12. Rekachev Circus School Trial (11)
12. Rekachev Circus School Trial (11)
The café owner kept Clara's story going even as she fixed the troupe's drinks.
"Ughhh..."
Clara's face ripened through every shade of red as anecdotes of her—was that really her?—courting Charlie surfaced one after another.
"Oh my, oh my, our Miss Clara went that far?"
"Pffahaha, the rosy days of youth!"
"Heh heh, she went all-out. This Charlie fellow must have been quite the looker."
She dodged the grinning faces of the troupe members and looked toward Wonderstein. He was nodding along, a smile fully plastered across his mouth. She forced the words out.
"Th-that was before I became who I am now..."
She figured that would be enough for the Master to understand. Before he could reply, the others pounced.
"'Before you became who you are now'? What's that got to do with the Troupe Leader?"
"Pffahaha, you're an open book, Miss Clara!"
"A woman's heart is a reed in the wind! Swayed by this breeze, flattened by the next!"
Ella watched Clara, surrounded and teased, and couldn't stifle the giggles leaking out of her.
Wow, Clara was a total fox. And Charlie—what do you know, not bad. She was pretty enough to be a real beauty.
She was genuinely pleased to stumble across news of an old friend in such an unexpected place.
She decided, however, to hold off on asking about him in detail. If she jumped into this conversation now, she'd just become another target.
Charlie and she were just friends...
The world insisted on shoving any man and woman who called each other friends into a romance.
The one thing that stung was that Charlie had never once mentioned Clara to her. He'd written letters crammed with every other mundane personal detail—so why hide the story about Clara? Was he embarrassed, after all?
"So what happened with the two of you? Did you end up together?"
Yurakne fidgeted, afraid she might miss the story's ending just as the old woman finished serving the drinks. The old woman glanced at her, shrugged, and shook her head.
"Hard to say. The monster was dealt with a few weeks later, and everyone went back to the dorms. I don't even know if she confessed or not. Might be best to ask the lady herself."
"Yes! Miss Clara, did you confess? You did, right? How did it go? Are you two together?"
The instant the story reached territory she actually knew, Clara let out a breath of relief.
She knew exactly how the confession had ended—she'd heard the real Clara vent about it to Phairen more than once. She answered with a bright smile.
"I confessed a few months ago. Got rejected. Turns out he already had someone he liked...?"
The voice was so unnaturally chipper it was hard to believe it came from someone who'd just been turned down. The deliberate absence of sadness was obvious. You could easily see the wound still ran deep.
Damn.
We were tactless.
Should've realized when she was trying so hard to deflect.
The members who'd joined in teasing her exchanged glances and slunk back.
If the rest of the party had arrived even a moment later, an awkward silence might have swallowed them all.
The shop door swung open with a jingle.
"Well, this place reeks of Halloween, doesn't it?"
"Maya!"
"It's cramped."
"Hey, Troupe Leader Wonderstein!"
"Hello!"
Hobbs, Minova, Dosville, Karen, and Ruelo filed into the shop. Luri lifted the hawk cradled in her arms toward them and called out.
"Hawk-Dol brought a letter! Said to come here."
"Yes. I sent him on the errand. 'Hawk-Dol,' though? My hawk's name is Hawk."
"Huh? But Ella called him Hawk-Dol."
"Skreee!"
Hawk screeched at Ella as if lodging a formal complaint.
They traded quick greetings, ordered more drinks, and took their seats.
Wonderstein had summoned the leaders of the two circus troupes for one reason: he needed their help.
His own troupe had one critical weakness compared to the other teams.
In this game, the auditorium team's entire strategy would hinge on how things unfolded for the box-searching team.
Depending on which way the field tilted, they'd need to decide whether to spend coins on box keys, revive eliminated runners, or purchase items to force new variables.
They'd also have to make instant calls on which item to give to which search-team member the moment the auditorium team acquired something.
And when it came to the Mini Games, they'd need to read the other teams' strength and decide tactically whether to field a direct counter or throw a sacrificial piece.
Clara had taken on the "brain" role for all of this. When it came to games and gambling, her mind turned faster than most. Since joining the circus, she'd never lost a single round of chess, dice, or cards against the other members.
Granted, she had lost a duel back in Wonderland, but she'd also been the first person to corner Oberon, the reigning champion. He'd been so rattled he'd blurted out secrets about the Sleeping Chaos that were never supposed to leave his mouth.
Wonderstein had no doubts about her capability as a strategist. But even the most brilliant strategist couldn't make the right calls without information.
Every other member besides her had to be on the field. She couldn't flit between the school grounds and the auditorium alone and track both.
That was why Wonderstein had turned to Minova and Hobbs for help. He'd asked their two troupes to serve as extra "eyes" from the audience seats.
Both had accepted his proposal without hesitation. Their own tests were next month, so they weren't direct competitors right now. Besides, getting this kind of dress rehearsal so early was nothing but a win for them.
They'd been starving for intel as it was. The September test they'd planned to observe had been decided entirely by byes. An Avatar of Sinepekus had manifested during the Freshmen Welcome Party, sweeping up the acrobats named on the roster—eight of the ten teams were automatically disqualified for failing to meet the minimum headcount.
This time, the school was accepting rosters right up until the day before the test. It looked like they'd adjusted the rules based on last month's fiasco.
"Ah! The man who threw the tomato!"
"Ha ha, the former enemy."
A few members who hadn't seen Baron Dosville the day before eyed him warily. The tension defused quickly, though—Umon, who'd ridden attractions with him, and Trimery, who'd become his drinking buddy, both vouched for him.
"Dosville's rolled the dice at plenty of gambling dens. He's got a knack for this sort of scheming. Truth be told, when we took another shot at Rouge, this bastard's wits were a big reason we managed to snag the badge."
People nodded at Minova's testimony, convinced.
With that, Wonderstein had secured the extra hands Clara would need on the day of the preliminaries. The rules forbade exchanging or loaning personnel between troupes, but having someone relay the situation from the stands as an ordinary spectator was no violation.
Maya, who'd spent weeks auditing classes at the school, conjured an illusion of the Palace of Miracles' layout across the tabletop. Her signature spatial perception and memory already had most of the building's three-dimensional map locked in.
Ella drew up a list of the games the auditorium team would face. She'd passed most of them during the New Student Selection Test and already had their mechanics and optimal strategies down cold. The troupe noted what she wrote on the blackboard, each member filing away the events they'd personally have the best shot at.
"Strength Show-off goes to Umon, I'll take Tightrope Walking, and Taming is obviously Ella's, right?"
Yurakne had read through game entries like Carrot and Stick, Greeting the Griffin, Serpent Handling, Staring Contest with a Tiger, and Who Hid the Cheese in the Maze?. Wonderstein shook his head.
"It's not that simple. The point of these preliminaries isn't winning as many games as possible. The goal is to locate the box and get your hands on the trophy. Anyone who's actually walked the school grounds belongs on the search team. That means Miss Ella and Miss Maya."
Clara wrote both names down under the Search Team column.
"Then who handles Taming? The auditorium team needs at least five people. One for each of the Five Acts. Nobody besides Ella can pull off Taming."
"Then Taming will have to be our throwaway match. I'll take it. I'm useless on either team anyway. As for Shooting, Mister Bandik is the best after Miss Ella and Miss Maya, correct?"
The man wrapped head to toe in bandages, who'd been sitting silently in the corner, gave a nod. He spat out the nail he'd been chewing like a toothpick. It shot through the air and embedded itself in the wooden wall opposite—squarely through the center of a tree ring.
"Excellent. And Ground Acrobatics is Mister Trimery's specialty, yes?"
"Leave it to me."
"I've looked over the game list."
"Looks like we can aim for the middle of the pack."
Hobbs sized up the three brothers' bodies and nodded.
"Sound judgment. Being 'broad from side to side' is a real edge for Ground Acrobatics. Easier to plant your feet and hold steady."
With that, the team assignments were set.
The Search Team: Ella, Maya, Gaston, and Sven.
The Auditorium Team: Wonderstein, Umon, Yurakne, Trimery, and Bandik.
The tactical and strategic meeting that followed ran in earnest. Clara and Dosville dominated it.
"Positions where the panel-flip item could be used to block a strategic chokepoint..."
"If we're ranking the terrains for search priority, the ones easiest to reach from the main building..."
"When you find a treasure chest and don't have the key..."
The two of them volleyed ideas so fast, and every now and then they'd cook up something truly underhanded—tricks that twisted the rules inside-out.
"As long as you don't step on the ground! Knock 'em flat and use the bodies as stepping stones!"
"Lay traps behind you for anyone who tries to follow."
"Could have Ella tame the wild beasts set as obstacles and order them to attack other contestants!"
"Deliberately trigger shooting traps on eliminated kids who can't leave their squares!"
How could two people look at this cheerful festival from such a warped angle?
Everyone felt a little unsettled—and, at the same time, impressed. Thanks to the pair, their whole sense of what was possible in this test had broadened several times over.
The meeting rolled on with those two at the helm, Wonderstein occasionally stepping in to describe traps and obstacles he'd seen before in the game—the kind most likely to appear.
The others assumed he was deducing all that by studying Maya's illusion of the school building. Maya herself, the one who'd cast the magic, knew better.
Her teacher had proposed ideas that presupposed structural features in spaces she hadn't even rendered. And as far as her memory served, every one of his assumptions had been correct. He'd seen straight through the details she'd omitted to conserve mana.
This couldn't be explained with "he's smart." He'd acted like he'd known the interior layout of that school all along.
Maya had spent the past month doggedly investigating the assignments he'd given her. She'd suppressed her feelings toward him—to avoid slipping back into Papilax—and focused strictly on her research.
Devolut. The Curse Plague. Saint Victor.
Three words that explained him.
And just now he'd revealed another hidden facet of himself. Considering the history of Rekachev Circus School, that revelation connected naturally to one of those three.
Maya filed the information carefully away inside her chest. She tried hard not to leap to any conclusions. A month ago she'd learned that even a few drops of emotion could poison her mana control. She had to stay rational, always. That was the only way to keep her ever-growing magic in check.
Thanks to that discipline, her illusions no longer manifested on their own like they once had. But she couldn't stop the sound—the faint crying of a single cat deep inside her heart.