11. Wonderland (21)
11. Wonderland (21)
-Dancer, torch-dance victory right on top of your enemy's corpse!
-Ah, couldn't resist this one lol
-Living up to your name lolol
Scarecrow had played the Torch Dancer persona the agency built for him down to the last detail.
No matter the game, he ranked among the absolute best. Some tried to write off his skill as nothing but good gear. But if you asked any of them to do everything through his eyes, they couldn't manage basic movement even after weeks of practice.
His mental fortitude matched his skill. He paid no mind to the vicious insults hurled at him over his disability. He never once got angry, never once let it shake him. Frankly, after what he'd endured growing up in the orphanage, that was nothing. He even turned his own body into a running gag.
"The reason our team lost today is that I just couldn't synchronize with Torch Dancer... hands and feet, you know..."
"Huh? What's not synchronized?"
"Oh? Uh, a-ahh! A slip of the tongue!"
-lolololololol
-Another controversy to add to the pile.
-Famous domestic streamer, shocking live broadcast mocks disabled person.
In a sense, what he did on stream wasn't so different from the Monster Circus Troupe he ran now.
-Torch Dancer, 100,000 won donation! Let's get rolling!
-Ooh, you mean Dancer's signature move?
-Wait, if we laugh at this, does that make us bad people?
-Roll roll!
-Roll roll!
People liked minorities who tried to blend in with the majority. People worshipped outsiders who won. People felt proud of themselves for cheering someone like that on.
His character strategy had worked.
He followed the PD's directions well—except on one point he never compromised. The Tril Trillo series.
TTT was the first game he'd ever truly loved, the first he'd ever made videos for. For TTT, he stuck to his original concept: no face, no voice, only in-game elements.
[Gesture, Dance, Taunt? Dodging Every Single 'Bone Barrage' with Emotes Alone~]
[This... is a Thief's secret art...? A cardboard-box Easter egg so monsters walk right past you!]
[Another humiliating year for Wonderstein! Disrespecting the final boss with a pelvic shove!]
The company provided video editing and account support, but every idea and every script was his own. TTT videos never pulled the same view counts as Torch Dancer's streams, but Scarecrow enjoyed this work far more than live broadcasting. The income he earned from it, he donated anonymously to Institute of Omnipotence facilities across the country.
The cult that had oppressed them had been dismantled, but the orphanages it once managed remained scattered everywhere. There was no real connection between them beyond having once been under the same religious foundation, but he couldn't pretend they didn't exist.
"Hey. How long are you going to sit there like that? That embarrassed?"
Arno's call jolted Scarecrow from his reverie. Wearing the Dancer's mask again after so long had pulled up old memories. For the last six months, he'd lived only as Wonderstein.
"Got lost in thought for a moment."
Arno looked at his blankly staring face and snorted. His eyes and mouth, crudely stitched into a rag, looked like a doll made by a talentless seamstress—absurd enough to be funny.
He wobbled to his feet and spoke in that familiar theatrical voice.
"Anyway, glad you're safe! Wait—so is this your real appearance, Arno? You're a fairy?"
Scarecrow recalled the fairies who'd played tricks on him earlier. She shared a number of physical traits with them.
The antennae sprouting from her head, the pointed ears, the shimmering skin, the smooth body that showed almost no sexual characteristics of either male or female.
She differed from them in two respects: she was several times their size, and she had no wings on her back.
Several times their size by fairy standards, of course—by human reckoning, she was child-sized. She was even smaller than Ruelo.
"It's a long story. Let's find somewhere private."
She glared pointedly at the gnomes nearby, who were clearly settling in to enjoy their conversation as drinking entertainment. They clicked their tongues and went back to chattering among themselves.
The two climbed up to the building's rooftop. Sitting side by side, they exchanged accounts of what had happened.
"You slipped away immediately?"
"No choice. Inside a Demon God's domain, fairies, demons, even followers of other Demon Gods—none of them can freely use their power."
Flung into another world without warning. As soon as her illusions began unraveling and her true form started to show, Arno quickly turned invisible. The moment she hid herself, Wonderland guards stormed in.
"Trespassers!"
"Seize them!"
The acrobats were already disoriented and confused. They didn't even consider resisting before they were caught.
"Of course, they soon worked out they'd landed in Wonderland."
Scarecrow imagined they must have been terrified. Unlike him, who'd seen this place clearly in the game, to them this was the underworld they'd only ever heard of in stories.
"Were they badly shaken?"
"No. They were thrilled. Celebrating, even."
"..."
Arno caught the look on his face and hastily added.
"Ah, well—the guards kept calling them 'living people' and 'intruders,' so they must have realized they weren't dead."
Scarecrow nodded, satisfied.
"What did they make of our absence?"
"Lord Fantastic explained it. He said that premiering a lost work by a giant like Christian probably acted as a kind of 'rite,' accidentally opening a passage to the Abyss. And the invitation only extended to the 'performers' on stage. You were a stagehand, and I—I provided Maya's voice, sure, but I had no lines in the prologue. He sounded so certain, everyone accepted it."
Scarecrow nodded.
Of course, no matter how legendary the performance, a show in the middle of a metropolis wouldn't normally send anyone flying into the Abyss. Three additional factors had lined up to make it happen.
First, the venue.
The space they'd performed in was a building that hadn't been lived in for decades. Considering that the spiritual traces of a sentient being form a barrier between the material plane and the Abyss, that place was practically an abandoned house.
Second, the audience. A performance—a rite aimed at Kirkeus—was usually less dangerous precisely because of the spectators. The emotional energy they gave off greatly reduced the ritual's inherent risk. But despite the staggering prestige of premiering Christian's lost work, this show had a grand total of one audience member. Someone invisible, no less. The neutralizing effect had been predictably weak.
That much matched Lord Fantastic's reasoning. And Scarecrow knew the third factor they didn't. The Starlight he'd stashed beneath the seating. A fragment of a Kirkeus relic, it had undoubtedly served as the admission fee the guards mentioned—the price of passage into Wonderland.
"In any case, once the guards turned hostile, they tried to escape. Some got away. Some were captured."
"Who did they capture?"
"Three. Fantastic, Hobbs, Minova."
"Only the troupe leaders."
"Because they held the guards off and told the others to run."
"Even Simon?"
"Doesn't suit him, does it. But he did it. Now—your turn. What happened to you?"
Scarecrow gave her a condensed summary.
"Someone was captured but got away?"
"Yes. I was tracking that person when I happened to spot you, Arno. So—please, now. Are you a fairy?"
Facing an identity the original game had never resolved, Scarecrow's eyes gleamed. She studiously ignored his fascinated gaze and murmured.
"Y... yes. I've lost my wings, but... I'm a fairy."
She said it, then hastily added,
"W-weird, right? Neither human nor truly fairy..."
Scarecrow shook his head.
"Haha, no. You're really pretty."
His words made Arno's throat tighten.
"Spare me the empty flattery. It doesn't make me happy at all."
"I mean it..."
"Hmph. Silver tongue. I know your type. Sweet talk all day long, but the woman you actually keep by your side is someone else entirely."
"Keep by my side?"
"Don't pick apart every word!"
Scarecrow scratched the back of his head, watching her flare up with her antennae standing rigid. What had he done wrong?
Strip away the illusions and Arno was a complete child. Just like those fairies from earlier.
"Forget it. Let's move on. Explain your appearance. That persona is solid as a dead man's—how?"
Scarecrow shook his head, looking troubled.
"Is it really that strange?"
"It is. Everyone else just had minor costume changes—completely ordinary. Well, except Lord Fantastic's mustache, which has grown several times longer."
Scarecrow's mind churned. So far he'd figured he could coast by explaining that arriving in Wonderland had simply turned him into a Persona, but if he alone had changed this drastically, the excuse wouldn't hold.
If Arno could still use magic freely, Wonderstein would've asked her to layer an illusion over him. But she wasn't in a position to do that either. The best she could manage was an illusion covering one person, and even that only lasted a few hours.
Not that taking Wonderstein's form here was a good move to begin with. And asking every companion he met not to mention his name—that was suspicious too.
"Seems you've got something you want to hide?"
"...Yes."
She nodded.
"Me too, actually. I don't want anyone finding out I'm a fairy. So I've got an idea. What if... we both just never arrived at all?"
Scarecrow understood her at once.
"Conceal our identities?"
"Right. You pretend to be a resident here. I pretend to be a fairy out for a stroll. And when it's time for everyone to go back, we slip along in their wake..."
Scarecrow turned the proposal over. Not a bad idea.
"That works."
The moment he accepted her plan, a notification appeared in his Status Window.
*Sub Quest — Mask Play
: In Wonderland, you are the Torch Dancer.
Completion Condition
: Do not let your companions (excluding Arno) discover your identity before all of them have exited Wonderland.
Success Reward
: You may take one Persona out of Wonderland.
Failure Penalty
: None.
Take a Persona out? The reward was intriguing but too vague to gauge from this alone.
Arno clapped her hands.
"Good. Concealing identities it is! Now, what about names? Got one in mind?"
Scarecrow nodded.
"Call me Oz. And you? Ah—come to think of it, is Lumion, the name you use as Deputy Leader, your real name? Or is Arno...?"
"Both are. The first is my name in the fairy world, the second in the human world. So here..."
Arno gave him the pet name she'd allowed only two others to use.
"Call me Rumi."
"Hah, I see. Got it, Rumi. Well then—until we get out of here, I'll be in your care."
"Likewise, Oz."
Scarecrow and the wingless fairy exchanged light handshakes, smiling at each other.