12. Rekachev Circus School Trial (15)
12. Rekachev Circus School Trial (15)
'Mill Pounding' was a game of striking a lever with a rubber mallet to launch a ball skyward—the winner being whoever kept it airborne the longest. Naturally, our circus entered its strongest member, Umon.
"Gruaaagh!"
He strode out bellowing with both arms raised, just as Ella had instructed. The idea was to project intimidation. But Umon looked thoroughly self-conscious about it.
He approached the lever and took his position, sizing up the distance with a cautious eye.
This wasn't just about swinging hard. The critical skill was launching the ball on a clean vertical trajectory. Only a ball that rose straight up would drop straight back down onto the lever, allowing you to strike again and keep it aloft. A player could repeat that cycle until the timer ran out.
In other words, it was a kind of see-saw or shuttlecock game played with a mallet and a ball.
Umon possessed monstrous strength, but the finesse to keep the ball landing true was still beyond him. His first strike launched the ball at a precariously off-vertical angle.
The descent arc did cross the lever, but he held off on the second swing. One mistimed hit and the ball would ricochet sideways.
That was my judgment as I watched it unfold with my own eyes. Through the Sound Room feed, Umon heard my instruction, hesitated for a beat, then pulled his hands off the mallet. The decision was vindicated almost instantly.
Out of ten competitors, only three managed to land a clean second strike. The rest swung anyway—misjudged the timing or the contact point—and accomplished nothing except cutting their own hang time short. We placed fourth in the first event.
"How did Ella and Reina keep it going for a whole minute?"
Umon stared at his own ball, now bouncing and rolling across the floor a mere ten seconds in, and clicked his tongue. The clock stopped the instant the ball failed to reach the threshold height.
By the final whistle, only two of the ten had kept their balls above the mark. The tie was broken in favor of the Golden Carnival member who'd swung fewer times.
The crowd cheered the pair. Their technique had been flawless. But a few eyes also found Umon, the fourth-place finisher.
"Looks like a brute, but his judgment's sharp."
"Yeah. Most people just start swinging."
"Shame about the angle. Most of our rookies can't even hit the sweet spot on the first swing."
Umon pretended not to notice the murmuring, but he couldn't hide the proud lift of his shoulders.
"Is fourth place decent?"
"Absolutely. Well done."
"Heh-heh."
At my praise, Umon broke into a childlike grin. We were the only ones who could read it that way, of course. To everyone else, it must have looked like a bloodthirsty beast snarling in displeasure.
While students cleared one side of the hall, the next event was being set up on the opposite side.
"Next up: Own-Goal Keeper! Competitors, take your positions!"
This was the game Ella had faced first in the New Student Selection Test—absorbing the force of a spring-loaded ball without being driven backward. It was a Ground Acrobatics apparatus, so the Trimery Triplets readied themselves.
I scanned the status board mounted above the stage. So far, five competitors had been eliminated, all from Arena Number 2. Ella was, of course, fine, as were the red pieces dispatched to the other arenas. Everyone seemed to be following Clara's plan.
That was when I noticed someone approaching the stage: Simon Magier, the leader of the Golden Carnival.
"I'll purchase an item."
A ripple of murmurs spread through the audience. Spending ten coins on an item the moment you'd earned them was bold—everyone was caught off guard. Nobody knew how the games would play out; committing resources this early signaled absolute confidence in his members' skills.
He fixed his gaze on the roulette wheel as it spun past dozens of item listings. Then, with a snap of his fingers, he hit the stop button. Having faced him before, I understood his capability. He was the man who'd fought me to a standstill—me, with Wonderstein's dynamic vision and a Skillbook's techniques. He'd almost certainly aimed for exactly the item he wanted.
When the roulette stopped, a self-satisfied smile spread across his face. The emcee read out the result and shouted.
"The Golden Carnival has acquired an item! It's 'Prohibited Area Designation'! This turns every tile in one of the ten arenas black for five minutes! How will you proceed? Use it immediately?"
He signaled to his team in the stands, then answered in a measured drawl.
"Immediately."
"Then select the target area!"
Lord Fantastic made a show of deliberation, then raised his hand and pointed to a spot on the map displayed above the stage. His finger landed on the zone where the pieces were most heavily clustered.
I relayed the information to Clara through the Sound Room at once.
***
Ella was stunned by the report Clara passed along.
Prohibited Area Designation?
On its own, the item wasn't especially powerful. But with close to thirty people crammed into a single arena, the calculus changed entirely.
-Get out of there, now! Head for the front courtyard!
-Okay, Clara!
She launched herself toward the exit on Clara's command. The moment she moved, black numbers surfaced across the solid-colored floor.
60.
Then it began to drop. 59, 58, 57...
Only then did the other competitors realize something had happened.
"The floor—look!"
"Numbers?"
"Black?"
"Prohibited Area! Someone's designated this zone!"
Panic broke out. Competitors scrambled over each other trying to flee. It was chaos—dodging one person sent you stumbling onto the wrong tile, evading another tripped you over an obstacle.
"What the—! Damn it! Why are you in my way?"
"My line exactly!"
"Move! I have to clear that stone wall!"
"Hell! The exit's right there, you snakes!"
"Hey! Watch the stairs—whoa!"
Eliminations sprang up like weeds. The emcee rattled off team names and competitor names in rapid succession. The tally blew past the hunting quota Clara had originally planned.
But Ella couldn't celebrate. Some of the wrongly-trodden tiles were red. By rule, an eliminated player was frozen on the tile they'd stepped on—meaning as long as they stood there blocking it, she couldn't use it.
"Tch. Guess I go this way."
She changed direction. Beyond a fence lay a red tile, and past that, the passage to another arena. But just as she tensed to vault the fence, Clara's voice cut in.
-Wait! Ella, not that way!
-What?
-It's a trap!
Ella dug her toes in and halted.
"Eep!"
Dust plumed up. Coming to a stop just shy of the tile's edge, she reflexively scanned the floor. A darkened tile meant someone had stepped on it and changed its color. The red tile was flanked by two such darkened tiles.
She worked it out a moment later. A few squares away, if someone stepped on a yellow tile, a chain reaction would surround her intended landing tile with four darkened tiles—and under Rule No. 2, it would vanish.
And someone was poised to jump onto that yellow tile. Reina. She'd been lying in wait: the instant Ella cleared the fence, Reina would spring onto the yellow tile and erase her foothold.
"You—!"
Ella's temper flared. She'd known the Golden Carnival had used a prohibited-area item. She'd assumed Reina's disappearance meant she'd received a signal from the stands and slipped out early.
But she'd been lurking behind a pillar the whole time, lining up a shot.
-Ella!
-Yeah!
Ella whipped around. She couldn't resent Reina. That was the game. Hadn't she knocked out a handful of competitors herself? Escape first.
But no clean route presented itself. Her dash to this spot had already used up several of the shortest-path red tiles. To reach another exit, she'd have to circle around the perimeter—and even that route was clogged with competitors milling about in confusion.
Forty seconds left.
-Ella, the stairs!
-I know!
She sprinted for the Grand Staircase—the same stairs where she'd already eliminated three people. Step off-center on any tread and the entire structure would tilt into a ramp.
Normally, you crossed it tread by measured tread. She didn't have time for that.
"Hup!"
She launched herself across five steps at once. The eliminated competitors marooned on the stairs shrieked at the sight.
"Wha—!"
"Is she insane?!"
Ella had the same thought. She'd crossed these stairs plenty of times while auditing classes, but now the treads were slicked with oil. Even she couldn't guarantee she wouldn't slip. Still, she believed.
Because...
-I believe in you.
He believed in her.
And...
-Good luck.
She was the luckiest person in the world today.
Thud.
Her sole struck the stone step. Droplets of oil scattered into the air. The eliminated onlookers and the crowd sucked in a collective breath.
The disaster they'd braced for didn't come. The staircase—which for everyone else had instantly pitched into a slope the moment their footing wavered—held its shape. Her body launched off the tread, leg stretching for the next.
Yes!
A giddy rush of triumph washed over her, and her face lit up. That flicker of distraction was enough. On the second landing, her body wobbled.
With a grinding screech, every tread tilted at once, the staircase shearing into a slick, unbroken ramp.
Twelve steps to the landing.
She'd just planted her foot on the tenth. Two short—that was where she slipped.
A groan rippled through the arena. She didn't give up. As she pitched forward, the red tile on the landing caught her eye. She flung her arm out. Only the tips of her left index and middle fingers made contact.
"Nngh!"
She clamped down with those two fingers, hauled her legs in, and rolled her body forward. She spun through the air like a tumbling ball—and landed, impossibly, in a crouch atop the landing with a solid thump.
Applause erupted from every direction. Even the eliminated competitors at the foot of the stairs whooped in admiration. She'd just executed a Front Somersault, a Ground Acrobatics technique meant for two full arms—with two fingers.
"Yeah! That was nothing!"
She could tell the two fingers on her left hand were broken. She forced a breezy expression anyway, waved back at the cheering crowd, then slipped past the statue of Saint Victor standing before the archway and crossed into another arena.
From the opposite passage, Reina had watched the entire scene in silence. She glared in the direction Ella had vanished, then stomped down hard on the yellow tile she'd meant to use as a trap. The chain reaction triggered, and the red tile Ella had nearly landed on blinked out of existence.
Reina turned and disappeared through the passage. Seconds later, the numbers on the entrance tiles flicked to 0 and the entire floor bled black. As the emcee announced that a full third of the competitors had now been eliminated, the groans of those who hadn't escaped in time filled the air.