6. The Reversal Opening Ceremony (4)
6. The Reversal Opening Ceremony (4)
As the opening ceremony drew nearer, Ella began gradually reducing the troupe's training hours.
She knew perfectly well that mindlessly piling on more practice wasn't the answer.
Giving their bodies real rest was just as vital.
The members all welcomed her decision.
Hadn't they been run into the ground without a single day off for the past month?
They were the only guests at the Metropole Hotel who loathed its 24-hour massage service.
They would spend the whole day rolling in dirt, collapse into bed convinced they wouldn't be able to rise the next morning, and then Ella would deploy masseuses to every member's room.
A massage that felt like heaven.
And simultaneously, a massage that was preparation for tomorrow's hell.
When they drifted off under those hands, their muscles were miraculously loose by the next morning, as if they'd never been knotted at all.
That cycle had repeated for a solid month.
A proper break, after all this time, felt like pure bliss.
Still, letting everyone simply laze about and play didn't suit Ella's temperament.
Once a day, she gathered the troupe to share information about the performance program and exchange opinions.
What if we added this? What if we changed that? What if we cut this part?
The meetings, initially a one-woman show driven by Ella, grew livelier as the days passed and the members began participating actively.
Uncomfortable costumes were adjusted. Props that broke often were replaced. Stage devices that still seemed too difficult to handle were scrapped without hesitation.
Today marked the fifth day of these daily gatherings in the conference room.
The topic at hand was visual effects.
Up to this point, they had largely skipped the visual effects called for in the script.
They had no illusion mage.
For the truly essential scenes, Ella had relied on her own dexterity to build contraptions that produced a similar result.
But that was no longer necessary.
Because they finally had an illusion mage of their own.
No one welcomed this fact more than Umon and Bandik.
"So we don't have to jump into real fire anymore?"
"The bandages... might finally... need less changing..."
To project the aura of a demon clawing up from hell, Umon had been practicing leaping out of a blazing inferno.
To reinforce the image of a plague-spreading mummy, Bandik had been generating vapor around his body and tinting it with a green lamp.
Umon's skin was tough as a rhino's hide, but charging naked through searing flames required psyching himself up with every jump.
Bandik wasn't a man attached to his decaying flesh, but hours spent in that mist left his bandages damp and needing replacement, a chore he found intensely bothersome.
Both of them turned their gazes toward the corner of the conference room.
The new recruit who had joined the day before yesterday sat there.
White hair, white skin.
A black dress reminiscent of an apron, a yellow shirt layered under it, and a reddish-brown beret.
A girl so delicately pretty the word "doll-like" felt made to describe her.
Mage Maya.
Amid the laughter and chatter of the conference room, she radiated a distinct air of isolation.
She hadn't raised her head once, even when her own name was mentioned several times.
The same had been true since the meeting started.
She hadn't spared a glance for Ella's briefing, and now that the topic had shifted to Illusion Magic, she still kept her eyes fixed on the book in front of her, as if the discussion were none of her concern.
She was just as detached now, with everyone's attention on her.
"Ma, Maya, what do you think?"
Ella spoke, an awkward smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
The members exchanged uneasy looks.
They could tell.
The Deputy Leader was holding back her anger.
She despised any behavior that undermined teamwork more than anything else.
Maya flicked her eyes toward Ella, then shook her head with her characteristically expressionless face.
"I can't."
"Uh... what?"
"I said I can't do that kind of thing."
With that, she went back to reading her book.
Its pages were densely packed with incomprehensible diagrams and numbers.
A muscle in Ella's forehead twitched.
An attitude devoid of cooperation, absorbed only in her own business during a group session.
An indifferent attitude with zero regard for others' feelings.
A cold, curt tone of voice.
A dismissive expression that screamed "not my problem."
Every single bit of it grated on her.
Normally, she would have snapped and yelled by now.
But today, she swallowed it down one more time.
The topic was Illusion Magic, after all.
Maya's cooperation was indispensable.
Whew. Don't get angry. Don't get angry.
Ella just barely managed to keep the smile on her face.
"S-so... when you say you can't, do you mean... you don't want to?"
Maya was an illusion mage of formidable skill.
Asking someone like her to produce low-level illusions like flames or fog might be a blow to her pride.
In that case, coaxing the troupe member into working was her own duty as Deputy Leader.
'No, actually, it's the Troupe Leader's duty.'
Ella lamented her own situation inwardly.
But Maya looked back at her with a cold gaze, as if mocking Ella's effort.
"I said I 'can't'."
A rebuking tone, as if speaking to someone too dense to understand plain words.
It was a deadpan voice, but Ella wasn't the type to miss the contempt simmering just beneath it.
Her patience had finally hit its limit.
She burst out.
"Don't talk nonsense! Are you telling me you can't manage a simple flame or a bit of fog? Are you really an illusion mage?"
"Yeah. I am. But I can't make those."
"You made other things just fine!"
"My illusions are different from other people's."
"Different how?"
Maya let out a tiny sigh and closed the book she had been reading.
She fixed her blank, expressionless stare on Ella once more.
"I mean the fundamental principle is different. To do what you're asking, I need preparation time."
"How much?"
"At least a few weeks."
Ella's mouth fell open.
"A few weeks just to prepare a single illusion? What use is that to anyone?"
"It's only like that for fire or fog. I can make a fixed-form object instantly."
Ella tilted her head.
This was the total opposite of what she knew about Illusion Magic.
She'd understood that things like fire, explosions, light, and mist were among the easiest basics.
And this girl was saying those basics took months, but she could whip up anything else in a flash?
Flabbergasted, the words just slipped out.
"What kind of half-assed magic is that supposed to be?"
Half-assed magic?
Maya's eyebrow gave the faintest twitch.
"Don't speak carelessly."
"Well, it's weird! Did you even learn this properly?"
"It's a magic the Troupe Leader himself taught me."
Had another member heard that, they would have thought, 'Oh, I see. Sorry,' and backed off immediately.
But the one listening was Ella.
The person in the circus who hated Wonderstein more than anyone else.
Ha! The Troupe Leader, she says?
Something surged up hotly inside her.
"Oh, right, right. I get it. So that man taught you? Now I understand. I suppose learning from someone like that, it couldn't possibly be a proper magic."
A sneer played at the corner of Ella's mouth.
It was blatant mockery.
Maya's hand, holding the book, was visibly trembling.
"What did you say?"
Her magical power spread outward around her.
Even indoors, the troupe members felt a sudden, chilling breeze.
The temperature in the room dropped in an instant.
They shivered and took a step back from Maya.
Ella, on the other hand, let out a scoffing laugh.
She had guts enough not to flinch before an audience of thousands.
Spirit, pressure, aura—none of that could cow her.
"You... don't you dare talk about him without knowing anything."
A cold light flared in Maya's crimson eyes.
Ella hadn't been the only one holding back.
Maya had her own grievances piling up against Ella.
Her borderline-rude insistence on doing her own thing throughout the meetings had been, in part, an act of defiance against Ella.
What had shocked Maya most upon joining the circus wasn't the fact that the members were monsters.
She had heard of the "Cursed" before. There was nothing new there.
They were simply people who looked a little different.
The reason Maya treated them coldly had nothing to do with their appearances. It was the way they treated the Troupe Leader.
The vast majority of the members viewed their leader with unmistakable wariness.
When the Troupe Leader smiled and greeted them, they would flash an awkward grin and slip away as fast as they could.
But when gathered among themselves, they laughed and chattered just fine.
Ostracism.
She knew fear of the Troupe Leader lay at the root of it.
But that wasn't enough to make her defend them.
Maya was all too familiar with those kinds of stares.
When I was young, if I looked at that child, I'd get chills for some reason.
Isn't her appearance and every way she acts just like a doll?
That child wouldn't shed a single tear even if her own parents died.
The gazes that had surrounded her had been largely the same.
Her way of seeing the world was simply a little unique; she felt the same emotions as other people.
But those around her had feared and scorned her as a freak.
Frank Wonderstein.
She had assumed he was simply a good-natured man who lived without a care.
At first, she had even looked down on him just a little for his easygoing manner—the way he laughed off insults and cold shoulders.
Unlike herself, she figured he got along with everyone around him and lived a life free of sharp edges.
But after entering this place, she understood.
That had been her own misconception.
He, too, was someone with a dark corner that ordinary people couldn't reach.
Just like her...
Could it be...?
Had he projected that very side of himself onto her?
When he saw her all alone, did he feel like he was looking at a kindred soul?
Was that why he had come to stand beside her?
And if that were true, was that also the reason he'd watched over her for over a week, when all he'd needed to do was teach her the magic?
It had only been a few days since she joined the circus.
But Maya felt her kinship with him deepening profoundly.
He was one of her own kind.
Not just in magic, but in life itself.
And that was why this so-called Deputy Leader, who acted so rudely around him, grated on her so badly.
The Troupe Leader spoke to her politely, every single time. So who did this brat think she was, talking to him so casually?
Calling him "that man" this and "that man" that.
Because she knew a thing or two about the circus, this girl used it as leverage to push the Troupe Leader around, a reckless, insolent little chit.
That was Maya's first impression of Ella.
And that opinion hadn't changed.
Ella looked at the eyes glaring at her and let out a derisive snort.
Don't talk about him so carelessly when you barely know him?
That's hilarious.
There's no one here who knows that man better than I do.
The reason Ella was angry wasn't because Maya was defending Wonderstein.
His handsome face and genial smile were a cheat code for social interactions.
If she got mad at every single person who developed a favorable impression of him, the stress alone would kill her.
Have you ever seen his true face?
Do you know what horrors he's committed?
Who are you to act like you have a clue?
Their gazes clashed in midair, sparks flying.