9. Black and Gold (30)
9. Black and Gold (30)
Reina opened her eyes before the thirty minutes she'd promised the coachman were up.
To Wonderstein, that was a genuine disappointment.
Only a few hours remained of his pledge to play the role of her father. He had expected her to launch into a final flurry of demands. Bracing himself, he imagined she might ask for things even more outrageous than what he'd already endured.
Yet something about her had settled into an odd quiet since she woke. At first he dismissed it as lingering drowsiness, but she remained silent the entire way—from the carriage ride until they stepped inside the villa.
The somber cast of her face told him something was off. Even during the farewell dinner with the troupe members, her mood never lifted.
She was cold toward all of them. Over the past days she had warmed considerably, growing comfortable enough to be affectionate. Tonight, though, she seemed to have reverted to the stranger who had first arrived at the estate.
She ignored Sven's jokes, answered Yurakne's kindness with icy brevity, and rebuffed every friendly overture from the others with an aloof sting.
It was no different when she was alone with Wonderstein. She still called him "Dad," but the word now carried a distance it hadn't before.
Probably steeling herself, he thought. Cutting the threads of attachment before she had to leave.
Part of him was relieved she wasn't pressing any extreme demands. But another part ached with sympathy. That was why he suggested a late-night walk. He wanted to ease whatever weighed on her, even just a little.
He led her to the edge of the cliff in front of the villa.
"Why here, Dad? There's nothing to see..."
Wonderstein gripped her shoulders as she wavered, unsettled.
"Hold tight. We're about to fall."
"What? Wh-what do you—kyaaah!"
He scooped her up and leapt straight off the cliff.
The plunge from a height of nearly a hundred meters was dizzying. Reina clung to him in a panic.
But before her first shriek had even fully left her mouth, their bodies came to an abrupt halt.
"Ah..."
She felt cold sweat prickle down her back. Looking below, she couldn't make out much in the darkness, but she could sense something solid supporting their feet.
"Heh heh. Did I startle my little girl? It was only a drop of three meters."
His teasing tone made her chest tighten.
"Th-that was awful. I almost..."
She swallowed the last words—I almost wet myself. Even play-acting as a child, the memory of a past humiliation in front of a crowd made that particular confession impossible to voice.
"You can let go now."
He said it, but Reina stayed clamped to him, refusing to step away.
"I can't see a thing... one wrong step and I'd..."
Hearing that, he swung a hand through the air. Misty, glowing particles scattered into the void.
He had used Devolut to create and disperse a phosphorescent substance that shone a pale green.
Dim silhouettes of their surroundings swam into view.
"Wow..."
Marveling at the trick, she carefully released him and climbed down. They stood on a recessed shelf cut into the cliff face.
It wasn't large, but it was comfortably big enough for two people to lie down side by side.
"How did you even find this place?"
"Gudol—well, one of Miss Ella's pigeons, scouting about, stumbled across it. The spot looked like it had once been a nest for the cliff-dwelling birds."
Ella.
The child who had stolen her father away. He's still thinking about her, even now...
A bitter swell of emotion rose in Reina.
"Have you been here with her too?"
"Once, during the day."
Her mood instantly brightened. That meant this was his first time here at night—with her.
"What do you think? A little different from the view up there?"
Together they faced the sea. A sky thick with countless stars filled their vision.
At the manor, the lights spilling from the neighboring estates drowned out most of the stars. But here, sheltered under the shadow of the cliff, the light interference was far weaker than above.
She was grateful less for the beauty of the scene than for the thoughtfulness behind bringing her here.
"Thank you, Dad. It's beautiful."
The two of them sat there in the cliffside shade, watching the night sky.
Gradually, it seemed, Reina recovered some spirit. She began showing affection again in her usual way—poking a finger at his chest or the nape of his neck in playful mischief, or burying her face into him.
An hour may have passed like that.
At last, Reina murmured in a subdued voice.
"We'll be saying goodbye soon, Dad."
Wonderstein smiled gently.
"Is that why you've been so down?"
"...No. I accepted going back when I made that promise with you two days ago. The thing is..."
She hesitated, drawing out the pause.
"I had a dream earlier."
"While you were napping in the carriage?"
"Yes."
He felt her body tremble slightly and pulled her into a tighter embrace.
"A nightmare, then."
"No."
She shook her head, a faint smile touching her lips. Her eyes grew distant and hazy.
"It was a wonderful dream. A world where everything I wanted had come true."
"What you wanted?"
She bit her lip, hesitated a moment, then pressed on.
"In the dream, you revealed that you were actually my real father. You told me that the man in the Golden Carnival was a fake. You dealt with him and took me back."
Her deepest longings must have overlapped in sleep to weave that fantasy. It was the sweetest of dream-wishes. He understood now why her mood had suddenly plunged. The one thing she most desired—the cruelty was that it truly had been only a dream.
Reina had grasped it the moment her eyes opened: reality was the exact reverse. Simon was her only true family, and the man beside her wasn't a real father, merely someone dutifully performing a role according to a contract.
"Thank you. For going to all this trouble."
She pulled away from him.
"Reina..."
"You don't have to worry about me. I'll be fine now. You're..."
What she said next, she would regret almost instantly.
"We're not a real father and daughter, anyway."
Sadly, the two days she had believed would give her courage only deepened her despondency as the moment of parting approached, reminding her again and again that all of this had been a fiction.
Wonderstein felt a crushing helplessness. If she had made up her mind this way, there was little else he could do.
They returned to the manor in silence.
Once back in her room, Reina began packing her things.
A bare two weeks. An experience she would never have again in her life. It was time to face reality.
Midway through the packing, she came across something. It was the garment bag she had brought from the Golden Carnival.
One outfit inside caught her eye. It was smaller and cleaner than the other clothes, almost pristine.
The moment she saw it, the memory of the day before yesterday burned through her chest.
Only one hour remained until the promised Tuesday deadline. There was one last thing she desperately wanted to try. Yet even for her, who had spent two days draping herself over Wonderstein at every opportunity, it was an embarrassing thing to ask out loud.
She spent thirty minutes dithering in agonizing indecision.
Then, with a great shout, she sprang to her feet. She couldn't recall many moments in her life when she'd had to summon this much courage. She gave herself a stern talking-to.
Come on. It's not that big a deal.
Didn't Miss Yurakne say so? That this sort of thing was routine in this circus.
Sure, I'm not one of the monster troupe members, but...
If that kid Maya could do it, why not me?
Right now, I'm Dad's daughter! If anything, I have more of a right to be bold!
Clutching the outfit, Reina went downstairs to Wonderstein's room. She cleared her throat, then knocked.
Thankfully, he was still awake and answered at once.
"Reina...? What's the matter?"
"Dad..."
She hastily hid the clothes behind her back, avoiding his eyes. Face-to-face, the words simply would not come.
But she had barely thirty minutes left. If she was going to do this, now was her only chance.
She squeezed her eyes shut and blurted it out.
"Dress me! Please!"
"...Excuse me?"
The request was so startling that even he—who had resolved to stay fully in character as her father—slipped into formal address for a split second.
Wonderstein drew her inside to calm her down. She was stammering out a flustered explanation, her face a vivid scarlet. He couldn't for the life of him figure out why the names Yurakne, Maya, and a bathroom were surfacing in her rambling.
When he finally pieced together the story from the day before yesterday, he burst into a hearty laugh. She had completely misunderstood an incident involving his Costume Room ability, one she had witnessed without knowing its real mechanism. Yurakne, it seemed, had also been mischievously playing along with her.
He started to correct her misconception but then sealed his lips. A magician's secret halves its impact once revealed. It wasn't that he distrusted her, but she was still not free of Simon's grip. If Simon commanded it, she would have no choice but to spill every detail of what she'd seen here.
"S-s-so, what are you going to do, Dad?"
Seated on a chair, Reina fidgeted anxiously, awaiting his answer. Wonderstein gave her a gentle, reassuring smile and leaned close to her ear.
"Take them off."
She lacked the nerve to look him in the face as she undressed. Turning her back to him, she began.
Her coat, her top, her skirt—each slipped over the curves of her body to the floor, one by one. Soon, not a single thread remained on her except for a single pair of undergarments.
Reina gazed at her own reflection. A generous bust, a tapered waist, balanced hips. Her body boasted proportions as flawless as a sculpted figure. That was only natural—she had been "designed" from the start to grow up this way.
Pretending to study herself in the mirror, she stole a glance at Wonderstein's face, standing behind her. His eyes and expression betrayed not the faintest stir. He was always like this. No matter how outrageous her requests, his face remained perfectly composed, even if his words occasionally tripped.
I thought for sure I could break that composure this time...
She felt relief, and at the same time, an inexplicable disappointment.
He stepped behind her and began dressing her piece by piece.
He criss-crossed the leather corset strings behind her back and tied them, hooked the shoulder straps of the dress into their rings, and clipped the cloak's clasp together.
The garment squeezed her until it was almost uncomfortably tight. She had the anxious thought that if she bent forward, the seams might burst.
That was why she ended up asking him even for the stockings and shoes—items she had originally planned to put on herself.
Leaning against the wall, she crossed her legs and extended one foot toward him.
"Put them on for me."
A request she herself had once told Maya was discourteous.
Still, Wonderstein complied without the slightest hint of irritation. He could see that any overly strenuous movement on her part might literally burst the seams of the outfit.
Yet for a moment, Reina wasn't sure she had made the right decision. Every time his hand brushed the sole of her foot or his fingers slipped between her toes, the tight corset straps strained across her chest, making her breathing rough and ragged, as if the lacing would snap.
Fortunately, nothing tore.
Fully dressed, she turned in a slow circle before him.
"It's much too small, isn't it?"
"It is."
"I made this four years ago."
He nodded in understanding—no wonder the measurements felt so drastically off.
The hem of the skirt, which had likely been intended to cover her knees, now barely clung to her hips while exposing her thighs entirely. The bare skin of her back visible through the gap behind the corset, and the cleavage threatening to spill out, were almost certainly not what the garment's original maker had envisioned.
"The thirteen-year-old genius girl who defeated every Rekachev graduate—that was the debut strategy my father devised for me. This outfit was tailored back then. At that time, Father was not yet the leader of the 'Golden' Carnival and had a different costume. So I tailored this with the same color arrangement myself. But... in the end, I didn't achieve the results Father wanted, so I never got to wear it. Not even once."
—Lord Fantastic and Lady Fantastic! Introducing that dream father-daughter duo!
The old fantasy welled up inside her. Fixing Wonderstein squarely with her gaze, her voice held a quiet, bittersweet certainty.
"It'll be Tuesday soon."
That's it. This was everything I wanted to do. There's nothing more to wish for....
But—
"I wish we could just stay like this."
The words left her mouth, the closest language her heart could find for the truth.
At that moment, the bells chimed midnight. Perhaps it was the owner's taste, but the villa housed a massive grandfather clock, and its deep toll rang through the rooms.
"Troupe Leader."
Her voice was firmer than it had been these past two days, yet softer than it had been before they began. She gave him a smile so faint it almost wasn't there, and dipped her head in a slight bow.
"Thank you for indulging my childish whim. I truly enjoyed myself."
"...Thank you as well. I had fun too, Miss Reina. You worked hard."
Now strangers again, the two faced each other without a word.
During that brief span as the last chime approached, a multitude of feelings flickered across both their faces.
An instant before the final stroke, Reina gave one last bow, then left the room.
The chime faded. Silence filled the space.
Within that quiet room, Wonderstein heard the chime of a quest completion window appearing.