14. Melting Point (29)
14. Melting Point (29)
After the rough and tumble of the so-called initiation, the drinking settled into something more subdued. With over thirty people packed into the space, entertainment took many forms.
Some groped the women they'd brought along. Others argued loudly over the latest gossip. Some did nothing but drink. And roughly half the room devoted itself to currying favor with the Crown Prince.
'Did I just pick a good crowd, or what?'
Nika, who had finally found a moment to breathe after the endless string of crises, kept his eyes shut and let the hot spring soak into him. He ran a hand absently below his navel.
Something deep in his gut ached, and he couldn't figure out why. Was this where an upset stomach usually hurt? He massaged the spot lightly and studied the 'Crown Prince' through slitted eyes — the man was trading coarse jokes with the libertines.
When he'd first been singled out as a party entertainer, Nika had ground his teeth and sworn he'd have the man thrown out the instant he could resume his real identity. But watching him more closely, the Crown Prince wasn't actually crossing any lines. He was respecting the rules Pelebin and Nika himself had laid down.
Enjoy yourself however you like.
But don't cross a line that can't be cleaned up once you're back in your own skin.
Don't breathe a word about politics or society.
True to those rules, the man indulged freely in drink, smoke, and women — but the moment a conversation threatened to turn heavy, he pivoted the topic with a fox's grace, never letting the shift feel forced. He was, Nika had to admit, expertly trashing his own reputation to exactly the intended degree.
And the hotel was already buzzing with the gossip. The Crown Prince was running wild, they said, like a colt off its lead. Nika had heard it repeated half a dozen times just today.
To say it didn't bother him would be a lie, but he'd braced himself for it. He could endure it. In the last three days, though, something else had crept in. A new connection.
His mind wandered back to what he'd felt earlier. Wonderstein had been smiling on the surface, but the wavelength emanating from his heart carried a sizable dose of disappointment and disgust.
In Koka's mind, he was sticking to the rules. But to someone from the lower classes, watching him carouse like this had to be galling. Especially since Koka kept glancing toward Wonderstein's corner of the room, raking his eyes over the man's two companions with open greed.
Nika found Wonderstein's hostility toward the Crown Prince uncomfortable — and comforting. That nerve, the audacity to stand against the Crown Prince himself, had sprung from a desire to protect an innocent girl named Nika.
'Not that I can exactly announce I am the Crown Prince. ...No. Then the disgust would only get worse, wouldn't it?'
That was the far likelier outcome. Wonderstein would assume he'd been toyed with.
More to the point, it was absurd to expose his most critical vulnerability just to clear up a misunderstanding with some wandering performer. The escapade had to end as an escapade. The man gave off an unusual wavelength, but they lived in different worlds.
'Let's just keep it as a strange, fond memory.'
Having settled the matter in his mind, Nika leaned lightly against Wonderstein as if nodding off in the warm water — eyes closed, soaking, drifting away.
Knowing he was about to leave made everything easier. Only a moment ago, the mere brush of skin against Wonderstein's had made Nika recoil. Now he could rest his head against the man's chest without a second thought.
Except when he moved to do so, Wonderstein's body seemed to edge away. Not just his body — his whole head was angled off to the right.
And now that Nika thought about it, Wonderstein had been exchanging words with no one but Anais for a while. Nika opened his eyes a crack and stole a glance at the two of them. What he saw made his blood run cold.
Wonderstein and Anais were locked in a deep kiss. His right hand had wormed its way inside her swimsuit and was kneading her breast.
That sort of thing was happening all over the bath, but Nika hadn't imagined Wonderstein would join in. He focused every scrap of his attention on eavesdropping as the two finished their kiss and began to murmur.
"Heh. A beginner shouldn't be able to go this far... Who taught you to be like this?"
"...A priest I knew. He barged into my room... put that inside me... I was in so much pain, so scared, I... ngh—!"
"You let out quite a lot of moans... If you surrender your body to me... you'll feel better..."
"I trust you. Troupe Leader... you saved me once already... ah, there, that spot... haah, haah..."
The noise around them drowned out all but a few fragmentary words, but Nika pieced together more than enough. His fists shook.
'Scum.'
Revulsion toward Wonderstein surged inside him. The man had played the righteous apostle protecting them, but in the end, he was just another male.
Maybe he'd stepped in from the start only because he didn't want someone poaching a woman he'd already marked for himself. Once he'd settled comfortably into the rhythm of the party, he'd wasted no time indulging his desires.
Anais was no less contemptible.
Through the dim light, Nika caught glimpses of her expression. She looked utterly satisfied.
The sycophantic way she'd cozied up to the old duke had shown her true colors from the start.
Tawdry woman.
What she'd said about the priest — it was pitiable, but hardly shocking. What was revolting was the way Wonderstein pretended to care for her while groping her. In essence, he was doing exactly what Koka wanted to do, yet he'd dressed himself up as her 'rescuer.'
A woman that sharp, undone by a few smooth words from a handsome face. Were women really that easy? No — if he said that, then he himself had...
A churn of ugly emotions boiled in Nika's chest. He couldn't believe he'd given his first kiss to a degenerate like this.
He squeezed his eyes shut and feigned sleep again. He didn't even want to peer into Wonderstein's heart anymore. He had the feeling it would only hurt him.
—
A short while later, Wonderstein finished treating Anais. He'd breathed air into her mouth to quell the sudden seizure and injected Devolut directly into her chest.
Her lungs had been exposed to the Power of Light before the six-month mark — the point when they'd have converted into an Innate Trait — and the damage had been difficult to reverse. The ruined tissue kept sending garbled signals; every bit of it had to be burned away in its original state. That was why she'd let out so many pained moans.
When he'd first met her, a symptom this severe would have been beyond him. But the experience he'd accumulated, and the Devolut he'd stockpiled, now let him handle even a surgical procedure this delicate.
He was surprised a village priest had been able to burn away Devolut to this extent. In the games, clergy members typically lacked such spectacular power — a few key characters excepted.
In the game, Wonderstein had toyed freely with the Innate Traits of his monster troupe members and wielded absolute power over Devolut. The original Wonderstein had possessed something that the current him lacked. Probably the power of the Jewel Trill.
"I... feel much better. Thank you."
Once the crisis passed, Anais glanced around and flushed. What they'd done had been pure treatment, but it had ended up looking exactly like the lewd antics of all the other couples.
"I've put out the worst of the fire. I'll give you a proper session back at your quarters."
Wonderstein pulled his hands back and straightened his body. He was relieved to see Nika still had his eyes shut. The last thing he needed was to be misunderstood for showing something like that.
'A proper session back at my quarters? So he's actually planning to drag her to his room.'
Nika's lips writhed as if about to spit a curse, but Wonderstein noticed nothing.
At that moment, Koka clapped his hands sharply, gathering the room's attention.
"Come now, the mood's dipping again. How about a little show?"
He pointed at the man he'd been talking with.
"This fellow's known for his skill at gambling. A master of every card game under the sun. You. The dancing-girl. Anais, was it? The reason I asked for you was to have you face him. So? How about a match?"
The words came from the Crown Prince's mouth. Phrased as a suggestion, they were effectively a command. Anais had no choice but to nod.
"That's the spirit! Good. Then we need a prize for this round too... How about this: each side demands one thing the other has. Only something you can hand over right now, mind you. No money tied up in a bank."
At first blush it sounded like the kind of wager you'd find at an ordinary party — a gift exchange. But the atmosphere in the room made it clear that wasn't what anyone had in mind.
"And what if the lady here wants something of mine, Your Highness?"
The young gambler's quip sent the crowd into howls of laughter. It was a joke that laid bare the true character of this gathering.
"What'll you demand if you win?"
"Hmm. A humble man like me wouldn't know. I've already received Your Highness's generosity tonight — perhaps I'll dedicate the right to that favor back to Your Highness."
The exchange flowed so fluidly it felt rehearsed.
"Ha! Acting as if you've already won! Fine. I'll use the time while you two are playing to decide what I'll demand!"
Anais clenched her jaw. She'd known the Crown Prince had his eye on her for a while. But she hadn't expected him to announce his 'demand' this brazenly.
"Will you be all right?"
"Trust me. When it comes to card games... I can beat anyone."
Her eyes met Nika's in that instant. Both of them recalled the unfinished contest from earlier. The two held each other's stare for a long beat.
'Cheeky little brat.'
'Filthy whore.'
Wonderstein failed to catch the current flowing between them. His attention was locked on the Crown Prince.
Quite the collection of retainers His Highness kept. Every last one of them seemed cut from the same cloth. One whose specialty was drink, another whose specialty was playing with women — and now one whose specialty was gambling.
He'd seen enough. If the Crown Prince had turned out to be the man he'd hoped, Wonderstein had been prepared to gift him information about the future. Sharing anything within the next two years that might affect the Main Quest was out of the question, but information beyond that would have been possible. Now that he knew what the man really was, he had no desire to do anything that might benefit him in the slightest.
The guards set up a large table in the center of the bath. Foam and steam rising from below quickly soaked the surface, but the cards were coated well enough to survive one round.
"The game will be Wonderworld. It's what everyone's playing these days."
"Fine."
A single match to decide the winner.
Obviously, no one was going to suggest a betting game like poker.
The young gambler and Anais both inspected the deck a soldier brought over, confirmed nothing was amiss, and began.
"For my Theater Cards, I'll take Glinkaf Theater and the Aterena Open-air Theater."
"I'll take Rose Windmill Cabaret and the Christian Memorial Hall."
Anais tensed at her opponent's choices. Both were among the strongest Theater Cards in the game, but they required extraordinary luck to leverage. If you could pluck whatever cards you wanted from the deck with your bare hands, that would be one thing — by average probability, they belonged to the weaker end.
'He hasn't tampered with the deck, has he?'
Cheating was her first concern. That was exactly why she'd inspected the deck the moment the soldier brought it over.
But the cards bore no marks or nicks. A truly minute flaw might exist, but in this dim light, there was no way to read cards by feel alone.
Nor was there any chance he'd palmed or swapped cards. Her opponent wore nothing but a swimsuit. He had nowhere to hide a card.
'Which leaves the table...'
Could there be some mechanism rigged into it?
She couldn't examine it closely, though. That would be tantamount to accusing the Crown Prince of cheating.
In the end, Anais gave up trying to spot a trick and resolved to focus on the game. Maybe there was no trick. And in any case, all cards in this game were revealed at the end. Even if there was some sleight of hand, it would be hard to overturn the outcome itself.
She'd beaten the supposedly impossible three-against-one match. One-on-one, she was confident she could win no matter what her opponent pulled.
Under the eyes of the entire party, the two began to play.