4. Ghost of the Cabaret (2)
4. Ghost of the Cabaret (2)
Three weeks remained until the opening ceremony of the Circus Grand Prix.
The troupe had rented out an entire hotel — one of the most expensive in Rouge.
Even after accommodating Viscountess Bergson's entire retinue, rooms still stood empty, so every troupe member had a private room.
The hotel rooms were larger and more comfortable than the cabins aboard the Emerald Silk, and the restaurant's food was fresher and more flavorful than anything served on the ship. Every room had a generously sized bathtub. Everyone but Umon could stretch out both legs and soak in comfort.
And this place wasn't merely a spot for idle leisure.
The hotel's rear garden was spacious and lovely.
The circus troupe had unrestricted use of the entire grounds. The walls enclosing the garden were tall enough to shield them from the eyes of passersby — ideal for rehearsing without distraction.
The members had all nodded along absently when Ella explained this.
But a week later, not one of them felt grateful for it anymore.
"Gyaaahk!"
"Hrrgghk!"
Agonized howls and ragged groans alternated through the air.
The troupe was training in acrobatics out in the garden. Yet listening to the sounds coming from their mouths, anyone would have thought they were being subjected to group torture.
Early on, hotel staff had peeked in out of curiosity, wondering what sort of training this was. By now, they'd learned to steer well clear of the garden during these hours.
Not because the troupe members frightened them.
Because the spectacle was simply too pitiful to watch.
"Umon, your back isn't straight. Are you even trying to hold the pose?"
The moment Ella's eyebrows rose, Umon flinched, his neck retracting on reflex. She didn't curse him out or raise a hand.
She just stared at him, her eyes brimming with disappointment. That alone made Umon feel like a lazy schemer who'd been caught cutting corners.
.
"B-but, Ella! I did it five times just yesterday... Isn't that enough...?"
He saw Ella's expression harden and knew instantly he'd misstepped. As he'd feared, her reply was ice-cold.
"You think that's enough?"
"I, uh..."
"Hoo. Remind me — how many days did we perform in Axville?"
Don't ask me that.
Umon dreaded this particular interrogative tone of hers more than anything. A wrong answer earned him a chewing-out for being wrong; a right answer earned derision anyway. He swallowed hard and went with the truth.
"A week..."
"Only a week. One week! Back then, all you had to do was yell through a cage and rattle the bars. And even that left you drained and gasping by the end. Now you have to pull off high-difficulty stunts on top of it. If we make it to the Grand Prix finals? You'll be doing this for a whole month. And no puffing and panting from exhaustion! You have to maintain form at one notch below peak condition — if not peak itself. Do you honestly believe, up on that stage, that some excuse like 'oh, I trained plenty yesterday so today's a miss' is going to fly?"
"N-no..."
Realizing he'd stirred up a hornet's nest for no reason, Umon dropped his head. His eyes wandered aimlessly across the ground.
Ants really are hard workers, aren't they?
The cracks between the brick tiles have a fascinating pattern.
Ah — that ant just tumbled into the gap.
The sight of a giant well over two meters tall cowering before a girl less than half his size was objectively comical. But the troupe had witnessed this same scene multiple times a day for a solid week. No one laughed anymore.
They just kept their faces suitably grim, projecting the air of people who were reflecting on their own failings right alongside him. Their sixteen-year-old instructor, however, saw straight through the charade.
"Sven! You think I can't see you resting your joints on the ground the second my back is turned? Get up this instant!"
"Trimery! All three of you scheming to slack off — I can see it perfectly! You're supposed to synchronize as a unit, but two of you are just standing around blankly while one does all the moving! You call that training?"
"Yobel! Don't just hang limp from the rope — act like you're genuinely flying with real wings!"
"Bandik! Stop flailing the bandages blindly — use your wrist. Snap into it!"
Having rattled off that barrage in rapid fire, Ella's gaze finally landed on Yurakne, who was sprawled flat beneath the ropes.
The woman was drenched in sweat, breathing in ragged heaves. Once, Ella might have cut her some slack as the troupe's cook. Now? Not a chance.
She was about to unleash a reprimand in that direction as well.
Just then, the sound of a carriage pulling to a halt drifted from the hotel's main entrance.
The troupe had rented the entire building. No outside guests could approach the front entrance.
It had to be the Viscountess and the Troupe Leader returning from their outing.
The Viscountess's furious voice and the Troupe Leader's soft, composed replies traded back and forth. The exact words were indistinct, but Wonderstein's calm manner only seemed to stoke the Viscountess's temper further.
A moment later, Wonderstein strode into the garden where the members were rehearsing, a faint smile on his lips.
"You've all been working hard."
A chuckle escaped him when he saw the faces turned his way. There was genuine gladness in their expressions — actual relief to see him.
The day's practice was scheduled to run until the Troupe Leader's arrival. Ella turned to the members and called out.
"Alright. Training's over for today. Everyone go wash up!"
The moment the words left Ella's mouth, the troupe hurried into the building. Hard to say if they were fleeing the Troupe Leader or the Deputy Leader — maybe both.
Yurakne lingered for a second, hesitating, but a whiff of her own sweat sent her swiftly vanishing indoors as well.
Ella flopped down onto a bench.
"You're back sooner than I expected."
"Ah, the Viscountess was a touch upset."
"...Try not to trample all over our sponsor's nerves."
Wonderstein surveyed the patch of ground, the dirt and grass dark with moisture. Gouges and scuff marks scarred it all over.
"Aren't you pushing them a bit hard?"
"You have a complaint? You said you wanted to reach the Grand Prix finals."
"I don't mind in the slightest. I'm more concerned that you, Miss Ella, are shouldering the resentment."
She was his sole conduit for communicating with the members. If the troupe started souring on her, he'd be in a bind too.
"Why not just tell them? If they endure for two and a half years, they'll be free of me."
"...It's not the right moment for that conversation."
"Why not? If they knew, they'd work hard and no grudges would be aimed your way."
At his words, Ella removed her hat. Gudol popped out from within and fluttered up into the sky. She scratched her head.
"I can't pin down the exact reason. But I learned something back at circus school. When an instructor moves with the goal of winning the students' affection... well, things tend to fall apart. And dangling some far-off future reward in front of their noses? That motivation never lasts. After about two weeks, everyone just spends more time daydreaming about getting that reward. To push through hard work, you need grit and sheer nerve. Our members don't have that yet. Until they grow it, I'm keeping quiet."
An adult. At sixteen, she had more experience navigating society than he did, and she handled people with a veteran's touch.
It stung a little. He could barely manage the bare minimum of interaction without an Affection level floating above everyone's heads.
"We need to get it up to at least twenty percent before the competition starts."
"What percentage are we at now?"
"Ten... maybe a hair under..."
That percentage figure — Ella had started using it some time ago. It referred to how much of Wonderstein's script they could pull off, with the full script set at one hundred percent.
The script he'd written was flawless in every aspect. The problem was that the members' abilities were still too lacking to realize it in full. The acting, the stunts, the costumes, the makeup, the rigging, the staging — everything fell short.
What they'd performed in Axville wasn't even an "abridged version" — calling it that would have been embarrassing. They'd stripped out all the acrobatics and difficult acting, leaving only the bare skeleton of the show.
To name a few examples: the Spider Woman's entrance performance, descending upside-down on a rope from the ceiling; the Red-Blood Ogre's feat of goring and shattering an object with his horn; the Skeleton Clown's act of disassembling into multiple arms and legs, each crawling independently before reuniting in a single motion.
Those maneuvers demanded mastery — at least advanced-level proficiency — in tightrope walking, Strength Show-off, and Ground Acrobatics respectively.
No simple task. These were the kinds of stunts that acrobats trained for years from childhood to execute.
But the acts assigned to each member had been carefully tailored to their exact physical strengths. Synergized with their unique bodily quirks, they could achieve exponentially greater effects with far less effort than the norm.
Two and a half years. That was sufficient runway.
"I'm certain of it. If we can execute this script at one hundred percent — a finals berth, even winning the whole thing — that's no pipe dream."
"Ho ho, you rate it that highly?"
In truth, the script he'd penned was merely a faithful transcription of the backgrounds, props, boss-stage dialogue, character actions, and attack patterns from TT1. It had earned decent marks for its art direction, but no one had ever claimed it was the greatest thing in the world. Most of it was homage to preexisting monster and horror works.
But this was an era without games, let alone cinema. The scenes he aimed to recreate were packed with concepts and staging that would leap far beyond the imaginations of the people here.
"Well, time to wash up before dinner."
Ella rose to her feet.
Wonderstein brought up something he'd been preparing to say.
"Miss Ella, how about we go see a show together tomorrow?"
"...What? You and me?"
Her face curdled as if she'd just heard something she could scarcely process. Since the incident ten days ago, the two of them had managed to hold necessary work conversations reasonably well, but the thought of going out together for leisure had never crossed her mind.
"Work-related."
"Work...?"
Ella gave him a dubious look. Wonderstein smiled, a corner of his mouth curling upward.
"We're scouting the 'Rose Windmill' in advance. I stopped by there earlier, and a crier was handing out free tickets — I snagged some. Aren't you curious? About what the so-called 'Six Great Theaters' chosen as judges for the Grand Prix preliminaries can really do."
At this, Ella's skeptical expression dissolved, her eyes lighting up.
The Six Great Theaters. A term that hadn't even existed a year ago. Now, simply because they'd been selected as judges for this Grand Prix, they swanned about as if they were the world's foremost stages, rigorously vetted for their impartiality. It had been rubbing her the wrong way for a while. She wanted to see them with her own eyes.
"...I'm curious, but isn't that venue adults-only? It's a cabaret."
"They do daytime shows for locals too. General admission for those."
"...Fine. I'll have the members do self-directed practice tomorrow, then."
Wonderstein smiled, deeply satisfied.
[Completed 'Member Quest — Rest! Rest! Rest!']
[Completed 'Member Quest — I Want a Break']
[Completed 'Member Quest — Someone Please Take the Deputy Leader Away for a While...']
[Sven's Affection level has increased by 2. Current Affection level: 5 (Next reward: Affection level 15)]
[Bandik's Affection level has increased by 1. Current Affection level: 4 (Next reward: Affection level 15)]
[Umon's Affection level has...]
It was a welcome harvest of increases to their Affection levels after a long dry spell.