8. Curse Plague (17)
8. Curse Plague (17)
As Wonderstein descended toward the village, he tallied his gains from the latest fight.
He'd absorbed the residual Devoluts clinging to the Flesh Mass when he destroyed it, which meant his Status Window had locked up again. He did the arithmetic in his head.
His total Devoluts were now lower than before he'd entered the village. The two rounds of base stat boosts had cost him—even converted back into Devoluts, the balance was negative. Adding in what he'd just absorbed barely brought him back to even, if that.
Expanding his Devolut capacity had burned over a thousand Devoluts, after all.
A storage space big enough for 1,966 Devoluts. He doubted he'd ever fill it before TT0 ended.
At least Maya's Affection level had broken thirty. He decided to take that as consolation.
He drew a flat tube from his coat and handed it to her.
"For you."
"What is it?"
"A new present."
"A present...? Wait, is it a magic tool?"
Wonderstein gave a satisfied nod at her startled expression. He'd known she would like it.
"Of course. By a stroke of luck, I happened to get my hands on something perfect for you, Miss Maya."
Name: Transparent Paint
Target: Surface of an object
Effect: Produces paint that renders the target invisible. Duration scales with mana density.
Requirements: Maya's Affection level 30, mana
Transparent Paint was one of Maya's exclusive items in TTT. The setting established her as an Illusion Magic prodigy, and she could even cast an invisibility spell. But the game designers couldn't let her use it freely without wrecking level balance, so she had to consume Transparent Paint items to charge an invisibility gauge. The stages distributed just the right amount.
This Transparent Paint, given as an Affection level reward, looked identical to the in-game item but wasn't a consumable. As long as she had enough mana, she could squeeze an endless supply from the tube.
Maya listened to his explanation, eyeing the object in his hand.
He'd asked her about invisibility magic once before. She'd answered that it was among the hardest disciplines in Illusion Magic, that fewer than three people in the world could achieve full invisibility through magic alone. When she'd asked why he wanted to know, he'd claimed it was mere curiosity, and she'd dismissed it.
Later, he'd drilled her on spraying paint with telekinesis. That training had enabled her to lend physical force to her illusions—the very reason the troupe had passed its examination.
She'd assumed those two things were the point of the training.
But the Troupe Leader had prepared a magic tool to match that skill all along.
Transparent Paint. From the moment he'd asked her about invisibility, from the moment he'd started her paint-control drills, he must have had this in mind.
A stroke of luck, he'd said... He really was a terrible liar.
"Heh heh. Upset about losing the sketchbook, weren't you?"
Gazing at his smiling face, Maya felt a complicated roil of emotion.
You're an idiot. I wasn't upset because I missed the sketchbook. I was worried about what price you'd paid to get it for me.
And now you've gone and given me something else without batting an eye. Do you have any idea how much it weighs on me to accept this?
"Ah, there's that 'how much did this cost' look again. Heh heh. Don't worry. It really wasn't expensive."
Maya gave a mental sigh. She found it dreadfully uncomfortable to recognize a lie and then have to read the heart behind it.
Her world had once been complete with only her own interpretations. She'd never cared about anyone else's point of view. She resented him for changing her. She'd had no idea that caring about another person could be this burdensome, this exhausting.
But... knowing that you are one of those others makes me happy.
She accepted his gift. Maybe because it had been inside his coat, it still held a gentle warmth.
"Thank y—"
Maya stopped mid-step. Behind her came the soft thud of a body collapsing.
"Troupe Leader?"
She turned. Wonderstein had slumped against a haystack by the roadside, dragging in ragged breaths. He was looking at her through eyes that kept trying to slide shut.
"Ah... I seem to have overdone it more than I thought... Haha, I didn't realize my body was this wrecked..."
He'd leaned too heavily on The Smiling Man's analgesic effect. He'd taken a direct hit with enough destructive power to match a siege weapon; there was no way his body was fine. The pain and exhaustion had flooded him all at once the moment the fight ended and the tension broke. Being able to ignore agony and smile wasn't purely a blessing.
His regeneration might have pulled him through, but the Devoluts he'd absorbed at the last moment had overloaded him, dragging his stats down.
"Sorry... I can't keep my eyes open..."
His lids slid shut. His body crumpled like a puppet with its strings severed.
Maya caught him carefully. Telekinesis let her support him without effort.
She swept a few stray strands of hair off his face. The clouds pulled aside, and moonlight spilled across his features—they looked sculpted from marble, chiseled and sharp. Even in sleep, he was still smiling.
How could he keep smiling through pain and injury?
She brushed a hand across his cheek. His skin was smooth for a man. She couldn't say why she'd done it—if she had to name a reason, impulse was the only word that fit.
Her fingers trailed over his closed eyes, traced the line of his nose. She explored his face with her fingertips, memorizing each contour as a three-dimensional form.
If only she'd had her sketchbook... She could have captured this face perfectly.
-Mreow...?
A cat's mew. She snatched her hand away.
Perched on the haystack, a cat was watching her with a suspicious expression.
"Wally?"
It was an illusion born of her own mana. She realized she'd conjured it unconsciously.
That was strange. Her Illusion Magic was built entirely on meticulous calculation. Creating something this vivid "unconsciously" should have been impossible for her—a quirk reserved for ordinary illusionists who wielded the Mystery of Image. They forged illusions through emotion, after all.
How had she, someone incapable of perceiving the Mystery of Image...?
-A person whose heart holds a blank canvas can never master Illusion Magic.
A teacher's words from the Academy surfaced. He'd meant it as advice, but to her it had always sounded like mystic nonsense—vague, unprovable. A canvas of the heart. She'd thought she'd never understand.
But if an Image-based illusion had actually manifested like this... did that mean something had finally filled that blank canvas inside her?
-Mre...ow...
Wally's brow creased. That same look he always wore when he'd spotted something displeasing.
Maya recalled what she'd been doing just moments ago. Heat crept into her cheeks.
"This is none of your business."
She erased that "certain feeling" from her heart. In the same instant, the Image-based illusion of Wally flickered and vanished.
Empty. Clean. The canvas was white again.
She cradled Wonderstein and glided down the hillside as if sliding across the surface of the earth.
-Mreooow!
From a corner of her mind, Wally let out a disgruntled yowl. She ignored it.
A few minutes later, a massive beast appeared where the two had been. It was so tall its head brushed the roof of a building. It shoved its snout into the haystack and snuffled. Teeth bared, drool dripping, it bolted off after the trail Maya had left behind.
***
The Monster Circus Troupe still hadn't entered the village. They remained clustered at the entrance.
They now understood the Curse Plague had spread through the village—and that they were deeply involved. They had no idea what kind of hostility they'd face if they simply walked in past the palisade. Just as they were starting to agree that waking the unconscious villagers and asking questions was the best move, the ratmen sitting on the driver's seat all snapped their heads up at once. Their fur bristled; their whiskers trembled.
"Deputy Leader! Deputy Leader!"
The ratmen called for Ella. It was the first time they'd sought her out so eagerly since she'd fed them.
"What? What's going on?"
Already strung taut with worry over whatever Wonderstein was stirring up in there, she whipped around when the ratmen suddenly broke into a collective squealing.
"Squeak! Must run!"
"Here! Dangerous!"
"Coming! It's coming!"
Ratmen were famous for being more sensitive to danger than almost any other race. A folk rumor claimed they started preparing escape routes days before an earthquake. If they were making this much of a racket, something was definitely about to happen.
"What's coming?"
The ratmen bounded up and down at her question.
"Danger!"
"Smell of the Abyss!"
The troupe members exchanged baffled looks. The smell of the Abyss? It made no sense.
Then all the ratmen fell silent simultaneously, staring hard in one direction. The others followed their gaze.
A three-story building near the palisade. Something was on the roof.
A huge silhouette, bipedal and hunched, was surveying its surroundings. Even bent over, it looked to be as tall as Umon. Its actual body length had to exceed three meters.
Ella studied its features. It had the appearance of several existing creatures blended into something that didn't belong to this world.
It had a rabbit's head, but where ears should be there were large antlers like a reindeer's. Goat's hooves marked its hind legs, and its arms were long enough to scrape the ground, each ending in sharp claws.
"I-Is that a demon?"
"I want to recruit it for our circus."
"Everybody keep quiet!"
The demon glanced around. Mercifully, it paid no attention to anything outside the palisade; it seemed to think there was nothing out there but grass and mountains.
The troupe held their breath, crouching low, tracking its movements.
Just as the creature was coiling to spring off the building, a clamor erupted right next to them.
"Monsters!"
"Over here! These bastards—they must have—"
"—killed the people who went ahead!"
A group of villagers, over twenty of them, had emerged from the village. Each clutched a weapon, leveled at the troupe.
The troupe members paled, whipping their gazes between the villagers and the demon on the roof.
"Kee-kee-kee!"
The rabbit-headed demon turned toward them. Its red eyes and pointed teeth glinted in the moonlight.