The Speedrun Manual of Miss Witch - Chapter 276

The red curtain was slowly drawn open. Everyone’s attention was drawn to it. When they looked at the stage, almost everyone who regularly came to the Royal Grand Theater was slightly stunned.

There was no scenery on the stage. On the empty stage stood a young lady, and a piano was also placed there.

“Her Excellency Prime Minister?”

“What is this about?”

“Is she an actress playing the Prime Minister? She really looks like her.”

“Her eyes are really scary…”

Many noticed that the red-haired young lady’s hand was resting on something covered with a red cloth. It looked square and extremely thin, like a picture frame. It was leaning against the piano.

“Welcome everyone to my performance… It is my honor,” Ciel said with a sweeping gaze and a smile, delivering an elegant and confident opening. “I hope this performance can leave a deep impression in the hearts of all the audience members.”

“No soprano even. What do you want to perform here? A solo? Little brat.”

Someone in the audience yelled out a taunt, drawing waves of laughter.

“High notes? Of course. I just need a helper from the audience…” Ciel slowly looked up, towards the noble box, raised her right hand, and smiled, “Mr. Francis, would you grace me with your presence and complete this performance with me?”

Francis Weinmeier, a name Ciel remembered, gradually became clear in her memory with the fragmented discussions she had just overheard.

He was one of the people who represented the Great Western Railway Company in negotiations with Avena… and caused Avena a lot of hardship and grievances.

Ciel had remembered all of this…

But she wasn’t someone who held grudges. She was even willing to invite the other party to the “best seats in the house” to personally experience this performance.

Francis was slightly stunned, but subconsciously, he stood up.

He looked directly into the young lady’s scarlet pupils, as if enchanted, crossed the crowd, and climbed onto the stage.

Only when he stood on the stage did he feel a slight chill in his mind.

The pink candle stuck on his forehead was dissipating, turning into pink mist and vanishing without a trace. He stared blankly down at his hands, which were covered by long white silk gloves.

“Hah!”

The things on his hands startled him, but when he saw the skirt he was wearing, his expression began to twist.

“Who did this!”

He suddenly turned his head and met the gaze of thousands of people.

Those people had strange expressions on their faces and were all wearing bizarre women’s clothing, smiling and applauding him.

It seemed no one thought their clothes were strange at all. They seemed to think it was perfectly normal.

“Hey!” Francis suddenly turned his head, looked in Ciel’s direction, and tremblingly pointed at her, “What exactly do you want to do? What have you done?”

“Me?” Ciel looked at Francis, who was facing her, and slowly said, “I merely kindly invited Your Excellency up to admire a painting…”

Ciel slowly raised her hand, and the red cloth covering the painting was pulled open.

Francis subconsciously looked in the direction where the red cloth was lifted. A scarlet vortex, framed, was revealed before his eyes.

Francis’s previously excited and confused emotions halted abruptly, as if a pause button had been pressed, instantly replaced by fear.

The terrifying vortex subtly spun before him. A vibrant red became the only color adorning the black and white world on the canvas.

That red wasn’t paint at all… Instead, countless translucent blood vessels pulsated beneath the canvas. On each protruding vein, tiny, sand-like eyeballs seemed to float. Those eyeballs reflected Francis’s terrified eyes.

In his eyes, it was as if everything had vanished, leaving only that crimson vortex.

In Francis’s peripheral vision, those blood vessels were constantly pulsating, as if absorbing something from within the canvas.

Out of the corner of his eye, he seemed to see large quantities of blood, like water gushing through a storm drain, sweeping away everything and surging towards him. A feeling of coldness and suffocation filled his heart.

And in Ciel’s eyes, Francis was trembling before the painting. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he had seen a devil from the deepest parts of hell.

Ciel slowly raised her hands, holding them flat in front of her. Her right hand, as if holding a conductor’s baton, gently circled a few times, then slowly lifted upwards.

“Let’s have a world-shattering high note, Your Excellency Francis.”

Ciel smiled, provoking Francis with her words, waking him up.

And the moment Francis was awakened, was the beginning of his breakdown.

“Ah ah ah ah!!!!”

He screamed hoarsely, his pitch so high that even some high-note singers might feel ashamed. And as Francis collapsed, the painting, no longer obscured by him, was fully revealed to everyone in the theater.

Only a brief one or two seconds of silence.

Here, became hell.

Chaos and wailing became the main theme. People frantically tried to flee, trampling over each other… Some who hadn’t seen the painting also tried to escape in terror, but found no exits anywhere.

Those people frantically tried to escape to less crowded areas, but when they ran towards the stage, they finally saw the painting, and collapsed on the spot.

The sound waves composed of wails rose and fell. The red-haired young lady stood on the stage, slowly bowed to the audience below, then sat down in front of the piano and lifted the piano lid.

No one could escape being infected by this horrifying “melody.” People began to become increasingly mad under the influence of the painting. Hallucinations began to appear in their eyes, and these hallucinations made them start biting and cursing each other.

It was time to test the results of her learning.

The young lady’s hands fell on the piano keys and lightly pressed down. A gentle piano piece, completely out of place with the bloody scene, slowly began to play.

Symphony No. 9 – Finale.

“Ode to Joy.”

The gentle, divine music contrasted sharply with the terrifying riot below. Imogen stood backstage, watching the scene before her, her eyelids twitching.

Not until the young lady finished her piece, stood up, bowed to the piles of corpses below, and took out a potion and drank it, did Imogen feel a pulse in the blood vessels in her temples.

You call this a performance? You call this infection?

You call this a “Melody Master”???

No? How did she actually succeed in digesting it?!

Seeing the young lady put down the potion bottle, Imogen, who had been watching the situation unfold, finally smiled with relief.

Two potions in an hour, path jumping, abstract reconstitution rituals…

Imogen felt that if she continued to stay with this Excellency, she might begin to doubt all her previous transcendent knowledge.