10. Demon in a Bottle (27)
10. Demon in a Bottle (27)
I sat in the observation gallery of the training hall and watched everything unfold.
I was dozens of meters away, but I could still hear every word of their conversation.
Well—to be precise, I could only hear what came out of Maya's mouth.
The Sound Room Function could be set to operate one-way.
What left her lips streamed directly into my ears.
That alone was more than enough to tell me how the situation was unfolding.
I watched Karen leave the training hall and exhaled slowly, then shut the function off.
I hadn't realized Maya had been listening outside the entire time.
It was unsettling, learning that someone you considered a friend had been eyeing your body with clandestine desire.
Karen must have explained her circumstances, though. I hadn't expected Maya to react with such fury.
I didn't think Maya was in the wrong.
Everyone simply has different thresholds for what they can accept.
It was possible that I was unusually numb to such things.
Back in my own world, my condition had forced me to entrust my body to other people's hands regularly. Bathroom visits, washing, changing clothes—I had always needed assistance.
Maya's attitude was probably closer to the average person's response.
And they weren't even old friends—they'd met barely two weeks ago.
If anything, her reaction was the natural one.
Instructor Joe called Maya's name.
She gathered the practice daggers and stepped out in front of the target.
I decided to stop dwelling on Karen's situation.
What had happened to her was pitiable, but I didn't regret what I had done.
What if, later on, she had ended up forcing herself on Maya?
It was harsh to say, but when it came down to it, the safety of a troupe member mattered more to me than her adolescent turmoil.
At Instructor Joe's signal, a group of students climbed onto the testing platform.
Maya was among them.
Amid figures that were stocky or willowy, her slight build stood out sharply.
Her eyes scanned the gallery as though she was searching for someone.
I smiled and waved at her.
She stared back at me, expression flat, then snapped her head away.
In the original story, she never demonstrated any physical techniques whatsoever.
If you tried to dash with her character, she'd trip and fall flat on her face after three seconds.
Granted, that was partly an exaggeration for the game, but in reality she clearly had no gift for physical activity. During our circus's basic physical conditioning drills, she couldn't keep up on her own and gave up.
So how much had she improved?
I watched her dagger-throwing practice with genuine anticipation.
Regrettably, no pleasant reversal occurred.
There was no way her true skill was at this level.
If it were, she wouldn't have told me to come watch with confidence.
Was it because of the incident with Karen after all?
Not a single dagger Maya threw today found its mark.
***
Maya left the school and walked through Tetromino Square.
Her footsteps dragged as though drained of energy, yet stomped as though she were furious.
It was a fitting portrait of her state of mind.
She couldn't hide her disappointment in herself, her anger.
Even if it didn't show on her face, anyone who knew her well would have sensed it in the smallest of her movements.
She clenched and unclenched her small fists.
'It's my own fault.'
She couldn't blame anyone else.
Everything came back to her inability to keep herself under control.
After she'd sent Karen away, her Heart Demon had only grown deeper.
Every time she tried to draw out so much as a fragment of emotion, her magic power churned wildly.
She was in no condition to perform any kind of delicate work.
'And then I went and snapped at the Troupe Leader for no reason...'
Right after the test, Wonderstein had come down from the gallery and approached her.
To console her.
"Miss Maya, that's a shame, but today your condition—"
"Leave."
She'd answered coldly.
As if her own failure was somehow his fault.
"You can do well next time. There's no need to be too discouraged—"
"I said leave."
At that, Wonderstein couldn't press any further and stepped back.
He knew her temperament.
This kind of failure would be a massive blow to someone who prided herself on being cool-headed and rational.
And he himself bore some share of the responsibility for what had disturbed her mood today.
"The carriage will arrive soon."
"I'll go back on my own. You go ahead."
So Maya stayed behind at the school alone.
The thought of Ella riding back cozily with the Troupe Leader made her fury spike, but hearing—in front of them—that she had scored a flat zero on the acrobatics assessment was worse.
After wandering aimlessly, she found herself at the café run by the old woman.
It was the only place that came to mind.
"Oh my, Maya! What about that friend you always came with?"
She had brought Karen here a few times.
Recalling that memory made her stomach churn harder.
A thieving wretch who pretended to offer friendship while scheming behind her back to poach someone else's man.
"...She's gone."
The old woman noticed her foul mood at once.
She sat Maya at a table and brought out the drink and snacks she knew Maya preferred.
"Here, eat some of this first."
At that moment, someone sat down across from Maya.
A strange figure wrapped from head to toe in a white robe, face concealed by silver gauze.
"A cup for me as well, if you would."
What emerged from beyond the gauze was a man's voice, impossible to place in age.
"Who are you?"
The café owner looked at him warily and stepped in front of Maya as though shielding her.
Maya gazed up at the man blankly.
"I am Arno, leader of the Silver Screen Circus. Do you remember me?"
Maya nodded slowly.
The café owner glanced between them, her expression still dubious.
"Is that true, Maya? He's not dangerous, is he?"
"I think not."
"All right. I'll bring your tea shortly, sir."
Once the old woman had gone into the kitchen, Arno spoke.
"An illusion mage, trying to learn acrobatics."
"Have you been following me?"
Maya knew he was an acquaintance of her mother and father.
He was the leader of the circus they had been indebted to in their younger days.
Which was exactly why she had come to Rouge in the first place—to place herself in his care.
But she hadn't realized he'd continued to keep an eye on her since then.
Arno shook his head.
"Don't misunderstand. I came to the school on business and happened to spot you, so I watched."
"Business?"
"Today is a special day."
Maya understood at once.
Today was the day of the terrorist attack at the Hippodrome seventeen years ago.
Inside Rekachev there was a special exhibition hall dedicated to its memory.
He must have visited it.
Maya had stopped by there herself in the morning.
He took a sip of the drink that arrived and said,
"You've fallen into Papilax, I see."
Maya gave a faint nod.
She couldn't hide her condition from a mage of his caliber.
"What is the trigger?"
"Why should I tell you?"
"Because you don't look capable of resolving it on your own."
"I can."
"What is the trigger?"
"I don't want to say."
"From where I stand, you can't lift a pebble or conjure so much as a kitten right now. Am I correct?"
At those words, Maya's fingertips trembled faintly.
He was right.
Right now, she couldn't use magic.
The same magic power that had been rampaging like a mad beast earlier was now as still and unyielding as stone.
"Then I'll have to have a word with Troupe Leader Wonderstein."
"No."
Maya shook her head fiercely.
She didn't want him to know her condition.
Not because she harbored some delusion that he might abandon her if he learned she couldn't use magic.
He was not that kind of person.
What worried her was that he might find out the cause of her Papilax.
"A troupe member reaches this state, and I find the man calling himself Troupe Leader laughing without a care in the world. I don't care for it."
"He doesn't know because I deliberately hid it. Do not tell him. Absolutely."
"Then tell me. What is the trigger? Acrobatics? Is that why you were trying to learn?"
Maya gritted her teeth.
The man was relentlessly persistent.
She had no choice but to open her mouth.
She hated revealing it, but it was better than the Troupe Leader finding out.
"Troupe Leader Wonderstein."
"Go on. If you don't speak, I will."
"No, that's... Troupe Leader Wonderstein... is the trigger."
Arno closed his mouth.
He didn't ask her what exactly that meant.
Heart Demon—Papilax. An affliction said to befall scholars and ascetics most of all.
When it had manifested in a direction a seventeen-year-old girl wanted to hide, when a man's name was what it involved—Arno was not so clueless as to miss the implications.
Wonderstein was not the only one who had been forced to face the turmoil of an adolescent girl today.
***
Phairen stood in the center of her office, unable to keep still for even a second, anxiety eating at her.
She gnawed at her thumb, replaying the earlier conversation in her head.
When she'd heard that her master had collapsed mid-lesson, she had rushed to find her.
She was terrified that the foreign substance she had slipped into the medicine had triggered a physical rejection.
Her master had said it was only mental exhaustion, thank goodness.
She had calmly said it was her own fault, and something in those words had even sounded... relieved.
"Starting today, I'll be sleeping in the dormitory again."
That had been the shocking declaration.
Words she never would have uttered just that morning.
"Ah, yes. I know. But I can't keep imposing on you forever, can I? I've decided to try managing things my own way. Don't worry. Tonight, even if I have to stay up all night, I'll figure out the bathroom."
And then she had packed her belongings and left the room before anyone could stop her.
She had even taken the travel cage with the weasel.
The creature still bared its teeth warily at Clara, but she paid it no mind.
"Hehe. I'll have to work on improving my relationship with this fellow too. Can't keep him locked up forever, can I?"
Faced with this abrupt transformation—as if she'd suddenly attained some enlightenment—Phairen could do nothing.
Nothing but stand there dumbly, watching her leave, then sink into anxiety alone.
"Has my Hypnotic Suggestion broken...? Could her mental fortitude be rising... no, recovering...?"
At the back of her office, a hidden door.
A secret space accessible only through it.
Among the shelves lined with glass jars containing creatures afflicted by the Curse Plague, there sat a single black bottle.
The liquid monster inside stirred at the sound of her voice, its eyes opening.
What's going on? I can hear.
She—robbed of her name, robbed of her body, reduced to this wretched state and trapped inside a bottle—had now spent ten days here.
The bottle had been encased in a dark film that blocked out the outside world; the stopper sealing its mouth had silenced all sound.
Shut off from both light and sound, she had been stewing in despair.
And then, she heard a voice.
The voice of that accursed professor—the one who had deceived her and imprisoned her here.
It reached her as though whispered right beside her ear.
And that wasn't all.
One by one, she began to catch the voices of students attending taming class, too.
—Look, my male Razorbeak has grown to two meters.
—Want to trade for my Shock-Rat?
What is this? What's happening?
Did the bottle crack?
But she knew instinctively that wasn't it.
These whispers were reaching her senses through something beyond ordinary hearing.
Then, from somewhere far beyond, a resonant voice poured forth.
I am the Demon God Sinepekus.
A wraith that drifts between word and word.
A Demon God who adores rumor and slander, fame and misunderstanding.
A Demon God!
Her slimy, shapeless body quivered.
From beyond the veil, she felt a presence so overwhelming that a mere speck like her could feel nothing but terror.
The Demon God spoke in a voice that seemed to cackle.
I appoint you as my Apostle.
You whose name and body have been stolen.
With that declaration, her body began to seethe and boil.
Crimson.