Chapter 339
As Prophet fell asleep in Joshua’s study, Joshua and Ciri decided to turn off the study’s lights and proceed to the Noiseless Room next door.
Tylene was currently in the Noiseless Room sharing the story of ‘Snow White’ with the audiences of Norland.
When the Frost Elf saw Joshua and Ciri entering the Noiseless Room, she revealed a smile and waved her hand at them.
“Has the Noiseless Room been corroded by some sort of plant creature?”
Ciri suddenly placed her face directly on the Noiseless Room’s gla.s.s enclosure. Her actions surprised Tylene. But, Tylene managed a quick recovery and continued to narrate today’s story with a gentle voice.
“Those should be the branches of the World Tree. Nevertheless, the speed of growth is simply terrifying.”
Joshua walked over to Ciri and patted her shoulder to remind her to act more lady-like.
That said, the appearance of the interior of the Noiseless Room was indeed extremely strange. A large quant.i.ty of branches and light-emitting green leaves were occupying the interior walls. As for the floor, they were covered in vein-like roots.
“I think this should be the cause.”
The magic network interface appeared before Ciri. It was showing the Voice of Norland. The number of active listeners shown on the interface reached over four hundred thousand.
“This number is equivalent to one in four residents of Norland listening to Tylene’s ‘my stepmother shuns me’ story. That’s the premise of the story, no?”
“That’s only the beginning portion of Snow White,” Joshua corrected the mage lady’s mistake. Then, he looked to the active listeners beneath the Voice of Norland.
For a city with over a million residents like Norland, having over four hundred million audiences was a terrifying audience to population ratio.
“We’ll have to credit the success of the World’s Singers compet.i.tion,” said Joshua.
“If that’s the case, why did you end the compet.i.tion this soon? If there are a bit more number of compet.i.tors for the semifinals, the compet.i.tion would’ve lasted longer.”
While Ciri knew that the seemingly impartial compet.i.tion actually possessed layers of dark secrets, it was still pretty enjoyable to watch.
Multiple pleasant surprises have occurred in the compet.i.tion.
“That’s because the audiences will become bored if they watch too many identical performances. Besides, the purpose of the compet.i.tion is to help the Blackwood Elves accelerate the growth speed of their World Tree,” Joshua took a pause before continuing, “But, the most realistic reason behind it would be my greed... Norland’s audiences are not enough to satisfy me.”
“Like how you wanted to cover the entire world with the magic network?”
Following Joshua, Ciri had witnessed multiple ‘unimaginable’ feats that he accomplished. The audience amount for the Voice of Norland was also one such feat.
Because of that, Ciri’s view of Joshua had changed to ‘this kid’s gone insane’ to an ‘oh, what’s next?’-sort of indifference.
“So, do you want to enjoy some free dinner with me tonight?”
Joshua revealed a camp on the Mage Forum to Ciri. The camp belonged to the Flower of Farucci, Gallolie. Her camp was also the one with the greatest number of followers.
There were already over a thousand posts on her camp. The Flower of Farucci would update her camp with news multiple times a day.
The latest camp post from today was a ‘Final Goodbye Banquet. Ah! Sure enough, I don’t want to leave Norland!’ A picture of a dining table with various different kinds of fruits and beverages was attached beneath the post.
There were already over a thousand replies beneath the post. A portion of them were bidding farewell to Gallolie whereas the others were expressing their desire to have Gallolie stay.
“Mn!” Ciri would naturally not miss out on the opportunity of free food.
Before leaving, Joshua wrote a note and stuck it on the Noiseless Room’s gla.s.s enclosure. The Frost Elf Tylene would be able to see it just from raising her head.
‘Come to the Farucci’s Mansion to partake in the banquet after you’re finished. If you’re too tired, you can rest in the tavern.”
.........
Farucci’s Mansion. Indoor Garden.
“Everything in my field of vision will be drawn on the ‘white paper’ by doing this?”
“Not drawn. How should I explain it? It’s going to be recording everything you see on the paper. It’s not an oil painting or a charcoal painting. Instead, it’s really going to record everything you’re seeing.”
Gallolie was currently teaching the country girl Luvita how to use the camera.
In order to commemorate the growth of their Sacred Tree reaching a new stage, the Blackwood Elves decided to hold a not-too-grand celebration tonight.
Luvita felt that the celebration was similar to the n.o.bles’ ball parties. The only difference was that there were no mutual deceptions and sweet-talks presented in the b.a.l.l.s.
“You just have to press that thing called ‘shutter."”
Gallolie and Luvita, the lead of tonight’s celebration, were hiding at a corner of the garden. In Luvita’s hand was the camera Joshua gifted Gallolie.
“Like this?”
Luvita was extremely careful with the camera. She was afraid that her tiny movements would damage the fragile arcanotech device.
Although Luvita has only known the Daughter of the Forest for a short period of time, she knew very well how important the camera was to Gallolie.
She clearly remembered the time when Priestess Oranka was curious about the camera and asked the Daughter of the Forest to borrow her camera so that she could research it. At that time, Gallolie immediately expressed a look of alertness. Her expression was akin to a little kitten that had its fish jerky being threatened by someone.
Luvita felt extremely fortunate that Gallolie was willing to magnanimously lend her camera to her tonight.
Following Gallolie’s instructions, Luvita aimed the camera at a flower in the indoor garden and pressed the shutter.
“Let me see.”
Gallolie inserted her magic power into the arcanotech device. The freshly taken picture revealed itself to the two girls in the form of an image projection.
“It really came out exactly the same as what I was seeing,” Luvita extended her hand to touch the flower before her eyes. However, her fingers pa.s.sed through the projection.
“This is only the first step. If you want to make this image appear on the white paper, there’s some complicated procedures that need to be done. But, right now...”
Gallolie raised the camera and aimed it at Luvita.
After having experienced the World’s Singers compet.i.tion, the Blackwood Elf lady has grown accustomed to camera lenses pointing at her and was able to maintain her calm.
“Daughter of the Forest, what should I do?” Luvita didn’t understand why Gallolie would suddenly want to take an ‘image’ of her.
“Miss Champion of the World’s Singers compet.i.tion, you’ll be leaving Norland soon. Don’t you want to bid farewell to the people of Norland?”
“Bid... farewell? But, Daughter of the Forest... will humans really care about my whereabouts?”
Even though the final performance from the nun from the Nation of the Holy Church was a bit lacking and Luvita managed to conquer Norland’s audience and win the championship in the compet.i.tion using her own singing, the champion lady was completely unaware that she had become a celebrity.
“Of course there are people who care! Furthermore, it’s a lot of people! They not only care about your whereabouts, they also care about what you’re doing everyday, what you’re eating everyday and what you’re thinking about everyday.”
As an experienced senior, Gallolie began to provide guidance to Luvita. But, as Luvita continued to hear her, she started feeling gooseb.u.mps.
“Why would people care about those things?” Luvita cannot imagine the feeling of having a whole bunch of people paying attention to her everyday activities.
“Why else? It’s because they’re fond of you. It’s normal to become happy from seeing anything the person you’re fond of is doing. Luvita, using just your singing is not going to be enough to make the ma.s.ses become fond of you. You must also learn how to interact with them,” said Gallolie.
“Interact? Daughter of the Forest, there must be humans all over the world that are fond of you, right? Do you have to interact with all of them?”
Luvita never imagined that it would be this troublesome to become a popular singer or actor!
“That’s not quite possible, no? Back then, due to my mother, I was unable to listen to the thoughts of my theater audiences. As for interacting with them, it’s simply impossible. Fortunately, I met Joshua...”
Gallolie fiddled with the arcanotech camera in her hand. Unwittingly, a smile appeared on her youthful face.
“The Son of Chaos?”
“It’s the camps of the Mage Forum. I’ll ask Joshua to help you set up a camp later. As for now, show a smile. Your fans are all waiting for you to say goodbye.”
Luvita was still unable to understand what Gallolie was saying.
Having grown up in the forest all her life, Luvita was unable to comprehend the meaning of ‘idol’ and ‘celebrity’ even now. But, she knew that she had succeeded, won the World’s Singers compet.i.tion and become the champion. Most importantly, the Sacred Tree received its rebirth!
“All of these must be given by the people who liked my singing, right?” asked Luvita all of a sudden.
After she received Gallolie’s a.s.surance, the Blackwood Elf girl tried her best to put a smile on her face. Unfortunately, tears were overflowing from the corners of her eyes.
Everything came too suddenly. Gallolie was caught at a loss. Nevertheless, she still managed to press the shutter and successfully recorded the scene into the originium crystal.
“Thank you everyone,” she said with a soft voice.