14. Melting Point (25)
14. Melting Point (25)
"Lady Anais."
Wonderstein gave a low bow as she seated herself opposite him.
All spectators had been kept at least five meters from the table to prevent any chance of cheating. Since he'd decided to play this first game alone, Nika had withdrawn beyond the boundary as well. No one would be eavesdropping on their conversation.
"Wonderstein... Troupe Leader..."
From the moment she faced him, Anais couldn't bring herself to lift her head.
The only reason she'd been able to stomach any humiliation at all was that no one knew who she really was. That had let her become Anya, a woman free to fawn over an aging duke.
But now someone who knew exactly who she was had just witnessed that vulgar spectacle.
'Why did it have to be him...?'
When she'd imagined meeting him again, she'd resolved not to let her circumstances show. She'd meant to arrive in fine clothes, in an expensive carriage, with a full retinue of attendants. The money she'd scraped together over the past few weeks would've been enough to maintain that charade for a few days.
She hadn't wanted him to see her looking shabby. Part of it was a sponsor's pride. Part of it was the stubbornness of a woman who'd confessed her feelings and been rejected. She didn't want his pity. She wanted to show him she was still formidable, that his leaving hadn't ruined her.
But that plan had dissolved like foam. Instead, he'd seen her hawking cheap laughter at the elbow of some idle old lecher. Shame crashed over her in waves.
"I suspected as much when I heard the staff mention a woman named Anya matching your description."
"...."
"But I never imagined you'd actually turn out to be Lady Anais."
"...."
Maybe it was self-loathing. Every small smile of his seemed a mockery; every word he spoke grated on her nerves.
"So what brings... the Troupe Leader here...?"
She swore to herself she would not cry. That was her last shred of dignity. She lifted her chin and glared at him.
"Just happened to stop by during my travels. I got acquainted with Miss Nika over there through a card game. We hit it off, and one thing led to another until I ended up here."
The moment he saw Anais, Wonderstein felt relieved that she looked healthy.
Ben had told him she was living in some underground hovel, botching her work, swallowing every last insult while nursing a sick steward and scraping by in utter squalor. Even after arriving here and hearing rumors that she'd made a name for herself as an undefeated gambler, the stories Ben had told kept surfacing, and all he could picture was a broken wreck haunting the gambling hall.
Yet the woman who'd walked in looked perfectly composed. The smile on her lips might have been forced, but it was there. After having twenty years of her life stolen outright, no one would've been surprised if she'd become a hollow shell, but she hadn't crumbled. It might sound strange, but he was proud of her.
Catching her flustered, unsure how to act, he seized the initiative before anyone else could sense anything amiss.
"Shall we play a quick game while we talk?"
He spread the cards he'd prepared across the table. He'd already tested every game the tavern offered, and he'd picked the one best suited for conversation during play.
"Now, let's get straight to it... What on earth happened?"
"Well, you see..."
Once the game started, words came more easily. The two of them traded stories of everything that had happened while pretending to analyze each other's strategies in fierce concentration.
"...And that was how my steward helped me finally escape."
It was the first time she'd told anyone the full story since fleeing the company's headquarters. The more she spoke, the more she felt the knot that had been clenched tight in her chest for months slowly begin to loosen.
'Ah... This is... this is what I needed...'
Anais barely forced back the tears that threatened to spill. Having poured out everything inside her, the pressure that had been crushing her for months felt as though it was finally easing.
"You've been through a great deal."
He'd already heard it once from Ben, but hearing it from her own lips made it sound even more wretched. One of the most prominent financiers in the industry, reduced overnight to wandering the streets like a beggar, until she'd wound up working in a tavern.
Wonderstein's face twisted. His eyes glistened as though tears had gathered.
"Troupe Leader?"
Anais was taken aback by the expression on his face. She'd never seen him show so much emotion—he'd always seemed a man who wore only smiles.
It unsettled her, but a part of her was glad. Glad that he was rattled.
'I got too immersed.'
As the emotion gradually subsided, Wonderstein felt his composure returning.
He checked the time. Right on schedule, the Starlight's effect wore off. All that repeated testing had paid off.
The Starlight he'd just ingested was the same dose Ben had stolen right before breaking out of the Voodoo Cult.
'It's the "toll" we used to break into Wonderland. When I got back to my own world, I found there was still this much left. I knocked out everyone guarding it and brought it with me.'
A welcome gift. With it, he could neutralize The Smiling Man for at least twelve hours.
The moment he'd received it, his first thought had been to spend the night with Yurakne. But he'd suppressed that urge immediately and decided to save it for later. There might come a moment when he'd regret not having it.
Tossing a dose of Starlight into his mouth before seeing Anais had been the right call. He couldn't sit there grinning like an idiot while she told the most desperate story of her life. The tears at the end had been unexpected, but at least he hadn't offended her.
"I've lost."
"Ah..."
The game had ended before either of them quite realized.
Anais had emptied her hand, but cards still remained in Wonderstein's. So absorbed in conversation, she couldn't even remember how the match had played out. She'd been throwing moves on pure instinct—and had won anyway.
"Your skills are every bit what the rumors say! I'm full of admiration!"
Wonderstein loudly conceded defeat.
It was only then that Anais understood: he'd deliberately made bad moves, dragging the game out so they could talk. From the start, the game he'd chosen wasn't about strategy or tactics—it was about reading your opponent's mind through conversation. Thanks to that, her blank expression had passed as a kind of poker face.
"Shall we take a short break before the next game?"
"All right. I, I'm just—hnngk!"
Anais felt her breath suddenly catch. The seizure came on schedule, as it did every hour. She bolted upright and rushed for the restroom. Wonderstein, startled, made to follow her, but two large men blocked his way.
"Ho-ho. Do you plan on following a lady into the lavatory?"
An old man with a white-streaked beard stepped forward. It was Duke Shtani, who'd entered the hall alongside Anais. Wrapped in a bathrobe, stroking his long chin-whiskers, he projected the air of a Daoist sage. But his eyes gleamed with snobbish, insidious intent.
"And who might you be?"
"I am Duplier Shtani, Duke of Latavia. I have employed Miss Anya as a go tutor for the past month. She is my guest, so I'll ask you to mind your manners in my presence."
At the word "duke," the crowd stirred. A few nobles stepped forward to pay their respects. But many openly clicked their tongues at him.
"A go tutor. Sure."
"Mistress, more likely."
"What? He looks like some transcendent who's renounced the world."
"That old man's notorious around town. Didn't he cause some big scene just days ago?"
"Right. They say there's no bigger degenerate. Got thrown out for demanding a courtesan piss in the street like a dog."
"Tsk tsk, and that woman acting all high and mighty ends up choosing a geezer like him?"
Duke Shtani paid the murmuring no mind and held his head high, his gaze fixed on the restroom door Anais had entered.
What a delicious little minx. He'd brought her along because her bearing seemed too refined for a mere tavern wench, and indeed, her conduct and conversation surpassed that of any ordinary noblewoman. Over the past three days, she'd deftly and ruthlessly deflected every subtle advance he'd made.
'Just wait until we leave this place. Then I'll enjoy myself every single night.'
Restraining his itching hands, Duke Shtani regarded the man standing before him.
Wonderstein, was it? Even as a man, he had to admit the fellow was handsome. The moment his go tutor had laid eyes on him, her impenetrable wall of indifference had crumbled, and she'd shown open interest. She'd also spoken far more than usual—the woman was clearly smitten.
But this young upstart lacked the things he himself possessed. Status. Power. Wealth.
It was influence that fell short of the true landed nobility, but far greater than those who were aristocrats in name only. And if this whelp dared cling to the woman he'd marked for himself, he intended to teach him a very pointed lesson.
'Am I just chopped liver now?'
Nika glared at Wonderstein, who was locked in a standoff with Duke Shtani, with undisguised displeasure.
She hadn't liked being pushed aside so he could play the game alone. She was irritated by how he'd squared off against a duke over some woman named Anya. But what unsettled her most was the emotional turmoil he'd betrayed while talking to that woman.
A man who'd probably smirk even standing before the Emperor—shaken that badly. It had been only a moment, but she'd seen his wavelength align with hers, the wavelength that was always out of sync.
In the three days they'd spent side by side, he'd never once shown her that expression—yet for that woman, he had. The disappointment and irritation were indistinguishable now.
'And she's just a tavern wench who sells her body.'
As Anais emerged from the restroom, Nika stepped forward. Perching herself half on the edge of the table, she held something out.
"Three challenge vouchers. That entitles me to face you one-on-one too, doesn't it?"
"Er... Miss Nika?"
Wonderstein, in the middle of a staring contest with Duke Shtani, was caught off guard and moved to stop her. But Nika shook off his arm and called out.
"You got a one-on-one match. I should get one too. Isn't that right?"
Her demand was reasonable. Both the tavern staff and the patrons nodded in agreement. A few, detecting the jealousy in her attitude, snickered and swapped quips with their neighbors.
Anais and Wonderstein had been about to discuss their plans in earnest. Nika's sudden intrusion made things awkward.
Anais let out a small, resigned sigh.
A girl who'd apparently spent a few days with Wonderstein. She understood the feelings behind that behavior. But from here on, this was a matter for adults, not a place for a child to meddle—and she decided to teach that lesson sharply.
"Fine. I accept your challenge. Have a seat."
"Lady Anais, are you sure about this?"
"No problem at all. It won't take long anyway."
At Anais's reply, Nika's eyebrow twitched.
The tone was that of someone dealing with an annoying pest who'd wandered in. It jabbed at her pride.
'They say she's talented, but she's still just a barmaid in the end... I'll crush her.'
Over the past several days, Nika had mastered the rules and fundamentals of every game in the hall. With Wonderstein out of the picture, there was no way she could lose one-on-one.
"Which game will you pick?"
"Wonder World."
Nika hadn't consciously chosen the game linked to Wonderstein. She was startled by her own choice, or rather, by the feeling that had surged up inside her when she made it.
Jealousy. And performance.
See? I'm closer to him than you are. Look at this. This is the game I played with him days ago?
Perversely, the power that let her look into human hearts applied to herself as well. She caught the emotion lurking beneath her own words, and her face flushed.
'I-it's only because... a capable asset I—the Crown Prince—acknowledged is hung up on some nobody of a wench...'
So she told herself, stubbornly shoving the emotion aside as she began the game.
As Nika sorted her hand, she studied her opponent's breathing the way she always did. She wanted to wreck whatever first picture Anais was sketching, wanted to watch the woman's face contort.
But what she found wasn't what she'd expected. She couldn't read the woman's breathing properly.
'What... is she?'
The reason she described what she read from opponents as "breathing" was simple: when most people exhaled, they vividly carried their emotions and intentions along with it. It was something ingrained over decades of living. You couldn't simply hide it.
But the breath she sensed from Anais had an extremely faint wavelength. The taste and scent of emotion carried on that breath were negligible. It was as hard to read as a seasoned politician's.
'No, this is closer to a monk's than a politician's.'
Nika recalled a few religious figures she'd encountered in her life. Their breathing, detached from worldly concerns, had emitted a wavelength similar to this.
But Anais's breathing didn't feel like worldly detachment. It felt more like she hadn't been in the world long at all. Like someone who'd only just started breathing on her own...
Interesting.
Realizing her opponent was no ordinary person, Nika quelled her excitement and focused. She poured every ounce of concentration into deciphering that faint, elusive rhythm.
'What's with this kid?'
Anais fought back furiously, hiding her alarm as Nika's moves pierced her defenses at exactly the right moments.
'As if I'd lose to you.'
Nika hurled herself into the fray with everything she had.
Under the ferocity radiating from the pair, the onlookers held their breath and watched the duel unfold. Even Duke Shtani, for now, was more absorbed in the game than in Anais, unable to tear his eyes from the table.
'Why are they fighting like it's life or death?'
Wonderstein stared at the two of them—locked in a contest as fierce as mortal enemies—with bewilderment.