7. Trial of the Rose Windmill Cabaret (3)
7. Trial of the Rose Windmill Cabaret (3)
I ended up spending the whole morning in the garden, cornered by a peculiar old man.
A straw hat, overalls, tools in hand.
By his appearance, he looked like a gardener the hotel had hired.
He'd apparently come to repair the rear garden we'd blown apart with bombs.
He walked over, watched me work in silence for a moment, then promptly started picking a fight.
I caught on to his game almost at once from the way he talked.
Sure, he nitpicked my technique and lectured me about professional pride, but what he was actually saying boiled down to one thing: do the work his way.
Would it kill the man to just ask for help?
His combative attitude rubbed me the wrong way, but I decided to play along.
We were the ones who'd wrecked the garden, after all, and there were a few things I wanted to test with my newly acquired skills.
As he gave orders, he'd occasionally point out where I was falling short.
We worked like that for hours.
Before I knew it, lunch had arrived.
Even when I felt we'd done more than enough, the old man kept piling on tasks.
He struggled to maintain a stern expression, but the twitching at his cheeks made it painfully obvious he was hiding his satisfaction.
Must be nice, I thought—standing around with your hands behind your back, making easy money off someone else's labor.
The way he began subtly hinting I should come work under him—it was the kind of brazenness that bordered on shameless.
Fortunately, the hotel manager came down at just the right moment.
He brought word that Ella was looking for me.
As I turned to leave, I glanced back and caught the old man talking to the manager, casting regretful looks my way.
Shameless old codger.
I bit back the retort I wanted to fling at him.
I had gotten something out of it, after all.
My understanding of the new item, the "Skillbook," had deepened considerably.
The Skillbook was a reward I'd received upon reaching an average Affection level of 10 with my troupe members.
Its appearance matched what I remembered from the game.
A worn book with a cover of pale earth-toned leather.
In the Tril Trillo series, the three main protagonists could use Skillbooks to unlock new techniques or strengthen the ones they'd already learned.
But you could never master every technique in a single playthrough.
The number of Skillbooks you could obtain in a given game was limited. There were far more learnable techniques than there were books to learn them with.
Every Skillbook had to be allocated strategically.
Which techniques you invested in drastically altered your entire playstyle.
A basic sword-and-shield warrior focused on swordsmanship and shield techniques, a ranged thief who specialized in marksmanship skills, a defensive mage who prioritized polyhedron creation levels and durability—those were the standard, orthodox builds.
But there were other paths. An infinite-stun warrior combining shoves and paralyzing shouts. A control-focused thief for hardcore veterans who dodged every attack with triple jumps and evasion skills—just don't get hit, right? A flying mage who pumped telekinesis to insane levels and soared across the map—essential for speedrun records!
And beyond those, you had the truly bizarre builds: the body-tank warrior who combined resistance training, armor reinforcement, and a thorn cloak to kill enemies by rubbing against them. The silver-tongued thief who weaponized negotiation skills to skip as much combat as possible through dialogue options. The LEGO mage who brought engineering techniques into polyhedron construction.
Thanks to all that variety, starting a new game and experimenting with a different style felt like playing a completely different game each time.
Factor in the six support characters and their combinations, and the vast majority of players—even those who'd cleared the game multiple times—finished without experiencing more than a fraction of the possible playstyles.
The Skillbook I'd obtained worked much like its in-game counterpart.
It could develop or strengthen techniques.
The difference was that here, the game's restrictions didn't apply.
It worked on any skill.
Not just arts like riding or archery, but even trifles like pencil-spinning or brewing coffee.
I opened the Skillbook.
Skillbook
-1. [Gardening]
-2. [100 Devolut required to unlock this skill slot.]
-3. [200 Devolut required to unlock this skill slot.]
-4. [300 Devolut required to unlock this skill slot.]
-5. [500 Devolut required to unlock this skill slot.]
-[Massage] [Cooking]
Only one skill could be equipped at present.
Unlocking the remaining slots required Devolut, and I could equip up to five skills at once.
Over the past three days, I'd tested a few.
Massage: Devolut 35
Cooking: Devolut 70
Gardening: Devolut 45
Once I slotted a skill into the Skillbook, I could perform it at a level surpassing that of a master.
The first one I tested was Massage.
The moment I equipped it, my hands possessed a level of technique that exceeded even the masseurs the Metropole prided itself on.
Even with Yurakne's unusual body structure, which had always frustrated the masseurs, the instant my fingertips touched her I could intuitively sense exactly where and how to work her muscles and joints.
-A-ahhn! T-Troupe Leader!
My massage technique was flawless.
For the first time yesterday, she—who had never received a proper massage before—finally experienced what the other troupe members had raved about: the sensation of her body melting away.
She lay face down in a sleeveless shirt, accepting my touch.
-Third shoulder. How's this?
-Hnng, g-good!
-Fourth shoulder. Here?
-Aah! Hngk!
-Fifth shoulder? This area...
-Um... T-Troupe Leader? Could I ask you to... go a bit lower?
Her face turned bright red as she called out.
I paused mid-motion, hands on the two arms attached to her waist, and tilted my head.
My "technique" was sending sensory signals. Where Yurakne was asking me to go—that was not a massage point.
-Hm? You want me to massage... there?
-Ah... I—I must have been mistaken! Never mind...
The massage was a success.
But not every skill produced the same results.
In domains where aesthetic sensibility played a strong role, technique alone couldn't satisfy people.
Cooking was like that—tastes honestly vary from person to person.
The realm of craftsmanship I'd just experimented with had its blind spots, too.
My technique was undeniably perfect, yet I kept missing things as I worked. The old gardener nagged relentlessly about how I didn't even know basic common sense. Those were areas where experience and practical knowledge—things technique alone couldn't bridge—were essential.
General skills, aesthetic skills, craft skills.
Three experiments had given me a real feel for the Skillbook's uses and its limits.
Name: Frank Wonderstein
Age: 27
Job: BioMancer
-Devolut: (67/200)
-Muscle Strength: 4.0 (Big 3: 1000 kg)
-Tissue Hardness: 4.0 (Plate Armor)
-Cell Regeneration: 4.0 (Cheetah)
Trait
: [The Smiling Man]
Over the past few weeks, I'd used my stockpiled Devolut to strengthen my three basic abilities.
I could now exert physical force on par with the knights of this era using my bare body alone.
But I'd put further enhancements on hold for the moment.
Raising each stat from 3.0 to 4.0 had cost 20 Devolut per category.
Going from 4.0 to 5.0 demanded 30 per category, and 5.0 to 6.0 required 50 each.
Like most stats, the resource cost climbed the higher you went.
As I climbed the hotel stairs, I changed back into my usual suit.
A light snap of my fingers in the air was enough.
[Changed to 'Wonderstein's Casual Attire.']
['Hotel Worker' outfit returned. 1 Devolut will be charged for laundry and repair costs.]
Laundry and repair costs.
This ability wasn't exactly cheap, either.
It already charged a rental fee just to wear the clothes.
The [Costume Room] was a function added to [Member Management] as a reward for reaching 50 Circus Troupe Fame.
It allowed me to store the appearance of any outfit I'd seen or touched and summon it to wear whenever I wanted.
What was remarkable was that each outfit was automatically tailored to fit the wearer's body perfectly. And this function wasn't limited to me—it could be applied to every troupe member equally.
In other words, with a single snap of my fingers, I could dress all my members in suits identical to mine, or—as I'd done earlier—switch them into hotel worker uniforms.
I flicked my fingers again and closed the Costume Room.
I could operate the Status Window with willpower alone, but there was a reason I insisted on manually handling the Costume Room Function.
Because of the mistake I'd made yesterday.
That was...
"Oh! Troupe Leader!"
Speak of the devil—I ran straight into Yurakne.
She was on her way down the stairs.
The woman with violet hair pinned up in a neat bun met my eyes, flinched sharply, and turned her face away.
A red flush rose across her brown skin.
She fidgeted with all six of her arms, clearly at a loss.
"Good afternoon."
Unlike her flustered state, I smiled back with a calm expression.
Inside, of course, I was every bit as mortified as she was.
It was because of what had happened while we were having tea yesterday.
Once the trial was wrapped up, I'd been eager to test out my new rewards in various ways.
Massaging her had been part of that.
After the massage was done, I noticed her sleeveless shirt was soaked with sweat, and I briefly considered using the Costume Room to change her into something nicer. The wet shirt looked unpleasant just to look at. Clothes like that ought to be taken off...
Ahem.
That was when I learned the dangers of operating the Status Window with willpower alone.
There followed screams, mortification, embarrassment, and hurried explanations.
Clutching the clothes I'd hastily thrown onto her, Yurakne had fled from my room.
I shook my head inwardly.
That was precisely why I'd removed the willpower-operated option from the Costume Room Function.
"G-good morning—ah, no, afternoon, I mean, what a nice day, ahaha."
Yurakne offered an awkward greeting.
This was the first time we'd crossed paths since then.
But there was no time to discuss it at length.
Behind her, the Deputy Leader and Skeleton Clown were coming down the stairs as well.
"What's going on with you two?"
Ella tilted her head.
As Yurakne and I both feigned innocence, Sven rattled his skull and cheerfully proclaimed,
"I saw it, ha-ha! A woman drenched in sweat goes in, and comes out wearing different clothes—"
"Shut up, Sven!"
Yurakne's face flared bright red as she flailed all six arms wildly.
The skeleton dodged her attacks with fluid, practiced movements.
He even had the composure to meet my eyes mid-evasion and snicker.
Ever since the opening ceremony incident had been covered extensively in the press, my troupe members' Affection levels had been creeping up.
Some had even started greeting me, however awkwardly.
But this skeleton had taken it way too far.
A man who'd never once come near me before had now begun cracking jokes and playing pranks.
I sighed internally.
Ella had once mentioned in passing,
that this was simply the nature of those called "clowns."
They didn't know how to hold their tongues, even with a blade at their throats.
I'd heard stories. A clown who cracked jokes about imperial politics in front of the Emperor and was torn limb from limb. Another who made a wisecrack about the Duke's adulterous wife right in front of the Duke himself and lost his head. When clowns heard such tales, they didn't think about watching their words—they dreamed of dying just like that.
Of course, only a handful had the nerve to actually follow through, but I'd been told that clowns considered making irreverent wisecracks about God in front of the Pope to be a lifelong dream.
Sven had apparently managed to restrain himself out of a lingering sense of fear, but once the atmosphere softened, he could no longer suppress his clown temperament and began letting it all pour out.
And I wasn't about to get angry at him for it.
Averting my eyes from Ella, I made a firm zip-your-lips gesture at him, and Sven giggled with genuine delight and nodded.
"Enough fooling around. Let's move, shall we?"
Ella's sharp shout finally put a stop to the chase between Yurakne and Sven.
I took the lead, and the two of them fell in behind me.
Ella, in some kind of hurry, had already rushed ahead and stood waving from inside the carriage.
Today was the day the Rose Windmill Cabaret would announce the test assignment.