14. Melting Point (14)
14. Melting Point (14)
Reina was completely smooth down there, without a single strand of hair. Wonderstein knew this well, having seen it several times already, but this was the first time he found himself grateful for it.
Behind him, several of the mothers and teachers stood watching what he was doing. If she had been covered in hair, their already fragile perception impairment would have snapped on the spot.
According to her, she had never grown hair there to begin with. Not that she needed to explain herself — he would not have suspected her of shaving it for some ulterior motive anyway.
Acrobats who specialized in tightrope walking or Ground Acrobatics, male or female, generally maintained meticulous grooming. The reasoning was the same as professional football or basketball players back in his own world.
Yurakne, who had trained intensively in aerial acts as the Spider Woman, had kept both her underarms and her groin immaculate. Reina's atrichia was likely because Lord Fantastic had included it in her design specifications when he commissioned her.
Wonderstein first used a handkerchief to wipe the traces of urine trickling down her thigh. Then he parted her closed folds with his fingers and carefully dried the remaining drops near her urethra. His movements were practiced — after all, he had been in and out of this place several times before.
"Ahn... I-it's embarrassing, Teacher..."
Reina had to keep whimpering like a child the whole while he changed her underwear. It was a precaution to keep her cognition shift from breaking midway through the process.
Wonderstein used the Costume Room function to dress her in new panties. He ordinarily avoided displaying his abilities in front of others, but this time he ignored that rule for her sake. The onlookers seemed startled by his magic, but under the circumstances, nobody pressed the question.
When he signaled that he was finished, the children who had been shielding her with their own bodies rushed in. They hugged her, stroked her hair, comforted her.
"Reina, it's okay. Don't cry!"
"When I was six, I got in trouble for wetting the bed too!"
"Yeah. You don't need to be so embarrassed."
"Everybody, we're keeping today a secret, right?"
"Of course!"
Just then, a bell rang from inside the kindergarten building. Outdoor playtime for the boys had begun.
Wonderstein decided this was the right moment and rose to his feet.
"We should probably head somewhere else."
"Are you certain you won't stay? We're about to start indoor activities... You're very welcome to join."
"No, truly, it's fine. We need to get our own lunch."
He glanced at Reina with an awkward smile, and the teacher seemed to grasp the situation and let it go. Before leaving, he discreetly handed her an envelope.
"For the dinner we discussed earlier."
She glanced around cautiously and accepted it. Wonderstein offered her a final word of thanks, then left with Reina and Ruelo. The children called out reluctant farewells as the three of them departed.
"Reina, come back and visit again!"
"Ruelo! You were so cool!"
"See you later!"
The young teacher had watched them leave with a composed expression, but the moment they vanished around the corner, she broke into a broad grin and clenched both fists.
Success!
Spring had finally arrived for her, after countless failed blind dates. She reined in her threatening smile and ushered the children back inside.
Then, using the restroom as an excuse, she slipped away and opened the envelope.
Where does he want to meet? A tea house? A restaurant? Surely he isn't inviting me straight to his room... Heh heh, that's a little forward for a first day, isn't it...
Grinning to herself, she pulled out the contents. The moment she identified it, her face went rigid.
She recognized it immediately. It was a common item around here, handed out for anniversaries, holidays, and bonuses.
It was a meal ticket for the train station cafeteria.
One single ticket.
She stared blankly in the direction Wonderstein had gone.
"It's worth several times the admission fee. Should be sufficient."
Wonderstein shook his head, exhausted by the corruption he had witnessed among imperial officials over the past two weeks.
The meal ticket he had given the teacher was one Ella had received as change — in place of actual money — from a station attendant when they were unloading their cargo here. Two weeks ago, she would have argued with the man. By now, accustomed to imperial bureaucratic culture, she considered him honest simply for not leveraging the troupe's monstrous members to slap them with a fine.
The deeper they traveled into the empire's heartland, the more frequently officials demanded bribes for the most trivial matters. According to Dosville, the regions they had passed through so far were comparatively mild. In worse areas, police routinely stopped vulnerable travelers, extorted money, and jailed anyone who refused to pay.
"And the higher-ups do nothing about it?"
"What can they do? The state can't even pay their salaries properly. Corruption among Kiev's civil servants is simply institutionalized by now. You just have to accept it."
Wonderstein had heard this explanation from Dosville days ago, but he had assumed a playground used by children would be different. He had not expected even a kindergarten teacher to have her hand out.
Since he had always left money matters to Ella and Clara, he had little instinct for how much to offer in these situations. At least she had set "a meal" as the baseline — that was fortunate. Meal tickets functioned almost like currency around the train station. That was why the attendant had felt free to hand them over as change in the first place.
"Reina, are you feeling any better?"
Once they reached an alley a good distance from the kindergarten, Wonderstein checked in on her condition. When they had left the playground, she hadn't been able to lift her head, her face still flushed. But her complexion had improved notably now. She nodded at him.
"I'm fine... After all, this sort of thing can happen at kindergarten, right...?"
She still couldn't meet his eyes, and her voice shook, but she no longer looked as though she wanted to die on the spot.
"I'm glad you see it that way, but..."
Wonderstein found it hard to gauge whether she was genuinely fine or merely putting on a brave face. He had trouble grasping the sheer magnitude of the shame she must be feeling.
Back in his old world, whenever he went outside, he had worn diapers. His body couldn't hold urine for long the way a normal person's could. When the signal came, he had to relieve himself within three minutes. Unless a toilet was immediately adjacent, that window was dangerously tight.
So for him, a public restroom was less a place to urinate and more a place to change soiled diapers. Usually, he handled it one-on-one with an aide in a disabled stall. But when no disabled stall was available, or when someone was already occupying it, he had no choice but to park his wheelchair right in the middle of the regular restroom and change there.
Having lived that way for more than twenty years, he found it difficult to tell exactly what she meant when she said she was fine. He was still lost in thought when Samson let out a deafening yell.
"The Creator! I'm hungry! Let's go eat!"
She tugged at his sleeve and pointed toward a street stretched out before them, lined with restaurants so impeccably kept that the aromas seemed to waft over just from looking at them.
"Now that you mention it, it is already afternoon. Shall we get lunch?"
They stopped at a restaurant serving traditional Kiev home-style meals. Wonderstein ordered a set of rice and side dishes. Reina ordered a children's set. And Samson ordered an enormous tomahawk steak, which she immediately grabbed with both hands and tried to tear apart.
"Hands don't cooperate the way hair does. Forks and knives are difficult."
What would people mutter if they saw a six-year-old child tearing into a slab of meat bigger than her own head with her bare hands? Unable to stomach the spectacle, Wonderstein reluctantly cut the steak himself, speared the pieces with a fork, and fed them to her.
"Delicious!"
"I should hope so. It cost ten times what ours did."
"Mm, that too, but being fed by someone is enjoyable!"
"Hasn't Miss Ruelo been doing that for you?"
Samson tilted her head at his question, then smiled.
"I think it's because you're the one doing it!"
Watching Samson's sunny smile, Wonderstein realized anew that she, too, was a child who had only recently entered the world. The time they'd spent together today had made that much clearer. She was clumsy at expressing emotion, with a distinct streak of innocence. Her blunt, sharp way of speaking had kept that hidden from him until now.
Her birth hadn't been the fault of the Wonderstein from before his possession — it was purely his own mistake. Yet he had ignored the responsibility he should have carried, pouring his attention only into Reina and Maya simply because they were familiar characters from the original story. He felt remorse for that now.
"I'm sorry, Samson. I've been far too neglectful."
"Huh? What does that mean, all of a sudden?"
"Nothing. Watching you eat so happily puts me in a good mood, that's all."
"Then hurry up and give me the next chunk!"
"Alright. Here, say ah~"
"Ah, nom, nom — isn't this chunk too big!"
"Heh, my mistake. Chew slowly."
When they finished and stepped outside, Wonderstein spotted Reina standing alone some distance away, gazing at an empty sky.
The moment he tilted his head back to follow her gaze, he felt cold flecks touch his forehead.
"Snow."
He watched the flakes begin to drift down from the distant heavens and walked toward her. She kept staring upward until he reached her side. Then, finally, she spoke.
"It was fun."
"You mean... today?"
"Yes. Thanks to you, I got to feel what it's like to attend kindergarten."
She lowered her head, let out a small sigh, and added,
"Of course, having that happen in front of so many people was a little embarrassing."
Was she regretting having gone to the kindergarten because of it? Worried, he began to offer comforting words, but she gave a faint smile and shook her head.
"But my friends protected me. Even the kids I hadn't exchanged a single word with. Isn't that amazing? We only played together for an hour or two, and we got that close. It was the first time I'd felt that kind of innocent bond — just being tied together under the name 'friend,' without any other thought. No, I suppose that's something only possible at that age."
What she had wished for was an experience. Something she had wanted when she was five but had missed. For the shadow, today's experience became a precious memory. She had wanted to stay four years old forever, but for the sake of this memory, she couldn't remain frozen at that age.
He stared at her wordlessly. Then a soft chime sounded, and a message appeared before him.
[Member Quest — 5-Year-Old Reina — completed. Reward: Shadow — 4-Year-Old Reina transforms into Shadow — 5-Year-Old Reina.]
Wonderstein looked at her as she smiled up at the falling snow. The shadow herself must have sensed that something inside her had changed.
"Good wor—"
He was about to offer congratulations when she suddenly threw her arms around him, burying her face against his chest.
"Thank you, Dad."
Wonderstein hesitated over whether to finish his sentence. Then he shook his head and wrapped his arms around her in return. On the snow-dusted street, the two of them stood still, feeling each other's warmth.
Some time passed. Then they heard a child's voice calling from behind.
"The Creator! I'm full! Walking is hard! Carry me on your back!"
A girl with tangerine-colored hair was trudging toward them, her steps labored. She had lingered in the shop to use the restroom.
Wonderstein noticed that Reina had already pulled away and turned her back to him. She was reaching into her coat to retrieve her mask. Understanding what she intended to say without words, he shifted his gaze away from her and toward the other being he could call his child. Dropping to one knee, he opened his arms wide.
"Honestly. Didn't I tell you that was too much for one person? Alright, come here."
"Yawn. Let's hurry back to the lodge. I'm tired."
As she settled into his embrace, Wonderstein heard the chime of another message appearing. Guessing what it was, he dismissed it without reading.
[Member Quest — Play with Samson — completed. Reward: 10 Devoluts provided.]
The trio pressed close together and made their way home through the thickening curtain of snow.