3. Deputy Leader Ella (5)
3. Deputy Leader Ella (5)
The pigeon had shown me the way, so finding Ella was simple.
The moonlight was bright tonight, and the electric lamps strung along the ship cast their glow across the water. Even in the dark, a person's silhouette stood out clearly.
She was floating unconscious—probably from the impact when she hit the water.
When I shook her a few times, she coughed up a little water. She hadn't swallowed much, thankfully.
The river was calm. That helped.
I gathered her into my arms and swam for the riverbank.
It didn't go as smoothly as I'd imagined.
The surface looked placid, but the current was quicker than it seemed. Before I knew it, I'd drifted right past the boulder I'd been aiming for.
"Haaah, haaah."
I'd never swum before in my life, so steering myself where I wanted to go was a struggle. The water was fast, I couldn't see well, and every time I thought I'd made progress after a frantic burst of paddling, I'd look up and find myself even farther from shore.
Grabbing hold of Ella so easily earlier hadn't been a reflection of my swimming skills. She'd simply been right in the path of the current.
What now?
My current Muscle Strength was 2.1.
According to the description, that was "Jock Upperclassman" level. Trying to haul another person through a current this strong with that kind of power was unrealistic.
What were my options?
I was out of Devolut, too...
While I deliberated, the river kept dragging Ella and me downstream. The ship was a distant speck now.
Guess I had to gamble.
Traits worked like equipment. Once created, they could be "unequipped" anytime. That meant I didn't have to walk around openly displaying every physical oddity I gave myself. I could put them on and take them off as needed.
But "dismantling" a Trait was a different concept from unequipping it.
Dismantling completely destroyed the Trait, reverting it back into Devolut for me to absorb again. The conversion rate was fifty percent.
Throwing away abilities I'd made only ten minutes ago stung, but I had no other play. Survive first, complain later.
[Dismantling 'Rapid Rigidity.' 1 Devolut returned.]
[Dismantling 'Gills.' 9 Devolut returned.]
I dismantled everything except the webbing on my hands and feet.
The bubbles that had been streaming from my neck stopped. The gills were gone. My lungs seized, gulping air again.
"Cough."
A few drops of water splashed into my airway. I sputtered.
No time to waste. I dumped all ten of the returned points straight into Muscle Strength.
-Muscle Strength: 3.0 (+0.15 Yurakne's Devotion) (Gym Newbie -> 300 kg Big Three)
I vaguely remembered reading somewhere on a humor site that a combined total of 300 kilograms across the three main powerlifting exercises was the ceiling a healthy, ordinary person could realistically hit.
Before I could run out of breath again, I threw everything I had into churning my arms and legs. I'd at least splashed around for a few minutes by now, so I'd picked up a bare minimum of technique—more than when I'd been a complete novice. With the strength boost, cutting through the water toward the bank felt far easier than before.
"Haah, cough! Cough!"
My foot sank into something with a soft squelch.
That sensation—yielding at first, then firm the moment you pressed down.
Mud.
I wrenched my ankle free of the weight sucking at it and forced my next step forward. My shoulders broke the surface.
Finally!
My chest, stomach, waist, knees—one by one, they rose out of the water. Step by step, I walked myself onto dry land.
"Hoo-ah!"
Clear of the river, I laid Ella down beside me and collapsed onto my back with a wet slap. Clean air tickled my lungs. My soaked hair clung to my cheek. I stared up at the sky, letting my pounding breath settle.
[Member Quest — 'Save Me!' completed.]
[Reward: 15 Devolut.]
"Heh heh heh."
Was this the first time I'd really felt like I'd accomplished something with my own two hands?
All the quests up to now had been resolved by circumstances clicking into place around me. This one was different. I'd moved. I'd judged the situation. I'd made the call.
With my own arms and legs...
"Heh heh."
I couldn't stop the laugh bubbling out of me.
***
Crackle. Pop.
The sound of a campfire eating through wood. Warm heat seeping into her body. After half a year of traveling, she'd grown used to this—pulling up the wagons, lighting a fire at the campsite, everyone gathering around to talk. She'd dozed off like that more times than she could count.
Seemed tonight was no different.
This was nice...
Wait. Where were we traveling through again?
She puzzled over it for a moment. The memory surfaced quickly.
Right. We were on that ship, heading up the Dragonyu River. Riding in that expensive pleasure cruiser Viscountess Bergson had arrived in...
Hold on.
If we were on a ship...
Then where exactly had we lit a campfire?
Ella opened her eyes.
She was under a tree on an unfamiliar riverbank. A small flame popped and crackled in front of her.
No one else from the troupe was there. Only her.
'What happened?'
She tried to sit up and realized she was drenched. Her clothes hung heavy, saturated with water.
'What the—did I fall in the river...? Ah.'
Now she remembered.
She'd been trying to forcibly hold onto the Inspira. She'd slipped and fallen into the water. It had flooded her mouth and nose, her head had gone blank, and she'd lost consciousness.
Her last thought had been that she was going to die.
So why was she here? Had the current washed her ashore? And who had lit the fire?
Coo-coo.
A familiar call sounded beside her head. A white pigeon was peering down at her.
Gudol. The bird rubbed its head against her cheek in eager little nudges, overflowing with joy.
"Were you worried about me?"
Coo-coo-coo...
The pigeon's mournful trill.
"I'm sorry. I gave you a pointless order back there..."
She stroked its feathers.
"But how did all this happen? Did some passing fisherman pull me out?"
A rustling came from the underbrush on the far side of the fire. The pigeon flew over eagerly and circled around the figure emerging from the bushes.
Coo-roo! Coo-roo!
Ella's eyes narrowed when she recognized him.
"You..."
"You're awake, Miss Ella?"
Wonderstein. He greeted her with that same pleasant voice he always used. An armful of branches was cradled against his chest.
"I figured the fire needed to be bigger if we're going to dry your clothes quickly."
"Dry my clothes?"
"Yes. You can't just sit around in wet clothes."
Only then did Ella notice that Wonderstein's own clothes were soaked.
"Why are you...?"
She had a feeling she already knew the answer, but she asked anyway, pretending she didn't. The faint smile on his face seemed to see straight through her.
"I heard you fall into the water, Miss Ella. So I jumped in after you."
"...You... saved me?"
A wave of gloom washed over her.
Hearing those words come straight from his mouth—'I am your savior'—was unbearable.
Humiliation. Mortification. Defeat.
The strength drained out of her body.
"Before we talk, you should take those clothes off."
"...Wh-what?"
"We do need to dry them."
His smirk made her brow furrow hard.
This insufferable demon.
"Are you telling me to strip naked in front of you?"
"Here."
Wonderstein held out a leaf. An ordinary leaf, about the size of a human palm.
"What am I supposed to do with that?"
"You know what kind of power I have."
The moment the words left his mouth, the leaf in his hand twisted as though alive and began to swell. It grew at a startling speed.
Soon he was holding a leaf large enough to wrap around Ella's entire body twice over. He offered it to her with a placid smile.
"This should do the job."
The man had a way of astonishing you about practically everything, didn't he.
"You're not planning to stand there and watch me change, are you?"
"I have to change too, heh heh. I'll be in those bushes over there."
Somehow, his hand now held a leaf that had grown to three times the size of the one he'd given her.
Ella waited until he was completely out of sight beyond the brush, then undressed. She hung her wet clothes near the fire and wrapped the leaf-blanket he'd handed her around herself. Strangely, the inside of the leaf was covered with something like soft cotton fibers. She hated to admit it, but the texture was excellent—remarkably soft and warm.
'He could stand to use skills like this for something decent more often.'
She sat quietly by the fire, letting the heat soak into her. Wonderstein emerged from the bushes.
Pfft.
The instant she saw him, her lips twitched and a laugh slipped out.
Wonderstein, who always insisted on his flawless black suit. There he was, wrapped in leaves like some forest sprite out of a fairy tale, his hair a complete mess.
She'd never been able to imagine him looking like this.
He looked... a little ridiculous.
"You're a sight."
"You're wearing the exact same thing, Miss Ella."
He smiled slightly and sat down across from her.
Silence settled between them for a moment. He gazed quietly into the flames.
What was she supposed to say? He had saved her life, after all. Should she thank him?
After a pause, what came out of Ella's mouth was something else entirely.
"You're good at it."
"...Good at what?"
"Yeah."
Silence again. Ella wondered for a second if this was the right thing to say, but she pressed on.
"The script."
"Ah. The one you and I worked on together?"
His response made her pout.
"'Together' is a stretch. It was almost entirely your work..."
When Wonderstein had declared they'd enter the Circus Grand Prix, the first thing Ella had started on was a rough draft for the performance. Her plan had been an exhibition-style setup with booths—something fitting for a monster circus.
The problem was the script. Who would play which character, what their makeup would look like, what their dialogue would be—every detail was a headache.
The Monster Circus had to highlight each member's physical peculiarities. They had to strip away anything identifiably human. The stranger and more mysterious, the better. The backstory had to feel plausible but remain absent. The dialogue had to be realistic, not childish. The characters had to suit the performers. The acting and skills had to be within each member's ability.
The blank-page paralysis of having to build everything from scratch.
She'd trained at a circus school from a young age, but she was still only sixteen. Pulling off a task like this alone was beyond her.
That was when Wonderstein had stepped in.
-Would you like some help?
Hmph. You?
Ella had stepped aside with a Fine, let's see you try attitude.
She hadn't believed he could craft a script. Writing one was nothing like rattling off circus trivia.
It required understanding actors and audiences, yes, but also human emotion and stage direction.
Could someone whose own smile was so awkward really pull that off?
She'd assumed he'd give up fast. That he'd just mutter something like, 'Heh heh, humans are complicated,' and walk away.
The result had been the exact opposite.
The characters he'd assigned each member. The makeup and dialogue to match. Acting that suited them. Skills each could pick up easily. Stage direction that fit perfectly.
All of it, assembled flawlessly.