11. Wonderland (20)
11. Wonderland (20)
I headed for the rooftop of a building a little way off from the Arch Gate. Climbing walls on stick-thin limbs wasn't easy, but getting up high was the only way to search efficiently.
On my way here, I'd already worked out a few methods for locating the others.
The Status Window was mostly dead, but the basics still functioned. One of them was the Evolution Lab's Diagnosis Function.
The Diagnosis Function only worked on living targets. Used in reverse, though, it could detect life—just like when I'd seen through Arno's illusions.
I looked out over the crowd surging toward Cadsun.
Most of the people here were Spirit Bodies. I used Life Detection to pick out the ones with physical flesh among the masses.
More signatures registered than I expected. Fairies, demons, and other half-corporeal, half-spirit beings accounted for the difference.
I applied a filter to the Diagnosis Function. Spirit Bodies that couldn't be diagnosed displayed as white, new diagnostic targets as blue, and existing ones as red.
The vividly colored personas drained to stark white, like paint washing out of a picture.
Using the filter like this was a first for me. Until now, I'd only used it to highlight lesions on treatment subjects. Discovering a hidden system trick gave me a quiet gamer's satisfaction.
I scanned in every direction, searching for pinpricks of red amid the churning white tides.
The plaza in front of Cadsun was as vast as Tetromino Square. Even from the rooftop, I couldn't see the far end of it.
I shifted my center of gravity, trying to peer farther out, and nearly toppled over. Twice I almost pitched right off the roof. This new body was still unfamiliar.
If I snapped one of these stick legs here, I'd have to crawl until my persona recovered. I moved with the utmost care, balancing as best I could while I kept searching.
But after a long while of scanning, I saw only the occasional blue glint—no red.
Had they already gone into the city?
The longer I searched, the more the thought nagged at me.
Life Detection wasn't omniscient in the first place.
To diagnose someone, I had to lay eyes on them directly. If anything visual blocked the way, I couldn't see straight through it. That was why blue dots kept popping up late—they'd been hidden behind other Spirit Bodies.
And even setting that aside, combing a space this huge for this many people all alone was a fool's errand. Every second, hundreds more passed in and out of the Arch Gate.
Wouldn't another method work better?
After wasting hours, I gave up the search and climbed back down to the street.
Just as I was about to deactivate the filter, a flash of red caught my eye.
I spotted it and let out something between a sigh and a groan.
It was directly beside the building I'd been standing on—tucked back in an alley where my view hadn't reached.
Could they have been there the whole time?
I had glanced that way while climbing the building.
But I'd paid it no mind because, at first glance, there were no shapes that looked human.
Slender fairies with insect wings, a squat gnome with a bristling beard, a golem made of sand and stone.
Fairies—a whole gathering of them.
***
Many people have tried to flaunt their wisdom and insight by comparing this world to something familiar.
Wine. A carriage. A cat.
But if you asked for the most famous comparison, it would be "a single flower."
The world we inhabit, the analogy went, is nothing more than a single blossom on an immense tree. What we think of as the sea is water pooled inside the bud, and what we call continents are nothing but the pistils and stamens that poke their heads above it.
Demons are the vermin that infest the tree, and Demon Gods are queen bees hanging from hives, stealing the flower's nectar.
It was a beautiful, elegant simile. But Arno remembered the one printed in Bread and Circus more vividly.
The world we inhabit, that version said, is nothing more than a begging bowl abandoned in an alley. What we think of as the sea is scummy water pooled inside it, and what we call continents are food scraps floating on the surface.
Demons are bugs scuttling through the alley, and Demon Gods are beggars rummaging through the bowl for anything edible.
The flower comparison came from a pope. He'd used it to emphasize the Power of Light that makes both tree and bloom grow.
The begging-bowl version came from a jester, who'd used it to satirize the era he lived in.
And there were beings who lived in the space those analogies described—the rim of the petal or the begging bowl. They moved freely between inside and outside the world's boundary.
Those beings were fairies. The boundary land they inhabited was called Jormungandr.
Stepping into Wonderland, Arno felt as though she'd returned home for the first time in ages, thanks to the bustle of fairies around her.
She hadn't visited often, but as a child, she'd once come here on a field trip with her nursery friends.
'So far away... so long ago... I've been gone.'
She watched tiny fairies conjuring illusions for fun and smiled a bittersweet smile.
Decades ago, she'd slipped out to the continent for a bit of adventure and was caught by slave hunters.
Ordinarily, fairies could use their wings to move freely between the Spirit World and the Material Plane. But the drug the hunters had sprayed left her wings limp. She couldn't even create an illusion properly.
Caged, she was sold off as a pet to a noble household. The lord gave her to his daughter as a gift.
The daughter used her as a novelty to parade at social gatherings.
But "social gatherings" was a generous name for the jaunty—and cruel—games those children played. Much like commoner children pulling the legs off frogs or staging cricket fights.
They fed her spicy things and admired her runny nose and streaming tears. They snapped her arms and legs with thumb-flicks. Tossed her a fork and made her fight a vicious cat.
She was still one of the lucky ones. Plenty of her kin became test subjects for mages and ended up crippled or dissected.
She passed years where survival was the only goal, until she eventually joined a circus troupe.
Back then, monster circuses were still common. The people there, outcast by society for their appearances, treated her kindly—maybe out of some sense of kinship.
"Wingless lady!"
"Fat lady!"
"Big fat lady!"
Young fairies flitted around her, buzzing with mischief.
She stood less than a meter tall, but she still dwarfed the little ones several times over. When a fairy lost her childlike heart, not only did her wings fall away—her growth, which had stopped, resumed.
"My wingless kinswoman! I'm sorry the children were rude!"
Arno shook her head at the teacher fairy's apology.
"It's fine. Forget it."
She brushed herself off and rose. It was about time she moved into the city proper. She needed to find out what had happened to the others who'd been caught.
"E-Excuse me! Just a moment!"
She was just about to step away when someone called out to her.
A Scarecrow approached with an awkward, waddling gait.
Arno let out a quiet sigh.
The reason a masked figure would seek out a half-fairy was obvious. Probably another request to handle the illusions for some show. She'd already gotten a dozen such offers on the way here.
"Sorry, but I'm not making any illusions."
"Illusions? Ah, wait, just a moment—could it be... you're Arno?"
Her expression hardened.
"...Who are you?"
The faces of old circus colleagues flashed through her mind. Only people who'd known her in the mortal world could recognize her here.
But moments after meeting his eyes, she felt his presence clear as day.
She existed half in the Material Plane, half in the Spirit World. She could discern a being not just by their appearance, but by their spiritual wavelength.
She stared at him in plain disbelief.
"...Wonderstein?"
The Scarecrow's face lit up at her words, and he practically lunged at her.
"It really is you, Arno! I'm so glad! I thought I'd never find anyone in this god-awful crowd—aaagh!"
The Scarecrow let out a sudden shriek and went tumbling across the ground.
The nearby young fairies burst into giggling peals. An illusionary rope they'd created had snared his legs.
"Somebody untie me!"
Arno watched him flailing his stick-like arms and thrashing about.
The fact that this Scarecrow was Wonderstein surprised her, but seeing him carry on like this surprised her just as much.
Wasn't this the same man who had laughed calmly when an Apostle descended?
She stared blankly, then noticed the rope trying to twist his leg backward and hastily waved her hand to dispel the illusion.
"What in the... why are they doing that?"
The Scarecrow glared up at the fairies cackling above his head and grumbled.
"Just mischief."
"Tch, mischief? My leg almost snapped! I've been so careful, here, just..."
"Ah, uh? Y-yeah."
She reflexively took his offered hand and helped him to his feet.
Her eyes swept over his body.
A worn straw hat, a face patched together from rags.
A torso made of bundled straw with a tattered vest.
And on top of that, limbs made of sticks.
He was unmistakably a Scarecrow.
"What took you so long to show up? And what in the world are you wearing?"
"I arrived a little late. And this is my persona—damn these fairies! Get lost!"
The Scarecrow shouted at the young fairies as their ropes now tried to truss up his arms. The fairies paid no mind and kept flinging illusions at him.
They didn't mean any real harm.
First, they'd found the wobbling Scarecrow hilarious; now, his panicked flailing was so entertaining they simply kept the game going. They howled with laughter as he tumbled across the ground.
"Kyahaah!"
"He's so funny! This Scarecrow!"
"Aaaaagh!"
Arno let out a hollow laugh herself.
Was this really the same Wonderstein?
Before long, the fairies followed their teacher and departed for Cadsun. Even as they drifted farther away, they kept sticking out their tongues and smacking their bottoms in his direction.
The Scarecrow gave a snort, then inspected himself with exaggerated care for any broken bits.
"You're different from what I expected. Like this, I mean."
At Arno's words, a wave of embarrassment washed over the Scarecrow.
Fearing he might lose the use of his limbs, he'd panicked and thrashed—complete with that whole ridiculous song and dance.
The Scarecrow knew exactly how he'd looked just now.
That had been his 'Torch Dancer' persona, the one he put on for his streams.
When he'd first started broadcasting, he'd intended to do quiet, gameplay-only streams, just like when he'd anonymously uploaded videos. Oversized reactions and enthusiastic viewer interaction weren't his style.
But the producer had talked him around.
"It's a virtual stream anyway—you're behind an avatar! What's there to be shy about?"
"You've got fans with disabilities who admire you, Torch Dancer. Imagine how they'll feel if all they ever see is a gloomy, subdued version of you."
"You're the idol who's going to change the world's prejudice! Not 'Oh, disabled people are so pitiful and tragic,' but 'Look, he's living joyfully even in a body like that!'"
He'd given in to the producer's pitch and, before officially launching his channel, had undergone voice training and acting lessons.
Before long, he could slip into the 'Torch Dancer' role with practiced ease.
"Pffahaha, what's with you people who have all ten fingers? Why not just play with your feet?"
On his debut day, he'd set a new record on the streaming site.