Chapter 83
“Yes~! Thank you all for watching~☆! Larilura’s show will continue tonight, so come see me again then♥!”
By the time we reached the park, Larilura’s performance had already ended. I guess we’d spotted her a little too late.
─Hop!
Larilura hopped down from the shoulder of a puppet dressed as a circus performer, took off her hat, and bowed. It seemed she’d been putting on a simple circus show from the puppet’s shoulder.
“Goodness, that young lady sure has guts.”
“Heh heh. My palms were sweating buckets, even though it’s fall. I was on the edge of my seat.”
“Damn it. Why the hell didn’t I go see the circus before yesterday?”
The townspeople chatted among themselves as they tossed coins. Some watched and left without giving anything, but Larilura, her two-pronged clown hat off, caught the one-copper coins tossed her way with a radiant smile.
─Whoosh!
I hadn’t seen the show, but I tossed her a one-copper coin to break the ice. Here, catch.
“Hup!”
Larilura twisted her body to catch the one copper we’d tossed into her clown hat. Then her eyes met mine.
“Hmm? Ohhh~?”
I’d been thinking this was the perfect chance to talk to her, but Larilura spoke first.
“You two over there—could you possibly be the people who came to see our circus yesterday?!”
Larilura came toward us with a lively step that made everyone watching feel cheerful. I was pretty surprised, since I hadn’t expected her to recognize us.
“Did you see us during the show?”
“Yes☆! You two were watching from the Colosseum stands on someone’s shoulders, right? I have pretty good eyesight, so I saw everything!”
“F-families…?”
Fran got embarrassed at Larilura’s words, then froze like a stone at what she said next.
“People with black hair are rare, so you stood out in my memory! Are you father and daughter~? You look so lovely together as a family! I’m a little jealous, too☆!”
“F-father and daughter…?”
“H-huh? Am I wrong? Did I say something I shouldn’t have?”
An awkward mood settled between the two girls. Fran looked indignant as she protested.
“Nord and I are lovers! I could understand you calling us a married couple, but father and daughter?!”
“Huh?”
Larilura’s eyes shrank to the size of beans as she looked at me. Her yellow eyes seemed to ask,
“Ahh?! You there—you’re huge, but you’re dating a little girl? Are you a pedophile?! Or are you the kidnapper who’s been abducting children in Haysvent lately?!”
What the hell? She wasn’t asking with her eyes; she was asking with her mouth.
I wasn’t about to let my slave life start over after getting hauled off as a pedophile! Before the guards could show up after getting the wrong idea, I spoke up.
“Our Fran is a fully grown adult.”
“That’s right! I’ll be twenty-two next year!”
“Wha—yes? Twenty-two? You’re older than me?! Really?!”
Larilura jumped in surprise and dropped the hat full of coins.
─Clatter! Dozens of one-copper coins rolled across the park grass.
***
“I’m truly sorry……. I made such a ridiculous mistake…….”
After hearing our explanation, Larilura bowed and apologized.
Her tone was different from the flirtatious voice she used while performing. At Larilura’s sincere apology, Fran softened her sulky expression, too.
“Phew. It’s okay now. It’s understandable to mistake someone for a moment. Just for a moment, though.”
As Fran said that, she was no longer wearing her usual poncho-like top.
When she covered her upper body with that poncho, all people could see was Fran’s youthful face. And when it hid her long limbs and breasts, Fran’s short stature sometimes made her look like a girl in her mid-teens.
In other words, taking it off was Fran’s little protest.
─Dun-dun!
Her large breasts and well-proportioned limbs, revealed beneath the sun, openly emphasized Fran’s femininity and age. Larilura was left speechless by Fran’s curvy figure.
“Eue.”
You naughty clown, you’ve lost your mind over my girlfriend’s figure, haven’t you? Larilura lagged out, stammering incoherently, then cleared her throat to break the awkward mood.
“Ahem, hmm. Thank you for forgiving me, Sister Fran. Ah! Is it okay if I call you that?”
“Sure. Francesca is a bit of a long name.”
“Thank you! I’m sorry to you, too, Mr. Nord.”
Larilura hugged her hat and bowed to me as well. I chuckled.
“You don’t need to apologize to me. Actually, if you feel bad, could I ask you something?”
“Of course! Ask Larilura anything you like☆! Oh, and also~? You can speak casually with me, you know~?”
“Sure, I will.”
I readily took Larilura up on her offer to speak casually.
This otherworldly macho Nord never turns down a kindness.
“What are you curious about? Now I’m curious, too! Ah, personal or sexual questions—including the color of my underwear—are strictly, absolutely forbidden♥!”
“Yeah~ I’m not curious about any of that~. Even if you told me, I’d forget in two seconds~.”
I’d love to see the idiot who asked another girl that kind of thing while he was with his girlfriend. It’d be a hell of a show to watch.
What I wanted to ask was about as sensitive as that, though.
“As you know, we saw your performance yesterday. To be blunt, I was incredibly impressed. How do you do it?”
When I asked seriously, Larilura’s eyes sparkled.
“How do I do it? Are you interested in the circus~?”
“Not the circus, just physical stuff in general.”
I tapped my armored chest.
“As you can see, I’m an adventurer. Not to brag, but I can use mana, too. But even when I use mana, I can’t balance my body as well as you or move with that kind of precision.”
“So you’d like to learn my acrobatic training, if possible? Sure! That’s an easy request☆!”
No, you answered way too fast.
Did you plug the cable for your tongue into your spine instead of your brain? I was more surprised by that acceptance with a 0.1-second time lag.
“Are you sure? It must be a trade secret.”
“Other performers’ skills or dance routines would be different, but my acrobatics are no problem~! Anyone who could copy them would be able to just by watching the performance. More importantly, it’s my way of thanking you for forgiving me!”
Larilura said this while making a V with her index finger and holding it beside her eye. Her energy was through the roof. Were all clowns like this? I’d get tired just trying to keep up.
“And actually, there’s a child who’s been learning acrobatics from me longer than you have☆!”
Larilura brought over a child who’d been hiding behind a nearby tree. I’d noticed the kid, too, but they didn’t seem like a pickpocket, so I’d left them alone.
“Ta-da! This child here is Erika! For now, that makes her your senior!”
“Is that so? Hi, Erika.”
“H-hello……”
─Bow.
Erika’s greeting was stiff, and her clothes were in pretty bad shape.
She looked a little dirty, like she might be from a poor neighborhood. Since there were no parents around, she might be an orphan, too.
“But, Larilura? Is it okay to teach me, too?”
When Fran asked, Larilura gave her a bright wink.
“One, two, or three students—it’s all about the same! Besides, having someone to compete with helps you learn faster~!”
“If you’re fine with teaching us, there’s no reason for us to refuse. So? What’s this training?”
“This!”
─Boing, boing.
What Larilura proudly held up was a rubber ball.
What the hell is that? Is this some training where you spin mana around to make the rubber ball burst? Damn, that sounds awesome. I definitely want to try it.
As I thought that, Larilura said,
“Juggling with this ball! It’s the basic training from the great court jester (Jester), Crown Crown’s famous book, ‘A Court Jester Even a Monkey Can Do’!”
***
“Fuck, that has fuck-all to do with this.”
I muttered that as I failed at juggling the rubber balls for the tenth time.
─Thud!
The rubber ball I’d lost hold of fell onto the grass.
This bastard with a damn free spirit. How dare you try to escape my grasp? Furious, I picked up the balls from the grass and dusted them off.
“Chirrup.”
Damn it, there’s a grasshopper on the ball.
“You little punk, go hibernate for the winter already.”
─Tap!
I flicked the grasshopper off the ball and wiped my hand on my clothes. Damn it, I was already pissed, and now some bug was picking a fight with me. I squeezed the ball and sighed.
─Every physical acrobatic act in a circus show starts with this ball★!!
This completely baseless training began with those words from Larilura.
─Use as little mana as possible! Use at least ten balls! Keep juggling for ten minutes in at least three different poses! Any clown who can do that earns the right to try acrobatics!
“You can shove that ‘earns the right’ up your ass.”
Wasn’t this just some ploy because she didn’t want to share the secrets of her trade? I grumbled and glanced at Fran and Erika.
“Whoa, whoa!”
“Ah, waaah!”
They sounded flustered, but both of them were juggling eight balls. I was still dropping even five, for fuck’s sake.
What the hell was wrong with my lousy hand-eye coordination, when I was getting completely outclassed by a kid who’d started learning yesterday or today and my own girlfriend?
“Tsk.”
I had no choice but to toss the balls, too. I didn’t know any other way.
Toss, catch, toss, catch—and drop.
“Fuck.”
Was juggling really this hard? I couldn’t even bring myself to pick up the balls rolling away, so I just stood there like an idiot. Someone else picked them up for me. It was Larilura.
Larilura, who’d been waiting nearby in full makeup, smiled and tossed me the ball. I caught it easily. This part was easy, at least.
“How’s it going?”
“I’ve learned why people commit suicide. It’s been an enlightening experience.”
“Ah-ha! You’re funny! What wit♡!”
Larilura laughed as if clutching her stomach. I frowned as I tossed and caught the rubber ball.
“Can you really do the acrobatics you were talking about with something like this? Honestly, the muscles you use and your sense of balance have nothing to do with juggling.”
“Juggling is just the basic step. The main training—the body control—starts once you’ve got the juggling down!”
Rustle─.
Larilura let mana threads stream from her fingertips and made a puppet resting in the corner stand up.
─Spin, spin! The puppet cartwheeled over and struck one of the seven b-boy poses, balancing on one arm. Larilura put a hand on the ground and struck the same pose.
“I’ve always been good at handling mana. But my skill at performing acrobatics that ordinary people couldn’t manage isn’t just thanks to my natural talent. It’s also thanks to the manual by Lord Crown Crown!”
“First off, who the hell is this Crown Sandwich guy?”
“Crown Crown. He’s the most famous court jester of the Golden Age! Speaking of court jesters, I can’t help telling you about my time in Romagna☆!”
“Ah, don’t. Never mind, I don’t want to know. It sounds like it’ll take forever.”
I cut her off casually. Considering the personalities of clowns and bards, I could tell she was about to go on a long-winded tangent. I wasn’t all that interested in clowns.
At my words, Larilura pouted while continuing to hold the pose.
“Hmph! Fine by me, you know? It saves me from tiring out my mouth~.”
“Good for both of us, then. So? What does this have to do with mana control? You barely use mana when you do acrobatics.”
“It’s not that I don’t use it. It’s that I don’t have to. Those are a little different.”
Larilura spread her legs wide, showing off her mismatched stockings and pumpkin shorts.
“Even someone as cute and talented as me used mana to perform acrobatics like this in the past! But physical acrobatics performed with mana are second-rate, no matter how good you are! A true clown has to be able to use the senses they trained with mana even without it☆!”
“Without mana?”
“That’s right! Without mana!”
Larilura bent and straightened her elbows, and she and the puppet returned to a proper standing position. Damn, she could do that using only her arm strength.
“Once you can reproduce, without mana, as much as possible of what your body can do after being strengthened by mana, your movements when you use mana will be much better, too! Mr. Nord, you could easily juggle if you used mana, right♡?”
“That’s true, but I guess I just don’t have the dexterity. It’s hard without mana.”
I thought I understood what she meant.
In the end, even mana’s enhancement depends on your basic abilities!
That was why humans had such a hard time gaining strength that could rival monsters. Many monsters were born with bodies built to use mana, and even the ones that weren’t were much bigger and stronger than humans to begin with.
‘In other words, this training is practice aimed at improving ability on a technical level.’
It’s the same in games, isn’t it? Even if you choose the same character, how good they seem depends on the player’s skill.
If your body could show the same level of control without mana as when using it, then adding mana’s boost would multiply the result.
So it made sense to train yourself to move your body without mana.
This training was meant to help me control my mana-enhanced body with greater precision and accuracy.
I still didn’t know why it started with juggling, though.
“Lord Crown Crown named this technique ‘Body Tuning’!”
Larilura rummaged around in her clothes and took out a small booklet. I had no idea what it was, but she carried it around all the time, so it must have been precious to her.
“This is the second volume of ‘A Court Jester Even a Monkey Can Do’! And it’s a handwritten copy of the first edition, made by Lord Crown Crown’s own disciple!! It’s my third most treasured possession☆!”
“That’s a pretty low ranking for something you’re so proud of.”
What about number one and two?
More importantly, if it was a handwritten copy of the first edition, wasn’t it just an illegally shared bootleg? It seemed pretty much the same as the <Touch> series of spells Gentric sold me.
“Anyway, anyway! That doesn’t change the fact that this book became my guiding light on the path of clownhood!”
“What’s in the book that makes it so special?”
“Everything, from different kinds of acrobatics to how to train for them! The exercise you’re doing right now is on page five, line three of this book♡!”
Did she have every page memorized? No way. She was probably just making it up as she went. I asked Larilura,
“Not bad. Where can I buy one?”
“Pfft. You can’t buy it at a bookstore~! It’s a rare book with almost no copies printed, you know? And the people who have one don’t share their secrets☆!”
Larilura laughed behind her hand. Damn, the otherworlder stereotype just hit me hard out of nowhere.
Well, a book with such rare and valuable information would be treated as preciously as an advanced grimoire. It was shameless of anyone to ask her to hand it over.
“They say whether you have this book or not is what separates a first-rate clown from the rest! If you want to get Crown Crown’s book from a clown, you have three choices: steal it, take it by force, or kill them☆!”
“Don’t say things that make me uneasy. Is the book really that valuable?”
“It’s even more valuable than that! Hehehehe♥ That’s common knowledge, so you’d better memorize it properly while you have the chance, okay? Otherwise, in Romagna, you’ll have no one but yourself to blame if they treat you like an idiot—ow?! That hurts!”
Larilura had been talking excitedly when she clutched her head and screamed. Obviously, it wasn’t because I’d lost patience and given her a fistful of equal-rights justice—physical style.
The one who’d whacked the cheeky Larilura was the circus troupe leader, who’d quietly approached from behind.
“Honestly, you’re something else. I can’t take my eyes off you for a moment……. What kind of way is that to speak to a guest?”
The middle-aged woman, with a trim figure and golden hair, blew on the fist she’d used to rap Larilura on the head, then greeted me.
“Greetings, guest. I’m Alexandra Leovantes, the leader of the Plangungcula Circus.”