Animation Producer in a Fantasy World

To be honest, Duke Grinewald had expected “The Disappearance of Elli and Hamel” to fail miserably.

But when the lid was opened, the result was the opposite.

“The Disappearance of Elli and Hamel” was achieving unprecedented success in the history of the continent.

For example:

“Selling seat A-2 for May 10th at 1:20 PM for 1 gold!”

“…1 gold? Wasn’t the original ticket price 30 silver? This is complete price gouging!”

“So, are you not going to buy it? If you don’t like it, don’t. As far as I know, all tickets were sold out until at least May 17th, so you can wait until then.”

“…No, but even so, tripling the price is a bit too much. If you could just lower it a little-”

“Hey, if you’re not going to buy it, step aside. Mister, I’ll buy it. I’ll buy that scalped ticket for 2 gold.”

“Hey, who said I wasn’t buying? Don’t cut in line! I’ll buy the ticket first!”

It was quite a common occurrence for tickets to be sold out at theaters and for scalped tickets to be openly traded.

“Excuse me, are there no Ifrit dolls besides the Undine doll? You know, in the anime, when Ifrit was crying ‘If, if’, it was so cute.”

“Don’t worry, sir. As it happens, Ifrit dolls are scheduled to be released soon, following the Undine dolls. If Ifrit dolls come into the shop, I’ll set aside at least one for you in advance.”

“Oh, my. You don’t look it, but you’re quite a polite young man!”

Merchandise related to “The Disappearance of Elli and Hamel” was selling out as soon as it arrived in stores.

“Wasn’t it very touching in the early part of the movie, when Hamel catches the falling Elli in the sky and they walk together in the air?”

“Ah, yes. You mean that sky-walking scene? While watching that scene, my daughter kept singing about how she wanted to walk in the sky like Elli, you know.”

“Personally, I found the scene where Hamel whispers ‘Live, you are beautiful’ while looking at the unconscious Elli more touching than the sky-walking scene. How should I put it, it’s like I understand why women like bad boys?”

“For me, I got goosebumps when the Spirit King said the line, ‘I am not a monster. I am a god.’ Surely, the Spirit King who rules the spirit world must be a god-like being, right?”

“The magicians from the magic tower say that the Spirit King is indeed a god-like being in his own dimension. It means the producer didn’t just make up nonsense.”

“Is that so…! As expected, the producer is truly amazing!”

There were even groups gathered at cafes in front of the theater, talking all day about “The Disappearance of Elli and Hamel” and making all sorts of interpretations.

Everywhere in the empire, you could hear talk about “The Disappearance of Elli and Hamel”.

‘It’s the end of the world.’
So for the duke, this whole situation felt like a surprise show to deceive him.

“Currently, one theater alone cannot accommodate all the people who want to see ‘The Disappearance of Elli and Hamel’. Therefore, we’ve decided to rent ten more theaters to screen the animation. The theater owners are even begging us to rent their theaters.”

“The VIP-only box seats are fully booked for a week.”

“The animation merchandise business that Lord Ragna is running is currently experiencing overwhelming success. The products are selling out as soon as they’re produced.”

“I hear that various noble families are investigating who the voice actors for this animation are. We’ve taken measures to ensure that Lady Serika’s personal information is not revealed in the process.”

“…Well, that’s one thing you did right.”

While all the news was breaking the duke’s heart, this one piece of information couldn’t help but be very pleasing.

In fact, he wanted to boast to everyone that it was his daughter who voiced Elli in “The Disappearance of Elli and Hamel”.

But knowing that Serika wasn’t the type to enjoy being in the public eye, the duke had no choice but to restrain himself.

“…By the way, I really don’t understand. I know ‘The Disappearance of Elli and Hamel’ is an interesting work, but how could it achieve such great success?”

At the duke’s muttering, the secretary standing beside him carefully opened his mouth.

“Well… It seems that before the animation was released, Lord Ragna sent invitations to several noble families. That is… mainly to the families who had come to the Tersian Barony in the past to watch ‘Nymph and Goblin’.”

“…What?”

So, does that mean Ragna distributed free tickets to certain noble families in advance?

Why on earth?

“Lord Ragna distributed two invitations each to only a few families. In the names of the children of noble families who had watched ‘Nymph and Goblin’ in the past, and their guardians. And he included an explanation that ‘The Disappearance of Elli and Hamel’ was the same type of animation as ‘Nymph and Goblin’. So…”

“…I see. So that’s how things unfolded.”

Listening to the secretary’s explanation, the duke could roughly understand how the situation had progressed.

The first animation Ragna made, “Nymph and Goblin”, was a huge hit with the children of noble families.

Unlike others, the children of noble families would be huge fans of Ragna’s animations, so if he made a new animation, they would definitely go to see it.

‘But the trap he set didn’t end there.’

Cunningly, Ragna sent invitations only to ‘certain’ noble families who had watched his animation in the past, and not to others.

But even if they didn’t receive invitations, there’s no way the nobles wouldn’t notice this fact.

Because the social circle of nobles is very small, rumors about such things spread very quickly.

Then, how would the noble families who knew nothing about the situation feel when they saw this state of affairs?
‘…Damn that bastard. Too clever for his own good.’

By sending just a few invitations before the anime was released, Ragna succeeded in luring a huge number of nobles to the theater.

And from the moment he drew the nobles to the theater, the success of “The Disappearance of Elli and Hamel” was all but guaranteed.

Because “The Disappearance of Elli and Hamel” was a work with charm that anyone, regardless of age or gender, could be completely absorbed in.

“Thanks to that, the plan has been completely messed up.”

Originally, the duke had intended to use the box office failure of “The Disappearance of Elli and Hamel” as an excuse to prevent Ragna and Serika from meeting.

But now that “The Disappearance of Elli and Hamel” has achieved record-breaking success, there was no particular justification to prevent the two from meeting.

Especially now that Serika was playing the role of Elli’s voice actor, it was even more so.

The duke gritted his teeth as he imagined Ragna and Serika sitting together and chatting casually.

But that was only for a moment.

‘…Still, objectively speaking, that Ragna is quite a decent fellow. He’s a great genius who can create a new art genre that doesn’t exist in this world, and he’s currently making huge profits through secondary creation rights. With that much, his personality doesn’t seem too bad either…’

‘No matter what, it’s absolutely unacceptable! How dare that dirty man try to touch our Serika carelessly!’

‘But… doesn’t Serika have to get married someday? Since I can’t keep her with me for life, it might be worth seriously considering allowing her to meet him a little…’

‘No, absolutely not unless I’m dead! Who knows what dark intentions Ragna might be hiding inside!’

Seeing the duke clash two egos in his head, his close associates let out small sighs.

But since the duke couldn’t be left in that state forever, his secretary carefully opened his mouth while watching for the right moment.

“Excuse me, Your Grace. I have one more thing to tell you regarding the issue of several noble families looking for Lady Serika’s personal information that I mentioned earlier.”

“…What is it?”

“Well… It seems that among those investigating the young lady, there might be someone of noble blood.”

“What did you say?”

The moment he heard those words, the duke frowned.

Although he used the euphemistic expression ‘noble blood’, the duke knew all too well what word it symbolized.

“By noble blood, you don’t mean-”

“Yes, that’s right.”

The secretary nodded and said.

“It seems the imperial family is looking for Lord Ragna and Lady Serika.”

In front of the theater where “The Disappearance of Elli and Hamel” was being screened.

Right there, the employee selling tickets for the animation unconsciously gulped.

“Are you still selling tickets by any chance? I’d like to purchase a VIP seat ticket for today if possible.”

A woman so beautiful it was dazzling, smiling gently while saying this.

And at this moment, the employee’s intuition was telling him this:

That woman must be of a very noble status, without a doubt.

At least, incomparably more so than the riffraff who go around throwing their weight about as barons or viscounts.

Therefore, the employee opened his mouth very carefully so as not to offend the woman.

“…I’m sorry, but all the VIP seat tickets for today have already been purchased. Noble customers had reserved them in advance.”

“Hmm, then could you tell me who these nobles who bought the tickets are? If I persuade those customers, they might be willing to give up their tickets to me.”

At those words, the employee unconsciously made a terrified expression.

“Th-that’s impossible! Do you know how noble their status is! Not just viscounts or counts, even marquises have reserved these tickets-”

“Is that so? Then there’s no problem at all.”

The woman smiled gently and said this:

“If the people who reserved the tickets come here, could you tell them this? That the imperial princess, Karleigh von Lohengramm, would like to have a word with them.”

“…Pardon?”