9. Black and Gold (13)
9. Black and Gold (13)
'Depart! Dream Race' was temporarily suspended.
The examinees next in line were held back.
At first, people assumed the snapped ropes were part of the trial—some kind of trap rigged by the school. But as the situation developed, it became clear this was a genuine accident.
The Four-person Gang and the other professors filed into the engine room to investigate the cause of the malfunction.
The faces of the students who had prepared this trial crumpled into masks of misery.
"What the hell? How could everything snap at once?"
"How did this happen?"
"We all ran the final check together."
"All the locking mechanisms on the equipment were engaged..."
A few of the more tender-hearted students were already tearing up, convinced they had dragged the school's name through the mud.
Amid the murmur of her friends, Clara felt her heart pound like a cornered animal's.
Her ferret hadn't come back.
It hadn't had time to get clear.
Ella.
This was her fault.
With reaction speed and grip strength that defied belief, she had snatched the rope, hauled the dazed Reina upward, and then immediately forfeited—bringing the whole mess to an abrupt end.
The ferret was probably hiding somewhere in the machinery room, faithfully obeying its order to stay out of sight.
But that was no comfort.
The professors were not ordinary people.
The Four-person Gang especially had spent twenty-eight years matching wits with the world's finest tricksters, playing every conceivable game of hide-and-seek and cat-and-mouse. The notion that they could fail to find a single ferret was laughable.
She had done this knowing the risks, but now that the threat of discovery felt real, her body wouldn't stop trembling. The awareness of reality she had shoved aside, blinded by jealousy, was flooding back in full force.
Her head churned with excuses.
It was for the school's honor.
She had only meant it as a prank. She never dreamed it would catch someone by the neck.
I don't know anything about this. The ferret acted on its own.
If the public finds out a student did this, the professors will look like accomplices. Let's just call it an accident.
"Found it!"
A head poked out from the engine room window.
Clara saw who it was and nearly burst into sobs right there.
Professor Phairen of the taming discipline.
She was the youngest professor at Rekachev, in her thirties.
And she was the foremost disciple of Ursus, the sole deceased member of the Five-Person Gang.
She was Clara's favorite professor.
When students had whispered scandalously about her supposed affair with Charlie, Clara had led the charge in defending her. That defense might have been fueled by her own wishful conviction that such a thing was impossible, but still—
Phairen had doted on her in return, listening to her worries, sometimes like a mother, sometimes like an older sister.
And of all people, she was the one to uncover Clara's dirty deed.
Clara wished this were a dream.
The Four-person Gang converged where she had called out.
A woman with a kind smile and a gentle face waited for them in the engine room.
"Professor Phairen, have you found something?"
The voice of Vice Principal Elpara—tightrope professor—was cool and measured.
If the smallest shred of evidence emerged that this was equipment negligence, she had no intention of letting the students off lightly. That exacting severity had earned her the nickname 'Witch,' and to the students she was a figure of dread.
Phairen had once been a student here herself, and whenever Elpara turned that blistering glare on someone, old memories had a way of pricking her conscience.
But she had worn the professor's mantle for several years now.
Without a flicker of discomfort, she beamed and held up something in her hand.
It was a squat, human-shaped thing the size of a small dog.
Its neck was twisted grotesquely, as though crushed by something—it was dead.
"A Tinker Fairy?"
Professor Yakovlev of Strength Show-off—nicknamed 'Beast' for his shaggy body hair—wore a startled look. Phairen smiled at the sight, thinking he resembled an honest old ox.
"It seems it was drawn in by the large machinery and decided to play a little prank."
"Where did you find it?"
Professor Elpara's eyes sharpened.
A fairy trespassing in the school was something she had never encountered in her entire career.
"In the inner equipment housing. It must have panicked at the commotion and tried to flee, but got its neck caught between the gears."
She held up the dead fairy.
From its twisted neck, instead of red blood, a glittering blue powder seeped out. Its skin and flesh were crumbling into tiny fragments, scattering like shredded confetti.
It was dissolving back into Jormungandr—the border-realm straddling the boundary between the Material Plane and the Abyss.
A 'performance' was an offering to the Demon God Kirkeus.
In principle, an offering widened the passage between this world and the Abyss. But a performance stirred human emotion and concentrated fervor in a way that fortified spiritual wards far more than it widened any passage, which was why demons never manifested through them.
But for beings that did not dwell in the Abyss itself—beings that lived in the interstitial worlds between—a performance was an opening to slip across. The atmosphere of joy and excitement was especially potent bait.
Fairies and spirits inevitably appeared at any large-scale show or festival. Some hid in the shadows to play tricks. Others disguised themselves as humans and moved among the crowds.
Yet never once had a fairy or spirit appeared at Rekachev.
"This is strange. This may be a circus school now, but it was once a cathedral known as the Palace of Miracles. A spiritual being violating its interior..."
Professor Lugo murmured, his long collar framing a pallid face.
"Could the barrier have weakened over time?"
At Professor Yakovlev's suggestion, Elpara nodded.
"That may be. Professor Gogol?"
She turned to the last to arrive: Gogol, professor of literature and drama.
He was panting, dabbing sweat from his balding scalp.
He was the only professor who hadn't trained in acrobatics—a playwright. His physical faculties fell noticeably short of his peers'.
What he possessed instead was an unmatched talent for designing and maintaining stage mechanisms. He had just been inspecting the equipment to determine whether it had malfunctioned.
"No issues, Vice Principal. The machinery is flawless. Indeed. It would seem, as Professor Phairen suggests, that a Tinker Fairy meddled with it."
"I see. For a moment I was concerned our school might harbor something like the Ghost of the Cabaret. But a fairy. Well, with the swarms of brilliant acrobats we have here, I suppose such mischief was inevitable. We'll be more vigilant."
The professors descended and addressed the students.
Hearing that a fairy's prank was to blame, the examinees were indignant—but they had no time to curse. The trial was cleared to resume. They had to hastily re-rig the equipment and prepare.
Professor Phairen produced her pet snake, declaring she would search for any other fairies.
Away from prying eyes, she flexed her stiff fingers.
Snapping a Tinker Fairy's neck was never a pleasant thing.
Not because it resembled a person—that had nothing to do with it.
Not because it had been a bright, cheerful sprite—that was irrelevant too.
Simply, the creature had been a valuable piece of her biological collection, and its loss was an annoyance.
Still, it had let her save a student, so the outcome wasn't entirely negative.
Phairen sought out Clara.
The girl was among her friends, reattaching ropes to the cleats. Even from a distance, Phairen caught the anxious glances flicking her way.
"Miss Clara, might you lend me a hand? There are some parts of these inner workings I'm not quite familiar with."
"Huh? Oh—yes, of course!"
Clara, who had been casting about for an excuse to search the engine room, jumped at Phairen's offer.
Once they were alone, Professor Phairen drew a small glass bottle from her bosom.
"Here you are, Miss Clara."
Inside the glass bottle was Clara's ferret.
"Ah..."
Clara had no idea what expression to make.
She wasn't shocked to see her ferret trapped in a little bottle. She knew about Professor Phairen's Inspira—the power to confine captured creatures inside glass.
The shock was that Professor Phairen had grasped what she had done.
Thankfully, this time her body didn't shake like before. The fact that the professor had found the ferret and hidden it away meant she was covering for her.
"Are you all right, Miss Clara?"
"I...a-are the other professors...?"
Clara took the ferret into her arms as it scrabbled out of the bottle. Her hand trembled as she stroked its back.
Phairen patted her shoulder reassuringly.
"The other professors don't know. I'm the only one. You can rest easy."
A warm smile and words of comfort.
This was the professor she adored—exactly as she always was.
Something surged in Clara's chest.
"P-Professor, um, you see...I...hic..."
Clara set the ferret down and threw herself into Phairen's arms. The professor patted her back as she sobbed, whispering.
"It's all right. It's all right."
Through her weeping, Clara tried to confess why she had done it.
But just then, the sounds of students finishing their work and heading down drifted in from outside. Phairen pressed a firm finger to Clara's lips.
"Hush. We'll talk later. Come to my room tonight."
Clara swallowed her sobs and nodded. She tucked the ferret inside her jacket and stepped out of the engine room. Before heading down, she glanced back once more.
The professor was still smiling.
The same kind smile as always.
Clara let her guard down completely and descended the stairs.
If she had caught the thought Phairen was murmuring to herself at that moment, she could never have relaxed so easily.
'It never changes. Winning a person over always takes these tiresome steps to slip on the leash. Why can't humans simply be kept in a glass bottle?'
She recalled her snake into its bottle, then left the engine room.
***
"Understood? No pushing yourself for the next two months!"
"I got it."
"I'm warning you! Dislocations become habitual! Every upperclassman before you who dismissed my advice ended up paying for it later!"
"I said I got it!"
Ella's retort was loud, but Dr. Nakhimov only fixed her with a skeptical eye.
He had been treating students for over twenty years.
By now he could gauge from a kid's tone alone whether they would last a month before defying his orders, or two weeks.
'She won't make it a week.'
Her whole attitude was straight out of Phairen's younger days. Anyone who only knew Phairen now—poised and serene—would never believe it, but as a student she had been an utterly ungovernable tomboy. She had changed so drastically after losing her master that people wondered if she was the same person.
"If you're going to move, at least get a regeneration potion from the alchemy guild and apply it religiously. The most expensive one you can find."
"I will!"
Sensing Dr. Nakhimov's nagging was far from over, Ella hurried out of the infirmary.
'Two months of rest? Then how am I supposed to take the October test?'
Just as the doctor predicted, she set her recovery window at one week.
And of course she wasn't planning to use any potion. She had someone far more reliable.
Wonderstein.
Ella intended to ask him for treatment.
He had cured the Viscountess's incurable illness.
He had healed Ruelo's cancer.
He had resolved the terrifying epidemic known as the Curse Plague.
In her entire life, she had never met a healer more extraordinary.
He could even reattach a severed neck!
...Huh?
Ella tilted her head.
Reattach a severed neck?
A shudder rippled through her.
Why had that grisly image popped into her head? As incredible as he was, there was no way something like that was possible.
Emerging from the infirmary, she spotted her party waiting for her.
"It's the Deputy Leader."
"Ha-ha, Miss Ella, is your treatment finished?"
"Are you all right? The doctor said it's fine to move?"
"Hot-hot, plenty of flesh, bones knitting nicely...looks sturdy enough! Compared to me, at least!"
"Hmph. Going through this entrance exam twice would kill anyone."
She raised her arm in its plaster cast and flashed an embarrassed smile.
"Sorry for worrying everyone! Ugh, I messed up right at the end."
"You did it trying to help someone else. You couldn't help it."
Wonderstein moved toward her.
In that moment, a strange sensation brushed over her.
Something cold and crawling slithered along her skin.
She glimpsed a distorted shadow draped behind Wonderstein.
Tentacles and teeth and a huge eye and spines.
And a severed neck being rejoined.
Cold sweat soaked the back of her shirt.
Before she knew it, she snapped at him.
"Don't touch me!"
Wonderstein halted mid-step. The rest of the party turned to her with startled eyes.
Ella was breathing hard.
She didn't understand her own reaction.
The image she had conjured vanished from her mind as quickly as it had come.
She steadied her breath and mumbled.
"S-sorry..."
She couldn't hide her confusion; the words came out in a stutter.
What had that been—the thing she'd felt?
"I just suddenly... something strange... I don't know... my neck... no... dead?"
Dazed, she was murmuring things that made no sense. Her condition looked far from normal.
The party exchanged glances.
-Didn't you say we mustn't agitate her emotions, Miss Maya?
-That's right.
-What's going on, Alchemist? You said there would be no side effects!
-Well, that is, you see...
Wonderstein motioned for them to be quiet and approached Ella cautiously.
With a gentle smile, he soothed her trembling frame.
"I think the injury has left your body out of sorts."
"Huh? Y-yeah...p-probably."
Her voice was barely above a whisper, thick with uncertainty.
"Perhaps we should pause the alchemist's treatments until Ella recovers a bit."
Yurakne shot Gaston a faintly accusing glare. The others stared at him, too.
With a resigned air, he slowly nodded.
"Y-yes. That makes sense. Though it is a little strange...suddenly going into a trance...could it be the shock of the trial..."
Wonderstein waved a hand, cutting him off.
Right now, that kind of talk would only rattle Ella's mind further.
He pointed toward the podium.
"Let's hurry. The Draft will begin shortly."
At his smile, Ella erased her troubled expression.
Right. We're going to the Circus Grand Prix.
That's our promise.
Wonderstein and the circus.
The two things she loved most in the world steadied her mind.
She gripped his hand tightly and nodded.
"Yeah!"
The two of them led the way. Behind them trailed Yurakne, wearing a complicated expression; Maya, as expressionless as ever; then Gaston, still tilting his head in puzzlement; and Sven, cheerfully ribbing him about it.