10. Demon in a Bottle (15)
10. Demon in a Bottle (15)
No matter how deeply they were steeped in the elitism of a prestigious academy, they were still devotees of Kirkeus.
A dazzling talent that shattered convention.
A single remark that challenged their very identity as acrobats.
They couldn't help but be swept up by Maya's words and actions.
Her mysterious aura and striking appearance only intensified the effect.
But their position made honest admiration impossible.
All they could do was glance nervously at the senior students, their expressions twisting into something between a scowl and uncertainty.
Clara sensed the shift in the room's mood.
And it was moving in a direction she didn't want.
She tried to salvage the situation.
But at that moment, a hand gripped the windowsill of the fifth floor.
"Urgyaah!"
A body vaulted up with a bizarre battle cry.
A fierce-eyed girl with red hair lifted her head. It was Karen.
She hauled herself over the window ledge, gasping for breath.
"Hahh... hahh... thought I was gonna die."
She wiped the drool and sweat on her sleeve and shot Maya a reproachful glare. Then, in a whining voice that would have horrified her brother and colleagues, she said:
"Hiiing, that was so mean, Maya. Leaving me behind."
Maya regarded her with an impassive expression.
"You said you had your own way."
"I didn't know 'the stairs' meant that."
Karen muttered, sulking.
Clara looked at her palms, rubbed raw and crimson.
She caught a few murmuring voices from the children below.
She realized how Karen had come up.
She'd grabbed hold of a single bamboo stalk from the ground floor and climbed it all the way.
Using nothing but pure grip strength.
What kind of kid is this?
Clara stared at her in disbelief.
Endurance was the SPECIAL virtue symbolizing Ground Acrobatics.
Supporting one's entire weight with palms and soles was a specialty of Ground Acrobatics majors.
But to scale a thirty-meter bamboo stalk on that alone—
It was hard to believe.
Karen stood by the window, rubbing her palms.
She glared down and shouted.
"I heard everything on the way up, you bastards. What's this about breaking rules? You lot are a joke."
Her voice had turned gruff, as if she'd downed a shot of something, a stark contrast to how she'd spoken to Maya moments ago. She jabbed a finger at the students staring up at her and yelled.
"Ground work is all I know. So why the hell should I have to jump around up here like some damn tightrope-walking bitch?"
"A tightrope-walking bitch?"
At the icy rejoinder from behind, Karen flinched and spun around.
"Ah, th-that's... I, I wasn't talking about you... it's just, those kids running their mouths, so... um..."
Under that cold stare, she startled and began to mumble.
Girls other than Maya still made her deeply uncomfortable.
Especially someone like Clara, who possessed the unsettling skill of smiling while her eyes cut like glass.
Meanwhile, the courtyard below had grown noisy.
The auditing students, emboldened by Maya and Karen's performance, were raising their voices.
"Yeah, she's right! I'm a strongman—why should I have to leap around on bamboo?"
"Me too. I'm an equestrian acrobat. Tightrope walking isn't exactly... I'm sure our elite seniors' specialty is being well-rounded."
"We're going to be here for the next month. No point in pushing ourselves to reach the fifth floor right now."
Having said their piece, they began climbing the stairs with renewed confidence.
These were the students who were supposed to be on the receiving end of mockery.
But now the mockers exchanged uneasy glances, shuffled in confusion, and stepped aside to let them pass.
So the auditing students all made their way toward the fifth floor.
All except one.
Meren of Silence stood before the bamboo once more.
She was different from the others.
She was intent on reclaiming her honor as a tightrope acrobat.
This time, even Clara couldn't stop her.
She kicked off the bamboo and launched herself into the air.
Everyone watched her in silence.
She ascended to the fourth-floor height via the same route as before.
Her steps were still soundless.
Her movements were steady, betraying no sign of her injury.
She bypassed the spot where she'd slipped earlier.
That branch was broken anyway—impassable.
She sought out a new route.
Using one branch as a springboard, she moved to a different stalk.
It was a slight detour from her original path, but it led to another opening that could reach the fifth-floor window.
She carefully placed her weight on the new branch.
It creaked but held.
In the first place, outside of someone deliberately trying to break it like Clara, or a Strength Show-off major clumsy with power control, these bamboos rarely gave way. The gardener inspected and tended them daily.
She jumped toward the opposite side.
Then she added a small flourish to signal the end of her performance.
On her final step, she deliberately made a sound.
Click.
With a crisp note, both feet touched down on the fifth-floor windowsill.
She turned back to the garden with a bright grin.
Not just the auditing students on the stairs—even the enrolled Rekachev students nodded their heads and offered quiet applause. The senior students, unable to intervene, could only glance at one another and shake their heads.
"Whoaaa!"
"Incredible! Meren!"
"To break through the Bamboo Forest in only two tries!"
Karen approached her with an excited expression.
She mustered her courage and spoke.
"A-amazing! Wonderful..."
"What was that about a tightrope-walking bitch?"
Meren shot the words at her like a dart.
It was meant as a tease, but Karen deflated on the spot and retreated.
Meren walked past her and approached Maya, who stood looking slightly blank.
She gave her a smile.
"Thank you."
Maya tilted her head, puzzled.
For what?
She also noticed Ella in the distance, throwing her a thumbs-up.
What's with her?
All the auditing students had now reached the fifth floor.
Just then, the bell rang, signaling the end of the break.
The students dispersed in a swarm to attend classes or practice.
A short while later, the old gardener entered the now-empty courtyard.
He spotted the bamboo branches on the ground and let out a howl.
"Wh-what is this! They've gone and broken the trees again!"
He cast his furious gaze around the vacant central courtyard and bellowed.
"Wretched brats!"
The auditing students filed into the office of Elpara—the vice-principal and tightrope-walking professor.
From her study window, the central courtyard was visible below.
Elpara shut the window, cutting off the gardener's curses and grumbling.
"A splendid performance through the Bamboo Forest."
In her black conical hat and long black robe, she carried a strictness that had earned her the nickname "the Witch" among the students.
But at the moment, the smile that students claimed to see barely once a week graced her lips.
She gazed steadily at Clara, who flushed red and averted her eyes from the professor's gaze.
Elpara had granted permission to provide the auditing students with an obstacle, yes. But deliberately timing it to coincide with the break so they'd become the target of ridicule—that was a liberty Clara had taken entirely on her own.
To think that sweet Clara could change so much in just a few months.
Was it the pressure of the Circus Grand Prix?
Or was there some other reason?
It left a bitter taste.
Lately, Elpara found herself missing an old friend more and more.
Rekachev was renowned for its elitism, but it hadn't always been so pronounced.
The school hadn't even held such a lofty status in its early days.
Graduates venturing into the world often heard sneers—why go to a school just to learn acrobatics?
The current elite culture had all begun seventeen years ago, after the terror at the Second Grand Prix.
After Ursus of the Taming discipline had passed from this world.
The Five-Person Gang had each mastered extraordinary skills, but none of them had ever truly been taught how to teach or lead others.
Like all acrobats of their era, they had learned their craft through apprenticeship.
Instructing dozens of teenagers according to a structured curriculum was entirely new to them.
What's more, they had all been young then—in their twenties and thirties.
They didn't know how to handle individuals still immature in character.
The limit of their ability was to prepare difficult, challenging tasks and sharpen the students' skills through competition.
But Ursus had been different.
He was an acrobat who specialized in Taming.
How to soothe another's heart, how to control a group, how to discern each individual's aptitude—these were things he understood intimately.
While the other professors taught technique, he worked behind the scenes, tending to the students' lives beyond their studies.
They hadn't realized it while he was alive.
What all his small actions had meant.
Only after his death, watching new generations of students cycle through and seeing their internal culture gradually warp over the years, did the professors finally understand.
The role he had been playing all along.
By the time they tried to correct it, it was already too late.
The school had grown several times larger, and their own abilities fell short.
The new Taming professors lacked the capabilities their friend had possessed.
Elpara had taken up the position of vice-principal and tried to impose some order, but it was an uphill battle.
This generation, in particular, had suffered—the professors were so busy preparing for the Circus Grand Prix that they couldn't properly attend to the children's hearts.
Clara's ability to so easily manipulate and exploit the students was rooted in those circumstances.
Elpara let out a regretful sigh.
After leaving her office, the auditing students continued on toward the next professor's study.
Along the way, they encountered more obstacles.
True to its nature as a circus school, Rekachev was filled with passages that could only be crossed using one's skills.
A thick iron door that wouldn't budge was one such obstacle.
Push as hard as they might, the door would give slightly, then suddenly seize up as if nailed in place.
Over ten students threw their weight against it, but it wouldn't move an inch, only producing the sound of scraping metal.
It was strange.
The students guiding them had pushed through with ease just moments ago.
"What's the deal?"
"Did they lock it from the other side?"
Unlike the others, who were growing flustered, Ella and Reina had already figured out the principle.
"This uses the same principle as Task 14 in the entrance exam."
"Right."
At their words, the children who had taken the exam racked their memories.
Eventually, one student shouted as if a thought had struck him.
"Static friction?"
Ella nodded and pointed to the top of the iron door.
The door itself was one meter wide and two meters high.
But set into the wall around it was a recessed groove, as if framing the door. That section appeared to be about two meters wide and four meters high. And framing that was yet another grooved section, four meters wide and eight meters high.
"Watch closely."
Ella pushed one side of the door.
Reina pushed the other.
The iron door shrieked as it slid backward. Then, with a sudden click, it caught on something and stopped.
At Ella's gesture, a few more students added their strength to the door.
That's when the curious thing happened.
The two-by-four-meter wall section framing the one-by-two-meter door began to move along with it.
What they had thought was a wall was, in fact, a concealed door.
The auditing students murmured in surprise—until another click rang out and the door halted once more, caught on yet another catch.
Their gazes naturally traveled upward.
To the four-by-eight-meter door.
Ella and Reina pulled their hands away.
The children who had been pushing with them also stepped back.
The door returned to its original position.
"If you apply force slowly, the first door catches on the second door, and the third, piling all the weight together. Remember the fourteenth test? The task using static friction and kinetic friction? When the door starts moving, you can't ease up to match the kinetic friction level. If you do, the latch on the second door will catch. You have to keep applying enough force to overcome static friction the entire time until the door is fully open. Like this."
She stepped up to the door, let out a sharp "Hrragh!", and threw her whole body into it, pushing with all her might.
With a thunderous noise, the iron door swung wide open.
She darted behind the wall, and the door quickly shut again.
Reina gestured for the more broadly built male students to come forward.
They were strongmen.
Each one grabbed a side of the door and, on her signal, applied force.
Their base strength naturally exceeded Ella's.
The door opened with ease.
Clearing this obstacle required the skill of Strength Show-off.
So even after they'd opened it, they kept themselves braced against the iron door, holding it in place so the other auditing students could pass through.
And so, each using their own talents and helping one another, they pushed through several more gates and visited the professors' studies.
Now there was only one place left.
The office of the Taming professor.