(3rd Person POV)
The theatre came into view ten minutes later — a grand building by the city's standards, the kind of structure that had clearly once meant something. A young boy stood out front with a stack of handbills, calling out to anyone who slowed their pace.
"Come see the Legend of the Falling Hero — last tickets available, the curtain rises within the hour! Don't miss your chance, come see the Legend of the Falling Hero—"
Most people walked past without looking at him. A few had stopped to buy, but the stack in his hands was still thick.
Arthur approached. "I'll take one."
The boy blinked, visibly startled that it had worked. "Of course, sir! Five silver!"
Arthur counted them out and took the ticket. The boy thanked him with the particular gratitude of someone who hadn't been having a good afternoon. Arthur nodded and headed inside.
He handed the ticket at the door and stepped through.
The house was nearly empty. A scatter of occupied seats across rows that could have held several hundred. In a dark corner near the back, a couple had decided the dim lighting was invitation enough and were making thorough use of it.
He remembered what Reiner had said when he'd mentioned wanting to buy a theatre: "If that's what you're after, I know of a cheap one. Washed-up place on the east side of the city — the Eastern Theatre. Worth a look if your expectations are modest."
Looking around now, modest felt generous.
Dust on the railings. Cobwebs in the upper corners where nobody had thought to reach with a broom in some time. The upholstery on several seats had given up entirely. The stage curtain had faded from what was probably once a deep red to something closer to the color of old rust.
Arthur found a seat in the middle and waited.
The curtain eventually parted.
A chubby man in his forties stepped forward to the front of the stage, scroll in hand, and began.
"The Seven Heroes of legend once faced the cruelest demon king to ever walk this earth — and triumphed. But that is not the story we tell tonight. Tonight, we speak of what came after. Of a legendary hero, and the poor servant girl who undid him completely."
The cast emerged behind him. A young woman in servant's clothes, hunched under the weight of a cruel household.
It was a simple story, and it moved simply — a straight line from hardship to love to resolution, every beat arriving exactly when expected. The audience offered polite applause at the appropriate moments, which was about as much as the material invited.
'The acting isn't bad,' Arthur thought, watching from the middle of the house. 'But the story has no edge to it.'
He wasn't really watching the story anymore. He was watching the young woman playing the servant.
She was good. Better than the material deserved — her movements natural and unforced, her expressions calibrated in a way that didn't look calibrated at all.
Even in the stilted scenes, she found something real to do with her hands, her posture, the way she turned from another character. She had the instinct. Whatever training she'd had, the talent underneath it was genuine.
The male lead was competent. Solid in the physical demands of the role, believable enough in the quieter moments, but he didn't have what she had. The difference was visible.
'Those two are worth something,' Arthur thought, stroking his chin slowly. 'The rest are filling seats on stage. But those two — I could use them.'
He was starting from nothing in this world. No staff, no talent roster, no infrastructure beyond a freshly stamped merchant license and whatever he could build from the ground up.
The portal wasn't stable enough to bring anyone through from home. Whatever he was going to build here, he was building with local materials.
He turned that over until the curtain came down and the applause — such as it was — faded.
Then he stood and made his way toward the backstage entrance.
The chubby narrator stepped into his path before he got through the door, one hand raised in polite obstruction. "Sir, this area is restricted. Can I ask who you are?"
Arthur looked at him. "I'd like to speak with the owner."
The man's expression shifted through several things at once, the most prominent of which was the private panic of someone who had just decided this was probably about a refund. "The owner? May I ask — is there some kind of problem? Was something not to your satisfaction—"
"Nothing like that," Arthur said. "I have something important to discuss with him. It shouldn't take long."
The chubby man paused, then drew himself up slightly. "As it happens, good sir — I am the owner."
Arthur looked at him again, more carefully this time. Short, a little rumpled, but there was something in the way he held himself that fit. The posture of a man who had presided over a place for a long time, even if the place had seen better days.
"That saves me some trouble, then."
"I'm Lykan Steel." He watched Arthur with cautious eyes. "And what exactly is this important business of yours?"
Arthur smiled. "Simple. I want to buy your theatre."
The silence that followed was immediate and complete.
Then the whispers started, low but not low enough.
"Did someone actually just say they want to buy this place?"
"I heard it too."
"He has to be joking."
"Does he not know the situation? This place is barely breathing. If not for Sir Leo sending Mr. Lykan money from the party's earnings, the doors would've closed months ago."
Arthur caught every word. Lykan, for his part, heard none of it — the years hadn't been kind to his ears.
"Sir." Lykan's voice was careful. "For what reason would you want to buy this theatre? As you've no doubt observed, the business is... not flourishing."
"That doesn't particularly concern me," Arthur said. "I'm a new merchant in this city, just registered today. This theatre strikes me as a reasonable place to begin."
Lykan's eyes moved around the dusty house involuntarily. "You intend to renovate it? Turn it into a shop of some kind?"
"I can do whatever I like with it once it's mine. That's generally how purchasing things works."
Lykan was quiet for a moment. Then he shook his head, slowly and with some effort. "I appreciate the offer, sir. Genuinely. But this theatre was my father's before it was mine. I can't sell it to watch it become something else." He straightened a little. "I still intend to restore it. Bring it back to what it was."
Arthur glanced around the hall — the cobwebs, the empty rows, the faded curtain. Then back to Lykan. "And how exactly do you plan to do that?"
Lykan had no immediate answer. The color rose in his face.
"I'll tell you what," Arthur said. "Sell it to me, and I'll restore it myself. Not convert it — restore it. A working theatre, running properly."
"You?" Lykan couldn't quite keep the skepticism out of his voice. "I've spent years in this industry and I haven't managed it. What makes you think you can walk in and do what I couldn't?"
"If I fail," Arthur said simply, "I return full ownership to you. No conditions. And I won't ask for a single coin back." He let that land for a moment. "We can draw up a contract and register it with the City Council if you want it official."
Lykan stared at him.
The offer was almost unreasonable in how little it asked. A stranger, newly arrived, willing to absorb the entire financial risk of a failing venture and hand it back if things went wrong...
It was very hard not to be tempted by that.
"That is..." Lykan swallowed. "That is quite an unusual arrangement."