13. Circus Charlie (8)
13. Circus Charlie (8)
Charlie chose this underground cavern as the stage for his plan specifically because it was a Sanctuary.
Priests often invoked the right of Sanctuary to block police from entering a church when a criminal fled inside. But that was merely borrowing the authority the word carried. A true Sanctuary was a place imbued with genuine sacred power.
Sanctuaries were regarded as the lingering trace of the God of Light's presence in the world. No being of the Abyss could wield their power within one. A lesser demon would burst into flames and disintegrate the moment it set foot inside, and even a Madosa found themselves unable to use the power granted by a Demon God while within a Sanctuary's bounds.
Several conditions could produce a Sanctuary, but the most well-known was ground where a saint's remains were interred. Or rather, the order of cause and effect was reversed: the Holy See formally canonized a deceased person as a "saint" only after a Sanctuary naturally formed around their resting place.
"You know the history of our school. How the emperor seized what was once a cathedral and turned it into a playground for jesters and acrobats. The clergy here understood all too well how the emperor had been burning down the existing dioceses. So before the cathedral fell into imperial hands, they smuggled the sacred relics into a hidden chamber beneath the ground."
Ella reached the edge of the underground chamber, following Charlie's lead.
Before her stood a stone altar and golden ritual vessels.
"The clergy moved the cathedral's most important treasure here."
He led her up onto the altar and showed her a rectangular stone block resting there. It was a sarcophagus.
"Saint Victor's remains are interred inside. As a result, a Sanctuary has formed around this area. Within a radius of several dozen meters, it's impossible to use Inspira—or any other mado power."
Listening to his explanation, Ella understood why Wonderstein had been unable to contact her despite the situation. His power was rooted in mado as well.
'Is the troupe leader all right?'
Worry for Wonderstein crept into her mind. When Charlie mentioned traps earlier, she hadn't been concerned. Wheelchair-bound or not, Wonderstein was the man who had faced the terrifying Reaper head-on. If he could unleash his power, he could smash through any shoddy trap.
But if this place was a Sanctuary, the situation was different.
Ella stood on the altar and gazed down at the chamber below.
There were no torches or electric lights. The glow she had seen earlier emanated from empty space itself. A white light diffused outward from the altar like mist, illuminating the entire cavern.
This was the luminous phenomenon said to occur within a Sanctuary.
Charlie stood beside her, surveying the chamber as he continued.
"Even after hiding the relics, the priests weren't at ease. They worried about the emperor's informants or grave robbers sneaking in. So they installed traps throughout this cavern."
"Traps?"
Ella narrowed her eyes and scanned the space. Now that she looked, she noticed areas where the chamber seemed unnaturally formed, much like during the Acrobatic Rush.
"Yes. All of them were set with the intent to kill intruders. But compared to their destructive power, they lacked finesse and ingenuity. Thanks to that, I managed to dismantle every single one of them—back when I was only a first-year. It took me over six months, though. Over the past month, I've restored them all. I applied my own knowledge to make them far more cunning and lethal than before. Aren't you curious? Can that man make it through?"
Ella bit down hard on her lip. Moments ago, she would have shouted that her troupe leader would handle such things with no trouble at all. But now, knowing this was a Sanctuary, she couldn't.
The thought that he might be gravely wounded, or even die, struck her.
"Why... why are you doing this...?"
"Tell me what happened in Alamo. On your sixteenth birthday."
He thrust straight into the heart of the matter without warning. It was the subject the two of them had been avoiding for the entire conversation.
Ella squeezed her eyes shut.
She had already guessed why Charlie had come. The moment she arrived in this city and heard he'd returned home, she had anticipated this moment would arrive.
Most of her memories had returned by now. She knew the villagers and her school friends hadn't survived unscathed. But she had done her best to avoid dwelling on it. Every time she tried to excavate the incomplete fragments, her head throbbed with pain.
What she feared most of all, however, was that once she fully retrieved all those memories... she might come to hate Wonderstein.
I like him.
I'm so happy now, together with him.
When Ella's face turned so pale she looked about to collapse, Charlie moved next to her and steadied her shoulder.
"Something's wrong, isn't it? Brainwashing? Hypnosis? Blackmail? Is it Wonderstein himself? What kind of trick did that man pull on you?"
Charlie's voice was agitated. It brimmed with worry, but also with a note of exultation. He was pleased to have found evidence that Ella had been subjected to a psychic compulsion.
"Ah, no...."
Ella shook her head wildly. But she couldn't stop the things she had seen that day from flashing before her eyes, or the things she had heard that day from echoing in her ears.
Her neighbors, her friends—they had died, their bodies twisted into grotesque forms. A few still screamed and writhed as if not yet dead, but their condition was beyond anything that could be called alive.
'Ella, that person you brought... that wasn't a person. Ah, it was a demon... a monster wearing a human face....'
One of her dying friends had told her that. Yet even after recalling that memory, Ella tried to hold onto her faith in Wonderstein.
That friend must have misunderstood something. His magic does involve bones and flesh twisting together, so it can look a bit grotesque, right?
She comforted herself with that thought—but a corner of her mind reminded her that the bodies of the dead had also been twisted masses of bone and flesh.
Watching Ella grow visibly distraught, Charlie couldn't suppress a smile. A little more pressure and he'd have what he needed.
"Ella, the survivors said it. That you called a demon into the village. Who is it? Hm? It's that man Wonderstein, isn't it?"
"I said it isn't him!"
The moment she shouted, another scene surfaced before her eyes.
A monster drenched in blood was laughing as it played with the corpses of her dead friends.
'I've come as promised, Miss Ella.'
The monster soon transformed into a human form. Amid a pool of blood and bodies stood the man she liked most in the world. Holding the head of her dead friend in one hand.
Even when that memory surfaced, Ella did not abandon her faith in him. She defended him based on an event she had experienced right before losing her memories.
Think of that village where the Curse Plague spread. He tried to cure people there. But then people turned into monsters, and he had no choice but to kill them.
Sister Valentina explained the whole thing, didn't she? Something similar must have happened in our village. The old me must have misunderstood. That's definitely it.
"Then tell me. Who killed those people?"
"Th-that's...."
I don't want to. I don't want to think about that day again. I don't want to recall any more than this.
She struggled to bury the afterimages beneath good memories of him.
The memory of putting their heads together to revise the script, the memory of sharing the stage with him as an emcee, the memory of him risking his life to save her, the memory of him soothing her when she was unwell, the memory of him holding her tight and saying he believed in her...
Charlie watched Ella's agitation gradually subside. He sensed the pink shimmer returning to her eyes.
'I like him. Wonderstein. Sincerely.'
That magician's trickery was clearly working again.
Charlie cried out, his voice thick with emotion.
"You're being deceived by him! What you feel are fake emotions he's manufactured!"
Fake emotions?
A surge of defiance shot through Ella. Those words overlapped with what Wonderstein himself had said—when he dismissed her confession as a temporary confusion, the ramblings of a dazed mind.
My feelings are fake now?
Just as she was about to retort, a voice rang out from the far side of the chamber.
"Miss Ella?"
Wonderstein had already reached the cavern entrance. The monkey that had guided him here vanished into the darkness, leaving him alone.
On reflex, Wonderstein tried to follow the monkey as he had been doing. But the moment his wheelchair crossed a certain spot, a whipping sound cut through the air and a solid, elongated iron bar flew at him, smashing into his side.
Bang.
The wheelchair toppled over, and his body tumbled across the floor several times. He skidded until his head cracked against a stone pillar; then his neck slumped and he collapsed. They were dozens of meters apart, but Ella saw the red smear of blood spreading along the path his body had rolled.
"Troupe Leader!"
His defense—strong enough to deflect rock and blade—had been breached with appalling ease. Her suspicion that he would be rendered powerless inside the Sanctuary had been correct.
"As expected."
Charlie smiled with smug satisfaction.
Ella wheeled on him, eyes fierce, and shouted.
"Stop this! That man came here to save me! If he were truly a bad person, he'd never go this far...!"
"He must have trusted his abilities. But as you can see, they're useless here. And 'this far'? If I could have you, I'd gladly put up with this much and more."
"What?"
At Ella's sharp response, Charlie's face flushed slightly and he shook his head. His true feelings had slipped out before he could catch them.
"In any case, just watch quietly. Please. All I want is to avenge the people of our village."
His tone turned earnest, and at that, her body stiffened rigid. The sight of the dead villagers, her dead friends, and Wonderstein laughing among them flickered past her eyes once more.
"Ugh."
Ella clutched her head and sank to the spot. She was a single step away from everything surfacing, but she herself was refusing to take it.
Her worst memory. The blessing-like curse born from the fusion of the Reaper's Scythe and an Apostle's Authority had erased it for her. She wanted to savor that erasure a little longer.
Seeing Ella's reaction, Charlie was now certain that Wonderstein was the culprit. Ordinarily, he wouldn't have been the type to kill someone over that alone. But over the past month, he had watched this man, Wonderstein, toy with Reina, with Ella, with Clara.
"Cough, guh, hrk."
Wonderstein let out a groan steeped in agony and coughed up blood. Or rather, he performed as though he did.
In truth, not a single scratch marred his skin. His Muscle Strength was currently 6.0—equivalent to bulletproof glass, in the Status Window's terms. Something of that caliber couldn't possibly injure him.
The blood he was shedding now was a sham, concocted from his own bodily fluids. His clothes had been torn by thorns he'd sprouted from his body, and his arm bent backward because he'd reversed the joint.
All of it had been prepared before he even entered the cavern.
Spending Devolut on the pretense of injury stung a little, but it was unavoidable—to lull the enemy into lowering his guard and to extract Ella safely.
He looked up at Ella and Charlie standing on the altar.
So that man is Mysterious? He's younger than I expected.
Right now, he could open every combat Trait he'd prepared and rush him. But he chose to wait a little longer. He needed the man to relax further. Attacking recklessly here and having him grab Ella while holding a blade to her throat would be a disaster.
"D-don't come, Troupe Leader! Please! Go back!"
Ella shouted as she saw him push himself up from the ground with faltering arms. But Wonderstein only shook his head, offering her a faint smile.
"Stay right there. I'll come and save you."
"Troupe Leader..."
Dragging his blood-soaked body, he limped toward her.
Tears slid down Ella's cheeks.