we agreed that it is the same thing. What if your white is white, but my white is yellow? And we both agree that is it called ‘white’? Did you know that dogs can see in shades of gray? You could point at a yellow cloth, call it ‘yellow’, and the dog would think that particular shade of gray is ‘yellow’.”

I sat up straight then asked, “I-Is this true?”

“Yes. Dogs really can only see in shades of gray.”

“No, I mean, do we see different colors?”

“Nah. We both see the same color. It’s just hypothetical.”

I didn’t know why, but I had a feeling that maybe he was lying. Perhaps not.

“So what is your point?” I asked.

“Point is, truth is agreed upon. Thus the holes we made are the truths we force everyone to accept. Even some truths are lies, you know? So they’re not necessarily facts.”

“Alright, alright. I don’t understand most of what you’re saying. Let’s go back to the main question. How did we get to this place?”

“Simple. I rejected where we were at, so magic moved us to a place where I wanted to be in.”

“Um… in terms of theatrical drama?”

“I am an actor that made such a massive hissy fit, that even the audience had to intervene to get me out of the play.”

“W-Wait, what phase of understanding true magic is that?” I had to knead my head as I asked.

“The phase after becoming a director.”

“There’s more after that?!” I shouted.

“Simply put, the audience became so captivated by that self-aware director, that only his own version of the play was remembered. Slowly, his version of the play usurped the original version off its pedestal, even though, it still is a variant. Soon, even the audience had to bend to the director’s will, almost like audience participation,” he nonchalantly explained.

“But...”

“But there’s a problem, isn’t there?” He turned his head which was, by now, the only thing not buried in sand towards me.

“There could be more than one director in one play. If you are aware that the world is fake, and suddenly the world changed, obviously you would know that someone else is messing with your world,” I answered.

“Indeed. The chance of each phase happening becomes rarer as it progresses, but it’s not zero. Metaphorically speaking, during the time we came to this world, there were no other directors challenging me on what to do about the story. Nonetheless, fact is, there could be many competing directors in a story. The example is right in front of your eyes.”

“It is?” I looked around inquisitively, scanning the endless desert like a hawk.

“This world was made by someone’s truth. Whose truth do you think it was?”

“Yours, isn’t it?”

“Kendra, answer me this. Have you ever seen the desert before?”

It hit me. I never knew what the desert looked like. I had never seen a painting, drawing, or even a story describing a desert. “No. I’ve never even been to the beach.”

Master suddenly rose up, then looked at me as if I committed murder. As in, I murdered the brother he wanted to murder, and he was like ‘Come on, how could you?’

“You’ve never been to the beach?” he asked.

“Yes? Is that a problem?”

“Have you ever seen sand before?”

“I… I guess. I’ve seen gravel. Same thing, right?”

“Is that why you kept playing with the sand?”

I realized that I had formed some kind of sand castle without even paying much attention to it. He was right, of course. I had never seen or touch sand before.

“Well, it’s not like we went to a desert or a beach before. The closest thing I’ve been to a beach was a harbor, but does that even count?”

“See? I know what a desert look like, so why does this place look like… this?” He waved his hand towards the vast empty space filled with white sand.

Did I make this place? This world? With my own power? But how? I didn’t do anything so…

I touched my neck, then felt my throat dry. My mind was starting to get dizzy, and I was finding it harder to breathe.

“Heheh.”

“W-What?” I coughed.

“Do you know the reason why I took you here?”

“Why?”

“It’s to teach you how to discern the truth. The truth that you want to perceive, not otherwise.”

“...it was a lie?” I felt my body sink into the sand, but it wasn’t as if the ground swallowed me.

“This whole time you were so fixated on the fact that this entire place was just a white desert. Let me, your teacher and master, correct you. This white thing” He showed me a handful of white sand, then flowed it back onto the ground before continuing, “is just salt.”

“Eh?”

“The moment you believed my truth, I became the director, and you turned back into an actor. I controlled you from the beginning. This entire time, I talked about how you could move up the hierarchy, but now you know that you could also move down.”

“Then, should I start doubting everything?” I asked as I rubbed my neck.

Master shook his head. “No. That’ll lead you into insanity. Imagine not believing that fire is hot, so you decided to dive into a pit of fire. You’ll just die.”

“What if I perceive the fire to be not hot? Will it work?”

“No. What you want is to be the director. You want the pit of fire to not be hot. So what do the clowns do? Simple. They turn the fire into a prop. Like a bad drawing. Do actors in real plays jump into a real fire if they want to show that they died in a fire? No. They’ll really just die. Actors act, so obviously they’ll have some special flashy effects to emulate fire. Is it fire? No. But does it look like fire? Yes.”

“Wait… so the main goal is not to trick your fellow actors, but to…”

“Yes. It’s to trick the audience, whoever they are.”

“Ah…” I lied down on the salty ground, and tried to rest my head. I still didn’t understand the gist of it, but I felt like I didn’t need to.

“By the way, how is Iova?” Master asked.

“Iova? She’s fine. She’s still Iova, I believe.”

“All is well, then,” he replied as he also sat on the ground once again.

“Hey, if Iova wasn’t replaced. How did you get her back?”

“Simple. Do actors die in plays?”

I wanted to answer immediately, but then gave some thought to my answer first. “In most normal circumstances? Unless they really died in an accident…”

“Of course. Then I will say no more.”

“Wait, but in my memories, that Iova… I mean, Iova… Wait. What was that memory place that I saw?” I asked as I sat up straight.

“Memories are quite fascinating, aren’t they? Almost like a theatrical stage. No, more like a story.”

“A story? You created a story? Could directors even do that?” I asked.

“Now, now. Tell me the three types of people we talked about, excluding the audience and stage operators.”

“Actor, director… playwright.”

“Exactly. They learned to create their own play, and to carve out a part of the stage for their own. I mean, of course, the play is still a variant of the original.”

“Is that so…” I tilted my head then asked, “Master, did you learn how to… get out?”

To get out of the stage; to be finally free; to escape it all.

I blinked, and suddenly I realized that I was back in my room. I was sitting upright on my bed while Master was sitting on my chair, still cross legged. He rocked the chair back, then got off before heading towards the door.

“Who knows?” he answered before leaving.