6. The Reversal Opening Ceremony (3)
6. The Reversal Opening Ceremony (3)
The Metropole Hotel, where we were staying, more than lived up to its reputation as the finest hotel in Rouge.
The stately white marble facade spoke for itself, and every furnishing inside, every fixture, was top-tier. The food and service were beyond reproach.
The location, set apart from the city center, was perfect for quiet rest. Carriages stood ready for guests at all hours, ideal for anyone who wanted to go sightseeing.
A month had slipped by since we began lodging here.
The expanse of russet rooftops beyond the terrace, the glow of the red-light district that lit the streets each night, the distant call of ship horns — all of it had grown familiar.
This place had come to feel like home.
No — more than that.
Even my own home back in the real world had never given me this feeling. Here, I tasted it for the first time.
When I stepped onto the terrace after a shower, still wrapped in a bathrobe, the morning breeze that slipped through felt invigorating.
Wandering the streets and soaking in the approaching festival atmosphere was a genuine pleasure.
And at the end of the day, flopping onto the bed was the best feeling in the world.
Whenever I sprawled out, there was always a stack of magazines within easy reach.
I'd pick one, read until I grew bored, then extend Mantula's Blade to spear fruit from the basket and eat it.
The basket stayed stocked with fruit that wasn't too sweet.
The hotel staff kept it replenished; all I had to do was ask.
Inside the wardrobe, I'd placed the sachet Anais had given me not long ago. A lilac scent. After a few days, my clothes had absorbed a whiff of the same fragrance.
Anais must have caught it, too, because the day before yesterday she suddenly pressed her face into my clothes and sniffed.
A moment later, realizing what she'd done, her face turned scarlet and she backed away.
"Y-you startled me, Troupe Leader. You stepped forward so abruptly..."
"I did?"
"Wh-what, then... do you think I did that on purpose?"
She bit the words out, sharp. By now I was so accustomed to her tone that I let it slide.
Not that The Smiling Man had any choice in the matter.
On the hat stand by my bedpost hung the first trophy Ella and I had fought for together.
The Ghost's Mask.
When Ella came by my room to discuss our program and spotted it, she recoiled and demanded to know where the thing had come from. I spun a flimsy excuse about finding something similar at a market.
"Why in the world would you buy that?"
"Heh heh. Even hunters mount the heads of stags they've bagged."
"...Tasteless."
An animal lover, she shook her head as if the mental image alone was horrifying.
On the table sat the teapot Yurakne brewed every day. She came by once after lunch and once after dinner to share tea with me.
Most of our conversation revolved around the overlap between the magazines she read and the ones I read. Yesterday, we'd talked about the stars.
"So the twin brother and sister only get to meet once a year, on their birthday, with the Milky Way between them."
"Almost like the story of the Cowherd and Weaver Girl."
"What's that?"
"A similar tale from my homeland."
"You've never mentioned your homeland before, Troupe Leader. Where is it?"
"...A very distant place."
"Surely not..."
Her expression hardened, suddenly grave.
I tensed up for no good reason.
Did she suspect something?
"...the Infinite Abyss of the Abyss?"
Groundless worry.
Even Yurakne, arguably the friendliest among my troupe members, didn't seem to believe that Wonderstein had been born from a human womb. Not that I blamed her — I half-agreed.
On the display stand sat a towel folded into the shape of a whole roast chicken, crafted using a method I'd once learned from a YouTube video.
Ella had eyed it with obvious interest, so I'd taught her the technique.
It must have spread quickly; not long after, I caught a whole cluster of troupe members in the hotel lounge, absorbed in folding towel-chickens of their own.
This was a first for me.
Walking through my own living space on my own two feet. Arranging it with my own hands. Hosting guests.
When I looked around at this space I'd made for myself, my chest swelled with an inexplicable pride.
Back in the orphanage, having my own space was a luxury.
Living on my own afterward was no different.
Even moving a single coat hook required asking someone else to do it.
Sitting still and making request after request — do this, do that — was no easy thing.
I lived my life making dozens of requests a day.
Please adjust my position.
Please turn on the light.
Please pour me some water.
Please wipe under my chin.
From a position like that, asking someone to fix minor gripes that weren't even essential was nearly impossible.
A power cord jutting out behind the desk. A coat hung lopsided so one side drooped.
It was only now, here, that I realized how deeply satisfying it could be to tweak those small things and shape my own life.
The circus troupe members seemed to share my sentiments about this life.
What moved them, though, wasn't the spacious baths, the food prepared by first-rate chefs, or the twenty-four-hour massage service.
It was the staff's kindness.
From the very first day, the people here showed not a flicker of unease at the sight of my monster troupe members. They've treated them like any ordinary guest ever since.
When they saw Umon, the single most terrifying-looking member of our circus, and their faces didn't so much as twitch — they just smiled and greeted him warmly — I was quietly impressed. (Ella's pride took a minor hit.)
Top-tier hotel staff, indeed.
Every town we'd passed through before this had been different.
Finding lodging, let alone just entering a village, had been a struggle.
Even when we were grudgingly granted entry, the troupe members were forced to stay inside the wagons or behind iron bars.
The security chief always ordered us to keep out of sight — which made it all the more ironic when the locals swarmed just to gawk at us.
Lifting the cloths covering the cages. Pasting themselves against the carriage windows to peer inside. It was routine.
Even when they were intentionally playing the monster, the troupe members couldn't relax.
How much did it wound them, being stared at openly like caged beasts?
I understood that feeling.
Back in the other world, when I occasionally had to go outside, I'd gotten similar looks.
Oh my, how can he live like that?
You know, from the news. That case. They said he got billions.
What good is money looking like that? Health comes first.
As if anyone had traded their health for money on purpose.
The idle gossips got under my skin.
The troupe members must have felt the same way.
So it was only natural that people who were used to that kind of treatment would be utterly smitten by the hotel staff's smiles — even knowing it was trained courtesy, paid-for friendliness.
Still, I had my doubts. Could even their hospitality survive the sight of us having completely upended the historic garden that the Regent's wife herself had supposedly praised?
Everything within a several-meter radius of the explosion had been overturned.
Acrid smoke rose from the charred-black earth.
Soil, grass, and flowers lay jumbled in chaos.
Around the wreckage, troupe members were sprawled in every direction.
None of them had withstood the blast — they'd all been thrown backward.
The cloud of dust, thick and hazy, began to settle.
I scanned the area, checking their conditions.
No one looked seriously injured.
Assuming I didn't count Sven's skull rolling loose as a major wound.
Ella, who had been nearest, had been yanked clear by Yurakne using the Magic Lasso. Yurakne, who had been next-closest, I had pulled into my embrace and shielded.
My tissue hardness was 3.0 — equivalent to chain armor.
Stone shrapnel hurt, but I could absorb it well enough.
"Troupe Leader, are you all right?"
"Of course. Surely you didn't think a little blast could injure me?"
I shrugged and offered a grin.
Yurakne's expression still didn't lighten.
"Right now, are you...?"
"Ah, yes, I am smiling. I'm perfectly fine."
Only then did she relax and smile back.
That was a lie, actually.
The sand and stone fragments pelting the back of my skull had hurt badly enough to knock the breath out of me.
High skin hardness didn't erase pain.
It just kept wounds from forming.
Was I supposed to keep doing this from now on?
Getting battered and having to smile through it?
No injury.
Smiling no matter how hard I'm hit.
From the attacker's perspective, I'd probably look terrifying.
I glanced at the rope clutched in Yurakne's hand.
At present, she was the one in our circus focusing most intensely on tightrope acrobatics.
That was why I'd given her the Magic Lasso I'd taken from the Ghost.
The thing wasn't pocket-sized, and it clearly suited her better than it did me.
Once the Magic Lasso was thrown and the loop cinched around an object, you could manipulate the rope freely — as if dragging with a mouse — and move whatever was in the noose at will.
The reverse was also possible: the person gripping the rope could be pulled instead.
That version, of course, took a great deal of practice.
Not only did the lassoed object need to be a solid anchor, but moving the noose to pull yourself along meant understanding XYZ axis inversion in real time.
She still struggled with riding the rope, but she had grown quite adept at snatching objects with the noose.
Just now, at the instant the flames burst, Yurakne had hurled the lasso, snagged Ella's ankle, and yanked her out of the blast radius. If not for that quick reaction, I might have been forced to bequeath the Ghost's Mask in my bedroom to Ella as a memorial.
"Ughhh."
Ella rose from the bushes.
Her clothes were streaked with soot, but she didn't appear injured.
The soot, I suspected, had already been on her from mixing gunpowder.
*Member Quest: Fire Safety!
: Ella wants to conduct a gunpowder experiment. / The troupe members believe the Deputy Leader's experiment is dangerous.
Completion conditions
: See Ella's experiment through to the end. / Ensure no troupe member sustains a burn.
Success reward
: [Devolut +5] / [Devolut +10]
Failure penalty
: None.
['Member Quest — Fire Safety!' completed.]
This quest had appeared the first time the troupe members' opinions had "clashed."
Fortunately, I'd managed to satisfy both conditions.
What in the world had happened here?
***
The illusion mage, Maya Rendelin.
When she came to the circus troupe, Ella had struggled to hide her delight.
She'd heard about the rapeseed-flower commotion in the plaza. A mage of that caliber joining them was an enormous boon.
Ella, who had driven herself to the brink of collapse over the past two weeks producing props, costumes, and backdrops, had been especially grateful for the addition. But the welcome feeling didn't last.
Maya and Ella.
Their compatibility was abysmal.
In expressing emotions, in navigating relationships, in their approach to work — the two were polar opposites in every way.
Ella was the type to broadcast joy or anger openly; Maya's expression barely shifted, no matter how heated the words around her became.
Ella worked to stay on good terms with everyone; Maya was accustomed to acting as if no one else existed around her.
During practice, Ella prized passion and flashes of inspiration; Maya prioritized logic and design above all.
They had known each other only three days, and already they clashed on every front, again and again.
Most of the troupe members made no effort to intervene when the two fought.
Both of them, after all, were teenage girls.
This was a quarrel between peers.
The incident today had been set off by one of their arguments.