11. Wonderland (44)
11. Wonderland (44)
I'd walked this route once before. At my pace, the trip from the hall to the common area should have taken about ten minutes.
Nothing went according to plan. I hadn't made it far from the hall before I stumbled right into a brawl between an Apostle and a Reaper.
"How long are you planning to just dodge, you little freak?"
The Reaper swung her scythe with vicious ferocity, her voice that of a young woman.
The Apostle she was up against was the Diamond Queen. She was the one who laid the foundations of card magic—a woman with such keen eyes and sleight of hand she'd once been banned from every casino in Vegas.
With her single eye, she read her opponent's every habit and twitch, weaving through the scythe strikes in the cramped alley with maddening ease.
"Is this really all you've got? I've never seen anyone handle a scythe so poorly. You're not swinging the weapon—it's swinging you. If you'd been in my troupe, you'd have gotten smacked around plenty."
Her fluid movements and the talent for pissing off an opponent were worthy of Lord Fantastic's teacher. The Reaper's eyes flared crimson, and her attacks grew even more ferocious.
The passage where they were fighting was dangerously narrow. In this fragile body, even a single graze would mean the end. And since I wasn't in a physical body, Devolut couldn't fix me even if it did. So I detoured around them, searching for a staircase on the opposite side.
The floor below held a place I knew well. It was a location from the game, and it had been our initial target for the assault: the prison where the captives were held.
Thousands of caves lined the cliff walls on both sides, each sealed with iron bars. Behind them, prisoners in drab uniforms sat one to a cell. The man in the nearest cave spotted me and snapped his head up.
"What the—? Who are you? You don't look like an Apostle."
His voice drew the other prisoners, who rushed to their bars.
"Who's there?"
"Hey, what's all that noise? What's going on out there?"
"Is it an intruder? If so, get us out of here!"
There looked to be about a hundred prisoners in total.
Aside from the Voodoo Madosa, the faces were a motley collection of demons, fairies, personas, and followers of other Demon Gods.
"Hey!"
"You there!"
"Straw Hat!"
I moved past them quickly. Back when I'd been planning to free the troupe leaders, I'd had a few schemes for using them, but right now I had more pressing concerns.
I hadn't gone ten steps before my feet stopped dead.
The living humans my Diagnosis Function could sense were all Voodoo Madosa. My Status Window informed me that a single common trait had been applied to each of their bodies.
That was when a voice echoed from the passage I'd just descended.
"The prison, the prison... Ah, found it!"
I didn't need to wonder whose voice it was. A thin sheet of ice was already spreading across the floor from the prison entrance.
I scanned the prisoners urgently. Then I picked one of the caves and ducked inside to hide.
***
The reason Reaper Pahomet—usually called Patty by his friends—arrived late to his destination had nothing to do with getting lost or getting into a fight.
Today's mission was an attack on a Demon God's domain, something he'd never have dreamed of normally. Overcome with excitement, he'd charged at and smashed anything that felt like Kirkeus's touch.
He wanted to run wild in the plaza and cause even more chaos, but the fear of getting chewed out by his friend made him hurry here to complete his actual task.
After entering the prison, he looked over the captives and shouted.
"Alright, which of you lowlifes are with the Voodoo Cult? Raise your hands!"
The prisoners, stunned by the appearance of a high-ranking demon infamous even in the Abyss, stiffened into stone. A few of them reacted to the word "Voodoo" and poked their heads through the bars. The commotion outside and this intruder's arrival told them something had gone terribly wrong.
"W-we are members of the Voodoo Cult..."
"Is that all of you?"
"H-here, there's more here!"
"Me too..."
A few shameless demons and fairies raised their hands, claiming membership too, but Patty knew they were "living humans" and ignored them, focusing only on his targets.
"I'm here at your client's request."
"The client...?"
"Who do you think? The organization you belong to."
At the Reaper's words, the Madosa exchanged glances and broke into radiant smiles.
"W-we're saved!"
"Long live the Voodoo Cult!"
"Ugh, to think they went this far for us..."
The Reaper gave their celebration a chilly, eye-crinkling smile.
"But you guys are something else. One, two, three... Wow, not a single one of you died?"
The Madosa chattered excitedly, drunk on the thought of getting out of here.
"The Wonderland bastards are soft, aren't they? They don't do physical torture."
"And they try to take everyone alive during arrests..."
"Well, I nearly lost my mind during the punishments, but..."
Patty shook his head instead of playing along.
"That's not what I meant."
His voice carried a mocking edge. Only then did the Madosa sense something was off. They clamped their mouths shut and traded uneasy glances.
"I'm shocked not a single one of you gave up your boss's name."
Patty spread the billowing black cloth wrapped around his body wide, then pulled it tight. This increased his defensive power several times over, as if he were encased in solid plate armor.
"Uh... that's..."
"H-how did you know?"
"What does that have to do with no one dying...?"
Patty bared his needle-sharp teeth at the bewildered Madosa.
"You've got biological bombs implanted in you. The moment you hear the keyword, they supposedly go off."
A cold silence fell over the prison that had been buzzing with joy just moments before.
Biological bombs?
Frozen by the unbelievable news, they snapped back to their senses only when Patty opened his mouth again, screaming and shouting in panic.
"L-Lord Reaper!"
"W-wait!"
The Reaper paid them no mind and shouted the name the Voodoo Cult had taught him.
"Frank Wonderstein!"
A storm of immense pressure exploded, the roar shaking the cavern.
About ten Madosa swelled up like balloons and burst simultaneously. The force was enough to collapse the caves they were held in. Since all the captives had been conveniently clustered on one side of the thousands of caves, the other prisoners were caught in the annihilation as well.
Patty took a single sweeping glance at the collapsed caverns and the grotesque tapestry of shredded flesh and blood, then burst into laughter.
"Kahaha! Success! Smashing things really is the best. So, should I go play where Cappi is?"
He shouted that and left the area.
Not long after he was gone, the rubble of one of the collapsed caves shifted. Soon, two people crawled out, coughing up dust and gasping for air.
One was Scarecrow. The other was a Voodoo Madosa who'd been held in the cave farthest from the prison entrance.
"Ugh, to think they'd use us as a discard card."
The Madosa touched his back as he spoke. A hard shell like a turtle's had grown there. Without it, he would have been shredded by the explosion. No—if the bomb in his body hadn't been dismantled in the first place, he would have swelled up and burst like the others.
He felt the spot just below his solar plexus. The officers had implanted something there, claiming it would enhance his physical abilities. The sickening foreign sensation it gave off had vanished completely.
He turned to look at the ridiculous persona made of rags and straw. This figure had slipped into his cell right before the Reaper came storming in. Removing the bomb, and the turtle shell growing from his back—it had all happened the moment the Scarecrow touched him.
"Unbelievable. Erasing something made of Devolut without even using Starlight. How is that possible...? Wait. No, wait. The only one who could do that is...!"
The Madosa stared at him, his face a mask of horror.
The Scarecrow confirmed his guess with a nod.
"Thank you for not speaking my full name."
"A-ah, aah, I-I knew it. Y-you are...?"
The Madosa prostrated himself before the Scarecrow.
He didn't know how it was possible, but the Cult Leader, whose face he had never seen, had appeared and saved his life.
"W-why would you save me...?"
The Scarecrow chose his next words carefully. The more he tried to spin a pointless story here, the more likely he'd be caught in a contradiction. He was the man who had saved this person's life, and the head of the organization he belonged to. He could guide him in the desired direction without needing to justify himself.
"It seems the officers have been amusing themselves while I've been gone."
To be frank, even Scarecrow didn't know where Wonderstein's orders ended and the officers' independent actions began. But he figured that dropping a vague, all-knowing hint like this would get the man to fill in the blanks himself.
As he guessed, the Madosa let out a sigh as if everything suddenly made sense.
"Th-that's true."
"Some of their actions do not please me."
The Madosa wasn't high-ranking within the Voodoo Cult. He was a field agent who followed orders, not an officer. So he wasn't privy to the bigger picture of what the cult was doing.
But he did know about one thing that had happened recently.
It was the only matter the normally secretive officers had ensured the whole island was buzzing with shared intelligence: the matter of the Bergson Trading Company.
The Bergson Trading Company had taken a hostile stance against the Voodoo Cult. They had used their corporate intelligence network to dig up the cult's secrets and hand them over to various state investigative agencies, cut off their funding lines, and hired mercenaries to attack the cult's covert operational sites.
Why was the Cult Leader letting this slide?
The officers, unable to understand his inaction, had secretly launched a plot of their own targeting Bergson.
That had to be one of the things the Leader was pointing to.
"Wh-what should I do?"
Seems I hit a nerve. The Scarecrow cheered inwardly.
"Judge and act for yourself. However, the next time we meet, you must bring me a gift."
Giving detailed orders to a subordinate who fears his boss is a bad move. They get so terrified of punishment they never step outside the exact box you've drawn. So the Scarecrow kept his command as vague as possible.
He didn't know the inner workings of the Voodoo Cult, anyway. This was better than getting caught trying to pretend he knew more than he did and arousing suspicion.
And it had the added bonus that even if information leaked through this man, the Voodoo Cult wouldn't know just how much he actually knew.
A tidy little strategy, all around.
The Madosa nodded, his expression resolute.
The followers of the Demon God he had contracted were a minority in the Voodoo Cult. Their skills were considered useless for running the organization, so they were only ever mobilized for grunt work like this. They'd had plenty of complaints, but they'd gritted their teeth and endured it for the sake of their families.
But to plant a bomb in their bodies?
It was the moment his last shred of loyal pride hit rock bottom.
But the Cult Leader had personally saved his life and handed him this mission, renewing his resolve.
This was a chance to become a direct subordinate of the Black Magician himself.
He couldn't afford to blow it.
Their business concluded, the two men stood up.
"Uh, but how do we get out of here?"
"The barrier surrounding Wonderland will be temporarily lifted soon. Escape then. To leave the theater, use that passage over there. It leads to the northern lower district. It's chaotic outside, so hiding yourself will be easy."
The Scarecrow was about to hurry on his way when he suddenly realized he hadn't asked the most important thing.
"Ah, by the way, what's your name?"
"Ben Sullivan, Lord Cult Leader."
"...You'll need to call me Troupe Leader when we're outside."
"Yes, sir! Troupe Leader!"
"I'll see you later, then."
Leaving his new subordinate's gaze behind, the Scarecrow descended the stairs.