15. Frankenstein's Successor (11)
Illusion mages often created phantasms unconsciously. It wasn't unusual to see newspaper reports about a ghostly haunting that, upon investigation, turned out to be nothing more than a nightmare given form by a sleeping illusionist.
But Maya, whose canvas of the mind remained blank, could produce no such phantoms. The only illusions she could conjure were rigorously calculated polygon constructs.
Then, half a year ago, she had managed just one. The cat she'd lost as a child. And now, she had added one more to that list.
—Why are you staring at me like that?
The illusion of Wonderstein whispered. His voice, his smile. Both were exactly as she remembered.
The corner of her eye twitched. She had been tempted countless times. What would it be like to fashion an image of the Troupe Leader? But she had always restrained herself, afraid that conjuring some wretched counterfeit would be an insult to the real man.
Her mind had never run wild and produced phantoms on its own, either. He had always been at her side, after all.
But ever since she had learned his secret a few days ago, his presence beside her had ceased to feel like a real presence at all. An insurmountable veil had fallen between them, just as death had once separated her from that cat. And in reaction, she had gained the ability to give form to Wonderstein.
—You look different today, Miss Maya. Ready for your treatment?
He spoke and acted just like the real Troupe Leader. That was only natural. Within the circus, no one had watched his every gesture and movement more intently than she had. The illusion was flawless.
—There we are. Lie down. Let's begin.
His hands closed around her legs. The solidity of it... The sensation against her skin was his, through and through.
She clenched her teeth. If she crossed this line, she felt she'd be crossing a river she could never come back from. The histories were littered with illusion mages who'd grown intoxicated by their own creations and severed every tie to the world.
—Get out.
Maya glared at him. Cutting off his mana supply would end this in an instant, but her Heart Demon had left her power beyond her control. She had no choice but to block him out through sheer force of will. And to do that, her words and actions had to be absolute.
—I said get out!
The Troupe Leader gave her a sad smile, then his form began to fade.
"Ah."
A part of Maya felt as if she were truly parting from him forever. She reached out before she could stop herself, wanted to stir her mana and seize his image. But her power refused to budge. His phantom slipped through her fingers and scattered like dust.
"Troupe Leader..."
She had planned to make a major announcement to him today. Not long ago, she had finally solved the task he'd entrusted to her four months prior.
The structural formula of Devolut. Wonderstein had revealed to her the hidden secret of Yeterinpurk's Tetromino Plaza. He'd had no idea it was the formula for Devolut—he'd regarded it as nothing more than an in-game riddle and taught it to her solely to pull her free of her Heart Demon.
Maya had identified its true nature as Devolut through a stack of academic papers, then thrown herself into analyzing it. She had seen Wonderstein ruin his own body absorbing Devolut to save others.
That he had shared this secret with her could only mean he was entrusting the task to her as his disciple. And true to her reputation as the greatest genius in the academy's history, she had reached her goal in only four months. She had developed a spell that could decompose Devolut using mana.
Until now, the only known methods of destroying Devolut had been the Alchemy Guild's "Milky Way" medicine or the "Power of Light" wielded by Orthodox priests. But because she had unraveled the chemical structure of Devolut, she had been able to craft an entirely new form of magic.
"Hoo..."
She took a deep breath and focused her mana. A polychromatic radiance erupted from her body, dozens of colors swirling together. Had Wonderstein seen it, he would have gasped. This was one of Maya's new abilities from TT3.
In every prior installment, Maya had played only a supporting role in combat. Her primary function was puzzle-solving; the knight and the thief handled the fighting.
But TT3 added a battle skill called "Maya Celestial." Activating it started an exhilarating background track as prismatic light blazed from Maya's body. In that state, merely touching an enemy would cause anything short of a boss to simply pop out of existence. Her movement speed multiplied several times over as a bonus.
It was practically an invincibility cheat. But the mana consumption was so staggering that even at maximum reserves, she couldn't sustain Maya Celestial for more than ten seconds at full output. It looked like a flashy gimmick with no practical use—until speedrunners trying to set new records found it indispensable for blitzing through the most convoluted sections.
The Maya of the games developed this technique six years from now. She discovered a way to counter Devolut after years of fighting Wonderstein. But this Maya had reached that pinnacle at barely seventeen, all because Wonderstein had personally taught her the structural formula.
She clenched her fist, and the light bleeding from her body subsided. Four months of relentless research had finally borne fruit. Yet there was no trace of joy on her face.
The reason she had devoted herself to this for four solid months was a hunger for his acknowledgment. To be his equal. The one partner who could understand him, who could stand beside him. But now that his secret lay exposed, all of it felt hollow.
She lay back on the bed and pulled the blanket over herself. It had been days since the Troupe Leader touched her, leaving an itch between her legs. It was a discomfort she could not resolve on her own. Only his touch could open the senses that had sealed themselves shut like stone. But she had no desire to ask him for help.
The injury was fake anyway. There was no need for treatment at all. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. Even though she had slept all day, drowsiness claimed her almost instantly. When she put her mind to it, she could sleep twenty hours a day.
Several hours passed. In the deep silence of a night stripped of every voice and laugh, a breath of wind slipped into her tent.
'Intruder.'
She woke the instant she felt her mana surge in response to something.
A presence drew closer. Maya kept her eyes shut, readying a telekinetic strike. But her body went rigid at what came next.
The intruder slid under her blanket and began groping at her legs. She sucked in a sharp breath and threw the blanket aside. Her eyes locked directly onto the other's.
The man who had crept into her room and pounced on her in the dead of night was none other than her teacher, Wonderstein.
***
Maya's continued refusal to accept treatment had left Wonderstein deeply troubled. At this rate, all the effort of the past three months could come to nothing. He might miss the window to treat her entirely.
He knew all too well how miserable it was to live with a body that didn't work as it should. He couldn't fathom what stubbornness was driving her to refuse, but the therapy had to continue no matter what.
But he couldn't simply restrain her and force the treatment on her when she was refusing it. After mulling it over, the solution he landed on was simple: do it while she was asleep.
The treatment was something he performed solo anyway, while she lay still. The only part that required her cooperation could be managed by extending a tentacle.
In the small hours of the night, once everyone was asleep, he slipped out of his quarters. He created a simple organism—a "Sleep Bee"—and sent it into her tent. Its job was to inject a sedative through its sting.
But the moment the Sleep Bee settled onto Maya's body, the training she had undergone for the past four months proved its worth. Her mana detected the movement of Devolut, and the Celestial magic triggered automatically. A prismatic burst from her shoulder enveloped the bee, reducing it to ash before it could even react.
Wonderstein confirmed the Sleep Bee's death through his biological sensor. It had been designed as cheaply as possible—one sting and it expired, like a common bee. Satisfied that Maya was asleep, he entered the tent.
He ducked under her blanket, caught hold of both her legs, and positioned them on either side of him as he always did. Just as he was about to begin, the blanket flew back. He found himself staring straight into Maya's eyes.
"......."
"......."
The two of them gazed at each other in silence.
Wonderstein had no idea how to explain himself. Sliding into a girl's bed late at night and fumbling around her body was, undeniably, a deeply compromising act.
Maya, for her part, grasped the situation almost instantly. She must have unconsciously produced a phantasm in her sleep, just like other illusion mages. Wally had wandered her bedroom on his own the last time she'd been under the influence of Papilax.
But this was the first time an illusion of Wonderstein had appeared. She had tried so hard to keep herself from making one... Maybe her pent-up desires had finally overflowed.
"Miss Maya, don't misunderstand. I'm here to treat you."
The moment she heard him, Maya's brow furrowed. Treatment, treatment, treatment. The illusion she had conjured just kept repeating the same tired words. She glared at it with raw irritation.
"Shut up."
Wonderstein swallowed a groan at her icy reaction. This wasn't how she normally treated him. She had clearly taken serious offense. Though the disquiet stayed locked inside him—his face, as ever, wore a placid smile.
It wasn't the reaction of a man caught sneaking into a girl's bed in the dead of night. That smile, in this situation. No matter how meticulously crafted an illusion was, Maya understood with visceral clarity that a fake was still a fake.
"Miss Maya..."
"Don't say my name."
Watching a counterfeit pretend to be the real Troupe Leader was unbearable. No. Even if the man in front of her were real, the resentment she'd been nursing was immense. There was a torrent of words she wanted to hurl at him.
Her lips quivered. The feelings she had been bottling up for days came rushing out. The fact that he was a fake only eroded what little restraint she had left.
"You pervert."
A man who kissed a boy and slept with an old man without hesitation. While never once sparing a glance for her.
"Miss Maya..."
Wonderstein felt his heart drop at the look on her face. As one of TTT's three protagonists, she had always held a special place in his mind. He had nothing left to teach her, but being treated as her mentor had always made him privately proud. It meant he had earned the recognition of a girl hailed as a genius across the entire series.
Her eyes, whenever they had looked at him before, had always shone with respect. But the eyes boring into him now were filled with contempt and loathing.
Maya's original intent had been to scream at him to leave. The single outburst she'd just let slip, though, had changed her mind.
She could never have imagined speaking to her teacher that way under normal circumstances. Her respect for him ran so deep that she used formal speech even with his illusions.
But now that she had vented even a little, she felt a weight lift.
'He's a fake anyway. Just think of him as a doll. One more won't hurt...'
She debated for only a moment before deciding. She looked at the Troupe Leader, crouched awkwardly at the foot of her bed. Even now, he was smiling.
"That empty grin is—"
"What? Gah—!"
The instant he opened his mouth, she drove the sole of her foot into his face. His head snapped sideways with a sharp slap. He felt no pain, of course. His body was far too resilient. But the mental shock left him gaping.
Seeing the dazed look in his eyes sent a low thrill through Maya. Yes. That was what she needed. She felt the tightness in her chest finally ease.
"I'm not accepting any treatment. Do you have any idea how it feels to imagine what runs through your mind while you knead my body, Troupe Leader?"
Wonderstein let out a quiet sigh. She had fully branded him a sexual predator. In his haste to help her, he had crossed a line he could never step back over. There was no more room for excuses.
"I understand... I was far out of line, intruding at this hour. I... No. Never mind. I won't make you uncomfortable again, Miss Maya."
He rose and left the tent. She watched his back disappear into the darkness, then lay back down. She could feel her mana coming back under control.
Was it because she had finally released the desire she'd been suppressing? For the first time in days, she felt refreshed.