6. The Reversal Opening Ceremony (11)
6. The Reversal Opening Ceremony (11)
[Circus Troupe Fame has decreased by 1.]
The message appeared not long after I'd yanked the curtain closed on the viewing box. I'd shut it quickly, thinking I shouldn't let anyone see Anais crying, but it seemed the people outside had already been whispering about us again.
At this rate, it was going to bottom out completely.
The troupe's current Fame stood at 21. Thanks to our performance in Axville and Ella's brief turn on the Rose Windmill's stage, it had climbed all the way to 40 — and now it was cut clean in half. I'd lost twenty points in the space of two weeks.
The days of waiting eagerly to see what the Fame 50 reward would be felt like ancient history.
"Thank you, Troupe Leader."
Anais was looking at me with a small smile. It was a smile still tinged with pain and exhaustion, but she seemed far lighter than she had been a moment ago.
"I'm almost embarrassed to be thanked for something so trivial."
"No. That's not why. I'm thanking you for not comforting me."
I stared at her blankly.
While she had been weeping, I hadn't been able to get a single word out. Anything I might have said would have sounded like an excuse.
A coward who'd hidden behind a wall, trembling over a memory of his own rejection. The same fool who, back then, hadn't even known how to offer a sincere apology to the person who'd stood below that wall, calling his name until she was worn out.
Even when she'd burst into tears and confessed her love. Even when she'd forced a smile and spilled out her disappointment. The whole time, I'd just stood there with a quiet smile on my face.
Placing my hand over hers and giving it a gentle pat. Blotting the dampness from her hair with a handkerchief when she came out of the washroom. That was the extent of my courage. That was all I could do.
And she was thanking me for it? For not offering her words of comfort?
Was she finding yet another way to accommodate me?
But the expression on her face was genuine.
I tried to imagine the scene: the person who'd rejected me, patting me on the back with pity in their eyes.
Ah.
A current of loathing boiled up in my chest.
I understood how she must have felt. That would be utterly miserable. So she was thanking me for not doing that to her.
I was relieved. Relieved that what I'd done hadn't caused her even more pain.
But even so, I still felt that accepting her gratitude was more than I deserved. After all, I'd already wounded her badly enough.
"I'm sorry."
Even to my own ears, it was an apology without context or sincerity. Made worse by the fact that I was still smiling. What must she be thinking about me? She had to despise me for it.
But contrary to my fears, she shook her head, beaming.
"It's all right. Honestly, letting it all out has made me feel much better."
"......Really?"
At my wary approach, Anais folded her arms and fixed me with a glare. A teasing smile danced on her lips as she fired back.
"Of course it's not all right! Did you think getting rejected would put me in a good mood?"
"I'm sorry."
"Which is exactly why I told you there's no need to apologize. Let's just go on as we have been. In our neat, professional roles: patron and circus troupe leader. Oh, I do have one thing I'm curious about. You and Miss Yurakne...... there's nothing between you, is there?"
She asked it with a tone that was half-suspicious, half-solicitous.
She couldn't possibly have been suspecting that.
I smiled and shook my head.
"No. She's just a troupe member."
She shook her head at my answer.
"Oh ho, is that so? Things aren't easy for you either, are they. You know what? You really are a detestable man."
A bolt from the blue?
I couldn't even think of a retort, so I just sat there with my smile frozen in place. Anais let out a little sniff.
"Hmph. Forget it. It's all settled anyway...... In any case, I'll hold the press conference as planned tomorrow and make the announcement. The way the board's old men see it, you'll be presented as 'the benefactor who cured my illness,' and our month-long journey will be framed as 'accompanying me for follow-up treatment.' That should suffice. Ah, while we're at it, shall we do it today? The opening ceremony schedule includes a sponsor introduction segment alongside the circus troupe leaders' oath."
She poured out the words like someone running from something.
She said she was fine, but somewhere inside her, in the space tied to her feelings for me, a wounded animal was still curled up. Whenever she brushed against that spot, she rushed past it as fast as she could. To keep it from biting her. Because being bitten would hurt.
I understood how she felt. I'd had my own heart broken before. So I pushed the elephant in the room aside and answered in the breeziest voice I could manage.
"So we're to carry on as before?"
"Yes. Ah, there will be one change. From now on, I'll be going over the ledgers with a fine-tooth comb. Up until now, I've been letting things slide because I didn't want to come down too hard on you."
Her words made my blood run cold.
That was her going easy on me?
Every time we'd racked up expenses on items that seemed utterly pointless — one line item had been a claim for over a dozen silk handkerchiefs that Umon had shredded while practicing his roast-chicken-folding routine — I'd been the one who had to sit through the lecture as the troupe's representative.
I could still hear that razor-sharp voice of hers as she plucked out each entry, one by one, and interrogated me about it. I couldn't even imagine what a more meticulous level of scrutiny would look like. I started seriously wondering whether I ought to change my policy of always giving Ella whatever she asked for and telling her to pocket the change as pocket money.
Just then, the entire hall went dark.
"It looks like they're about to begin."
"Viscountess, about what you said earlier......"
"I told you, no more apologies. I don't want to hear that from you. And do remember that the opening ceremony isn't over yet. If you keep this up, I'll withdraw my patronage."
She cut me off, her voice crisp and final, and fixed her gaze on the stage. I hadn't actually been trying to apologize — I'd been trying to ask her to reconsider her stance on the ledger audits......
But I couldn't get another word in either, because a voice boomed out.
"Ladies and gentlemen, good evening! Welcome to the Rose Windmill Cabaret!"
The cabaret's proprietor, Bwallet, strode onto the stage, bathed in a spotlight. He offered a brief greeting and then began inviting the notables who had cooperated with the festival to join him onstage.
The mayor of Rouge, the deputy mayor, the owner Marquis Mustang, members of the Rouge Administrative Committee, local nobility, the colonel of the Rouge Mounted Police, the deputy director of the Rouge Police Station (who, for some reason, was swathed head to toe in bandages), and the supervisor Yug Maroine — they all came up, delivered a short address, and descended.
Bwallet then launched into an explanation of how the Circus Grand Prix had been revived.
This wasn't lore from the games. In TT1, it was simply introduced as the world's greatest performing arts festival, and by TT2, later events had eclipsed it so completely that the Grand Prix was never elaborated on.
I listened to his explanation with the eagerness of someone hearing a game's behind-the-scenes lore for the first time.
"This competition, convened seventeen years after the last, has only been made possible through the cooperation of six eastern nations. Kiev, Charlotia, Delos, Castille, Posturica, Vegas. A round of applause for the representatives of these six nations!"
More elderly figures in suits came up, one by one, to deliver prepared opening remarks. The speeches were packed with florid rhetoric and were, in both content and structure, profoundly tedious.
It seemed that even the Circus Grand Prix couldn't escape this reality of festivals everywhere. A significant chunk of time was sacrificed on the altar of securing cooperation from the powerful, letting political figures have their moment in the sun.
After some time, Bwallet began to explain the Grand Prix's rules in earnest.
At his signal, a sharp illusion conjured by a mage bloomed behind him.
A broad, crescent-shaped island soared across a sea of clouds. Its surface was thickly clustered with ivory-colored buildings of every size.
I let out a soft, inward sigh of admiration at the sight.
It was a deeply familiar, deeply welcome sight.
The Sky City Hippodrome. The stage that served as the backdrop for TT1.
At Bwallet's next gesture, the illusion began to magnify, zooming toward a specific point in the city.
I knew the vanishing point of that zoom at a glance. Not only did I have the Hippodrome's layout memorized, but in the context of introducing the competition, that destination was inevitable.
A smooth disc, 1.5 kilometers in diameter, was connected to the city's northern edge by a bridge. The Hippodrome consisted of a main island and several smaller satellite islands, and this was one of them.
A pleased smile tugged at my lips. Seeing it like this brought back fond memories.
That place was the venue for the Grand Prix finals. It was also the stage for TT1's final boss battle.
It was the terminal point of the TT0 Main Quest.
The Sky Theater Wonderstage.
"After seventeen years of grief, the Wonderstage has reopened! Two years and three months from now, the Grand Prix finals will take place on that very stage. The qualification criteria are simple: you must collect seven 'Stars.' Now, if I could direct your attention to the map on your tables, you'll see six cities marked in red."
This part I already knew. Ella had explained it to me.
Preliminary rounds held at the Six Great Theaters, one in each of the six nations' six great cities. Participate in a trial set by the theater and pass it, and you earn a single Star from that theater.
The preliminaries were a two-year tour of the eastern continent, visiting each of the six theaters to take their trials.
Right now, similar events would be unfolding in the other five cities — even if time differences caused slight variations.
Six Stars could be earned from the Six Great Theaters. The remaining Stars came from another source entirely.
While the preliminaries were underway, a panel of critics from the authoritative magazine <Christian Guide> would be assigning each circus troupe a rating. A troupe could receive zero to three Stars from them.
In theory, you could pass every single one of the Six Great Theaters' trials and still fail to reach the finals if you didn't receive a Star from the <Christian Guide>. Conversely, if the Guide awarded you three Stars, you only needed to earn Stars from four of the six theaters.
Of course, neither of those scenarios was especially likely.
The explanation of the competition drew to a close. Bwallet, who had been declaiming with such gusto, suddenly adopted a solemn expression.
"Before we begin the cancan — our cabaret's signature spectacle — we will pause for a brief moment of remembrance."
A memorial service at the start of a festival?
But I seemed to be the only one who found it odd. Everyone else bowed their heads in silent prayer as if it were second nature.
"The Second Circus Grand Prix. For a very long time after that day, we were unable to hold this festival. An unspeakable catastrophe left countless fellow acrobats, singers, actors, mages, and audience members injured and dead."
Was there some piece of lore I was unfamiliar with?
I clasped my hands in front of my mouth and closed my eyes, feigning prayer.
"The terrorist attack that occurred seventeen years ago on the Sky City Hippodrome's Wonderstage. We do not know where the perpetrator came from. We do not know his purpose or his identity. But we do know how monstrous he is. That accursed name."
The name that fell from Bwallet's lips was one I knew all too well.
"The Black Magician."
One of Wonderstein's epithets.