I'm Not A Master, I'm A Director (Type-Moon Fanfiction) - Chapter 47: Great Insight

No one, including Shinji and Cloris, spoke about what happened in the empty classroom that day.

However, since that day, while Shinji continued to wander aimlessly in the Clock Tower, he never appeared with Cloris again.

The ones most affected by this incident were not Shinji himself but Director Kayneth and Waver. Since Cloris came to discuss collaboration with them, most of the time, she was in the Modern Magecraft Theory. This significantly reduced the number of times Shinji came to cause trouble for them.

Although to outsiders, Shinji’s return to the Clock Tower seemed like aimless wandering through various departments, striking up conversations with people left and right, and this time not sparing even the guys!

Fortunately, Shinji himself was unaware of how these people perceived him. Otherwise, he would definitely insist on engraving the title “Kind-hearted Sir Shinji” into their DNA!

Shinji’s reason for striking up conversations everywhere was, of course, to recruit soon-to-graduate magus to join him in Fuyuki City.

Besides Ophelia, who had been selected as his secretary, quite a few young magus were lured to Fuyuki City.

The only regret Shinji had was that although he later found Fat Director, he declined Shinji’s invitation due to family affairs, only expressing the possibility of future cooperation.

As the release date of FSN approached in Europe and America, Shinji stopped wandering aimlessly and patiently waited for the results of the first screening of the film.

During this time, Shinji attended Ophelia’s thesis presentation only once, essentially providing a platform for his new secretary.

Although the audience for this internal thesis presentation was sparse, and Ophelia, who had just arrived in England from Germany, appeared somewhat introverted, the content she presented was fascinating. Her assumptions about the potential of Servant spirit origins greatly inspired Shinji.

“I’m starting to regret it.”

After the presentation, Lord Rufleus Nuada-Re Eulyphis, the Lord of the Clock Tower’s Department of Spiritual Evocation, sought out Shinji.

“Phamrsolone is even more outstanding than I imagined. I should have kept her.”

“She volunteered to be with me, old man,” Shinji said without any emotional fluctuations. “If you overlooked her talent, then don’t blame me for your bad eyesight.”

Compared to the teacher that Touko had, Shinji only retained a respectful attitude toward this member of the Three Giants because of Lü Bu’s respect for Dong Zhuo.

This was not only because the other party was an old-school aristocrat and a staunch supporter of bloodline theory but also because he was notorious for being a stubborn conservative—the classic representative of “old men” in Shinji’s terms.

More importantly, this old man had once ridiculed Shinji’s ancestor, Makiri Zolgen, openly mocking him as a dreamy magus during a public event, holding a paper about the Heroic Spirit left by the other party in public and claiming that he is a magus who love to dream.

How could Shinji endure this? This old man actually exposed the biggest secret of the Matou family to the public!

“Youngster of the Matou family, do you have a long-term collaboration proposal for our Department of Spiritual Evocation?” Rufleus seemed oblivious to Shinji’s indifferent attitude, continuing, “As your influence expands, the interpretation of your Servant summoning ritual will undoubtedly continue. You will need help to improve your ritual, won’t you?”

“I’m already collaborating with the El-Melloi family.”

“Hehe, don’t say that.” Rufleus smiled insincerely. “I know you’re dissatisfied with me. But you should understand that the Mystery is supreme for us magus. Under this premise, personal grievances should yield to the Mystery, shouldn’t they?”

Shinji’s eyelids twitched, unsure whether he should give this old skeleton, who was likely older than his grandfather, a good talking-to.

Fortunately, at this moment, Ophelia, who had just finished her presentation, came to find Shinji. Shinji quickly ended the conversation with Rufleus.

“I’ll consider your suggestion. I have something else to attend to now. Excuse me.”

After saying that, Shinji slightly bowed and walked towards Ophelia.

Seeing Shinji coming to greet her, Ophelia relaxed her shoulders and revealed a relieved smile.

“Senior Matou!”

“Still calling me senior?” Shinji asked with a smile.

Ophelia tilted her head, calling out in a somewhat naive manner, “Then… Lord Shinji?”

“Hiss…”

Shinji took a sharp breath.

“Never mind, just call me boss.”

Although he felt a hint of joy inside, Lord Shinji gave a relatively normal title for the sake of his image.

“Okay, boss.”

Ophelia quickly changed her address, not insisting on her previous choice.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Shinji nodded and turned to walk towards the Modern Magecraft Theory.

“Boss, where are we going?”

Ophelia hurriedly carried her documents, following him.

“We’re going to play games on the servers.”

“Huh?”

Shinji’s answer left Ophelia puzzled.

Fortunately, a few minutes later, Ophelia understood what Shinji meant.

In the meeting room of the Modern Magecraft Theory, Shinji, Kayneth, Waver, Touko, Cloris, and other representatives of magus families gathered around a large conference table.

As Ophelia was in the role of a secretary, she naturally didn’t have a seat. She stood obediently behind Shinji, holding pen and paper, ready to record the content of the meeting.

Everyone in the room looked serious, eagerly awaiting Cloris. Only Touko leaned back in his chair, smoking leisurely, and waved at Ophelia.

Most of the meeting’s content was related to FSN, with little relevance to Ophelia.

Once everyone was present, Cloris didn’t waste much time. She stood up and said, “The first weekend box office results for ‘Fate/Stay Night’ have been released. To facilitate calculations, I’ve converted all figures into US dollars.”

At this point, Cloris glanced at the British magus in the room, as if probing their attitudes.

Kayneth calmly said, “Miss Flora, please continue. Using dollars is more straightforward.”

If he had to be honest, Kayneth felt a bit uncomfortable using dollars instead of pounds as the unit. However, since there were magus from various countries present, using dollars for settlement was more practical. Thus, Kayneth had no grounds to object.

After hearing Kayneth’s response, Cloris didn’t seem to mind his indifferent tone. She cleared her throat and read out the data from the report.

“The first-weekend box office in North America is $50.63 million, in the UK it’s $6.89 million, in France it’s $5.87 million, in Germany it’s $7.52 million, in Spain it’s $3.21 million, and in Australia it’s $3.11 million… The box office for the first round of screenings has exceeded $72 million.”

This data caused a stir among everyone present. People marveled at the impressive performance of FSN at the box office.

However, Shinji remained relatively calm, even a bit disappointed.

After all, considering the popularity of FSN at film festivals, Shinji had guessed that the box office would be excellent. However, the first-weekend box office of just $50 million in North America, although not bad compared to Hollywood blockbusters at the same period in his memory, still had a gap when compared to the top-tier films.

‘Looks like we still need to gradually cultivate the market.’

While contemplating this, Shinji heard the surrounding people quietly discussing.

“I can’t believe it would gain so much!”

“I wonder how much the final box office will be?”

“With this, there’s no need to worry about this year’s research budget.”

…

Although everyone’s ultimate goal was the Root, the path to the Root required a lot of money.

Everyone had worked hard over the past two years, investing funds, leveraging connections, gathering in the Modern Magecraft Theory, originally unseen by all of Clock Tower’s residents. And all of this was for the promised “lush and abundant land” by Shinji Matou?

‘These people have no vision.’

Hearing the excitement of those around him just because of over 70 million dollars, Shinji shook his head helplessly.

“Ah, their perspectives are just like this.”

Ophelia, standing behind Shinji, heard this and did not think there was any problem with Shinji’s curse. Instead, she admired Shinji’s calm attitude.

‘To achieve such a dazzling result and not show any emotion inside, truly worthy of being the boss!’

After sharing the joy of the high box office, the next task was to assign related “homework” to each family.

“You should all know that I’m preparing to shoot the second movie,” Shinji announced to everyone with his chin resting on his hands. “The new movie will continue with the theme of the Holy Grail War, so I need everyone’s help in collecting the Mystic Codes for summoning Heroic Spirits. I’ve already written out the summoning list for this time.”

While Shinji was speaking, Ophelia quickly distributed materials to everyone present.

“On this paper, besides Mystic Codes, there are also magecrafts that may be used in my next movie.”

Compared to FSN, the scale of FZ was larger, and it involved more techniques in shooting.

To ensure the quality of the movie’s special effects, Shinji naturally needed more advanced craft.

“I’ve already recruited some magus from Clock Tower, but to tackle these challenges within three months, manpower is still not enough. So, I hope everyone can send a few people from their own families to form a specialized technical team with the magus I’ve recruited.”

This so-called team was naturally the embryonic form of the magical special effects company in Shinji’s mind. In his future vision, this company would be a top-tier presence in both magical and computer special effects.

Shinji continued speaking.

“This team will be led by Miss Aozaki Touko, specifically to solve the technical problems in movie special effects. As for the technologies developed, personal reputation goes to the individual, but the benefits generated by the technology belong to the Modern Magecraft Theory, providing assistance to the department’s development.”

Although magic was a very personal matter, some people were willing to share their techniques. Especially for technologies developed by this team, they would almost always be made public within the Clock Tower.

Of course, these technologies weren’t shared for free; if others wanted to use them, they had to pay.

Hearing that the technology would go to the department, a few representatives wanted to object, but after glancing at the unyielding Kayneth, they silently closed their mouths.

Everyone here relied on the protection of the El-Melloi family. This bit of profit wasn’t worth arguing with the big boss over.

“Finally, we can’t relax on the publicity front for the movie.”

At the end of the meeting, Cloris suddenly reminded, “Although the poor professional reviews for FSN couldn’t prevent our movie from achieving high box office results, it’s hard to say whether they’ll succeed next time. After all, the influence of those professionals in movie promotion is not to be underestimated.”

“So, to counter those annoying guys, we need to establish our own territory! Since the critics don’t like us, let the audience who likes us evaluate our movie!”

“Our Time Group has already created a website specifically for reviewing movies. I hope everyone can contact the media as much as possible to promote this new website and enhance its credibility in the eyes of the general public!”

“Just like how the Director leaves the decaying Department of Mineralogy, leading everyone to start anew in the Modern Magecraft Theory Department! We also need to build a brand-new propaganda camp that belongs to us!”

Listening to Cloris’s speech, Shinji smirked and said, “Tch, isn’t this just a verbatim recitation of my words?”

The meeting room was extremely quiet at this moment, and everyone heard Shinji’s words.

Cloris squinted her eyes and asked with a dangerous tone, “Shinji, what are you muttering about?”

Shinji looked up and met Cloris’s gaze, then calmly replied without blushing or skipping a beat, “I said, Cloris, you have great insight.”