7. Trial of the Rose Windmill Cabaret (28)
7. Trial of the Rose Windmill Cabaret (28)
With its sole source of revenue gone, the Monster Circus made almost nothing after that morning.
What little money did come in was guilt money — people from the three troupes who had started the tomato fight emptied the last of their coins for them.
Yurakne's encouragement — Plenty of people haven't spent their coins yet, don't give up hope — rang hollow.
The patrons still holding coins were simply waiting for the whole thing to end.
They could buy whatever they wanted at the last minute anyway, so they were postponing every purchase on the off chance something better came along.
The contest was already decided.
Is this as far as we go?
Ella kept her face composed in front of the other members, but inside the hollow sighs kept coming.
They had tried so desperately, poured in everything they had — and they had still failed.
Losing today did not mean the competition was over, of course.
They could take another number and sit the exam again in two or three months.
But would a second try change the outcome?
The Six Great Theaters kept the same exam theme for two years.
Two and a half months from now, they would be facing exactly the same test.
The only reason a troupe of barely twenty could hold its own against the established giants was Maya's magic sketchbook.
When asked if the sketchbook could be repaired or replaced, Wonderstein had only shaken his head.
There is not another one like it in the world. Repairing it is almost certainly impossible.
Everyone despaired when those words sank in.
Maya herself took the news quietly. She bit her lip a few times, let out a breath or two, and that was it. To everyone watching, she seemed almost indifferent — as if she had never been attached to the thing at all.
Ella knew better.
For Maya, that quiet was the same as choking back tears.
Ella's eyes drifted toward the practice room.
Maya had been locked inside for hours, pouring all her energy into restoring the sketchbook. She had raced to the Alchemy Guild, flashed her Academy student ID, and hauled back an armful of reagents, which she had tested on the ruined pages one after another.
The sketchbook showed no response.
Tomato juice had seeped through each page like a decal, and nothing else. Every failed attempt drained the color from her face a little more.
Ella had never seen Maya that shaken before. The sight sat uneasily with her.
When the deluge of tomatoes had swept across the stage, Maya had blocked them with pinpoint telekinesis. She had not allowed so much as a single droplet near Ella. She had meant to carry out Wonderstein's request to the letter.
Maybe that was it.
She had been so focused on protecting someone else that she had neglected her own defense. A blind tomato arcing in from behind had caught her off guard and struck the sketchbook dead-on.
The thrower was just another face in the crowd, aiming wildly at the last patches of unmarked white — which made Maya, with her snow-white hair, the natural target.
The moment the sketchbook was soaked, the illustrations inside began dissolving, slipping away like paint and mud draining into the floor amidst sounds that might have been groans or screams. The colors bled out and vanished.
And after that, no matter what Maya looked at, no picture appeared on the paper anymore.
Wonderstein saw what had happened to the now-magicless sketchbook and did not raise his voice at her. Did not breathe a word of reproach. He had simply said what a shame it was and smiled to comfort her.
Maya could barely stand how pathetic she felt.
The magic tool he had given her was no ordinary object.
Any mage would recognize the sketchbook's power at a glance and know it had not been crafted by human hands.
It was an item from the Abyss — the realm where the Demon Gods dwelled.
Tales of the Gods' magic tools were woven all through the world's lore.
A lamp you rubbed to summon a giant who granted wishes.
Red shoes that, once worn, forced you to dance until death.
A gourd that could swallow and imprison a person.
Manifesting supernatural power without any magical or mechanical mechanism was one of the defining traits of a Demon God's relic.
The sketchbook Wonderstein had given her looked perfectly mundane on the outside. No special materials, no exotic craftsmanship — and yet it had held formidable magic.
Relics of the Demon God were not easily obtained.
To acquire one, you had to pay the god a price of equal worth.
The sketchbook had been tailored for her and her alone.
Even without the gold-leaf inscription on the cover — Maya's Sketchbook — she would have known. He had learned that she loved to draw. He had identified the weakness in her magic. And he had obtained this tool to compensate for it.
The meaning was unmistakable.
For her sake, he had won it from a Demon God.
It could not have been an easy opportunity. Yet he had spent it on a girl he had known for only a handful of days.
She had no idea what price he had paid.
Knowing him, he would only laugh and wave it off as nothing if she pressed the question.
Why would he give so freely to someone like her?
She did not understand.
One thing was absolute, though.
She could never consider anyone else her teacher now.
Yet he had told her not to call him that.
She had not understood at first, but now she did.
He was a Madosa.
One who borrowed power from a Demon God.
She had suspected it ever since he had brought the relic, but watching him use the clothes-changing magic had removed all doubt. His magic operated outside the rules that governed this world. No trace of mana, no natural alteration — it simply manifested.
It was, unmistakably, the power of a Demon God.
The status of an unregistered person.
The power of the Demon God's path.
Neither was welcomed by the world.
And on top of that, he was a circus troupe leader.
Even Eunmak Arno had spent ten years building his reputation before the Academy grudgingly accepted him as a member. Scholarship was a stubborn, conservative place. Mages were no different.
If Maya went around declaring Wonderstein as her teacher, the academic world would shun her — that much was obvious.
He had been worrying about that, she realized. Worrying that his student might be dismissed and humiliated somewhere.
She was grateful for his thoughtfulness, and it ached in equal measure.
She had a fair idea which Demon God's power he wielded.
Most likely Kirkeus.
The whimsical nature of the ability was exactly what you would expect from one of his devotees.
Still, clothes-changing Inspira...
How in the world had he obtained a power like that?
She had heard that Inspira was granted in recognition of an acrobat's outstanding skill, a reward equal to the craft displayed...
And in that moment the image that flashed through her head was of him stepping out of Viscountess Bergson's bedroom.
Given his looks, he had probably been entangled with plenty of women before Anais, too.
Could it be...
Bang.
The practice-room door swung open, and two people walked in who, seconds ago, had been living inside her imagination.
Wonderstein and Anais.
Seeing her still clutching the sketchbook, he smiled.
"Still at it, Miss Maya?"
"...It is my fault."
Wonderstein found her intensity puzzling. In the games, Maya's personality had been nothing but indifference — detached, emotionless, brusque. She had had zero concern for others, silently absorbed in her own work.
And yet here she was, shouldering a mistake out loud.
Maybe it was her age. She was softer in person than her game counterpart had ever been.
The sight amused him, and even made him a little proud. Discovering an unexpectedly human side in someone he thought he already knew from the code — like he had with Minova — was pleasant.
"Miss Maya, why not leave that be for a while and step outside?"
She shook her head and cut him off in a cold voice.
"There is nothing for me out there."
"What do you mean, nothing? It is a festival. Enjoy yourself."
"Enjoy what, exactly?"
He grinned and lifted the box in his hands.
"Do you not want to see it? Our last card to play."
Thirty minutes until the competition closed.
After the Morning Star Circus's final performance, the crowd flooded back toward the stalls. Now was the moment to burn through every remaining coin.
"Wonderstein's people are done, then."
"They said the portraits are finished."
"Told you — you cannot pin your whole business on one item."
"Come on, before the stalls run out of anything decent."
But the people streaming into the lobby found an unexpected scene.
The Morning Star Circus's stall sat completely deserted, while the Monster Circus stall was thronged with bodies.
Those emerging from the performance asked what was going on.
And that was when they heard — the Golden Tomato was being offered as a prize in the card draw.
"That is... that is a scam, right?"
"Why is a Golden Tomato even here?"
The Golden Tomato was a legendary fruit, said to be tasted only by heads of state, religious leaders, or the chairmen of great enterprises. No one could believe such a thing had shown up at a market stall.
"The Bergson Trading Company has vouched for it. It is genuine."
"Bergson — right! The Monster Circus's sponsor is the Bergson house!"
"Then maybe it is real..."
People rushed toward the stall.
They were afraid of arriving too late and finding every last pack of cards already sold.
Just then, a shout rang out from the crowd filtering out of Hall No. 2.
"Hold on! I object!"
Heads turned toward the corner.
Baron Dosville was there, busily tearing open a card pack.
"Why are you all looking at me? He shouted."
The baron jabbed a finger at the real source — one of the gambling toughs who had come to the Monster Circus stall earlier to make trouble. The man stared at the baron tearing open cards with a scandalized expression.
"Lord Dosville! What are you doing? You were supposed to hold this ground while we checked on the Morning Star booth! Why are you buying their packs instead? You said it yourself last time — offering prizes is against the rules!"
"Ugh, another common."
Baron Dosville flipped the card onto the table with a sigh.
The crowd's attention stuck to him. The mention of the Golden Tomato had sent them scrambling, but now doubt crept in — could the prize actually be claimed, or was there a catch?
"Who said offering a prize is against the rules? It is not. What the rules say is that a prize's market value gets deducted from gross sales."
"S-still, then... the Monster Circus loses...? The Golden Tomato is insanely expensive, is it not?"
The thug's voice had lost its edge. Murmurs of confusion rippled through the onlookers.
The corner of Baron Dosville's mouth crept upward.
These ignorant bastards.
"When the first Regent presented a Golden Tomato to his father-in-law, a great controversy erupted. A regent only administers the nation's affairs, diplomacy, and defense on the Queen's behalf — he has no right to give her property away as a gift. It was a significant debate, because the limits of the regent's monarchical powers had been at issue ever since the Queen vanished and the office was established. In the end, the tomato the Regent gifted was confiscated. Bestowing or granting the Queen's property is her right alone. The Regent may not cross that line. By the same logic, he cannot meddle with titles or territories, and so on and so forth — you can learn the finer details from a history book. But even though the Regent lost that argument, letting the Golden Tomato rot would also be absurd, would you not agree? So the Golden Tomato is called a gift, but in practice it has always been traded — through the sale of surplus agricultural goods from the Prime Minister's residence."
With all eyes fixed on him, the baron felt the sting of his earlier humiliation ease just a little.
"The price: one Roti."
Exclamations rippled through the crowd.
One Roti was a device often employed when transferring government assets, to make the transfer of ownership legally unassailable. A gift could be reclaimed or revoked under property law. A sale could not.
Moreover, the Roti was Charlotia's currency — and the banknotes bore Queen Charlotte's own face, as her nickname reflected. Using it to trade the Queen's property seemed fitting.
"And the Golden Tomato that Bergson's company has in hand — I am told it belongs to the greenhouse gardener. A man who, for thirty years, made it his boast to eat one straight off the vine at peak freshness, exercising his right. Under the rules, the price assigned to this tomato is one Roti."
The moment Baron Dosville finished, the crowd finally threw itself into motion.
Twenty minutes remained.
Everyone scrambled to buy card packs and tear them open — the gamblers among them as frantically as anyone else.