Majo no Tabitabi - Volume 14 - Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

The Actors’ Story

Two brooms were flying side by side across the plains.

A chilly breeze blew between me and my teacher. It gusted through the bright spring sunshine and dove between the flowers, rustling through the grass noisily.

My goodness, this is wonderful. I wish times like these could go on forever, I thought as I gazed at my teacher.

“I see. So you wish times like this, when we’re flying on our brooms across the plains, could go on forever, don’t you? Well, well. Do you feel anything else, Fran? How do you picture our next destination? What does my face look like to you, I wonder?”

With her ash-colored hair fluttering in the wind, my teacher turned to look at me. She smiled faintly as she ran her pen across some paper.

I was at a loss for how to answer her. Can I just say she looks as pretty as she always does?

“Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh. If you think I look as pretty as I always do, that means you think I’m always pretty…? I’m blushing…”

My teacher, who was as moody as the spring breeze, had a tendency to make sudden whimsical proposals I didn’t entirely understand. That day, she had asked me, “How are you feeling right now? Tell me, please.”

So I had been telling her my impressions as they came to me. However—

“I don’t think the spring breeze is particularly moody. The expression you used just now wasn’t quite right.”

“…………”

—even though she was the one who asked me to tell her how I felt, she constantly interrupted me with her criticism. It was very typical of her.

My teacher is so coldhearted… She’s as cold as the spring breeze.

My teacher sighed dramatically. “Come now, I’m just telling the truth…”

“What are you after anyway…?” I followed her lead and sighed as well. “I don’t understand what you want from me, Miss.”

If I could get her to tell me what kind of words she wanted me to say, I might be able to think of something. But without any guidance, how was I supposed to give her the right impressions?

She shook her head at me. “There wouldn’t be any point to that. What I want are your candid impressions of this moment.”

“Why do you want that?”

“…………” My teacher hesitated, then said, “Right now, I’m working on a novel, but I haven’t been able to capture the feelings one has at the beginning of a journey.”

A novel?

“Please let me read it,” I said.

“Oh, no. It’s not finished yet.”

“Then you’ll let me read it when you’re done?”

“Yes. So help me out, please.” My teacher smiled, narrowing her eyes. “Now, what kind of things are you thinking at this very moment?”

“Let me see. I’m thinking I want to read the story my teacher is writing as soon as possible.”

“Do people often tell you that you’re not very accommodating?”

“But what do you need to ask me for, when you’re a traveler yourself, Miss? Can’t you just think back on how you felt when you were younger and you’d just started traveling?”

My teacher shrugged in exasperation. “Fran. To us travelers, the word travel encompasses an entire lifestyle. From moments like these when we’re on the move to the time we spend eating at our destination, or when we’re asleep or zoning out at an inn—every little thing about our lives is all travel.”

“But according to the dictionary, travel is moving from one place to another or going on a trip.”

“Do people often tell you that you’re not very accommodating?”

“No, no one’s ever said anything like that to me before.”

“What a surprise that on top of everything else, you’ve got a poor memory, too.”

“So, Miss, what do you need me for, if your whole life is about traveling?”

“Well, since I’ve been traveling for a long time now, I’ve forgotten the fresh feeling one has at the beginning of their journey.”

I see.

“In other words,” I said, “I’m not the only one with a poor memory…?”

“It’s been a lot longer for me, okay…?” my teacher answered, sounding fed up.

At any rate, that was apparently why she was interviewing me. “So then, what are you thinking now?” my teacher asked me again.

“I’m thinking I’d like to get to our next destination soon. I’m in pretty high spirits.”

After I’d spoken, my teacher repeated, “Wants to get to the next destination quickly, and in high spirits…” She ran her pen over the page, muttering to herself, “Come to think of it, when I first started traveling, I also…”

Instead of watching my teacher, who was focused on her writing, I fixed my gaze on the end of my broom.

Across the plain, I could see a group of buildings so small that it seemed like I would lose sight of them if I looked away for even a single second. They had an awfully forlorn air about them. I got the feeling they weren’t part of a city, but rather a village.

“…We’ll be there soon.”

I hadn’t been lying to my teacher. I was, in fact, in high spirits as I gazed at the silhouette of the settlement up ahead.

Our destination had both an official name as well as a more widely known colloquial name. I thought the latter must be in greater use among travelers and merchants. It was a little over-the-top and sounded kind of dubious. But the colloquial name was sure to draw any traveler’s interest.

Keeping my eyes focused on what lay ahead, so as not to lose sight of our destination, I mumbled its name.

Rekion, Land of Actors.

Also known as the Country of Stories.

My teacher told me she had learned of this place some time ago.

“Hey, missy, there’s an interesting country not far from here. Are you curious? It’s called Rekion, Land of Actors.”

Once, when my teacher was eating alone in a restaurant, some ne’er-do-well told her all about it.

“This Country of Stories—well, lemme tell you, it’s a real neat place. Even the guards’ greeting at the gate is unbelievable.”

As the man told her this and other things, he pushed a map with the place’s location marked into my teacher’s hands, then demanded a fee.

However, my teacher had never gone to find the place marked on the map. She completely forgot about paying for the map and headed to a different destination entirely.

It seemed odd for my teacher to immediately forget about a place that promised to be so interesting, but it appeared her memory of the interaction in the restaurant had long since faded.

And then, the other day—

“Hey, ladies, there’s a strange country not far from here…”

—my teacher and I were having a meal when yet another strange man came over and spoke to us. At that point, my teacher recalled that she had purchased the map long ago. And so, several years after first learning of it, she finally turned her broom toward the Country of Stories.

Well, well. I wonder what kind of place this Rekion, Land of Actors—this Country of Stories—could be?

“Welcome to Rekion, Land of Actors! In this Country of Stories, our residents are all stars, supporting actors, and members of the audience! We welcome your visit from the bottom of our hearts!”

Right.

As one might imagine from the self-proclaimed Country of Stories, even the immigration check was unconventional.

First, as soon as we arrived at the gates, one of the guards there took a knee before us and began describing his home in enthusiastic song. The man was excessively energetic, despite the early hour. We, on the other hand, kept straight faces throughout. I immediately sensed a difference in our enthusiasm so profound that it made my head spin.

“Pardon the delay,” he said at length. “I am the enthusiastic gate guard, and I will be responsible for your immigration check.”

Then we answered the guard’s simple questions, giving our names, the intended length of our stay, our purpose for visiting, and so on and so forth. My teacher answered first, telling him that we planned to stay for about two nights and three days in order to satisfy our curiosity.

“My name is Fran,” I said. “My intended length of stay and the purpose for my visit are the same as hers.”

The guard said, “Excellent!” and nodded vigorously. He then ushered us through the gate and handed us a pair of round golden badges with the day’s date written on them. “Now then, if both of you ladies would please put these someplace that others can easily see them.”

My teacher cocked her head, clearly wondering what they were.

Answering her unspoken question, the guard said, “We call those guest badges. We ask that you wear them to distinguish yourselves from the actors who live here.”

As the gate guard had told us at the beginning, everyone who lived there was a star, a supporting actor, and a member of the audience. However, it would be unfair to assign these roles to tourists. Thus, they handed out badges so everyone could see that we were simply visitors.

With no reason to refuse, we readily agreed and pinned the badges to our lapels.

“You should also be aware,” said the guard, “that our country has a number of rules, and should you break any, you will be subject to fines. So please be careful.”

Because everyone in the country was an actor, it was probably natural to have a strictly enforced set of rules. They had to protect the actors, after all. The gate guard informed us of the rules we had to obey as spectators, such as “Don’t demand actors’ autographs” and “Don’t make absurd requests of the actors.”

And—

“Once you’ve entered, your stay mustn’t exceed the number of days that you initially declared.” We were told this was a rule by which all tourists must abide.

I had tensed up when I heard that fines were involved, but all the rules presented to us seemed like ordinary common sense. And so both my teacher and I readily agreed to comply.

“Excellent!”

And with that, we managed to enter the Country of Stories.

We walked down the broad main avenue paved with rugged cobblestones.

According to the stories we had heard, this country had long ago fallen to ruin and been abandoned, only to be repopulated by actors from the surrounding lands who turned it into a place to practice their skills.

But the history of the region itself went back much, much further than Rekion. Perhaps for that reason, everything in town looked weathered and old, and from the street, we could see many ancient buildings covered in moss.

I suppose you could say the place had the staid atmosphere of a museum.

“…………”

However, the people populating the city were anything but staid.

“Why, you! Waaait!”

“You idiot! As if anyone would actually wait just because you said so!”

Along the main avenue, two fully grown adults were zooming around atop brooms, making a racket like a couple of kids. One of them, wearing a sign on his back that read, THE FUGITIVE, collided forcefully with a roadside stall displaying neat rows of fruits before fleeing into the crowd.

“Aaagh! My shop!”

The proprietor of the roadside stall screamed. The road was awash in reds and oranges and yellows.

“Are you all right, miss?!” As soon as the first man was gone, another young fellow appeared out of nowhere and joined the stall’s proprietor in gathering up the fruits.

THE BEGINNINGS OF LOVE, read another signboard placed next to them. As I watched, wondering what was going on, their hands met over a piece of fruit, and they both blushed bright red.

“Ah, s-sorry…!”

“N-no, it’s my fault!”

I averted my gaze from this dramatic series of developments, but there again, some other story was unfolding. And when I looked in a different direction, I found yet another.

Stories were taking place everywhere throughout town.

“So this is the Country of Stories…!”

I felt my spirits lift at the spectacle.

“Now I get it,” mumbled my teacher. In contrast to me, she sounded rather indifferent as she scribbled in her notebook. “I suppose they did say everyone was a star, a supporting actor, and a member of the audience.”

When I tilted my head inquisitively, my teacher pointed down the road with her pen. “It seems the actors here are like street performers. They earn money a little at a time by performing all over town.”

Down the road from us, I saw a man and a woman embracing openly and passionately without a care for what others might think. I wanted to turn away from the awkward scene, but looking closer, I spotted a sign beside the two of them reading TWO PEOPLE IN LOVE with a small can sitting right below it.

Passersby would stop to watch and, if they judged it a good performance, would toss a few coins into the can.

“The people here seem to be helping each other improve their acting abilities by offering praise for each other’s performances.”

That must be what they mean by “everyone is a star, a supporting actor, and a member of the audience.”

To the people here, performing was just a part of life.

“Ahh! What a wonderful day it is! Welcome, all!”

Right.

We decided to head to a café next, and a waitress showed us to our seats while dancing around in circles, as if the whole world was overflowing with wonder.

On the waitress’s chest hung a board with the mysterious words SHELTERED SHOP GIRL and a little can hanging off the board.

Then another customer called out to the waitress and tossed a coin into the can.

“What a great performance! All right, next I want to see a Gloomy Shop Girl!”

At that, the woman who had been laughing and dancing around like a broken toy quickly rewrote the words on her sign. Suddenly, her shoulders drooped, and she hung her head dramatically. Now she looked broken in a very different way. “…………Why, oh why am I working in a place like this…? I just want to die…,” she muttered and sighed.

This quieted down the restaurant somewhat, and my teacher and I raised our hands to summon the waitress and ordered our meals.

“Two orders of this pasta here.”

My teacher pointed to the pasta dish at the very top of the menu. She and I both understood that, in a place like this, you couldn’t go wrong as long as you stuck to the recommended dishes.

The waitress, whose personality was completely different than when we’d arrived, peered down at the menu and wrote herself a note, then cocked her head slightly.

“Is that all…?” she asked, gazing gloomily down at us.

“That’s all…”

“I’m not really all that hungry,” my teacher explained.

“You won’t regret it…? You’re sure…?”

“I don’t think we will…”

“Very well… That’s too bad… Too, too bad… Heh-heh-heh-heh…”

After trying a strange sales tactic on my teacher, the waitress sighed deeply and left our table.

As I wondered what on earth I had just witnessed, I looked down at the menu again. Not only did it list a selection of food and drinks, but when I took a closer look, I saw a column in one corner listing ENTERTAINMENTS.

“…I wonder if she wanted us to order some of this as well?”

In addition to the SHELTERED SHOP GIRL and GLOOMY SHOP GIRL we had already seen, there were also HOT-TEMPERED SHOP GIRL and SHOP GIRL WHO DOESN’T HAVE A SHRED OF MOTIVATION, as well as SHOP GIRL TRYING AS HARD AS SHE CAN TO PLEASE EVERYONE, SHOP GIRL WITH SUCH A SOUR DISPOSITION YOU CAN’T HELP BUT THINK SHE LOOKS DOWN ON THE REST OF THE WORLD, and LONG-SUFFERING SHOP GIRL WHO IS STARVED FOR AFFECTION DESPITE BEING A PEOPLE PLEASER WHO IS PLEASANT TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE, along with other options with surprisingly rich variety. Not only were there plenty of choices, they were also all very specific. It was enough to make me wonder if this café was really about food at all.

Ultimately, we ate our pasta while watching the waitress, who kept amusingly changing personalities every time another customer called her over.

“Nothing special about the taste, is there?” my teacher said, following the waitress with her eyes as she chewed.

“Nothing special about the price either,” I agreed, counting the money left in my wallet.

Once our bellies were full, we went for a walk around town, and once again we spotted people holding up signs.

A MAGNIFICENT MAN, read one sign next to a man holding a pose.

If I had seen him anywhere else, I would have assumed he was just a run-of-the-mill kook, but here, among countless similar scenes, it seemed perfectly normal.

“I’ve already gotten used to this,” said my teacher.

“I know what you mean,” I agreed. “By the way, what do you think is so magnificent about that man?”

“Maybe it’s his face?”

Exchanging idle chatter, we walked right past the Magnificent Man or whatever he was.

But immediately after we passed—

“Are you really callin’ yourself a ‘magnificent man’ just ’cause your face is a little above average?!”

“What’s that expression anyway? Are you supposed to be clever or cool? Pick one and be clear about it!”

“You better rethink your whole act!”

—loud voices rang out behind us.

When we turned back around, the man who had been standing next to the sign reading A MAGNIFICENT MAN was being pelted with fruits, vegetables, little stones, and anything and everything else in reach.

After politely dropping their money into the man’s can, people would angrily shout things like “Quit messing around!” Their behavior seemed to indicate that as long as they paid their money, they felt like they could treat him any way they pleased.

In response to the people’s fierce attacks, the man let out a very unattractive groan that did not suit his handsome face at all and collapsed to the ground.

So this is a “Magnificent Man,” hmm?

“What do you suppose is so magnificent about him?” I asked again.

“Goodness, you can’t tell, Fran?”

“Do you know, Miss?”

“It’s his face.”

Immediately after she answered me, a pie hit the man, covering his features.

“What’s so magnificent about it?”

“…………” After staying silent for a few moments, my teacher cleared her throat. “Are you listening, Fran? The man keeps standing there, perfectly calm, even as he receives all sorts of abuse from the people around him, right? What do you think we can deduce from this situation?”

“I can’t deduce anything.”

“Oh-hoh. You’ve still got a long way to go.” My teacher put on a smug expression and proceeded to act like our whole conversation hadn’t happened. “Look at that man. He’s not fighting back at all. He must be a true philanthropist. No matter what anyone does to him, he never responds in kind. His willpower alone makes him ‘magnificent.’”

“That doesn’t seem right to me.”

I think he’s just receiving normal criticism…

As I grew exasperated with my teacher, an old woman I’d never seen before showed up out of nowhere and interrupted us.

“Hee-hee-hee,” she laughed, a know-it-all look on her face. “In this town, those who can’t fulfill their duties all suffer the same treatment.”

“You seem to know a lot, ma’am.”

“Oh-hoh, are you curious, young lady?”

I nodded, and the old woman said, “Hee-hee-hee. Well then, let me tell you.” Sounding incredibly shady, she began to explain, “This is a land of actors, you see. We praise skillful performances and heckle lousy ones. By doing so, our wonderful actors encourage each other to improve around the clock. That’s how we started polishing our craft.”

According to the old woman, who had appeared out of nowhere and seemed to enjoy explaining things, this was a wonderful place where everyone worked together to refine their acting skills. At the same time, it was a place where terrible actors were thoroughly abused.

Everyone who lived here was an actor, and their job was to entertain the audience. Everyone seemed to believe that if an actor couldn’t do their job, it was only natural to heckle them.

“I see, I see.” I nodded and turned back to the “Magnificent Man.” “That means the man over there—”

“He’s just being bashed, that’s all.”

“You hear that, Miss?”

“…………” My teacher puffed out her cheeks childishly. “Well, I guess that’s one way of looking at it,” she said before abruptly turning away.

She’s pouting…

“Remember this well,” said the old woman. “This is the Country of Stories. We’re an unsparing bunch, and people who can’t fulfill their roles are quickly weeded out.”

“Seems that way,” I said, turning back to look at the once-handsome man.

“Dammit…,” the man grumbled as he took money out of his wallet. He reached out and handed it to someone dressed exactly like the guard who had conducted our immigration check. I hadn’t even noticed him arrive.

“Confirmed, I have accepted the penalty fee,” the guard announced indifferently.

Hmmmm?

“What’s going on there?” I asked the old woman who liked explaining things.

This must have been a fairly common sight. Without the least bit of surprise, the old woman nodded and said, “It’s exactly as it looks. Those who fail to fulfill their roles must pay a fine.”

Then, almost as an afterthought, the old woman turned a sign toward us that read, OLD LADY WHO LIKES EXPLAINING THINGS. She held it up, along with a can, so we could see it.

…………

At that point, I suddenly had a thought.

If the actors’ role was to entertain the audience, then what on earth was the role of the audience?

“Excuse me, you two. Could I have a moment of your time?”

Hands clapped down on my and my teacher’s shoulders. We turned around and saw a man in uniform.

Looking at us coldly, he asked, “We’ve gotten some complaints from the residents. Have the two of you paid any money to the actors? Have you been fulfilling your role as audience members?”

From the moment we entered the country’s gates up until the present, we had seen a lot of performances from a lot of actors, but neither my teacher nor I had paid out a single cent.

We had decided all on our own that the cans were a way of asking for tips—something we had often seen street performers do in other cities. But here, when an actor put on a performance, it was mandatory to pay them, and those who didn’t were penalized.

That’s unreasonable.

It was beyond unreasonable. But as they say, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” The moment those hands came down on our shoulders, we had no other choice but to pay.

“We’ve been had…,” I muttered.

The people of this country probably had no problem paying anyone who put on a performance in the street. After all, since everyone who lived there was an actor, they could make money quickly simply by putting up a signboard.

But tourists like us had no means of making money. In other words, the longer we stayed, the more money we’d be flushing down the drain.

“Fran, we’re leaving immediately.”

“You’re right, Miss. This place is no good; it’s a country of fraudsters.”

My teacher and I realized we had been tricked and were ready to leave. Paying out coin after coin to the people putting on performances along the main avenue, we walked back out the way we had come.

But we weren’t able to leave.

“Wait a moment, please! You applied to stay two nights and three days, so I can’t permit you to go just yet!”

A gate guard stopped us, blowing his shrill little whistle.

When we’d first entered, we had promised to stay a certain number of days, as that was one of the rules tourists had to follow.

According to the guard, we weren’t allowed to be there for too short or too long a time.

“We’ve really been had…,” said my teacher.

“In other words, this whole thing’s been a trap, from the moment we walked through the gates…?”

Apparently, this was a terrible place for travelers, merchants, and other tourists. As long as you were there, they kept taking your money, and they wouldn’t even allow you to leave.

For the remaining two nights and three days of our visit, my teacher and I were surrounded by performances from morning till night. To keep our expenses as low as possible, we decided not to leave our hotel room except at mealtimes, but even so, there were performances taking place all across town.

“Now that it’s come to this, in order to get our money’s worth, we’re watching to the very end, Fran.”

My teacher began to stubbornly watch every performance with intense concentration, her pen running over the pages of her notebook. It seemed that, since we were stuck paying for it, she wanted to preserve every detail in her records.

“Are you sure you’re not enjoying yourself, Miss?”

“Certainly not,” she answered, sighing.

Shortly after that, my teacher had a flash of inspiration. “If I cover my eyes, I won’t be able to watch their performances, will I…?”

Her idea was nothing short of genius, and she immediately covered both her eyes with a strip of cloth. “Heh-heh-heh… Now no one will be able to charge me a cent.”

However, not long after that, a woman came up to us and began reciting, “Long, long ago, in a place not so far from here—”

My teacher’s genius idea was easily defeated by a simple vocal performance.

“Well, she got me there…”

“Are you sure you’re not enjoying this, Miss?”

“Certainly not.”

At any rate, we survived our remaining two nights and three days in the Country of Stories, and then we departed.

“Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh…”

My teacher turned to look back at the place as it faded into the distance and smiled atop her broom, seeming very, very pleased.

Her grin looked positively wicked.

Now, allow me to take a moment and turn back to something that happened before we made our way to the Country of Stories.

“Hey there, ladies. Let me tell you about a strange place not too far from here—”

While my teacher and I were eating, a strange man approached us.

He identified himself as a traveler and told us about a strange, awful country in the region that was full of fraudsters—a place called Rekion, Land of Actors.

According to him, it was a hellish place filled with traps from the moment you entered. No matter what kind of traveler or merchant you were, he said, your purse would be emptied before you could leave.

“Rekion, Land of Actors…? Oh!”

In the middle of the man’s story, my teacher clapped her hands as if she’d just remembered something. “Come to think of it…” Apparently, she had purchased a map to Rekion a long time ago.

“You bought a map but never visited?” I asked.

“It sounded kind of dubious.” Continuing to listen to the man’s story, she added, “Seems like I made the right choice not to go.”

The man kept going on about how his money had been stolen. “Do what you can to spread this tale to countries far and wide!” he pleaded earnestly. “So that there won’t be more victims like me!”

My teacher cocked her head. “By the way, how was your money taken in Rekion, Land of Actors? Could you elaborate?”

“I fell victim to an awful scam—”

“What kind of scam?”

“Huh? A scam is a scam. Nothing more and nothing less. Anyway, if you two could please distribute these maps to restaurants and hotels nearby. I want to make sure that no one goes to Rekion, Land of Actors…”

When my teacher asked him for details, the man avoided her questions. Instead, he handed us a bundle of maps with the exact location of Rekion, Land of Actors marked on them. Then he went to another table where other travelers were in the middle of their meals and launched into his story about the terrible place known as Rekion, Land of Actors all over again.

Watching the man’s back as he left, my teacher said, “Sounds kind of suspicious, huh?”

This man was obviously an associate of the shady individual my teacher had met all those years earlier. Back then, it made sense that she’d been on guard and decided not to visit the place.

But the following day, pen and notebook in hand, my teacher suggested that we head for the very place the man had been talking about.

“You want to go, even though the man said it was awful?”

At this, my teacher nodded, as if the answer was obvious.

“I want to see for myself just how awful it is.”

How pathetic we humans are. The more criticism something receives, the more our interest grows. The more people tell us to look away, the faster we turn our heads to see.

“Besides,” my teacher said, wearing a bold smile, “if they’re still in the same business, they must be making a fair amount of money.”

“Then Niche compiled everything she had seen and heard about the Country of Stories into little booklets and distributed them far and wide. In one place, she passed out booklets that sang the praises of the Country of Stories, while in another, she went around selling ones that disparaged it, claiming they provided useful information. The people who read Niche’s booklets wanted to know where the Country of Stories was, but she never told anyone the location.”

“Huh? Why not?”

I remember peering at the book spread out in my mother’s hands, blocking her view as she recited the tale to me.

The Adventures of Niche.

I’d loved this book ever since I was small.

“Why didn’t she tell the people where it was?” I asked.

When I was young, I had absolutely no understanding of Niche’s true motives.

My mother answered me with a smile. “People would be interested in it, whether it was a good place or a bad place, don’t you think? So Niche decided to make people believe the Country of Stories didn’t even exist.”

Frankly speaking, the stories in the booklets Niche distributed were far more dubious than even the information the suspicious men gave out along with their maps.

The more Niche distributed her writings, the more rumors spread of her suspicious activities. Before she knew it, those rumors transformed into a story about a witch trying to make money by selling books about a country that didn’t exist.

“And then? What happened then?” I pressed, full of excitement and eager to hear the next part of the story.

My mother smiled fondly at her impatient little daughter and said, “The people from the Land of Actors didn’t like that she was spreading such rumors, you see, and they made a tearful appeal to Niche.”

If people didn’t come from the outside world to the Land of Actors, their scam wouldn’t make any money. It was already a small, obscure little country. If people started to believe that it didn’t even exist, its residents would be in real trouble.

At the time, I was a good, purehearted little girl, and I was indignant that they would make such a proposal.

“But the people of the Land of Actors were bad people, right?” I insisted. “They were so selfish!”

“They were—but Niche decided to accept their proposal.”

“Huh? Why?!”

At the time, I had been very, very disappointed that Niche would agree to help such bad people! Back then, I was still pure, and I found this twist quite shocking.

As my mother stroked my head to calm me down, she said, “Don’t worry, now. You see, by the time the people from the Land of Actors made their proposal to Niche, everyone had long been convinced that the country wasn’t real.”

“‘So then,’ Niche answered them,” my mother said with a slightly wicked expression, “‘if you give me money, I’ll keep quiet about it.’”

Starting now…