9. Black and Gold (24)
9. Black and Gold (24)
The Slagbort Confectionery Factory was one of the two great labyrinths featured in the Yeterinpurk stage of TT2.
Here, the confectioners, like the artists in other regions, had their minds corrupted by the jewel imbued with Wonderstein's soul, transforming into monsters.
Cadavers were fed into kneading machines instead of flour, and every conceivable horror replaced sugar crystals as cake decorations.
The meat pies produced in this blood-and-flesh-splattered factory were neatly wrapped in packaging and shipped out in orderly stacks.
The monstrosity of clerks sold them at the confectionery shop by the factory entrance.
The monstrosity of townsfolk traded corpses for sweets and ate them.
And the employees carted the corpses they received in exchange back to the factory and dumped them into the kneading machines.
This utterly everyday scene unfolding in the heart of a despair-filled city left players with a disquiet that was almost laughable.
Even in this hellscape, a figure appeared as a helper.
A blind old man who had barricaded himself in a corner room of the factory, keeping the monsters at bay.
Wilhelm.
He, too, had been a confectioner, like the others.
The fact that he was the company's president was revealed midway through the labyrinth campaign.
He was, in truth, an endlessly suspicious figure.
In the cities they had passed through so far, the helpers were mostly deranged villains who treated human life as a joke.
Yeterinpurk was no different.
Phairen, the taming professor at the Rekachev Circus School, had committed cruelties that rivaled the helpers of any other city.
They were people already lost in their own private madness.
For that reason, they could also resist the voice bleeding from the jewel that held Wonderstein's soul.
Players grew more and more suspicious of Wilhelm whenever he spouted nonsense or rambled about a disjointed past.
They assumed his vile history was hidden behind the door he strictly forbade anyone from entering.
Toward the end of the labyrinth campaign, what lay inside that room he so treasured was revealed.
It was an exhibition hall displaying a collection of items related to the playwright Christian.
The playwright Christian had been mentioned continuously throughout the previous cities.
He was regarded as the spiritual idol of the present-day performance world.
Clues about him were scattered throughout the "Six Great Theaters."
Wilhelm was an ardent fan.
The lines he muttered day and night were passages from his favorite scripts, and the past he rambled about incoherently was all stories from those plays.
The purpose of the confectionery ingredients he had you gather through intermittent sub-quests was also revealed at the end.
The 21st anniversary of the playwright Christian's death.
To prepare a ritual offering for his memory, he used those gathered ingredients to bake a cake.
He breathed his last as he placed the cake, made with the final dregs of his strength, upon the altar.
A cake born of a pure love for art and the stubbornness of a craftsman.
Perhaps that was why.
That final creation, made at the cost of his life, possessed a hidden property.
Consuming it during TT2's final Boss Battle granted immunity to Wonderstein's wide-area instant-death skill.
The instant-death skill was an event-type attack, so it didn't affect the game's difficulty much.
The only things that changed were a few dialogue lines.
Still, players gathered the confectionery ingredients for the achievement, and made sure to take the cake with them when leaving the factory.
These two were bound by that future ill-fated connection, yet here in the present they walked side-by-side, engaged in amiable conversation.
The topic was none other than Christian, the playwright he so adored.
Wonderstein knew it all by heart: his favorite scene from Christian's works, the lines he loved to recite, the places where he added his own personal interpretation.
So when he invited four visitors from the Monster Circus into his exhibition room, Wonderstein stepped forward as their representative and proved they were qualified to be his guests.
"Hoh ho, even your favorite part? I've never met anyone whose tastes so closely match my own. Indeed! So there was a reason a genius like Miss Ella stays with such a small circus. The troupe leader himself has a remarkable eye for art."
"You flatter me."
"No, you deserve such praise. Pour the man another glass of my cherished wine. Fellow devotees of Christian ought to share a drink, after all."
"Heh heh, thank you."
Wonderstein accepted the glass with a composed face, but his insides were anything but calm.
It was because of the stare boring into him.
The owner of that stare was Simon Magier, the leader of the Golden Carnival.
From his spot in the corner of the exhibition room, his eyes blazed with hostility as he watched them.
The reason wasn't hard to guess.
Probably because he had stolen the spotlight from the Golden Carnival, the main attraction of today's gathering.
If you counted the incident during the entrance exam, Simon had now suffered two consecutive defeats at Wonderstein's hands.
On top of that, there was the matter of Reina.
No matter how much the abuse he'd heaped on her was close to venting his own anger, and no matter that she wasn't his biological daughter, he had still raised her for the last fifteen years.
Knowing his prideful nature, having his daughter throw herself into another man's arms and call him "Father" right in front of him must have been an unbearable humiliation.
Even if it was only a lighthearted game during an event.
Whenever Simon glared at him, Wonderstein met his gaze squarely without flinching.
He had no good feelings toward the man anyway.
Partly because he disliked Simon's callousness, and partly because Simon had needlessly dragged Ella into this and complicated things.
The man had stolen his Deputy Leader.
Averting his eyes here for no reason would have been stranger.
Wonderstein did not neglect to monitor Ella's condition even in the midst of this.
He hadn't forgotten Maya's warning.
She'd said that emotional agitation could endanger her mental state.
Perhaps it was the scream she'd let out earlier, but her expression looked far too serene.
She was focused on looking around the exhibition room, a gentle smile on her lips.
She didn't even spare him a glance, despite him staring at her continuously.
She was nothing like the woman from two weeks ago, who couldn't bear to be away from him for a moment.
Her scream earlier must have been from mere surprise at the situation itself.
After all, he himself hadn't expected Reina to pounce on him like that, had he?
Ella's indifferent attitude had to be seen as proof that Gaston's treatment was steadily taking effect.
Reassured, he stopped observing her.
But that was Wonderstein's illusion.
Ella's eyes were indeed looking at the exhibits in the room, but her mind was completely occupied by other thoughts.
The scene she'd witnessed backstage was replaying itself over and over.
- I love you!
- I love you!
- I love you!
Reina's confession and the kiss that followed.
It was just on the cheek, but...
She'd done the same thing once, but...
Ella let out a sigh and closed her eyes before the precious "First Edition of the <Christian Guide>."
She was a fan of the playwright Christian.
She had devoured all his works before she even turned ten.
That was the only reason she could step in as an understudy for <Count Wolfenstein> at the Rose Windmill Cabaret on such short notice.
She had been looking forward with eager anticipation to seeing the Duke's treasured collection before entering the factory.
Just the items the Golden Carnival members had heard about through rumors were incredible: the first edition of the <Christian Guide>, scripts bearing his handwritten stage directions, commemorative souvenirs sold only at specific performances.
But the Duke's collection went far beyond even that.
Normally, she would have exclaimed in admiration at each and every item.
Now, though, she couldn't see any of the things she had so anticipated.
All her attention was fixed behind her.
At Wonderstein, smiling as if the earlier incident meant nothing, and at Reina, hovering close to him in restless agitation.
She recalled the conversations she'd had with him over the communicator during the last ten days.
- Fortunately, the troupe members are keeping up well with Miss Reina's lessons.
- Miss Reina is remarkable herself. She's already cleared more than half of the training Miss Ella created.
- I'm glad. She seems to be adapting well here too.
- Miss Reina is, surprisingly...
- Miss Reina...
- Reina...
- She...
- ...unlike Miss Ella...
Those words spread through her mind like a deadly poison.
The remarks she'd dismissed as trivial at the time now each felt like ominous foreshadowing.
Perhaps...
- I want to make Miss Reina my deputy. I no longer have need of you.
Words he had never spoken flowed from his imaginary lips.
Ella wanted to object.
No.
The person who belongs by your side is me.
I can take care of you better than anyone else.
Maya sat on the sofa in the corner of the exhibition room, sullen as always.
She mulled over what she had done earlier.
'It was a mistake.'
The four of them had moved together throughout the factory tour.
Although on paper, Reina's guardian was Wonderstein and Maya's was Yurakne, the staff didn't stop them from pairing off since many guests came as family units anyway.
They did have to split into pairs for the program activities, but they were always close by, so she hadn't been dissatisfied.
She just kept having the same thought: 'If I'd applied a little sooner, it could have been just the two of us.'
But when the announcer gave them that task, she had lost her composure.
The sight of Reina blushing in the Director's arms was insufferably irritating.
So, without even realizing it, she had unleashed her telekinesis.
The cake collapsing between the two of them was her doing.
The Director might have noticed.
No, he definitely did.
There was no way someone who'd demonstrated a tightrope-walking technique that could detect a deviation of 0.1 grams wouldn't notice that unnatural shift in the cake's balance.
Of course, she didn't think Wonderstein would admonish her for it.
He was the sort of man who laughed off anything.
He'd probably chalk it up to a childish tantrum and let it go.
'After I've been working so hard to stop being treated like a child...'
Maya felt that she'd been acting a little strange lately.
A grating dissonance had wormed its way into the reason that usually produced clean, precise judgments.
She burrowed into the sofa and, for the first time in a long while, entered her meditation space.
Throughout the Duke's conversation with Wonderstein, Reina was consumed with anxiety and didn't know what to do with herself.
She couldn't help but sense the venomous aura slithering beneath her father's smiling facade.
He seemed about to do something.
That unease didn't subside even when the Duke, supported by his secretary, suggested they meet at the luncheon and was the first to exit the exhibition room.
The moment the Duke left the room, Simon stepped in front of Wonderstein.
He had crossed from the other side of the room to stand before him in an instant.
He moved that fast without making a single footfall.
"See here, Director Wonderstein. Might I have a word with you?"
"What is this about?"
"I'd like to discuss the trade happening next week."
The two men stared each other down for a moment.
Both wore politeness and smiles on their faces, but neither believed for a second that the other was sincere.
"Very well. Everyone, stay here. I'll be back shortly after speaking with Mr. Magier."
"Wait a moment, everyone. This won't take long."
A black suit and a black cloak, a golden suit and a golden cloak.
Flowing blond hair and sharply combed black hair.
After one last steady look at the other, the two men turned simultaneously and left the room.
The Monster Circus troupe, and even the members of the Golden Carnival, were wrapped in a keen tension, staring at the door they had exited through, and no one could bring themselves to speak.