6. The Reversal Opening Ceremony (5)
6. The Reversal Opening Ceremony (5)
Maya had ranked at the top of the Academy across every year.
She hadn't awakened to the Mystic, but in raw mana manipulation, no student—and no professor—could match her.
Telekinesis and barrier magic.
Pure mana techniques that required no Mystic at all.
Given enough preparation, she was confident she could hold her own even against a knight in direct combat.
Ella, standing opposite her, was no ordinary girl either.
When it came to agility, acrobatics, and sheer perceptive instinct, she was so gifted that finding an equal among her peers was a struggle.
The stance she held now looked like a casual slouch to an outsider, but it concealed the essence of the Lightning Somersault, one of the core techniques of Ground Acrobatics. If Maya so much as twitched toward casting a spell, Ella was ready to launch forward and plant an aerial kick straight into her chin.
The tension between the two girls kept ratcheting higher.
The troupe members surrounding them wanted to step in but couldn't find the right moment.
"Uh, this is getting serious."
"Are they actually going to fight?"
"Who wins?"
"Mages are weak up close. And her opponent's the Deputy Leader."
"Wanna bet? I'm on Ella."
"Same..."
"I've got the Deputy Leader too."
"Ella for me as well."
"Then there's no bet, is there."
"Who even suggested betting."
Two teenage girls were about to come to blows, and the adults just sat around making leisurely remarks like that.
'Does nobody intend to stop this?'
Yurakne let out an inward sigh.
The same scene had played out on repeat for days now.
The reasons for their fights varied.
But the trigger was always the same.
Wonderstein.
The moment his name came up, the conversation veered into wild rapids.
From that point on, neither would yield an inch.
He was the spark that set these two girls' hearts ablaze.
The absurd part was that the instant the Troupe Leader himself appeared, they both stopped fighting.
Watching them turn docile as if they'd never been at each other's throats was amusing, at least.
But today, the fight seemed poised to cross the line from amusing to dangerous.
One wrong move and one of them could get seriously hurt.
With the Troupe Leader absent, she was the only one who could stop them.
"Both of you, that's enough."
Yurakne stepped between them.
The two would barely pretend to hear anyone else, but her words they couldn't dismiss so lightly.
To Ella, Yurakne was the older sister she leaned on most in the circus. To Maya, she was the troupe member closest to the Troupe Leader she so respected.
Until now, whenever she intervened, they had backed down without protest.
Today, though, neither felt like yielding.
Both had stepped up fully intending to land a blow on the other.
Their pride wouldn't allow them to be the first to pull back.
The standoff continued with Yurakne planted squarely in the middle.
Underhanded as it was, she decided to deploy the all-purpose spell.
"What do you think the Troupe Leader would say if he found out you two were doing this?"
Both girls flinched at the word "Troupe Leader."
He was the cause of their fight and also their weakness.
Though for different reasons.
Maya worried he might see her as childish.
Ella, on the other hand, hated the thought of that man knowing she had been rattled because of him.
Their gazes met.
No words were exchanged, but their intentions got through.
Shall we...
...stop?
A silent agreement passed between them.
Maya reined in her mana, and Ella straightened from her crouched posture.
Yurakne exhaled in relief.
Thankfully, it had ended without incident.
The two glared at each other for a moment, then sharply turned their heads away.
Up to here, it was the usual conclusion.
But today Yurakne wasn't willing to let it end there.
A situation that could have left someone injured had just occurred.
A scolding was in order.
"Ella. Maya's magic works differently from other magic—that can't be helped. But having an illusion mage with us is still a huge asset, isn't it? A week ago, you were the one staying up all night holding a hammer and needle yourself. You don't have to thank her, but blaming her isn't right, is it?"
"That's true, but..."
Seeing her, normally so brash, falter and back down was a rare sight.
Yurakne then turned a stern voice toward Maya as well.
"Maya, I understand your magic is different. But couldn't you have said so from the start of the meeting? We'd laid out all our ideas, and cutting that off with a flat 'I can't do it' was a little rude."
"...I'm sorry."
Watching Maya apologize was a first for everyone, too.
Neither girl had much to say in the face of Yurakne's reproach.
Now that's real acrobatics!
The Triplets went "Whoa!" and started to clap, only to flinch and drop their hands when Yurakne shot them a glare.
She kept a stern expression fixed on the two girls.
Both were staring at the ground, embarrassed.
Seeing the pair who always carried themselves so confidently reduced to this stirred an uncomfortable feeling in her.
That's probably enough.
A warm smile settled on her lips.
"Alright. Let's try to be more considerate of each other going forward. More importantly, let's resume the meeting. What's the problem we're facing? That it takes Maya too long to render the special effects, correct? Is there any way to shorten the time, Maya? Don't feel pressured—just tell us. If you need our help, we can help."
At Yurakne's gentle tone, Maya glanced briefly at Ella before speaking.
"If I see it once."
She gripped the book in her hands so tightly her knuckles went pale.
"If I see it once, I can analyze its form and shorten the time."
Yurakne clapped her hands together.
"That's wonderful! Then we'll have Ella's device produce a flame and—"
"No."
Ella lifted her head. She fixed Maya with a slight glare and continued.
"That was a stopgap. The flame is too messy."
"It was?" Umon shuddered.
"If we're doing this, we go bigger. Give me one hour. I'll show you a proper flame."
With those words, Ella ended the meeting.
After confirming everyone else had left the room, Yurakne approached Ella cautiously.
"A proper flame? How?"
"I'm going to make a bomb. I've still got some sulfur left from what that man gave me last time. Plus I scraped gunpowder from the firecrackers the Rose Windmill friends gave me, and I found saltpeter in the hotel flower beds."
"You're making a bomb?"
"A prop."
"Isn't it dangerous?"
"I used to make these all the time with friends when I was younger. Don't worry."
The bomb she made.
Maybe because a selfish desire to show off her skills to Maya had crept in.
Its power was excessive.
Far beyond what she had imagined.
On top of that, Ella hadn't accounted for the difference in purity between the toy firecracker ingredients she'd played with as a child and the materials sourced from the Alchemy Guild.
The result was a bomb far more powerful than anything she'd anticipated.
"So that's what happened."
Yurakne gave Wonderstein a concise summary of the day's events.
She naturally omitted the fight between Ella and Maya.
She framed it as Ella making a mistake while trying to build a bomb to help Maya render the flames faster.
"I'm glad no one was hurt."
Wonderstein surveyed the wrecked garden as he spoke.
If he hadn't accepted the quest and rushed over, many troupe members would have been injured.
When he'd suddenly burst into the garden, the members near the bomb had shrieked and scrambled backward at the sight of him.
Just then, Maya emerged from one corner of the garden, brushing grass and dirt off her dress.
She must have tumbled behind the bushes the moment the explosion went off.
Wonderstein smiled at her.
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
"No. I'm fine."
Wonderstein's smile lingered as his eyes fell on the sketchbook clutched in her hands.
She hadn't let go of it even while diving backward.
"Heh heh. Did you manage to capture the explosion well?"
Maya's Affection level had exceeded 15 the moment she joined the circus.
That meant the first reward had been granted as soon as she appeared on the member list.
Name: Maya's Sketchbook
Applicable Target: Objects Maya has captured with her eyes.
Effect: While held, stores the three-dimensional form of the target in the sketchbook.
Required Resources: Maya's Affection level 15, Mana
The "Blueprint" system that had supplemented Maya's abilities in the game had manifested in this world in the form of an item.
With it, Maya could store the forms of objects that flashed past in an instant or were too complex to grasp at a glance, then reproduce them whenever she needed.
Explosions were within its capabilities as well.
As long as it stayed within the sketchbook's page limit, it could even capture the form of an object in motion.
But her sketchbook had cut off mid-explosion.
A sheepish expression rose on Maya's face.
"I didn't realize it would be such a large explosion, so I closed my eyes."
Wonderstein gave a soft smile at her words.
"That's a shame. It can't be helped, though. Taking things slowly isn't a bad approach either. Safety matters more than anything, after all."
"Slowly, my foot. The competition is almost here."
Ella walked over, brushing black powder off her clothes.
"We're doing it again! Get me more materials. I used up everything I had this time."
She spoke to him in a brisk, spirited voice.
'Does this kid not feel any fear after causing that disaster?'
Wonderstein looked at her and shook his head.
"That won't be possible."
"Oh, why not!"
"Because it's dangerous. Everyone nearly got hurt."
"I told you, I made a mistake this time."
"What isn't allowed isn't allowed. You yourself nearly died, Ella."
"I was about to execute a breakfall backward the instant it went off."
"Regardless, no."
Wonderstein, putting his foot down firmly for once.
The smile lingered on his lips, but his tone was final.
Ella shot him a sulky glare.
She didn't believe he was genuinely worried about them.
That smile, that tone, that behavior—all of it was nothing but a shell the demon wore to act human.
She played along with his tune, but every so often, when they clashed at a skewed angle like this, there was no way around him.
"Fine. Have it your way. It's your circus. We'll stick to the old method, then."—Umon and Bandik's faces fell into despair.—"Anyway, what happened with the cabaret?"
The Circus Grand Prix opening ceremony was tomorrow.
Each troupe was required to submit the list of members attending the ceremony to the theater by the end of today.
The real spectacle, in any case, would be in the square outside the theater.
Inside, the schedule consisted mostly of greeting sessions with elderly dignitaries in expensive suits. There was no pressing need for anyone beyond the Troupe Leader to attend.
Yet oddly enough, Ella and Maya had both volunteered to go.
Wonderstein, who had nothing else to do anyway, had visited the theater in person to submit the list and had just returned.
At Ella's question, a sheepish smile crossed his face.
"About that."
He looked at the two girls.
"You and Maya won't be able to go after all."