11. Wonderland (End)
11. Wonderland (End)
The secretary's declaration froze everyone in the room solid.
The Duke, struck speechless by shock, finally repeated in a sluggish voice after a long pause.
"Are you certain?"
"......Yes."
The scholars lined up behind the secretary nodded, their faces set with grim finality.
"We stake our collective honor on it, Your Grace."
With that, they began laying out their evidence point by point, detailing exactly why this script was a forgery.
The Duke hung his head. He wanted to scream at them—who the hell did they think they were? This wasn't about his personal honor or wounded pride. He genuinely believed this script had been written by Christian.
But given how things had developed, there was no helping it.
He turned toward the acrobats, who were staring at him with bewildered expressions.
Everyone except Clara was reeling from the unexpected revelation.
The script was a fake?
They all remembered what Hobbs had said before they entered the premiere.
When Clara had asked what would happen if the script turned out to be fake, his answer had been:
—What do you think? Not just the Duke, but all eleven of you here would be utterly humiliated. 'What, you practiced for two whole weeks and couldn't tell it was a fake?' Something like that. People would point fingers at you just walking down the street. You might even get blacklisted from the industry.
It had been an exaggerated joke, of course, but the whispers and gossip they'd actually face couldn't be summed up in a few flippant words.
"I'll do my utmost to manage the fallout, but I'm afraid it'll be difficult for the five circuses gathered here to avoid public disgrace. Everyone except Miss Clara took a group photograph in front of the factory, after all. I truly am sorry. This was my oversight."
A man of the Duke's exalted station was bowing his head and offering a solemn apology, yet no one received it with gracious civility. Even Simon, unfailingly courteous toward the Duke, was twitching his lips, visibly restraining himself from cursing.
That was how <The Five Acrobats> came to its close.
As the five troupe leaders and their five troupe members exited the factory, reporters swarmed them. Inviting them for a press conference immediately after the premiere had now turned into poison. Apparently having already heard what had happened inside, the journalists thrust their notebooks and pens forward, blocking their path.
"Is it true?"
"The script is a forgery?"
"Did you notice anything strange during rehearsals?"
The Duke's soldiers cleared a path for them, but the reporters clung on with bulldog tenacity. Even as they boarded their carriage and traveled through the plaza, the questions kept coming, dogging their steps.
There were only three people in the carriage heading back to Wonderstein's lodging. Clara, having avoided exposure to the press, had slipped out through the back entrance and planned to return by herself later.
A glum mood filled the carriage.
Maya had let out some mild irritation over all the wasted effort and let it go, but Ella, who held a deep affection for Christian, was naturally devastated.
To have acted so knowledgeable and then failed to spot a counterfeit script.
She was so crushed by shame she didn't know what to do with herself.
Wonderstein smiled as he tried to lift her spirits, but it was like watching a bedridden patient make pitiful, futile gestures.
Still, she did seem to perk up a little when the topic turned to Wonderland.
On the way back to the lodging, she described everything she had experienced there. He listened to her stories with rapt attention, exclaiming in wonder as if he were hearing it all for the first time.
As she had sworn to the Apostles, she carefully omitted any information about the Sleeping Chaos. The five-person ensemble was also reframed as something she'd been forced into by the Apostles, who had pestered her relentlessly because they wanted to hear a performance by living people.
From her story, Wonderstein could feel the special affection she held for the Scarecrow. It made him both proud and sad.
Originally, he had planned to reveal his identity to his companions once they returned to the surface.
The quest's success condition had only been to escape from Wonderland, after all.
But he realized he couldn't do it.
First, to protect Arno's secret. If he admitted he had been Oz, even an idiot could deduce the identity of the fairy who had been casting illusions beside him.
And second, for his own sake.
Ella had said her memories wouldn't stay buried much longer.
The good times were running out. The original version of her—the one who had hated him—would soon return.
If he confessed everything about Wonderland to her now, those memories, too, would soon be submerged beneath the black ink that was Wonderstein.
The comfort he had offered with all his heart, the laughter they had shared—she would come to see it all as nothing but deception.
That was why he decided to keep his mouth shut.
"Remarkable. I'm just relieved you made it back from a place like that in one piece."
The carriage arrived at the lodging not long after.
The troupe members, seeing Wonderstein being helped down while leaning on Ella and Maya, rushed over in alarm.
"Boss, what happened to you?"
"What the—are you hurt?"
"Where'd Clara go?"
He waved off their barrage of questions.
"I'd like to rest for today. We'll talk tomorrow. Miss Clara will be along shortly."
Maya's telekinesis carried him all the way to his bedroom, where he managed, with trembling limbs, to heave his body onto the bed. He hadn't felt this heavy earlier, but the moment he arrived at the lodging, all his strength drained out of him in a rush, and exhaustion crashed over him.
He struggled to drag the blanket over himself.
In this state, even eating on his own seemed impossible. Improving his body through Devolut was hopeless, too.
Both Mantula's Blade and the extra arms he had pulled out during his night with Yurakne had been controlled through the 'Extension of Senses.' Essentially, he could move them easily because he'd transplanted the sensation of moving his limbs into them. But now, the parts of his spirit corresponding to his arms and legs had been severed. Even if he pulled them out now, he wouldn't be able to control them properly.
Lying in bed, he took out the item he had secretly pocketed during the earlier chaos.
It was the Starlight Powder he had placed beneath the Duke's seat.
The bag, which had been more than half full, now held only a few visible grains at the bottom.
He decided to finish it off. Leaving any behind and having some other incident occur was the last thing he wanted.
Tilting the last grains into his mouth, he lay back down.
Just before sleep claimed him, his mind drifted back to the moment he'd escaped from Wonderland.
It was the Apostles who had saved the Hawk in his moment of crisis.
Once the Eye of Chaos had fully closed, all the Apostles who had been occupied with pacifying Kirkeus came bursting outside. The power unleashed by dozens of Apostles was overwhelming. They drove Zakanuba's forces back in an instant.
Once the tide of battle had turned, the Diamond Queen rushed over to help the Scarecrow.
"Tch, what's this one now!"
"Felt bad about what I did to him earlier, so I came running!"
As she narrowly blocked Patty's attacks and kept him tied down, the Hawk examined the Scarecrow's body.
Patty surveyed the battlefield. Most of his kin were retreating out of Wonderland. Staying any longer would risk being surrounded by the Apostles. Frustrated, he decided to flee.
But he had no intention of leaving empty-handed.
"You're coming with me!"
Just before leaping out of Wonderland, he swung his scythe and hooked the Hawk's body. That one had been the most infuriating today.
If that attack had come in midair, the Hawk could have dodged it with ease. Regrettably, his feet had been planted firmly on the ground.
The Diamond Queen stretched out her hands to grab him, but she couldn't overcome the spirit-dragging power of the Reaper's Scythe.
"Kehahak! I'm going to toy with this one until his soul is shattered to dust!"
The Scarecrow realized there was only one way to save him.
He used his quest reward.
The Hawk's spirit, impaled on the Reaper's Scythe, slid out smoothly and entered the reward slot in the Status Window.
"What did you do?! How did you break the Reaper's Scythe—"
Patty roared and lashed out at him with Chilheuk Magic. A jet of black smoke shot toward him like an arrow.
It was faster than he could rip a ticket.
He thought his chest was about to be pierced—no way out.
But thankfully, one of the Apostles who had followed the Diamond Queen stepped in and blocked it.
It was a figure in a black conical hat, a black cloak, and a bumpy green mask that looked like a lumpy potato.
"Our youngest!"
The Diamond Queen shouted as she slammed her fist into Patty's face.
The Scarecrow recalled the story—how the Diamond Queen herself had been the youngest until two newer members had joined twenty years ago, finally bumping her out of that rank.
The youngest Apostle whispered toward Oz, who had torn the ticket and was vanishing, enveloped in light.
"Goodbye, Scarecrow."
The voice and the outfit—he had heard and seen them before somewhere.
Who was she?
A passing character from the game?
He closed his eyes.
Was it fatigue? Or the effects of the last of the Starlight he'd consumed?
He continued the dream he had dreamed before.
***
Twenty-four hours had passed since the punishment. The Scarecrow was released from solitary confinement.
The hunchback boy came to fetch him.
"Thirsty? I saved you some water."
He had played the Tin Woodman in the Dream Larvae Festival play, but everyone called him Tin Can because the role name was too long.
"How's the body?"
"Mm."
Tin Can rolled him around, checking the spots where the instructor's switch had landed the day before.
"What the—not a single bruise? You little punk, you didn't even get hit that hard. You were just putting on a show yesterday."
"No, it really hurt."
"And now?"
"......It doesn't hurt."
"That's 'cause you psyched yourself out, thinking you were gonna get hit, then screamed before anything happened."
Tin Can spouted off more bits of knowledge he'd picked up somewhere, acting like an expert.
The Scarecrow remembered the girl who had snuck into his solitary cell the night before and massaged him. Strangely, after that massage, all the painful spots had vanished without a trace.
He considered telling his friend about it but decided against it.
Of all the kids in the Institute of Omnipotence, Tin Can was the most hostile toward faith healing.
"It's all a scam, a total scam. You actually buy that crap? Fuck, modern medicine can't even fix this stuff."
Of course, he didn't say it loudly. He knew there were kids who clung to the hope of being healed by the pastor as their only reason to endure.
"Alright, time for evening service."
At the instructor's command, the children moved to the chapel.
Up ahead, he spotted a girl whose entire face, save for her chin and mouth, was covered in green warts.
Witch.
She was another friend who had prepared the play with them during the Dream Larvae Festival.
The Scarecrow hadn't forgotten that she'd brought him water that night.
"Thanks. For the water. . . ."
"That was nothing. How's your body feeling?"
He looked at her hands—the hands that had massaged him last night.
He hadn't noticed before, but they were very pale and slender.
Was it because they were a girl's hands?
They'd been soft. And warm.
The children each opened the scripture text placed before them.
Since most of them had no part of their body that was fully whole and functioning, the instructors had to help with even the simple act of opening the book and turning its pages. Perhaps because they were technically a religious order, the instructors at least became kind during this worship hour.
The canon distributed by the Church of Omnipotence was, like many a cult's scripture, a doctored version of the original Bible, with key vocabulary swapped out to fit their tastes, or random, baseless sentences that might have been plucked from a cheap philosophy book, jammed into the text wherever they pleased.
Smile and blessings will come.
Believe and the body will be blessed.
It was full of such content—proclamations that the end times had arrived and that believing in God was the only path to salvation.
Under the instructor's direction, the children recited the passages with bored expressions.
"Almighty Father slumbering beneath Paradise, open your eyes. . . ."
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Wonderland (End)