12. Rekachev Circus School Trial (17)
12. Rekachev Circus School Trial (17)
The fourth event held in the auditorium, Frog Predation, was a game where you swung ribbons to snag flying fly dolls. I sent Bandik as our representative. There was no one more qualified for this kind of thing. He'd been practicing how to use the bandages wrapped around his body for ages.
"Bandik should get at least fifth place, right?"
"Probably."
"Unlike us."
The Trimery Triplets clicked their tongues ruefully. They'd only managed ninth place in the second game.
Their build—broad for their height—gave them a real advantage in Ground Acrobatics. The problem was they couldn't fully control that body. Sharing one body among three meant their intentions had to align with perfect timing for it to move precisely as they wanted.
Getting through daily life with sloppy movements wasn't an issue, but the world of acrobatics was unforgiving. Over the past few months, under Ella's guidance, they'd trained in the synchronization techniques dancers use for group choreography. But watching them move, they still hadn't achieved perfect unity. There was a stiff, creaky quality to their movements, like a robot with rusted joints.
"Still, not being dead last is something."
Umon offered that consolation, though it wasn't much comfort. Their sole victory had been against the magician from the Silver Screen Circus, who was a permanent fixture in last place.
"This punk's bragging about getting fourth place!"
"You call that consolation?!"
"How did the conversation go that way again?"
As the four of them started bickering, I turned away and resumed my conversation with Yurakne. I'd been explaining the current situation at the school to her, at her request. Worried that the exploration team had only children and old folks, she'd wanted to hear any scrap of news about them.
"I-is that so? ...Ahaha, well, that's good then, isn't it?"
She didn't seem to grasp much beyond "everyone's safe." When the conversation turned to tricky topics like the detailed rules of the game or the strategies each team was using, her pupils wobbled wildly. I could practically see a question mark floating up behind her head.
She was a powerhouse at cooking, cleaning, and sewing—all the household skills—but particularly weak at anything requiring brains. Even during a meeting a few days ago, she'd nodded along like she understood everything, only to pull me aside afterward and repeatedly ask me to re-explain basic rules and tactics.
Suddenly, I remembered the time we'd solved the Escape King's puzzle at the Rose Windmill Cabaret. While everyone else was turning it this way and that, she'd tried to wrench it open with brute force. The image of her face, teeth clenched as she wrestled the puzzle, made a laugh burst out.
"Wh-why are you laughing?!"
A blush bloomed across her brown skin.
"Well, because I like you, Yura?"
"D-don't try to dodge the question with something like that! You were mocking me just now, right? I tried, you know. I tried to memorize and understand it, but... don't laugh, just listen! I just ran out of time because I was working..."
I took her hand and patted it.
"Calm down. I laughed because I thought you were cute."
"Wha-what? Wh-where is this coming from... I-I'm not cute..."
"Your clueless side is surprisingly charming..."
Her eyebrows shot upward.
"Excuse me?"
"Ah, a slip of the tongue. Let me amend that to 'innocent.'"
"Troupe Leader!"
Yurakne puffed out her cheeks and started smacking me with all six of her arms.
Umon and the Trimery Triplets watched us and started murmuring among themselves. I didn't need the Sound Room to know what they were saying. It was probably because of how unselfconsciously physical she'd gotten with me lately.
Just then, Bandik finished his game and returned to his seat. He'd placed sixth in Frog Predation.
"Impressive. Better than the Trimery Triplets!"
"Why, you little—!"
"All brawn and no brains, just showing off."
"Anyway, you did well."
"Good work, Bandik."
The troupe members each tossed a word his way, but his expression was oddly sullen. Even for a man of few words, this reaction was a bit off. He glanced at me sidelong and muttered,
"Didn't matter anyway. No one was watching me."
With that, he pulled his worn coat over himself and turned his back to us.
We all exchanged looks. Sure enough, during his turn, we'd been too busy chattering amongst ourselves. He was sulking over that, it seemed.
"Hey, the Troupe Leader said so earlier."
"Right. Since this thing lasts three hours, he told us not to exhaust ourselves and just wait our turns quietly."
The members tried their best to placate him.
I was about to say something to him as well, but the competition emcee came out and introduced the next game. It was about taming. Time for me, the designated throwaway card, to step up.
I prepared to wheel my chair out. Then, from the stage, the announcer's voice rang out.
"Monster Circus's Maya Rendelin—eliminated!"
All our eyes shot to the scoreboard. On the map of Arena 7, the Shooting Range, a single red marker stood on a tile of a different color.
"Huh? What happened? Did Miss Maya make a mistake?"
"I'm not sure."
I almost contacted Clara immediately but stopped myself. First, I had to focus on the game I was responsible for. Besides, we'd already said in the meeting that Maya, with the weakest stamina in our troupe, had the highest likelihood of being eliminated.
And calling Clara the moment an alert like that popped up wouldn't have been respectful to her. Now that I'd left the on-site judgment to her, it was only right to let her analyze the situation and formulate her own strategy. I didn't want to interrupt her while she was deep in thought, relaying orders to the exploration team. I decided I'd check in later once things settled down.
Staring Contest with a Tiger was about making a tiger back down and retreat into its cage using only your gaze, expression, and movement—no sound. Even stuck in a wheelchair, I could manage a mid-tier score.
The tigers used in the game were ones Rekachev was taming to supply zoos across the empire. With zero knowledge of animal handling, I had no idea how to deal with them.
Taming was a skill far too inefficient to raise through a Skillbook. Each creature demanded a different skill set, and more than anything, the discipline required deep knowledge of the animal and an understanding of the individual specimen, making it effectively impossible to learn taming through a Skillbook.
Even so, I had a way to work through this game. I commissioned the Evolution Lab and had a small part of my body altered.
Trait: Eyes of the Tiger
Applied Area: Eyes
Effect: Replaces the eyeballs with those of a tiger.
Required Resource: [Devolut 3]
With this, I figured a staring contest would be manageable.
However, it soon became clear my judgment was a mistake. These animals, raised by human hands since cubs, tended to respond docilely to human looks and actions, but they were far more aggressive toward challenges from their own kind. My appearance—human in form but fitted with a tiger's eyes—seemed to grate severely on the beast's nerves.
"Kwaaaang!"
Instead of backing off, it charged straight at me. The handlers standing by had to rush out and calm the beast in a hurry.
"Whoa, easy there!"
"What's gotten into this one? Showing aggression to a person like this."
Scoring in this game depended on how far back you could make the tiger retreat through the staring contest. But my tiger had lunged forward, leaving me with a score even lower than the Silver Screen Circus's magician—I got tenth place. And that's saying something, given that the magician's tiger had merely yawned disdainfully at him, then turned around and farted.
Most of the audience laughed at me, sitting stupidly in my wheelchair and watching the tiger charge closer.
"Just as the rumors say."
"Using their own troupe leader as a throwaway card. What a truly remarkable circus troupe, heh heh."
"Utterly incompetent."
A few acrobats, however, eyed me warily. They were mostly the beast handlers from other troupes. They seemed to think I'd done something to the tiger.
"Strange. That tiger's reaction..."
"Yeah. It felt closer to fear than hostility."
"Did the beast's instincts sense something?"
Well, anyone'd get spooked if the person in front of them just swapped their eyeballs out.
With a wry smile, I returned to my spot. The troupe members came up and consoled me, saying I'd gone out there as a throwaway card anyway, so I shouldn't dwell on it too much.
Umon stepped up again for the sixth game. He secured fourth place once more.
That brought our coin total to 28. Right as we were congratulating ourselves on how things were going according to plan, another of our members' names rang out from the stage.
"Monster Circus's Gaston Haliwooden—eliminated!"
***
Gaston only realized what had happened after he'd tumbled several times across the ground. He barely managed to lift his head to see what had sent him flying. A single bamboo branch was swaying back and forth there.
A Whipping Branch.
It was a trap that bent like a whip and used its elastic force to strike a person. A few seconds ago, it had lashed out from his flank and launched him. Preoccupied with helping Ella, he hadn't noticed the bent branch right in front of him.
"Ugh... wh-who?"
Clutching his throbbing back, he pulled himself upright. That branch wasn't the type to move on its own. Someone had clearly pulled it back and released it to strike him.
Just then, a woman wearing a pure white horned mask landed in front of him. Gaston recognized who she was.
"Kgh... y-you're from the Golden Carnival..."
"I'm sorry, old man."
Reina spoke with what sounded like genuine regret, then turned away from him. She looked up. Her eyes met Ella's, who stood on a branch five stories up.
"Reina..."
Ella clenched her teeth. This was the same person who had clearly exited through a different door at the entrance hall. She'd circled around through other arenas to reach this spot.
At this point, anyone who didn't know what her goal was had to be an idiot.
Ella wanted to descend and fight her right then. She barely managed to suppress the urge to jump down. She'd climbed all the way up here; going back down was absurd.
She was right to keep heading upward. Gaston could still help her even from his eliminated state. Elimination just meant he had to stand still in that spot. She just had to be more careful and search for a path that stayed within his field of vision.
Before she could take her next step, however, a message came from Clara.
- Ella, we've got trouble!
- You mean the old man being eliminated? I saw it just now.
- No, not just that... No, I mean, that's right, but that's not all! Maya was eliminated ten minutes ago, too!
Ella felt the hairs rise all over her body.
- How?
- Same situation as now. Reina lured Maya into a trap!
Ella stared down at Gaston, who was still groaning from the Whipping Branch's strike, and spoke.
- Is Maya okay? What kind of trap was it?
- Reina tripped her, and she fell.
- ...
That klutz, honestly.
Ella swallowed her curses. That wasn't the important thing right now. This game ruled that a team was disqualified the moment it had three eliminated members. With Maya and Gaston eliminated, only Sven and herself remained.
- Sorry! I should have told you earlier, but you were so focused on climbing and I couldn't bring myself to interrupt! I never thought she'd target Grandpa Gaston, too...
- Forget that. More importantly, how many coins do we have right now?
- 28. Once the seventh game ends soon, we'll have crossed 30. We can revive one person.
Ella bit her lip. If they blew 30 coins on that, they might not be able to get the key to open a treasure chest even if they found one. And even if they revived someone, it'd be pointless if Reina just eliminated them again.
Reina, who had calmly met her gaze, began moving again. Ella didn't need to ask where her next destination was. It was too obvious.
- Clara, tell Sven right now! Reina's heading his way!
- Ah, got it. What about you?
Ella took a deep breath and prepared to leap from 30 meters up. Before her eyes, the optimal route was clear: a path of branches she could step on to slide between the trees and land on a red tile below.
"I'll have to catch Reina."
She threw herself downward.