2. Spider Woman Yurakne (End)
2. Spider Woman Yurakne (End)
The road back to camp.
Once they had cleared the market, Wonderstein released Yurakne's hand.
No need to keep up the married-couple act where anyone could see.
'Damn it.'
His head throbbed.
'Rapid Rigidity' had kept the bleeding minimal, and 'The Smiling Man' kept the pain at arm's length.
But what truly angered him wasn't the fact that he'd been struck.
'I went and got involved again.'
He was angry at himself.
After all his smug talk about this just being a game, about merely playing the role of Wonderstein — he had just now acted on genuine impulse.
He had thrown himself in, independent of any game strategy or Affection level.
This was different from taking a bullet with his body back then.
That had the justification of a quest behind it.
But this time?
'It's The Smiling Man.'
This abrupt, reckless action.
That was the curse lingering in this body.
Otherwise, he would never have even considered taking a chunk of metal like that bare-chested.
He repeated this to himself, but the unsettled feeling refused to fade.
The eye tracker.
The electric wheelchair's controller.
The care worker's assistance.
He had never once stood or acted under his own power in his entire life.
A cripple with no arms or legs, always forced to borrow the strength of something else or rely on someone else to move.
Passive, defensive, self-preserving choices were all he knew.
For personal reasons entirely separate from game guides or quests,
he had taken the initiative for someone else — and he found that hard to accept.
Yurakne watched him stride off alone, her expression tinged with bewilderment.
He'd been hurt protecting her.
She tried not to read anything sentimental into that.
This was a man who deflected blades with his bare body and crushed skulls with his fingers.
A fist-sized lump of metal could hardly endanger him.
Still... she couldn't quite ignore it.
He'd been wounded because of her.
"Um..."
"I have no intention of harming those people."
"Huh?"
"Isn't that what you were about to ask? Miss Ella worries about that every time I'm on the receiving end of even a minor incident. Like when we were refused boarding the day before yesterday."
Given everything he'd done so far, it was a perfectly reasonable concern.
But that wasn't what Yura wanted to ask.
"No, that's not... I, well, I mean..."
She had plenty of questions.
But faced with the moment, the words wouldn't come.
She hesitated like that several times.
What finally slipped out was perhaps the biggest question she'd been carrying all along.
"...Tr-Troupe Leader, why don't you ever get angry? How can you... keep smiling?"
Wonderstein stopped walking.
He took a moment to steady his breath, then asked in return.
"Why do you ask?"
"...Just... I, I'd like to understand you better."
At the confession-like words that had tumbled out unbidden, Yurakne flushed.
Fortunately, the Troupe Leader took it a different way.
"...I suppose from your perspective, I am hard to understand."
He gazed into the air rather than at Yurakne.
The quest window that hadn't so much as flickered when she was drenched in filth now lit up in response to a simple question.
*Member Quest - Meaning of a Smile
: Yurakne wonders whether your smile is genuine.
Completion Condition
: Whether truth or lie, make her accept it.
Success Reward
: [Devolut +2]
Failure Penalty
: [Yurakne Affection level -1]
Seeing the quest appear settled his mind.
His guidepost.
His stage direction on this stage.
Lacking confidence in fabricating a lie, he decided to speak honestly.
"Miss Yurakne, getting hit hurts me, too."
He wiped the blood from his forehead with his hand as he spoke.
"I get angry at insults. I feel sorrow when I see death."
He was telling her.
That he was a human who felt emotions.
Not some demon or monster.
"Then why..."
"A sickness? No, that doesn't sound right. I'll call it a curse. Yes. A curse. I'm under a curse that leaves me no choice but to smile. No matter how angry or sad I am, I can't express emotion any other way. I can't even shed tears. All I can do is smile."
"Is that true..."
Such a simple reason.
Yurakne shook her head as if she could hardly believe it.
When the troupe members turned their backs on him.
When she herself avoided him.
The smile he always wore had actually been...
"Then... then why... why didn't you say so until now? If you had... there wouldn't have been any misunderstandings..."
"What misunderstandings?"
"Huh?"
Wonderstein turned his head to look at her, wearing a smile.
The same smile as always.
Staged, mocking, manufactured.
But now that she knew the truth, the smile read differently to her.
Bitterness, pain, sorrow, and... loneliness.
It might only be her imagination, but—
"Does that erase the fact that I tormented people, broke them, killed them? When the Troupe Leader was out there bursting people's heads, he wasn't smiling after all — he was actually crying. He wasn't a demon. You expect anyone to accept that?"
"Th-That's..."
He was right.
She thought back over the things he had done.
The fact that he was under a smile-only curse was indeed a poor excuse.
"Knowing the truth doesn't change anything. It's only natural that you all fear and avoid me. I understand."
With that, Wonderstein turned his back.
Stating calmly that it was fine for her to hate him.
He walked away with an even, unhesitating stride.
Yura followed behind him, turning his words over in her mind.
Knowing the truth doesn't change anything?
...No.
No, that wasn't right.
Something had changed.
"When those people surrounded me..."
From the moment she heard his confession, a question had lingered.
"...you were smiling."
Wonderstein's feet, which had been moving ahead, stopped dead.
"At that moment... what expression did you actually want to make?"
Wonderstein stood frozen in place.
Following behind him, Yura drew closer.
When the distance was down to a single step, Wonderstein opened his mouth.
"I have never hated this curse more than at that moment."
Yura's steps halted too.
Right behind his back.
"Seeing you surrounded, shedding tears, I also..."
Wonderstein turned to look at Yura.
A smile so bright it almost seemed to glow sat upon his lips.
"Would you believe me if I said I wanted to cry?"
Without waiting for an answer, he walked silently toward the barracks.
Yura stood there a long time, replaying the smile he had left behind.
***
The next day, the Monster Circus Troupe's breakfast was less satisfying than usual.
The fish stew Yurakne had promised the day before.
It was a disappointment compared to expectations.
No fish meat to be seen, and even the potatoes seemed smaller than usual.
"It's because of Wonderstein."
Sven cracked his knuckles and declared with conviction.
"I saw him early yesterday. He was harassing Miss Yura. Followed her all the way out to the market."
In the dead of night? The members were all shocked to hear that Yurakne had faced Wonderstein alone.
"What were you doing, mister?"
"I came back and went back to sleep."
"That's mean."
"You think I've got the guts to take on the Troupe Leader? Anyway, something bad must have happened. I saw Miss Yura when she got back, and she was a complete mess."
Everyone was curious about what had happened the previous night, but Yurakne, the person in question, kept her mouth shut about it.
***
I woke to find the sun already high in the sky.
I'd overslept from exhaustion after wandering around until dawn.
All my wounds were gone.
Thanks to 'Rapid Rigidity' suppressing the bleeding, and the Cell Regeneration I'd dialed to 3.0 before sleeping.
Name: Frank Wonderstein
Age: 27
Occupation: BioMancer
-Devolut: (2/20)
-Muscle Strength: 2.0 (Jock)
-Tissue Hardness: 2.0 (Leather Armor)
-Cell Regeneration: 3.0 (Sprinting)
Traits
: [The Smiling Man], [Rapid Rigidity]
The Cell Regeneration descriptor at 1.0 had been 'Crawling.' At 2.0, 'Walking.' Now it read 'Sprinting.'
Walking speed had been roughly four times crawling speed.
Was sprinting speed another four times walking speed?
Recovery speed seemed to have scaled proportionally, too.
Meaning I now had about sixteen times the regeneration of an average person.
It had been an unplanned expenditure, but not a bad one.
I had to raise the basic stats sooner or later anyway, and Tissue Hardness and Cell Regeneration were priorities among them.
If this were a game, I'd have maximized combat efficiency with powerful skills and extreme offensive power.
But this wasn't a game. There were no retries.
I only had one life.
I had to survive somehow before I could aim for the next opportunity.
Defense and recovery came first.
Knock, knock.
Someone rapped on the wagon door.
A glance at the silhouette told me who it was.
In any case, only two people ever came to my wagon: Umon and Ella.
It was definitely Ella.
Because the shadow was small.
"What is it?"
The voice that answered, however, was unexpected.
"It's... Yurakne."
I was surprised to hear the Spider Woman's voice, but composed myself quickly.
A message I'd received before returning to the wagon and falling asleep came to mind.
[Yurakne's Affection level has increased by 9. Current Affection level: 12. (Next Reward: Affection level 15)]
Ella was at 9, Umon at 4, everyone else at 1 or 2 — and she had jumped from 3 to 12 in a single night.
Whether it was the shopping trip together, intervening to stop the mob, or telling her about 'The Smiling Man,' I was glad last night's efforts hadn't been in vain.
Right. It was all for the sake of raising her Affection level.
There was my self-justification, neatly provided.
"What brings you?"
"Well... you skipped breakfast... and after what happened yesterday... I thought I might do something for you... so I made some porridge."
Creeeak.
I opened the door.
Yurakne stood there with her violet hair pinned up tight with a hairpin, wearing an apron.
The tray in her hands.
A bowl of porridge on it.
A familiar scent rose from it.
"Abalone, is it?"
"Yes... the merchants' association sent gifts as an apology for the incident at dawn."
"Heh heh, they gave us something this valuable. Our performance must have been quite a success."
I took the tray.
Tremble.
Her hands were faintly quivering.
Not from fear.
I noticed the sweat beading on her forehead and the shadows beneath her eyes.
"Don't tell me you haven't slept at all."
"Ah, no. I dozed off for an hour or two... earlier."
Preparing three meals for the entire troupe by herself was no small task.
She managed by splitting her sleep and carving out time, but when a surprise like yesterday came up, it pushed her past her limits.
"Thank you. I'll enjoy this."
I smiled at her.
But she gave me an odd look.
A hesitant expression, as though she wanted to ask something.
"I, um... what expression do you want to make right now?"
So that's what she was wondering about?
I answered with a smile.
"Exactly what you see."
Hearing that, she nodded as though relieved.
"Now go get some rest. We have another performance in two hours, don't we?"
At my words, she nodded.
"...Hee hee, yes!"
Huh?
I tilted my head, staring at her back as she hurried away.
Had I misheard? I could have sworn she just laughed...
Well, she's probably just happy to finally get some sleep.
I perched on the edge of the wagon's doorway and ate my porridge.
In the distance, I saw the other troupe members catch sight of this and start whispering among themselves.
When I glanced their way, they flinched and scattered like startled birds.
Still a long way to go.
But I had to keep moving.
I had to lead them all and challenge the Circus Grand Prix.
Throwing everything away and vanishing into the mountains wasn't an option anymore.
*Main Quest - Circus Grand Prix
: The Sky City Hippodrome is calling Wonderstein.
Completion Condition
: Advance to the Circus Grand Prix Finals.
Success Reward
: All acquired Devolut and BioMancer abilities can be carried into reality.
Failure Penalty
: None.
So that one day, I could walk on my own two legs, and feel the world with my own two hands.
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Spider Woman Yurakne — End