Byles, a member of Beldan City's viscount's guard who had managed to get a rare half-day off, rode his bicycle toward a film set on the east side of the city, where the buildings were styled after the Fourth Epoch.
The streets bustled with vendors and people hoping to appear in a film, become famous, and transform their lives overnight as "extras"...
The term "extras" had come from the viscount, but Byles thought it fit perfectly.
Ever since Beldan's coal mines ran dry, we haven't seen this kind of prosperity in years... No, even back then, it couldn't compare to this...
How lucky we are that the viscount was granted Beldan as his fief!
As Byles reflected on this, his bicycle neared its destination. The buildings around him grew visibly stranger. Their mismatched styles on either side made him uncomfortable.
Fortunately, Byles was not obsessive about such things. He shook off the feeling, and anticipation and delight took its place.
The crew filming in the area was working on the historical drama The Tudor Dynasty. Byles had come to visit the set.
He had recently fallen for one of its actresses. She was pretty enough, though hardly a great beauty, and played a minor supporting role. But perhaps it was fate: an encounter a few weeks earlier had left Byles deeply infatuated with her.
At a prop-built "town," Byles locked his bicycle to a nearby lamppost, took a three-tiered food container from the front basket, and headed toward the filming location.
The crew was shooting a scene in which a prince of the Tudor Dynasty ran into danger in the town and met a commoner woman there.
The story was supposedly based on a romance novel Emperor Roselle had written under another pen name. It had originally been set in