13. Circus Charlie (26)
13. Circus Charlie (26)
Ella, who had clung to me weeping, finally quieted only when my wounds were nearly healed. The places she had stabbed with her dagger had all mended cleanly. I'd used the Devoluts from the quest reward to restore the regeneration the Reaper had stripped away.
"Mmm..."
I laid her down gently on the floor and moved to check on the others. But even unconscious, she wouldn't let go of my body.
"No... don't go..."
She babbled like a baby, arms locked around my waist. I could have pried her loose if I'd meant to, but I chose not to. This might be her last embrace. After today, she would likely never draw this close to me again. I doubted she would even spare me a smile, let alone hold me. I decided to indulge her clinging a little longer.
"Fine. Come here."
Speaking to her was a mistake. The sound of my voice made her eyebrows twitch. She moaned and began to thrash.
"Hah... ngh!"
"Miss Ella?"
"D-don't... wanna hear it...!"
I recalled what she had asked of me earlier. She'd told me not to speak, only to hold her. I sighed with regret. How deep must her loathing for Wonderstein run, that merely hearing his voice could trigger this reaction?
"Hah... n-no...!"
She wept and murmured like someone trapped in a nightmare. Mouth shut tight, I wiped her swollen, tear-soaked eyes and patted her shoulder. I had no curiosity about what dream she was having. No — truthfully, the answer was too obvious to ask. It was probably about me.
"Stop... mmm..."
In my embrace, her trembling gradually subsided. Yet this was her reaction to my voice alone. Was her mind truly all right? Would she have a seizure the moment she woke and saw me?
The joyful moments of the past three months felt impossibly distant. Her bold declaration — that she would still like me even after recovering her memories — had scattered like so many vows of love, just as fleeting.
I thought about the person who had worsened the situation this far.
Mysterious.
A surge of resentment rose, but I shook my head. That was misplaced fury. Given what Wonderstein had done to her, even if Charlie had never appeared, things would not be much different. Her hatred was the karma I had to shoulder to go on living as Wonderstein.
"D-don't go... don't go..."
Whatever she was seeing now, she whimpered and shuddered. Was she searching for the friend who had fallen into the underground water? I drew her deeper into my arms. This time, I said not a word.
"Heh... hehe... caught you..."
She stopped thrashing, buried her face in my chest, and rubbed her cheek against it. Through lips that held a faint smile, she let out a breath mixed with laughter. It was gratifying — being able to comfort her even in this semi-conscious state.
A crash sounded. A wall collapsed inward, stone and earth spilling through. Had an unexploded bomb from earlier just gone off? I turned toward the noise. As the dust cleared, a group of people emerged.
"We're through!"
"Damn, careful! Thought the whole thing was coming down on us."
"You blaming me? That explosion from below came out of nowhere— wait, is that light?"
"Pretty spacious in here... Hey, over there!"
"Is someone there?"
"That's them! We found them, squad leader! Signal topside!"
Rekachev's excavation crew. They had cleared the debris along the passage Ella had fallen through. The discovery of an old structure beneath the school surprised them, and the number of people inside seemed to surprise them even more. But they didn't forget their duty as rescuers. They swiftly set up pulleys and prepared to lift the wounded to the surface.
"Uh, sir... are you all right?"
A man who seemed to be their leader addressed me. From the blood soaking my appearance, they seemed uncertain whether I was still alive. I assured them I was fine, then asked them to send Maya up first.
The bullet Ella had fired was still lodged inside her. I'd tried to treat her as soon as the situation settled, but it hadn't worked. The lingering sanctuary power here and the mana inside her body seemed to resist the Devolut. She needed a doctor's attention.
"Understood. And, uh... this student?"
"I'll bring her myself."
Maya, Ruelo, Reina, Karen, and Mickey were hoisted up one by one. I cradled Ella — still refusing to let go of me — and stepped onto the pulley. The tunnel wasn't a straight vertical shaft, so we had to switch pulleys several times on the ride up.
By the time we reached the surface, it was already dark. The spectators had departed; only school officials and our troupe members remained inside the arena.
"It's Ella!"
"Troupe Leader!"
"You're safe!"
"Yes! Everyone's alive!"
The troupe broke into cheers and rushed toward us. They didn't ask how I'd gotten out with Ella. The rough explanation I'd relayed earlier via communication magic had sufficed.
After a brief medical check in the infirmary, the school began its inquiry. The professors wanted to know what had happened down below. I concealed the fact that the perpetrators were Ella's hometown friends and gave them a suitably edited version. I painted them as unidentified terrorists, claiming they'd simply had the bad luck of picking Ella as a conspicuous hostage for attention. The traces of the demon left underground got blamed on their summoning as well.
When my account ended, Vice Dean Elpara held out a photograph.
"By any chance, was this young man among that group?"
I recognized the man in the picture. Charlie. Unsure how much she already knew, I had no choice but to confirm.
"Yes. The leader of the group that attacked us was this very man. May I ask how you know his face?"
After checking that no one was eavesdropping, Vice Dean Elpara recounted what had happened. When the professors saw the stone chamber where Ella had been held collapse, they realized it was not an accident but a trap triggered deliberately. They summoned those involved and demanded an explanation.
A suspect surfaced immediately. The site foreman testified that a few young men recommended by Charlie had been slipped into the stadium construction work. Several student council officers confessed that Charlie had approached them in secret and asked them to provide the arena's internal schematics.
"And you kept this hidden until now?"
"We thought Charlie was acting on the professors' orders!"
"We thought 'Tinker Fairy' was Charlie... We assumed he was just an unexpected asset. How could we ever have dared suspect Charlie?"
The professors couldn't press them further. Their testimonies were only circumstantial — not concrete evidence that Charlie had orchestrated the incident.
Before long, decisive evidence arrived. A letter, delivered to the Vice Dean minutes before Wonderstein's group was rescued. The sender was Charlie. In his own handwriting, it contained a brief apology for causing trouble at the school, along with the statement that everyone else involved had cooperated without any knowledge of the plan.
When I heard the letter had been delivered by the monkey he'd raised, I understood. He had written it in advance, then commanded the monkey to deliver it if things went wrong, so that no one else around him would suffer the fallout.
I didn't tell them Charlie had taken his own life. That would likely draw attention to us, the survivors. He needed to remain at large, presumed alive. Why the top graduate had done something like this to his own school would spawn endless speculation and rumors. That would keep the media's attention away from us for a while.
***
Ella woke at dawn. She recognized that she was lying in Rekachev's infirmary and became aware of someone seated beside her bed. The woman's hair rippled blue in the moonlight as she nodded off, smacking her lips at the drool escaping them.
"Clara?"
Clara jolted upright.
"I-I wasn't sleeping!"
She looked around and spotted Ella staring at her, wide-eyed. A bright smile spread across her face.
"Whoa, you startled me! When did you wake up? Feeling more lucid now?"
"What... happened? Why am I here...?"
"Ah, well."
Clara gave her a quick summary. Ella felt relief hearing her friends were all safe — and turned sheet-white when she heard Charlie had been listed as wanted. But it wasn't the content of the news that stunned her. It was the person telling it.
"Clara... are you okay?"
"Hm? What? Ah, Charlie..., you mean."
Clara smiled awkwardly. To her, he was some nobody she didn't even know. Officially, however, this body of hers had supposedly been in love with him and chased after him.
She'd been teased about it for days and had learned how to handle it. Frantically denying it only entertained her tormentors. But if she made a gloomy expression, they grew uncomfortable and stopped mentioning Charlie.
Her darkened face was a reflex born from that learned experience. Seeing Clara's expression stiffen, Ella bit her lip hard. It was the first time she'd seen Clara — who always seemed bright to the point of being spacey — make such a face.
Clara, realizing no one was mocking her about Charlie right now, quickly brightened her expression, but all Ella saw was someone struggling to hide her sadness.
"How would I know what goes on inside that guy? I couldn't figure it out, and that's why he dumped me. Right? Haha."
"Clara..."
The forced laugh nearly made Ella burst into tears. She pushed herself up from the bed and threw her arms around Clara.
"Wh-whoa, E-Ella? What's wrong? I'm fine, I told you I'm fine..."
"Clara... the thing is... Charlie..."
Ella opened her mouth to say it, then shut it tight. She couldn't bring herself to tell her the truth. That she had shot him. That he had confessed his love to her. That he had ended his own life to escape Wonderstein's grip.
Her fragile mind couldn't bear it.
"Don't worry about it. I was more worried about you than that Charlie. I heard the Troupe Leader rescued you?"
At those words, Ella writhed under an even heavier guilt.
That's not it. No, it is, but that man — that man isn't the person you think he is...
Unable to reveal the truth, Ella just held her tighter.
"Sorry... I'm so sorry..."
"I-I'm telling you, I'm really fine..."
A knock came at the door.
"Miss Clara, has Miss Ella woken?"
Ella's head snapped up. She clenched her teeth and glared at the door. Wonderstein.