11. Wonderland (4)
11. Wonderland (4)
The instant Wonderstein and Clara vanished from sight, Ella shot to her feet.
Every gaze snapped to her.
Her whole body trembled as though she were in the grip of a fever.
Yurakne, standing nearby, approached with a worried expression.
"Are you alright?"
Ella turned her head stiffly to look at her.
"Y-yeah? Oh, m-me? Of c-course. I'm f-fine..."
Anyone could see she was anything but fine.
Ragged breaths kept spilling from her lips, cold sweat beaded on her forehead, and her eyes wandered restlessly, unable to settle.
She looked back at the troupe members with an awkward smile.
"Wh-why are you all staring? H-haha, it's just a stomachache... I-I need to run to the restroom..."
With that, she bolted into the villa.
It wasn't just her complexion—her gait looked dangerously unsteady.
She even stumbled once along the way.
Everyone exchanged worried glances.
They all knew exactly why she was acting this way.
Ever since the accident at the Freshmen Welcome Party, she had been suffering intermittent seizures.
It wasn't from an injury.
The thing they had always feared would catch up to her had finally arrived.
Her lost memories were resurfacing.
The troupe members had no idea what had transpired between her and Wonderstein.
So none of them could presume to pass judgment.
Of course, even based on what they had witnessed with their own eyes, Wonderstein was a horrifying creature.
He was a monster who killed people savagely without so much as a flicker of expression.
Ordinary folk could never have accepted him.
The same went for the monster members.
For months, they had avoided associating with him.
But these troupe members had all been cast out by society at least once.
They had suffered every kind of indignity at the hands of "normal people."
So even if Wonderstein had committed atrocities against human decency, they didn't feel the same moral revulsion an ordinary person would.
And so, as his human qualities gradually revealed themselves, they had been able to turn a blind eye to his monstrous side as well.
Umon, Maya, and Gaston, who had joined the circus relatively late, didn't even know what he had done. So they'd never held any resentment toward him to begin with.
But Ella was different.
She was a founding member of this circus.
She had witnessed every single thing he had done. On top of that, she had a past the other members knew nothing about.
They worried just how devastating it would be for her when all those memories came flooding back.
Once she left the garden, Ella ran without even knowing where she was headed.
Driven by the single thought that she needed to get away from the others, she fled blindly.
She ended up in the rear garden.
The ground had been completely dug up and lay bare.
The troupe had harvested every last pumpkin that morning.
She braced herself against a wall, struggling to catch her breath.
"Huff, huff."
She wiped the sweat from her brow.
Another one of those damned visions.
They had tormented her relentlessly ever since the Freshmen Welcome Party.
They appeared even when she closed her eyes; she heard them even when she plugged her ears.
The locations and the people differed each time.
But one thing was always the same.
People dying in gruesome ways—and Wonderstein at the center of it all.
This time it was a clearing in some forest.
A band of armored soldiers had surrounded them.
Wonderstein extended his hand, and their heads and bodies burst apart with sickening pops.
Some fled. Some charged at him with spears and swords. None of them stood a chance.
When he spread both arms wide, every last one was reduced to a pulp of blood and meat.
He stood in the middle of that sea of blood, looking back at her, laughing.
She wrapped her arms around her shoulders.
Had he really... done such things?
"No, no..."
Ella shook her head.
It had to be a lie.
Her mind must have conjured these worst-case imaginings, projecting her own dark suspicions about Wonderstein's past.
That had to be it...
She repeated words she couldn't quite bring herself to believe.
That was when she heard a presence behind her.
She turned around.
An old man with white hair and dirt-stained clothes shuffled out into the rear garden.
He walked over and held out a cup with steam curling from the rim.
"This will clear your head. It won't stop your memories from returning, but at least it should keep the visions from ambushing you like fits."
It was a freshly brewed medicinal draught.
He must have started preparing it the moment he saw her seize up.
"Th-thank... you..."
Ella accepted the cup with trembling hands.
Gaston gave a snort and waved dismissively.
"Hmph. No need to thank me. This was all at that brat's request."
"That brat?"
"Who else but that pupil of mine? A real piece of work, I tell you. Learns exactly what he promised and then vanishes... Tch. If only he fussed over me half as much as he fusses over you."
He grumbled on as he made a show of tidying up the dug-up garden.
Ella gazed down at the herbal infusion and murmured softly.
"The Troupe Leader... is worried about me...?"
A smile seeped between her lips.
The terror that had gripped her at the vision of him melted away in an instant at the single phrase—that he had worried about her.
Gaston turned to look at her and let out a deep sigh.
There's no cure for that one.
"You really that fond of him?"
"Hehe..."
She ducked his gaze, suddenly bashful.
The old gardener shook his head in sheer disbelief.
"Hmph. What's to like about a fellow like that? A man with real ability, and he wastes it clinging to a circus. Pathetic."
Ella's eyes shot wide open at the insult—Gaston had just slighted her two favorite things in one breath.
"What? Says the manure-slinging compost jockey who rolls around in the dirt all day!"
"Compost... jockey?"
The two raised their voices and traded barbs.
Drawn by the commotion, the troupe members who came running to the rear garden exhaled in relief at the sight—here were the same two, squabbling just like always.
***
Clara hummed a tune under her breath as she walked along the street.
The melody was one the 4-member Band had played at the Freshmen Welcome Party.
She hopped lightly to the rhythm, even rolling her shoulders to it every so often.
Passersby glanced at the grown young lady acting like an overgrown child—half amused, half charmed—and walked on with quiet smiles.
Something good must have happened.
Clara was too absorbed in her singing to notice how people were looking at her.
She had lost her seat as an Apostle, but she could still use the Authority that let her eavesdrop on nearby conversations.
She had once kept it active at all times, but no longer.
Using the power put too much strain on her body, and she couldn't keep imposing on her Master while under his care, so she kept it suppressed most of the time.
Arriving at her destination, she flung both arms out and spun in a circle, finishing her song.
Clara had come to understand this world through human "conversation."
Within those whispers, she had encountered every kind of slander, collusion, and intrigue. Thanks to that, she could recite the dark, sordid underbelly of politics, society, and commerce from memory.
Having heard so many secret stories, she had always acted as though she had the world and its people completely figured out.
But stepping out into the open had shown her a world that defied all her expectations.
Everything she felt on her skin, tasted with her tongue, saw with her eyes—it was all overflowing with wonder.
Even "hearing" was different from what it had been inside the bottle.
The greetings exchanged with warm smiles, the silly little jokes, the casual compliments over trivial things—all the things she'd dismissed as "nothing"—filled her heart to the brim.
Singing was the same.
The experience of countless people sharing the same wavelength, riding the same exhilaration together—it was beyond anything she had ever imagined.
So this was what life outside the bottle felt like. Such joy.
"Well now, miss, something good happen? What's got you dancing all the way from down the street?"
An old guard in uniform smiled as he addressed her.
Clara answered his smile with one of her own and called out brightly.
"Everything's just wonderful! Here, my Bergson Trading Company membership card!"
"Ah, very good. Let's see—yes, that checks out. Haha, a cheerful, lively young lady—brightens my whole mood."
The old guard verified her identification and opened the door.
She stepped inside the bank.
Upon learning in town that their new clothes would take longer than expected, she and Wonderstein had split up to handle the remaining errands.
Her destination was the corporate bank that handled financial services for trading firms and companies.
The building was crowded with older people in formal suits.
She was the only teenager in the room.
The other patrons eyed her like she was a curiosity.
A corporate bank in this era was no place for ordinary folk to wander into.
Getting a single piece of business done required grappling with arcane jargon, finicky paperwork, labyrinthine procedures, and a dizzying flurry of seals and signatures.
Until now, the circus had never had much reason to visit a place like this.
Back in Rouge, Anais had handled the paperwork directly, and afterward she had delivered funds like clockwork.
But some time ago, contact from her had abruptly ceased.
She hadn't withdrawn her sponsorship.
They still held their qualifications for the Circus Grand Prix.
It was only the regular letters and funds that had stopped dead.
Wonderstein assumed the young noblewoman had simply lost interest in him.
So for a while now, he had been going through the formal procedures to draw funds using the trading company's sponsorship credentials.
He hadn't believed Clara when she said she could handle it by herself.
Whenever he went to the bank, it always became a time-devouring ordeal—he and Ella putting their heads together, second-guessing this and that, taking wrong turns at every step.
The clerk seated at the counter shared the same assumption.
He didn't think a kid who barely looked twenty could possibly manage bank business on her own.
But for Clara, who had spent ages stockpiling worldly knowledge, handling bank work was nothing.
She breezed through every demand the bank threw at her.
It was the polished handiwork of a veteran merchant.
She was so sharp and efficient that the section chief behind the counter jokingly offered her a job.
Clara gave a silent scoff.
Back when her self-worth was in the gutter, his words might have flattered her. Not now. She stood at the side of the greatest man in the world.
She had no envy for any other position.
In the end, she wrapped up the bank errand far sooner than Wonderstein had expected.
With time to spare, she went looking for a nearby festival ground.
Her grasp of high society and its workings was exhaustive, but she hadn't studied acrobatics with nearly the same depth. She knew just enough to pass as "Clara."
But if she wanted to properly serve as the Troupe Leader's secretary from now on, that wouldn't do.
She needed to watch more performances and build up her knowledge whenever she could.
Of course, there was another reason.
'If I go rushing back to the villa early, I'll just get stuck with chores, won't I? Heehee, let's play a little first.'
As luck would have it, there was an entertaining event underway at the festival ground that caught her eye.
"Alright, an arm-wrestling tournament! Whoa, hold on, hold on there! Big fella, step to the back! This one's ladies only! Though, if you happen to show up in a pretty skirt, I might just let it slide—I wouldn't dare peek under a lady's hem to check, now would I?"
A roar of laughter erupted from the crowd.
The bearded man clicked his tongue and grudgingly stepped back. He did not go fetch a skirt.
Clara entered the tournament.
The winner's prize was a Slagbort Confectionery Halloween cookie set.
That was one of the things she'd planned to buy today anyway. If she could win it here, she could pocket the money instead.
She was confident she would win.
All the Devolut Wonderstein had infused into her had given her physical abilities a modest boost.
Enough to thoroughly trounce the drifters loitering around a market fair.
Her first opponent was a little thing who looked about five or six years old.
"Heehee, a rugrat! A little baby rugrat! First match is free!"
She had no intention of going easy just because the kid was small.
Step one: let the trash talk rattle her opponent's spirit.
"Hey, you! Shouldn't you be off sucking on a bottle somewhere? What's a baby doing in a place like this?"
Clara pitched her voice low, just for her opponent.
The little girl's face flushed, and she hung her head.
"I-I'm plenty big enough..."
Clara made a show of cupping a hand to her ear at the mumble.
"Hm? What was that? Speak up? Nope, can't hear you!"
"U-um, you're... you're so mean..."
"Can't hear you! Not a word! Your voice is too teeny-tiny little-kid for me to catch!"
Just then, the girl's father bellowed encouragement from the crowd.
Clara pointed at him and sneered.
"That your daddy over there? Is that even a human being? Or is it a chicken head?"
The girl's shoulders flinched.
'Heh-heh. Got her riled.'
The referee's whistle signaled the start.
Clara twisted the girl's arm at once, giving her no chance to react.
Crack.
The match was over in an instant.