'I really can't do anything about you.' Rina pressed a hand to her forehead, looking helplessly at Furina. 'It's useless to blame you now. A week is a very tight schedule, so you need to quickly contact their troupe. I will guide your rehearsal.'
Seeing her plan succeed, Furina excitedly hugged Rina and happily cried out. "Yay! Other Me is the best!"
Rina's cheeks were slightly flushed from being suddenly hugged by Furina. She gently lowered Furina's arms wrapped around her. 'Alright, alright, go quickly. Don't act like a child.'
Furina returned to the outside world, called Irene over and instructed her to send someone to inform the Fontaine Opera Epiclese Troupe of her arrival time.
Meanwhile, at the Opera Epiclese Troupe.
The Opera Epiclese Troupe was holding an emergency meeting; the celebratory banquet they were supposed to hold had been postponed.
The Troupe Leader, Thao, sat in the center. It was clear from his expression that he was both happy and worried.
The joy stemmed from the fact that Lady Furina had praised their play and was even going to participate in it. This was unprecedented and if handled correctly, their troupe could become one of the most famous in all of Fontaine.
But similarly, if this matter ended badly, they would likely be disbanded on the spot.
[T/L: Disclaimer, the author isn't the best at naming. Characters from other games might make a cameo as NPC's.]
Due to the Newspaper Offices' publicity, basically all of Fontaine knew about the matter and their plan to secretly negotiate with Furina to abandon the performance was ruined.
The troupe members were discussing animatedly; the conference room had turned into a chat room, filled with noise.
"Enough!" Thao stood up and slammed the table forcefully. The room instantly fell silent.
"We have no retreat from this matter. As the saying goes, wealth is found in danger. Since things have come to this, we might as well do our best and present the finest side of ourselves to Lady Furina and the audience."
Thao's words set the tone for the meeting. Just then, the notification from Furina arrived, leaving no one with anything further to say.
Everyone in the troupe was enthusiastically discussing how to handle this matter.
One day later.
Furina arrived at the main entrance of the Opera Epiclese Troupe at the agreed-upon time.
Just then, Thao led several troupe members out from the main entrance. When they saw Furina, they were all pleasantly surprised and said, "Welcome, Lady Furina! Thank you so much for favoring our production of Faust and coming to participate in our troupe. Please come in!"
Thao bent slightly, extending an arm to gesture for Furina to enter.
Furina did not stand on ceremony. She puffed up her non-existent chest and walked in gracefully, followed by Thao and his group.
"Lady Furina, may I ask if you have any..."
Before Thao could finish his question, Furina interrupted him.
"Let's quickly skip the boring parts. We should hurry to the rehearsal."
"Ah, yes, yes, you are right." A second of awkwardness flashed across Thao's face, but it quickly vanished.
The group walked into the rehearsal room together. Although he had made up his mind, Thao couldn't help but feel worried on the way.
"I hope Lady Furina genuinely knows how to perform and isn't just here to watch the excitement..."
The rehearsal room was not small; it was quite large and its facilities were definitely first-class.
"Lady Furina, this is the rehearsal venue for Faust. After careful consideration, we have decided to have you play the character Helen in the play. What are your thoughts on this?" Thao asked.
"Mm, anything is fine. Please give me a copy of the character profile and script. Let's go straight to makeup now."
Thao gave a look, and his subordinate immediately understood, handing over the character's profile.
Makeup Room.
Furina lay motionless in the chair, her eyes vacant, while the makeup artist applied the character's makeup.
At this moment, she was discussing the script with Rina in the Inner Space.
Twins sat close together, jointly reading the character's background, setting, artistic concept, and other information.
When watching the play yesterday, Furina had already learned some information about Helen through the actors' performances on stage, and now she had an in-depth understanding of the character.
Furina originally possessed excellent artistic literacy and quickly grasped such things. Coupled with Rina offering several valuable suggestions and her own ideas, Furina now understood the character Helen inside and out.
Returning to the outside world, the makeup artist had just finished Furina's makeup.
The makeup artists and products were the best in all of Fontaine, and Furina was quite satisfied with the resulting look.
However…
"The timing of your lighting is wrong! Wouldn't it be better if it was one second slower here?"
"Look at this prop. Isn't the color a bit too vibrant? Doing it this way somewhat fails to highlight the artistic concept of the character Helen. Take it away and lower the color saturation by one step."
"Music! Music! The rhythm is too fast here!"
Before the part where Furina was supposed to appear had even begun, she had already offered suggestions for improvement on at least three arrangements.
"These were clearly the best effects we came up with after long discussions... Even if you are the Hydro Archon, you shouldn't just casually dismiss us..." A stage manager secretly grumbled.
He turned around and saw Thao staring at him with a cold expression.
The stage manager smiled awkwardly. "Troupe Leader Thao, I'll go change it now..."
Only then did Thao smile. "Ah—that's right. I know this was the best result you came up with. But Lady Furina is the Hydro Archon. Even if her suggestions might be useless, we must heed them appropriately."
The stage manager reluctantly followed Furina's instructions. Once all adjustments were in place, the rehearsal resumed.
The result was astonishing—the performance effect immediately rose by a level.
They were all professionals, and the difference in performance quality was obvious to them. The performance improved by Furina was clearly superior to what they had before.
Seeing this situation, Thao was happy but also somewhat speechless.
He looked at the stage manager with a forced smile. "Is this what you called the best effect?"
"This..." The stage manager was rendered speechless. The fact was that Furina's casual suggestions completely overshadowed the results they had achieved through discussion.
Everyone in the entire crew was stunned by this remarkably effective change.
"I didn't expect Lady Furina to actually know so much about drama!"
"Yeah, I was ready for our troupe to fail miserably and have to look for new jobs."
But what surprised them even more was Furina's subsequent performance.