TVDR 01

Chapter – 01

The play now had only a single line of dialogue left.

The supporting actor walked to the front of the stage and threw a question at the protagonist.
The question was directed at the protagonist, yet the actor’s eyes were fixed on the audience.

Do you think there’s such a thing as a truly perfect work of art?

No emphasis on any word.
Just ask the question calmly, plainly.

That was my directing.
It’s written here now in my director’s note.

Director’s notes.

A detailed plan that theatre directors create alongside the script—containing the concept, stage design, blocking, actors’ performances, sound, lighting—everything needed to bring a play to the stage.

Some directors don’t place much value on director’s notes, but not me.

I was the type to plan more meticulously than anyone, drilling those plans into staff and actors through endless rehearsals.

And right now, the actor was moving exactly as I directed.

So were the audience.

From the very last row on the second floor, I looked down at the backs of all the audience members.
Those backs were frozen, barely daring to breathe because of the actor’s performance.

Every audience member must be arriving at their own answer to the question—
What is a perfect work of art?

The silence filling the theatre.

Only those who have seen a play in a theatre will understand.
Sometimes, a silence like that can be deafening.

The tension between actor and audience swells with a strange heat that feels as if it might explode. Everyone’s eyes are fixed on the protagonist, waiting for the answer.

The protagonist—who had stubbornly clung to his own art for thirty years and now stood on the cliff of ruin—was about to answer.

Everyone waited.

He looked toward the audience.
The brush in his hand lifted slightly from the canvas.

His lips parted as if to speak, then stilled again. The silence thickened.

But instead of answering, the protagonist turned his back and brought the brush to the canvas once more.

At that exact moment, the lights snapped off.

Blackout.

A short technical cue that would be written in the director’s notes.

The protagonist’s answer was swallowed by the darkness, and my own eyes slowly adjusted.

Everyone knew the play was over, yet not a single person moved.
They were still trapped inside it.

Only when the stage lights came back on would the audience accept that the sacred space of the play had dispersed.

One minute.

One minute for them to accept that the stage is merely a slightly raised platform made of wooden boards, and this place is nothing more than a building called a theatre.

Exactly one minute later, applause erupted.

Hearing that loud applause, I smiled from the dark corner of the very last row.

Euphoria.

It worked.

The blocking I marked, the lighting and sound I ordered, the performances I directed—everything had reached the audience exactly as I intended.

Within this small world called theatre, I had achieved perfect control.

In this play, I was nothing short of a god.

I gripped my director’s note—worn and tattered from the rehearsal period—tightly in my hand.

The lights came back on, the actors with flushed faces walked onto the stage for curtain call.

And as always, I was about to leave the theatre full of cheers and applause before anyone else.

Well—I tried to.

[The Patron Saint of Mecenat presents you with a quest. Accept…]

Until those bizarre words appeared in front of my eyes.

What?

There was no cue in my notes about projecting anything onto the stage.
Trying to quickly cover up this flaw, I reached out—when the letters glitched like a broken screen and vanished.

“…Why do you never answer your phone?”

I turned to the side. The theatre was suddenly bright, and the audience was already leaving.

Looks like even the curtain call had ended while I was staring at that vision.

A hallucination?

Did I really hallucinate something that vivid?

Had the tension of opening night messed with my senses?

Because if it wasn’t a hallucination, what else could it be?

Quick judgment and acceptance—my greatest strengths.

I looked at the man who had appeared out of nowhere and sat still beside me.

“Shin Sunghyun.”

My half-brother.

In our family, he’s referred to as Father’s only legitimate child.

I am the daughter my father, the second son of the Shin Group, had outside the family—
publicly nonexistent, and privately better off nonexistent.

Thanks to legal documents drawn up between my father and my mother—who was an actress people recognized with a “Oh, I know her. What was her name again?”—I stood to inherit a decent sum after Father’s passing.
And in the age of social media, even the wealthy were no longer completely immune to public scrutiny, so enough people knew I existed.

Perhaps anticipating this, when I was first brought into the family, Grandfather had ordered my father to raise me well.

‘Raise her to be pleasing to the eye, with elegance in conversation, and emotionally stable enough not to cause dramatic incidents like suicide attempts.’

Grandfather collected orchid paintings, so he added:

‘Yes—raise her like a painting. Raise her to be beautiful to look at.’

And that is how I was named: Shin Geurim. (Geurim = “painting”)

A life as flawless as a painting—lacking nothing.

A nice car, a good house, fine food, the privilege to call Father “Father” and Lady of the House “Mother” despite being a bastard.

My life, as given, was indeed pleasant to look at.

If only it weren’t for Shin Sunghyun.

The legitimate heir who picked fights with me at every turn.
A platinum-spoon heir undergoing successor training for a conglomerate, yet still taking the time to step on his irrelevant theatre-director half-sister for pleasure.

Successful, polished, insufferable—and entirely too diligent about tormenting me.

He was so relentlessly persistent that even someone like me—normally void of “feelings”—was at risk of developing them.

“So what, are you scared I’ll get famous and give an interview?”

“Famous? You? Even if you did an interview, it wouldn’t make it to the press.”

At the word interview, his expression stiffened.
The look he gave me carried the same contempt one has for filth.

“That expression… just like Father.”

“What?”

“So if I record that for reference when giving acting notes later, would that be okay?”

“…Do you want to die?”

I pretended to lift my phone to film him, and he immediately moved to slap it away—
only to freeze upon making eye contact with an usher who had walked in to clean.

He forced a smile.

Kidding. Just kidding.

He ruffled my hair roughly and whispered:

“Come to the dressing room.”

Dressing room? Why on earth would I go there?

As I waited for him to leave—grumbling as he went—I stared at the now-empty stage.
The heat of the actors, the lights, the audience—gone. A stage gone stale.

The thrill was brief, the emptiness after it long and dull.

I wanted to go back.

Back to the moment when the audience entered with their tickets, when the lights went down, and the stage brightened with living actors—
when I could look down at their backs brimming with anticipation.

It’ll be fun.

More fun than this picturesque, boring reality.

That moment when tension and anxiety chilled my hands, yet excitement bloomed in my chest—

Just as I recalled that feeling, the lights shut off again.

Time to leave?

I started to get up, but a spotlight dropped onto the stage.

“…?”

I frowned and looked toward the booth—empty.
A technical error?

Just then, someone suddenly appeared onstage.

“Are you still considering our offer? I’m sad, Director. Our theatre company Chorus was even thinking of making you our artistic director.”

A dwarf with curly hair cascading down to his feet.

For the moment, I was too stunned by the visual spectacle to speak.

Actors must make their first entrance memorable—
one of my directing principles.

But spectacle aside—what was that thing doing here?

And Chorus?

Wasn’t that a production company, not a troupe? The one that sent me the email?

“Honestly, you enjoyed it, didn’t you? The novel we sent you.”

Perfect enunciation. Perfect projection.

Then I realized.

He was an actor.

Actors are like this—
convinced they must stand out to be chosen and loved.

That’s why they do bizarre things like my birth mother once did, and why they pull theatrical stunts like this in front of directors.

“If this is how you want to audition for me—”

I was about to say No, thank you—

When a screen popped up in front of me.

[Main Quest: Adaptation.]
Become a character in the novel and begin the adaptation.

What?

What the hell—

“See? A game UI is the most intuitive form of direction, isn’t it?”

His voice echoed in the darkness.

The floor shook. My body floated.

Crash!

I hit something.

Pain should have shot through me—
but it didn’t.

As my eyes adjusted, I found myself sitting in an old, ornate theatre.

Not a modern proscenium stage—

Once, there had been a grand ducal house—Mecena—who monopolized the empire’s wealth and prestige.

When Mecena fell, its many direct and collateral heirs—and all the creditors who had funded the duchy—gathered in one place to divide its legacy.

The sword granted to the first Duke by the Emperor sold for a pittance, and creditors who gained nothing hurled jeers.

As the once-glorious relics of the duchy were auctioned off one after another—

At last, the White Friars Theatre, cherished by the first Duke of Mecena, was put up for auction.

This theatre was where the auction was taking place.

“This theatre—once the cultural heart of the duchy, where countless audiences gathered to—”

“That’s ancient history. Who would write or perform plays in a fallen duchy?”

When the theatre came up, the critiques grew sharp.

No one wanted to run a theatre anymore—
not when most writers and actors had already left.

A theatre could be profitable if managed well, but one misstep meant debt.
And these people had nearly gone bankrupt investing in the duchy before.

They no longer wished to take risks.

Except for one person.

“…Excuse me, but it seems we have a bidder?”

A woman in the far back of the box seats had raised her paddle.

Red eyes—cold to the point of being chilling.
Black hair intricately braided and coiled high.
The duchy’s one and only noble lady—famous across the empire as a villainess for her extravagance.

She was also the original owner of everything being auctioned.

Silence fell as she raised her hand.

“If no one else wishes to bid, the item is sold to the young lady.”

Bang, bang, bang.

The gavel fell with suspicious haste.

As the document was rushed to her, the black-haired young lady muttered to herself:

“…I raised my hand to ask a question.”

No, seriously—where was this place?

What was with this Shakespearean stage?

She didn’t have time to speak before a servant handed her the deed.

“As expected of the last Lady of Mecena! You wished to protect the legacy of the first Duke, didn’t you? Quite admirable—contrary to the rumors!”

Hearing this, the Lady of Mecena—no, Shin Geurim—thought:

She couldn’t be completely certain yet, but it seemed she had possessed the body of the duchy’s last noble lady—
in a fallen kingdom.