10. Demon in a Bottle (End)
10. Demon in a Bottle (End)
After descending from the observation deck, Maya took a carriage back to the lodging by herself.
Her heart was a tangled knot of conflicting emotions.
At first, anger over her disappointed expectations had dominated everything.
But as time passed, all that remained was regret toward the Troupe Leader.
The Troupe Leader had harbored not the slightest self-interest toward her.
He had merely done what he always did—fulfilled his role as a teacher.
He worried when she struggled, and he taught her when she found things difficult.
Yet she had snapped at him.
She had misunderstood on her own, built expectations on her own, and gotten angry on her own.
It was behavior suited to nothing more than an immature child.
What had made her recall the riddle of the Tetromino Square floor was her guilt toward the Troupe Leader. Even if it had been a misunderstanding, she had treated someone terribly—someone who had explained everything to her with such wholehearted concern.
Separate from those feelings, though, the Troupe Leader's insight remained undeniably astonishing.
To solve a puzzle that had confounded everyone for a hundred years, just like that.
Maya conjured five glass beads of different colors into the air with Illusion Magic.
Oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus.
The elements combined into a single unit, repeating themselves to form a double helix. And then two of those coiled around each other and rose together.
When had the Troupe Leader figured this out?
They had been staying in this city for over a month.
He might have grasped it from nothing more than a passing glance while coming and going.
But another hypothesis appealed to Maya far more.
That the Troupe Leader had known all along.
Judging by his demeanor when he explained it, he had seemed to already know the answer by the time she began working on the problem.
He had probably visited this city before and solved it then. But that still left one lingering question.
Why hadn't the Troupe Leader announced his discovery to the world?
Many things about the secrecy he adhered to were difficult to understand.
If he truly disliked attention, then leading a circus troupe and standing on stage made no sense at all.
Did the Troupe Leader have some reason she didn't know about?
While she was lost in these thoughts, the carriage arrived in front of the lodging.
"Oh my, Miss Maya, you came alone? Where is the Troupe Leader?"
Yurakne, who had rushed out at the sound of the carriage, scanned the surroundings restlessly.
"He has business to attend to and will come later."
Wonderstein had said he would check on Clara this afternoon.
Maya had originally meant to accompany him.
Because rumors had been circulating that, after she fainted in front of Wonderstein last time, something deeply intimate had developed between the two of them.
But she decided now not to believe such gossip anymore.
She was thoroughly sick of misunderstandings.
The Troupe Leader's pure goodwill had probably been distorted and exaggerated as it passed from mouth to mouth.
Ella had failed to seduce him. So had Reina. And so had she.
The Troupe Leader did not see a girl ten years his junior as a woman.
A gap of nine years or eight would surely make no difference either.
"Oh, a package arrived. I placed it in front of your door, Miss Maya."
After the incident in Dvalchev, she had contacted her academic advisor at the Academy.
She had requested the latest research materials on Devolut from him.
It seemed they had arrived.
She tossed the professor's greeting letter into a corner and began reading through the documents.
The volume of material was vast.
Two things seized Maya's attention.
One was the connection between the Black Magician and the Curse Plague.
This research had come from the Orthodox Church about a month ago, suggesting that a similar pattern could be observed between the Black Magician's movements and the outbreak sites of the Curse Plague.
The Black Magician.
Maya's grip on the papers tightened.
The one who had taken the person she loved most.
Most people assumed Maya could not remember an event that had occurred when she was only a few months old. But her memory had been nearly perfect from the age of two months onward.
She could still vividly recall the happy, joyful sensations of her infancy.
And the despair she had felt upon learning that her mother was gone was no different.
It had been Maya's first experience of loss.
She could never harbor kind feelings toward the Black Magician who had caused it.
Maya then moved on to the final document.
It was an image of Devolut captured by the IMT using their latest observation equipment.
Until now, Devolut had been barely perceptible even under a state-of-the-art optical microscope—visible only as a squirming mass.
It seemed the engineers at IMT had somehow found a way.
The following page contained a sketch drawn by a researcher based on the observation.
The moment Maya saw it, a shiver ran through her.
The drawing skill was atrocious.
To Maya, who was at the level of a professional artist, it was little more than a scribble.
Yet its content was utterly astonishing.
The form of Devolut they had observed.
It was two double helixes coiling around each other and rising upward like snakes.
***
I sat in the visiting room in front of the dormitory, waiting for Clara and organizing the results of this endeavor.
I had gained two things from defeating the Avatar.
[Sub Quest - Demon in the Bottle completed. "Professor's Flask" provided as a reward.]
I reached into the Status Window and pulled out a transparent glass bottle spinning slowly in place.
Name: Professor's Flask
Target: Blood that fills the flask.
Effect: Traps a Demon God creature inside the flask and allows you to release and retrieve it freely. Contract duration is 30 days. Renewable.
Required Resources: None.
The reward was similar to the Ghost of the Cabaret case.
An item that granted access to a helper's power.
This whole incident had turned out to be Phairen secretly collecting creatures—demons and beasts—and suffering an accident because of management failure. That must have been why the reward reflected her ability.
An ability to capture living creatures.
This was perfect for Ella.
I tossed it into my hat and drew out another piece of loot from my coat.
A glass bottle slightly smaller than my fist.
Inside was a mass of sparkling, sand-like grains.
I knew what this was.
A Fragment of Trill.
In TT3, Wonderstein's comrades, the Three Witches, had used this substance for bio-manipulation.
Back then, I had assumed it held such power simply because it was an object that had once contained Wonderstein's soul. But considering that Trill must be consumed to manipulate an Innate Trait, the gem itself might naturally possess a power tied to Devolut.
I brought up the third Main Quest window.
*Main Quest - Trill
: The thing you have desired to lay your hands upon.
Completion Condition
: Devour the Trill once it has turned fully red.
Success Reward
: Manipulation of 'Innate Traits' is possible without incurring 'Demonization Penalty.'
Failure Penalty
: None.
To manipulate an Innate Trait, I had to 'consume' the Trill.
So what would happen if I ate this right now?
Would this incomplete, not-yet-fully-red thing have no effect at all?
Or would it perhaps unlock some new ability?
I opened the bottle and brought it to my lips.
My heart pounded in my chest.
The Smiling Man, always so composed, reacted violently only to the Trill.
Just as I was about to tip the contents into my mouth,
the door opened and someone entered.
Clara.
She stared directly at what I was doing.
She wouldn't mistake me for some kind of addict, would she?
I slipped the bottle into my coat and spoke casually.
"Heh heh, I was just taking some medicine. Haven't been feeling well."
"...I see."
I glanced at the bag she had packed.
"Are you leaving?"
"Yes. I've submitted a leave of absence."
Among the students who had woken up after yesterday's incident, a significant number had applied for leave.
The Avatar's curse had affected their minds that powerfully.
Some had even declared they were quitting acrobatics altogether.
"Come here. Let's begin the treatment."
She undressed before me.
She showed no sign of embarrassment.
Well, fretting over modesty seemed absurd when you had an illness that would kill you within days.
Her skin was cracked and split like a dried-up paddy field. Blood pooled in the fissures, gleaming like brilliant rubies. In some places, the skin had turned into something resembling a desiccated husk, revealing the pale pink flesh beneath.
The Evolution Research Institute had explained it as a phenomenon that arose when a rift formed between soul and body.
It appeared to be an exceedingly rare disease.
I examined every part of her body and restored it using Devolut.
As the treatment was nearing its end, she spoke first.
"May I ask what your goal is, Troupe Leader? Why do you insist on running a circus troupe?"
A question I'd heard many times before.
Why was I doing this, possessing such power?
I shrugged.
"It won't be too different from what you already imagine."
I added one more remark after that.
"The Wonder Stage, of course."
The muscles in her back flinched.
By then, the treatment was finished.
I turned around and waited for her to change.
Then, suddenly, she embraced me from behind.
"Miss Clara?"
"Will you take me in?"
Her voice was wistful.
This was one of the proposals I'd anticipated.
Her body required treatment once every two weeks.
It would be more convenient for her to travel with us rather than track us down in every city we stayed in.
I also thought that having her join us—she was Rekachev's former top student—would be a great help.
Still, it felt unpleasant, as though I were exploiting her medical treatment for labor.
"Please give me a chance to repay your kindness."
"I didn't help you expecting something like that. And anyone who belonged to one of the Six Great Theaters at the start of the competition is banned from participating for the entire tournament."
Clara buried her face against my back and shook her head.
"The member restriction only applies to those who step on stage. I don't mind not performing."
"Then what work will you do?"
"I'll serve as your secretary, Troupe Leader. I'll run errands, anything. I'll be of use to you, I promise."
I let out a small sigh.
If I refused, I wasn't sure what extreme choice she might make.
"Fine. Is there any payment you desire besides the treatment?"
"No. There isn't. Though, not as payment, there's just one thing I'm curious about. I... what was I born for?"
An existential question.
A complicated matter.
She was a child who had despaired of life to the point of contemplating suicide.
It was hardly strange for her to ask such things.
This was all I could offer her.
Live first, and see.
"If we travel together, you may find the answer."
"Do you think so? ...Alright."
She seemed to have wanted a clear answer, but nodded without much fuss.
"Good. Welcome, Clara."
['Clara' has been added to the Member List.]
"Now, would you please put some clothes on?"
Only then, as if remembering she was on the first floor of a dormitory, did she hastily scoop up her clothes and dress.
***
Clara rode in the carriage with her master, stealing sidelong glances at his face.
She already had her own suspicions about his goal.
It had been deduced from the rumors and information she had gathered.
To seize Kirkeus's relic, the Trill.
And her guess was correct.
She did not know for what purpose, but the Master desired the Trill.
Seeing him about to consume a Fragment of Trill and call it medicine—did he have some physical affliction like her own?
She wanted to press for details but decided against it.
The Master had also evaded questions about the reason he had created her.
She had no intention of offending him by prying into matters he chose not to share.
What mattered was the Master's objective.
He was undoubtedly planning to do something akin to what had happened seventeen years ago.
Turning the entire world into an enemy.
Yet Clara felt no fear.
A flame of ambition kindled anew in a corner of her heart.
It was the dream she had harbored while inside the bottle.
To strut freely with the world as her stage.
On the day the Master stood tall atop the highest city in the world,
she would be there at his side.
As his most trusted subordinate.
As the person he relied on most.
After emerging from the bottle, she had realized something.
Her heart felt more at ease when she acted in a supporting role rather than taking the lead.
A position second only to one, above all others.
That was her new goal.
I will certainly be of use to the Master.
So vowed the demon released from the bottle.
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Demon in a Bottle (End)