The Magic Dream Contest is conducted entirely impromptu, without any rehearsals.
The lives of the mages who came to promote their clan were extremely busy, but ultimately, the contest revolves around “magic demonstrations,” while the “story” is merely a secondary element.
An hour ago, the famous voice actor turned narrator had received the script and contemplated how to deliver the story engagingly in such a short time.
“Romeo and Juliet,” “Hansel and Gretel.”
These were stories he had experienced dozens of times in this Neverland, but due to the dreaded “adaptations,” he knew that being careless was out of the question.
There were countless instances where the story deviated from the script.
Romeo and Juliet sometimes engaged in family feuds, and Hansel and Gretel had been known to turn the witch into candy to eat her.
Though it’s a bit creepy, it always ended happily, making it a favored comedic content for both adults and children alike.
However, the content of Romeo and Juliet she had received was far beyond expectations.
Could such a theme really be demonstrated in front of the public?
“Is… is this a harem story?”
*
The handsome young man of the Verona family, no, the promising Shin Yeon-ho of the Raon Clan, was facing the greatest crisis of his life.
“Your cousin Benvolio told me. ‘Even the sun, which looks down on all things, has never seen a beauty like that!’ Did you really say that, Romeo?”
Juliet grabbed Romeo by the collar and glared at him.
This referred to the haughty and cold ice princess, Rosalyn.
“Juliet, I think I was just a bit blind at that time. She was using transformation magic—”
“Everyone! The person Romeo originally liked was my dear younger sister Rosalyn Capulet! My beloved Romeo was a pedophile… Can this even be a real story?”
“Juliet, what are you talking about!”
“Silence! I’m speaking!”
Juliet pounded her chest, looking aggrieved as she shouted at the audience.
“Who is Rosalyn?” “Did Romeo have someone else he liked?” These confusing reactions erupted from all around.
In truth, Romeo had loved Rosalyn, not Juliet, which even Shakespeare had agreed upon.
When that fact was revealed to Juliet just before the secret wedding planned by Father Lawrence, she exploded in rage and laid out the whole story.
“Who is Rosalyn? That girl right there!”
Juliet pointed beyond the curtain.
As bright lights were turned on, the silhouette of a girl appeared.
The curtain opened wide, revealing the protagonist who had completely shattered Shakespeare’s story.
The 112cm tall Na-me jumped up onto the balcony set and waved at the audience.
The crowd shot disdainful glares at Romeo.
“Oh dear, that bastard… targeting a young child…”
“Oh my gosh, it really is NoName! So cute!”
“Mom, buy me that outfit too!”
“Let’s give that lolicon a proper education! Juliet, can you really stand this?”
Shin Yeon-ho swallowed hard.
What a moment to be transported from being a romantic lead to being labeled a pedophile!
“This is too much… I swear I’ll never participate in this again.”
Na-me, draped in a sky-blue cloak, spotted Romeo and smiled brightly, waving at him too.
Every time her tiny hand swept through the air, snowflakes bloomed and fluttered toward the audience like soap bubbles.
The children in the audience stood up trying to catch them.
[The great mage Rosalyn still loved Romeo. But because of their age difference, he had no choice but to refuse her. Could Romeo safely marry Juliet while avoiding Rosalyn’s gaze?]
The professional voice actor’s calm narration blasted into their ears.
“Ha-ha…”
Having shown herself once, Na-me exited the stage. She would return only at the end of the play.
Shin Yeon-ho forced an awkward smile.
After all, he had to witness the ending of this train wreck drama for the sake of his semester scholarship.
*
Coming down from the stage, various clan members welcomed him.
Ignoring the beast-like sounds of “Kyaaa, kawaii,” he looked for those who spoke a bit more human.
Among them was his senior Namgung Jin, who was a sixth grader at Sephiron Academy.
“NoName, why are you participating on the Raon Clan’s stage? We were supposed to do Hansel and Gretel, right? You betrayed us!”
“I was going to appear there too. And betrayal? I initially agreed to go on for the Raon Clan first, right? Then I got the ok from the Azure Sky Clan. Technically, I’m the one betraying the Raon Clan.”
“Hey! That’s the same thing! How can you participate in both in our competitive setup?”
“So what? It’s not my clan.”
“True, I guess.”
Namgung Jin readily conceded, which was impressive.
“Are you participating in the contest too, senior?”
“Yep.”
“What role?”
“The Bluebird. I lead Hansel and Gretel to the candy house.”
“Then you’re the villain.”
“Villain… wait, am I really the villain?”
Namgung Jin looked genuinely puzzled, as if I had caught him off guard.
“Is there magic involved?”
“Of course. I’ll be using our clan’s unique magic called ‘Azure Sky Spear.’ It’s a 3rd Circle spell that operates on the principle of generating friction heat as the spear travels along spiral grooves, maximizing angular momentum.”
His explanation flowed like a stream, clear and detailed.
But does he really know all this?
“Okay, here’s a pop quiz. What’s the law of conservation of angular momentum? Get it right and you win 50,000 won.”
“Uh… um… K-Pop star!”
“K-Pop star?”
“My tutor definitely told me about it, but what was it… wait, let me think! I can explain it!”
As expected.
This type of magic can be cast even just by memorizing it blindly.
It’s pretty impressive that he can use it without understanding it at all.
“Winning the Academy Competition for five consecutive years? This guy is definitely cut from a different cloth.”
“But wait, the Bluebird uses Fire Magic?”
“Yep! I only use Fire Magic.”
“How can a Bluebird use Fire Magic?”
“W-well, who said the Bluebird couldn’t handle fire? I could even breathe fire!”
Feeling a bit embarrassed after declaring that, Namgung Jin turned his head away.
“What about you, Na-me? Do you have some amazing magic prepared?”
Namgung Jin asked with hesitation.
Na-me, shuffling her feet, noticed the four-square game board on the floor and stood in front of square one.
“The Circles are all about freedom.”
“Uh?”
“First, second, third. This is the lower circle. It’s about describing, mimicking, and sometimes utilizing natural phenomena.”
As she moved forward according to the numbers, her twin-tails bobbed up and down.
Then Na-me jumped both feet forward simultaneously.
“Fourth Circle, fifth circle. These are the middle circles. Nature tests human imagination here. You can make a house out of a single tree or even create a fountain pen.”
“I know that. They teach us all that at the Academy.”
Rolling her eyes at the nonchalant boy, Na-me hopped to the sixth square.
“Sixth circle, seventh circle, eighth circle. From here on are the upper circles. Magic transcends nature and can even destroy it. The ninth and tenth circles supposedly create entirely new laws of nature.”
“So?”
“So you said you’d show something like a third circle spell that is equivalent to a fourth circle, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’ll show you something equivalent to a fifth circle that feels like a sixth circle. Let’s see how far imagination can go.”
*
The play reached its climax.
The narrator was frantically trying not to let the storyline fall apart, feeling like he was riding a precarious knife.
“Ugh… Rosalyn… Rosalyn, it was you! Who else could have poisoned my Juliet?”
Fully immersed in his method acting, Shin Yeon-ho screamed Rosalyn’s name before Juliet’s grave.
[Romeo believed that the person who killed Juliet was Rosalyn because only she had the magic that could freeze his body and stop his heart.]
The story went off the rails.
Originally, Romeo was supposed to win a duel against Count Paris, lament his life, drink poison, and commit suicide.
In a slightly more hopeful version, Father Lawrence arrives to stop him, revealing Juliet is alive.
Neither the original text nor the script envisioned him meeting Rosalyn at this point.
Just then, Na-me came striding up the steps, dragging her icy cloak; the staff had likely rushed to bring her on stage.
The narrator sighed in relief and grabbed the microphone again.
[Rosalyn came to confirm Romeo’s true feelings. She had decided to confess once more, knowing full well that Juliet was alive.]
Once more, Rosalyn turned into an unparalleled villain.
With the narrator’s professional spirit, Na-me picked up on the hastily made setting.
“Juliet is already dead. Romeo, if age is the problem… I can wait for you, be it 10 years, 20 years until I become an adult.”
Pulsating, yet romantic lines flowed from Na-me’s small mouth.
The audience gasped in awed whispers except for those who held their breath, waiting for the story’s conclusion.
[Casting: Raon’s Spear II]
A holy spear made of light burst forth from the magic circle and struck the ground at Na-me’s feet with a thud.
The spear, set at an angle, provided Na-me with the sole spotlight.
“Then show me, Rosalyn. That cruel sincerity you wanted to share with me, even at the cost of Juliet’s life.”
Shin Yeon-ho delivered his cringe-inducing line, giving Na-me goosebumps on her arms.
“Just how serious is this guy about acting…! Hoo… professional spirit. Professional spirit.”
Psyching herself up, Na-me squeezed her eyes shut and delivered her next line.
“Then I’ll prove it right here. Between Juliet and me, who is the more beautiful woman? The stars above will be the ones to judge.”
Pointing at the audience, Na-me declared.
The previously lively atmosphere died down.
In the deathly silence, Na-me dispersed the red horns she’d painstakingly summoned and prepared for her new magic.
[5th Circle Casting: Akashic Records]
[Unique Magic – Demon King’s Horn]
Five magic circles of different sizes overlapped above her head.
From the magic circles, dust fell, forming a skeletal structure, greedily sucking in mana from the surroundings.
Before the rough black horns could fully grow, Na-me knelt and channeled every ounce of magic she could muster.
Her cherry-like lips busily pursed and released.
After chanting dozens of runes, the magic finally emerged.
[5th Circle General Casting: Glaciés Imago]
Commonly known as Ice Phantasm.
Wrapping her wrist with magic circles, Na-me clenched her fist and slammed it down hard on the stone floor.
Boom—!
The initiation of magic sounded like clear bell chimes.
Crackle—
The ground began to freeze solid from the point where her fist struck.
When encountering obstacles, it would mold a transparent layer over them, and if there were no obstacles, it would extend outward indefinitely.
“Wasn’t there a chair around here?”
As she raised her arm to signal, mana swirled and materialized into a throne made of ice large enough to comfortably seat three adult men.
Na-me lounged atop it, sending magic circles soaring into the sky.
Dozens of columns erupted simultaneously, bridging earth and sky.
The magic circles occupying the air soon transformed into a gigantic ceiling that continued to expand outward toward the audience.
“Grandma, look! There’s a castle falling overhead…!”
“What on earth is that?”
The pure ice serves as a mirror of the heart.
Through the ice ceiling or the ice mirror, the audience beheld a vast medieval cityscape from above.
Could this be the feeling if the moon, having built a civilization, were to crash directly above their heads?
One by one, people began to pull out their phones from their pockets to capture the scene of magic.
The towering clock tower hanging upside down looked dangerously precarious.
Water spurting from a beautiful fountain in the circular plaza defied gravity and flowed upwards.
The winding river flowing through the city, the complicated roads crisscrossed like spider webs, and the towering walls that formed a boundary around the city offered depth to its magnificence.
In the center stood a vast garden and a lonely, yet magnificent palace.
The monochrome mirror contained nothing less than a new world.
People gasped in awe as they caught a glimpse of a new world through a girl’s head.
Having witnessed such a stunning spectacle, the audience no longer had the luxury to immerse themselves in the play.
“NoName, you can’t be… showing your imaginary world?”
Shin Yeon-ho furrowed his brow, alternating his gaze between the ceiling and Na-me.
The imaginary world is a concept that expands from “me.”
The more entities interact with “me,” the exponentially greater the amount of information that must be contained.
“Wow… this is totally unreal.”
And this was praise directed at a girl who had implemented an entire world into her mind.
