8. Curse Plague (30)
8. Curse Plague (30)
A line of wagons rattled along the coastal road.
Their exteriors were painted in gaudy colors, every cargo bay crammed with performance gear.
Anyone could tell at a glance: a traveling circus troupe.
A fleet-footed village boy spotted them first and carried the news through the streets. Every child in the village came pouring out onto the main road.
They watched the approaching wagons, eyes bright with expectation.
Their village was the largest for miles around, situated right beside the highway, so travel was easy. The five-day market was always held here.
The children naturally assumed the circus would stop at their village.
But the Ratman in the driver's seat studied the crowd blocking the road and made a face of pure annoyance.
"Squeak! Out of the way!"
"No business today! Move!"
They drove the wagons straight through the clamor of children without so much as a glance. The kids scattered with a collective gasp.
"A Ratman, of all things, acting so high and mighty!"
"Let's see your face! Just who do you think you are?"
Irritated by their attitude, a few idle young men who had been mixing with the children stepped in front of the wagons to pick a fight. But when the masked clown at the head of the line held something out, they recoiled with a start.
It was a travel pass stamped with the local lord's seal.
Simple country folk they might be, ignorant of most worldly affairs, but every one of them knew that seal intimately.
They saw it often enough whenever they were conscripted for labor or the tax collectors came calling.
"That pass the knight gave us has proved rather useful."
Sven, who had deflected several confrontations with it by now, let out a cheerful whistle. No one joined in. They were all too exhausted.
No one had slept properly all night, not after the fight with the demon.
Injured and unrested, they had barely eaten, forced to keep driving the wagons without pause. On top of that, the constant worry about pursuers had frayed their tempers thin.
Sven the skeleton was the only one who needed neither sleep nor food and could carry on as though nothing had happened.
Equanimity and laughter. One of the two things a clown must possess — and he had been born with it.
Inside a cage, Yurakne wiped the sweat from Umon's brow. He was burning with fever, the severed cross-section of his broken horn raw with pooled blood and swollen a vivid red.
He had fought the demon more fiercely than anyone.
They could not even give him a proper bed to sleep in — she could only lay him down on the hard, jolting floor of an iron-barred cage, and the fact ate at her.
But rest was a luxury they did not have. No one knew how fast the catastrophe at Dvalchev was spreading, or how the local lord would respond once word reached him. They had to get clear of the region. They drove on along the coastal highway without a single stop.
They took turns at the reins through the night.
The pass Ivanenko had given them let them swap out exhausted horses at every post station. By noon the following day, they had barely managed to put the Isumi Hills behind them.
And around then, Wonderstein opened his eyes.
A woman who had been tending him had fallen asleep slumped against his chest. She had propped her forehead, her cheek, and her chin each on a separate pair of arms, and she looked comfortable.
He'd told her he was fine. She had insisted on nursing him anyway.
He cleared his throat and called her name.
"Miss Yura."
"Nn...? Wh...? Troupe Leader! You're awake!"
Yurakne rubbed her eyes and looked up at him with a bright smile.
Her hair, always pinned up so neatly, was a disheveled mess, and dark circles ringed her eyes.
Watching over him while he was unconscious must have taken its toll.
He gave her back a gentle pat.
"Has everything been all right?"
"Yes. Nothing out of the ordinary. Everyone's just worn out and collapsed."
He noticed one person missing from that "everyone."
"How is Miss Ella?"
At his question, her face paled and she shook her head.
"She still... hasn't regained consciousness."
"I see."
Wonderstein smiled.
The sight made Yurakne flinch, but then she regarded him with a look of pure sympathy.
"Troupe Leader..."
"I'd like to go out and offer the others some encouragement. But with this face, that might do more harm than good."
A brief silence settled inside the wagon.
Yurakne hesitated, then spoke carefully.
"Perhaps... it's time to tell them the truth?"
"..."
"Back then, talking about it would have solved nothing and only made the misunderstandings worse. But now it's different. They're ready now — ready to accept who you really are."
Wonderstein thought she was right.
"All right. Once Miss Ella wakes up, I'll gather everyone and tell them."
Yurakne's smile bloomed again.
"That's a good decision."
Just then, a clamor erupted outside.
Yobel's voice rang out, thick with tears.
"The Deputy's awake!"
Their eyes met.
Both held joy — and worry in equal measure.
***
The tip of Reaper's Scythe punched through flesh.
Blood splattered across Wonderstein's face.
He could have dodged it. He had seen the scythe the moment it tore through space.
But a message that suddenly flashed before his eyes made him falter.
[Ella's Affection level has increased by 8. As a reward for reaching Affection level 30, <Inspira: Hat Magic> has been granted to Ella. Current Affection level: 36 (Next reward: Affection level 50)]
Ella's Affection level had broken through its second wall.
Under normal circumstances, that would have been welcome news, but in a desperate fight, a few seconds of hesitation were enormous.
"Dodge!"
He flung himself sideways before her cry finished, but Reaper's freezing curse was faster. Ice cemented him to the ground.
A thin crust of it, nothing more — even injured, he could have shattered it with a single surge of strength.
But the scythe was already driving toward him.
There was no time.
Crunch.
The black blade tore in.
"Hrrk... Khh..."
Had it pierced a lung? The groan came out with a leaking hiss of air.
Wonderstein stared at the person who had shoved him aside — at the one who had taken Reaper's Scythe in his place — and murmured her name.
"Miss Ella...?"
A familiar red tailcoat blocked his view. He could see the black blade protruding through her small back.
She looked down at the thing driven through her chest and let out a hollow laugh.
"Ha... ha... haha... hurts... a lot... was it like this... for you too...?"
The curtain closed fully and Reaper's Scythe vanished with it. Blood gushed from the open wound in her chest and splashed onto the floor.
"Ah..."
Wonderstein caught her as she staggered back, her body going limp. She leaned against his chest, her unfocused eyes staring somewhere far away, her jaw trembling.
"This... feels really weird..."
A cascade of notifications announced that the Member Quests had been resolved with Reaper's defeat. Devoluts poured in as rewards — but he couldn't use them to heal Ella. She was immune to Devolut.
Wonderstein tore through his Status Window, searching for anything. But neither the Costume Room nor the Sound Room nor the Skillbook offered anything useful right now.
"Miss Ella... why... why did you...?"
At his words, a wry smile flickered across her trembling lips.
"Dunno... my body just moved on its own... I couldn't just... stand there watching you bleed and shaking like that..."
Wonderstein wanted to weep from the sheer grief of it.
If only she had just let it happen. He could have healed himself with the Devolut he'd earned for defeating Reaper. Getting stabbed would have cost him a few Basic Ability Points at most.
"I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do for you."
She nodded, as if she had expected that answer.
"Figured... your own body's in that state... Am I... scared of dying? No... I've been ready for this plenty of times, traveling with you..."
"Ella!"
"Deputy!"
The troupe members came running from a distance. But there was nothing any of them could do either.
The color draining from Ella's face made it clear that her life was almost gone.
Reaper's Scythe had pierced her heart. No bandage, ointment, or recovery potion could mend a wound like that.
"But losing my happy memories... that's a little too bad... all those things I worked so hard to hold onto... gone, just like that..."
She was echoing what Wonderstein had said to Reaper earlier.
Then, abruptly, she drew several short, hitching breaths in quick succession. Her lips twitched, and she gave a little cough — it looked like she had tried to laugh and failed.
"Khh... khh... want to hear something funny? A good chunk of those memories I'd miss... are from the last few months...? Hm... specifically, after we met Viscountess Bergson...?"
Wonderstein squeezed his eyes shut.
She...
"Strange, isn't it...? Me... I hated you so much..."
Tears slid down her cheeks.
"I really don't want to admit this but... while I've been with you... I think... I was happy..."
Her eyes closed.
Behind him, Wonderstein heard the troupe members break into sobs. He thought he should give them a chance to say goodbye, so he moved to lift her.
A hand pressed down on his shoulder.
"Calm yourself. She's alive. She's merely asleep."
"...What?"
The one who stopped him was Vayer. He spread his palm as he spoke.
"The moment she was stabbed, I applied the Power of Reversal."
"Ah...!"
A collective gasp went up from the troupe.
They had watched him fight — flipping gravity, turning water into fire, deflecting incoming attacks. They didn't understand the principle, but from the name "Power of Reversal" and the way it overturned circumstances, they had pieced together the rough idea.
Hearing his explanation, Wonderstein realized why Reaper had been unable to wield his scythe at the start — that had been Vayer's power as well.
And looking again, her closed eyes weren't those of the dead. She was breathing steadily, sound asleep. The blood had been a single initial gush — just the pooled blood from the moment of impact, nothing more.
A bewildered smile tugged at Wonderstein's lips.
"Then... Miss Ella is all right? But has something... changed about her?"
Vayer shook his head, his expression uncertain.
"I don't know. My Power of Reversal normally doesn't last long. Altering another person's fundamental nature is absolutely beyond it."
He gestured toward her wound.
"But this time, the power was applied at the exact instant Reaper's Scythe struck her. That makes things more complicated."
Reaper's Scythe absorbed "happy memories" from its victims. Vayer explained that he had no way of knowing whether his reversal had changed that to absorbing "unhappy memories," or to implanting "happy memories," or to "nothing at all happening" — or whether the scythe's effect had simply ignored his reversal entirely.
"I had to apply the power in such a rush that I couldn't establish a proper axis. I can't be sure of the reference point. The physical damage, at least, was reliably reversed — it was as though it never happened. But as for the mental aspect... we'll have to wait and see."
With that, Vayer left, adding that when she woke she might be missing memories — no one could predict which ones. A rather irresponsible attitude, but there was no holding him back when he had somewhere urgent to be. Saving Ella's life was reason enough to be grateful.
Besides, he was the leader of the Black Magician Pursuit Squad. Having him linger would bring no good. Wonderstein had already accepted Ivanenko's suggestion that they leave the territory as quickly as possible.
Wonderstein prayed, with everything he had, that the reversal had taken the form of "nothing at all happening."