Lord of Entertainment

Chapter 517: Auditions for Another World

(3rd Person POV)

The Pokémon craze was still in full swing. Then the news broke, and the world found something else to lose its mind over.

The announcement ran across every channel at once. "It has been one month since Pokémon shook the world to its core, and Hellfire already has something else coming. The chairman of Hellfire has confirmed that their next film project begins now, and it is unlike anything this world has seen."

The scene cut to Arthur, standing before the press. He was calm about it, which somehow made it worse.

"Let me ask all of you something." He looked out over them. "Do you want to act? Fine, everybody wants to act. Let me ask it properly. Do you want to act somewhere that isn't here? Not another kingdom. Not another continent. Another world, out past the sky, the one you've spent your whole life looking up at and calling decoration."

Somebody in the press pool made a noise. Arthur kept going.

"That's where the next one shoots. Not a set built to look like it, not a painting behind you. The actual place. We'll be taking a Hellfire ship out there to do it. Yes, a ship. Like in Star Wars. The difference is that one was a prop and ours flies." He let it land. "So. Are you on board? If the answer's yes, stop watching this and come audition. We're open."

The crowd broke apart at his words. In homes, in taverns, in the middle of public squares where the screens were mounted, people freaked out over what he had just implied.

Everywhere, they were talking.

"What the heck? How is that even possible?"

"Hellfire developed spaceship technology? Incredible!"

"I want to be in this project!"

"I'm going to audition. Right now, today."

"Filming on another planet? Count me in!"

Many did exactly that.

The audition was enormous in scale. Hellfire had offices in nations all across the world, which meant thousands upon thousands could line up without ever leaving their own borders. Still, the main office in the Horn Kingdom carried the weight the branches did not, and so the headquarters filled with auditioners and reporters both.

Klein arrived at the entrance and felt something close to awe at the length of the lines. Then the reporters turned and saw him, and the awe curdled.

They came at him because everyone knew him. Klein had stood at Arthur's shoulder through half the announcements Hellfire had ever made, and the broadcasts always caught him in frame; there was hardly a household in the kingdom that couldn't put his name to his face by now. To the press he was the next best thing to the chairman himself, and the chairman was not downstairs.

"Klein! Is it true, what the chairman said? Filming on another planet? Tell us how that's even possible."

"Never mind how. Is there anything out there? Are you telling this world there's life past our own sky, like in Star Wars? Yes or no, that's all we need—"

"Just answer one, Klein! One!"

Klein put on the confidence he did not feel. "Everything will be made known to you in due time." He kept moving. "You've been covering this company for years. Have we ever announced something and then failed to deliver it? No. So there's no need to be impatient."

"That's not an answer!"

"One word! Give us one word and we'll write around it!"

Klein ignored all of it and went inside. The moment the doors closed behind him he broke into a walk that turned into a run, straight for the elevator, straight to the top floor. Then he ran the length of the executive hall without a single thought for how it looked, and other demons turned to watch an executive of Hellfire sprint past their desks.

He got the chairman's door open and found Arthur behind it.

"Boss Arthur." Klein was still catching his breath, one hand on the doorframe. "Are we really filming off the planet? Off it? Because that's what you said on the broadcast, and I watched it standing in my own living room like a member of the public. There were reporters downstairs asking me about my own company and I had to stand there and tell them to be patient. Patient, boss. I didn't know either!"

It was the truth. Klein had been as ignorant as anyone. He knew of the big project, the one called Avatar, but nobody had ever told him it required leaving the planet and setting down on a foreign one.

Arthur took in the state of him and chuckled. "Sit down before you fall down. Yes, we're shooting it off-world. Our VFX studios are the best on this planet and they still aren't the real thing. Audiences can't tell you why they know the difference. They just know."

"That's the part you're worried about?" Klein stopped and started again. "The picture quality? Boss, do we actually have a spaceship?"

"Yes, we have one."

Arthur said it the way another man might confirm the office had a second printer, and somehow that was worse than a speech.

"You have one." Klein sat. "Since when? Where do you even keep it?"

"Where it needs to be. It doesn't move until we're ready to make the crossing, and you'll know before the reporters do." Arthur's mouth moved. "This time."

Klein was left with no explanation of how any of it worked, and he did not have the nerve to ask a third time. "A-amazing. You really are incredible, boss."

Arthur laughed softly. "Don't mention it. Now go and run the auditions. All of it, yours. Thousands of people out there think they're about to become the first actor in the sky, and someone has to look them in the eye and tell most of them no."

Klein stood back up. "I'm on it."

"And Klein." Arthur was already turning to something else. "When they ask you how it's possible, don't invent an answer. Smile and keep walking."

"...Right." Klein went out, and Arthur shook his head, amused.

---

Once everything was settled, Arthur and the others crossed back to the other world through the portal.

Firfel noticed the difference the moment they stepped through. "We're back." She closed her eyes briefly. "I can feel it already. The faith energy coming back into me. It's like breathing after holding it."

Arthur nodded. "Then let's not waste it. Before we move on Avatar, we take this world. Or enough of it to matter. The kingdom in my palm may be all I need; as long as I'm established here, I'll have what I want by the time Solarus comes."

Apollonia had been quiet since the crossing. "So you really are going to fight him? Solarus. The Sun Lord." She said the title carefully, the way she had been taught to say it.

"Yes." Arthur turned toward her. "And I didn't bring you along only because I want you in Avatar. I brought you because when he comes, you'll be standing here. Not there."

Her face changed. "Bu-but what about brother Azazel? Arnold and Bobby? And Mother, and Father—"

Arthur said nothing.

"I know you have nothing to do with them." She said it fast, before he could close the subject. "I know what they did to you. I'm not asking you to forgive it. Just don't leave them standing in a place you already know isn't going to be there. Please."

Arthur let out a breath. "Getting them to believe any of it would be a war of its own. Father would sooner call me a liar in front of the whole court than accept a favor from me."

"He would." Apollonia looked at the ground. "He would do exactly that."

"But don't worry." His voice came down. "If they're willing, I'll take them. All of them. And nothing here is settled, Apollonia. It isn't decided that Solarus can beat me, or that the world is going anywhere at all."

Hard as it was, she had to accept it. Her parents were proud people, prideful and unbending with it. So were her siblings, all but Azazel.

'I hope they listen to brother Arthur. And besides big bro Azazel, I think elder sister Lucy has changed too. She isn't the person she used to be. She's better now.'

Arthur looked over the two of them. "I'll leave you here. I'm going to check in with Saza."

"Yes." Firfel nodded. "See you later, honey."

Arthur nodded back.

---

In the principal's office, Saza looked up as Arthur came through the door.

She smiled faintly. "You're back. Months on this side, and I'd guess it barely cost you a season on yours. I've stopped trying to hold the two in my head at once." She tilted her head. "Did you settle everything over there?"

"Yes."

"That's all I get. Yes."

"It's settled." Arthur pulled the chair around and sat. "While I was gone. What happened with those demons?"

Saza laughed under her breath, remembering the fearsome creatures in question. "Cowards. Every one of them. I've spent a long time being told what demons are, and then they sat in my basement and wept." She waved a hand. "They gave up the name of the organization before anyone laid a finger on them. Legion Swords. After that it was less an interrogation than a conversation, and they filled in the higher-ranking figures without being asked twice. Names I didn't expect to hear."

Arthur's smile went cold. "I see. Did you report it to the Kingdom?"

"No. And I don't intend to. Report it to whom, exactly? Half those names sit close enough to the throne that I'd be handing my evidence to the people I'd be accusing, and thanking them for their time." She let a beat pass. "And that's before we get to Duke Graustein. The ruler of Eisenmark has already pledged himself to the current Demon King. Quietly, of course. They're always quiet about it."

"Oh?"

"His subordinate, Delly, with him." Saza watched his face and got nothing. "So. What do you plan to do about the two of them?"

Arthur's eyes went flat. "Since it's come to this, there's no reason for Delly or the Duke to stay in the picture at all. I've been polite in this world long enough." He rose. "Perhaps I'll go and pay my respects to this world's Demon King."

Saza's amusement dropped away all at once. "Arthur. Be careful."

"I will."