The Freak Show Foreman

Wonderstein summarized the achievements he gained from going down to the village this time. Due to absorbing the residual debulroot remaining in the guy while defeating the flesh lump, the status window was again burdened and unavailable.

He calculated the remaining amount through mental arithmetic. The total debulroots had decreased compared to before entering the village. Despite two consecutive basic attribute increases, when converted to debulroots, it was still in the negative.

Adding the just absorbed debulroots, it was uncertain if he would break even or not. This was due to using over 1000 debulroots to expand the debulroots capacity, a space capable of storing 1966 debulroots.

Wonderstein wondered if he would ever fill this space until the end of TT0. To console himself, he took solace in Maya's favorability breaking 30.

He took out a flat tube from his embrace and handed it to her.

"Take this."

"What is this?"

"A new gift."

"A gift…? Could it be a magic tool?"

Looking at her surprised expression, Wonderstein nodded satisfactorily.

"Of course. It just happened to come into my hands, perfectly suited for Maya."

Name: Transparent Paint

Applicable Target: Surface of an object

Effect: Generates paint that makes the target transparent. The duration is proportional to the concentration of magic power.

Required Resources: Maya's favorability 30, magic power

Transparent paint was one of the Maya-exclusive items in TTT. Maya, being a genius in illusion magic, could also use transparency spells. However, allowing her to freely use transparency could ruin the level design of the game. Therefore, to use transparency, she had to consume the item Transparent Paint to charge the transparency gauge.

The transparent paint received as a favorability reward looked the same as in the game, but it wasn't a consumable item. As long as the magic power was sufficient, one could extract as much transparent paint as needed from the tube.

Maya looked at the item in Wonderstein's hands while listening to his explanation.

He had asked her about transparency magic before, and from the training where he instructed her to control the paint, it seemed he had this in mind.

Wonderstein thought, 'It just happened to come into my hands…'

He really couldn't lie.

"Hehe, you were upset about losing the sketchbook, right?"

Looking at him with a smiling face, Maya felt a complex emotional turmoil.

'You fool. What made me upset wasn't about the sketchbook being wasted. It was about wondering what price you paid to get it. Yet, you nonchalantly give me another gift.'

'Do you know how burdensome it is for me to receive this?'

"Ah, another expression that asks about the price, hehe. Don't worry, it's not that expensive."

Maya sighed inwardly at his words. The situation where she had to recognize that the other person's words were lies and calculate the true intention herself was uncomfortable for her.

The world was perfect with just my interpretation…

It was so burdensome to care about the gaze of others…

I resent the change you brought to me.

However…

However, it's delightful that one of those others is you.

Maya accepted the gift from him, perhaps because it was in his embrace. She felt a warm warmth.

"Thank yo…"

About to express her gratitude, Maya stopped.

A squelching sound and a thud were heard from behind.

"Director?"

Turning around, she found Wonderstein sitting on a haystack by the roadside, breathing heavily with strained breaths.

He looked at her with eyes that seemed to be constantly trying to catch a cold.

"Oh, this seems more challenging than I thought… Haha, I didn't know my body was in such bad shape."

He had relied too much on the pain-relieving effect of the laughing man.

Facing the destructive power beyond that of siege weapons head-on, his body couldn't possibly be unscathed.

During the battle, he hadn't noticed, but as the tension eased after the battle, both pain and fatigue overwhelmed him.

Being able to laugh despite the pain was not entirely pleasant.

If his recovery was intact, he might have endured it, but due to the last absorption of Debulroots, his body was burdened, and his stats were also lowered.

"I'm sorry… I'm so sleepy…"

Wonderstein's eyes gently closed.

His body collapsed like a broken doll.

Maya carefully held him as he slumped.

Thanks to telekinesis, she could lift him effortlessly.

She swept away the strands of hair falling on his face with her hand.

As the clouds receded, moonlight illuminated his face.

His face, resembling a sculpture carved from marble, was sharply defined.

Even while asleep, he still had a smile on his face.

How could he continue to smile even in his painful and injured state?

She gently stroked his cheek with her hand.

His skin was unexpectedly smooth, not typically rugged for a man.

She couldn't understand why she did such a thing.

If she had to explain, there were no words other than "impulse."

Her hand then moved on to his closed eyes and his sturdy nose.

She explored his three-dimensional form with her fingers, trying to memorize it.

It would have been nice if there was a sketchbook.

To capture this face perfectly…

"Mew…?"

A cat's meow.

She let go of his face abruptly.

On top of the haystack, a cat with a skeptical expression was staring at her.

"Wally?"

It was an illusion created by her magic.

She realized that she unconsciously created an illusion of him.

This was strange.

Her illusion magic was based on thorough calculations.

Creating such a vivid illusion "unconsciously" was impossible.

This kind of thing was a story that applied to ordinary illusionists who utilized the mysteries of the mind.

They created illusions through the workings of the mind.

How could someone like her, who didn't grasp the mysteries of the mind, create such vivid illusions?

The teacher at the academy had once said something about an empty canvas in one's heart.

A person with an empty canvas in their heart could never master illusion magic in their lifetime.

She thought the teacher's advice was based on mystical and nonsensical ideas she disliked.

But creating an illusion based on the mysteries of the mind…

Did this mean something was filled in her heart's canvas?

"Well…meow."

Wally's forehead wrinkled.

When it discovered something displeasing, this was the expression it made.

Maya soon recalled the actions she had just been doing.

Her cheek twitched slightly.

"It's none of your concern."

She erased the 'certain emotion' she had been feeling from her mind.

Simultaneously, the illusion of Wally, which had been manifested in her mind, disappeared with a whoosh.

Emptied.

Clean.

The canvas turned pure white again.

She embraced Wonderstein's body and slid down the slope as if gliding.

Wheeee!

Though Wally grumbled discontentedly in a corner of her mind, she ignored it.

A few minutes later, a large creature appeared where the two had been sitting.

It was a creature with a head so big it touched the roof of the building.

The creature buried its head in a haystack, sniffed, and then exposed its teeth, drooling, as it traced Maya's footsteps.

***

The Monster Circus Troupe stood outside the village, unable to enter.

They now knew that a curse plague had spread in the village.

And it was somehow connected to them.

They couldn't just enter the town blindly, not knowing what trouble they might encounter.

When the suggestion came to wake up the unconscious villagers and hear their stories, the rat men who had been chattering among themselves suddenly perked up and trembled.

"Boss! Boss!"

The rat men called Ella.

It was the first time they actively sought her out since they had eaten the food she had cooked.

"What's up? What's happening?"

She was already anxious about what mischief Wonderstein might be up to in this place. When the rat men suddenly started chattering, she turned to them in surprise.

"Dangerous!"

"The smell of the abyss is in the air!"

The rat men were known to be more sensitive to danger than anyone else.

There were rumors that they would prepare to flee for days before an earthquake.

The fact that they were making such a fuss meant that something was definitely happening.

"What's going on?"

Ella's question made the rat men jump up and down.

"It's dangerous!"

"The smell of the abyss!"

The rat men's words left the members puzzled.

Out of the blue, they talked about the smell of the abyss.

It was incomprehensible.

At that moment, the rat men simultaneously sucked in their breath and looked at something.

The three-story building near the library.

There was something on the roof.

A shadow of a creature that seemed to be bipedal was crouching and surveying the surroundings.

Even though it was bending at the waist, it seemed to be as tall as a human.

Its actual length seemed to be over 3 meters.

Ella scrutinized the creature's appearance.

It looked like a creature that combined features of existing beings to appear as a non-existent creature in this world.

It had a rabbit's head, but in the place where ears should be, there were large antler-like horns similar to those of a deer.

The legs had hooves like a goat, the arms were long enough to touch the ground, and they ended in sharp claws.

"Is that… a demon?"

"We should invite it to our circus."

"Everyone, quiet!"

The creature looked around.

Fortunately, it seemed to pay no attention outside the library.

It appeared to consider only the grass and mountains beyond.

The group held their breath, crouching and observing its movements.

When the creature was about to jump off the building in a clumsy posture, a noise erupted from nearby.

"It's a monster!"

"Come here! These guys killed the ones ahead of us!"

"They killed them! These guys!"

Villagers who were leaving the village confronted them.

Their numbers exceeded twenty.

Each of them held a weapon and aimed at the members.

The members, in turn, looked back and forth between the villagers and the demon on the roof. Experience tales at empire

"Hehehe!"

The rabbit-headed demon turned its head towards them.

Red pupils and sharp teeth gleamed in the moonlight.

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