"Ella Yang."
Wonderstein watched her as if he had been waiting for her to co in.
His face bore the ever-present, unchanging smile.
A cheeky and playful smile that seed to uplift people.
As she looked at his smiling face, Ella felt irritation creeping in, but at the sa ti, her heart eased a bit.
Well then.
Why did I worry about him?
I have other things to care about.
"You knew I was coming?"
She raised her head as much as possible and tried to speak in a cold tone.
She made an effort to sound distant in case he sensed that she found him despicable.
"How could I not know when you were chattering so loudly?"
Laughter erupted from outside again.
It seed like Sven was imitating soone once more.
Ella noticed that there was a warm cup of tea in his hands.
"You never take your hands off the teacup."
"I like tea."
"But you never touched the tea served at the hotel."
"The tea made by Miss Yurakne is different, hehe. Leaving that aside, what brings you here? You still don't seem fully recovered."
He said, examining her complexion.
She scratched her head.
"Well, I was worried, honestly."
"About ?"
His teasing tone made Ella's expression noticeably furrow.
"Who would worry about soone like you? I was worried that you might ruin the performance! What if tomatoes start flying!"
"Tomatoes?"
She lowered her voice a bit.
The ntion of worrying about him made her oddly excited and agitated.
"It's considered the ultimate disgrace for perforrs on stage. If the audience finds the show boring, they throw tomatoes."
Wonderstein let out an intrigued laugh.
"Is that so?"
"It's just a rumor. According to a magazine investigation, it only happened once in the last 30 years."
She clenched her fist and scrutinized the purple circus costu he was wearing.
"Did you create this outfit with your magic again?"
"How did you know?"
"Where else would a perfectly fitting outfit appear overnight? Well, let see… It's a decent combination. The clown face on that outfit gives quite a creepy vibe. Putting that aside, did you already wipe off the clown makeup? I wanted to see it…"
"You can see it again tomorrow. At least during this test, I'll continue to be the clown. You didn't co here expecting to perform on stage, did you?"
Ella crossed her legs and chuckled.
"Don't worry. Even if I wanted to, I don't have any clothes. The butler grandpa took my costu. He's always smiling on the outside but secretly raising a trapdoor spider inside him. Anyway, how about talking about the performance? I'm curious about how it went."
"Don't you already know from the other mbers?"
"Everyone has a different feeling about it. I want to hear it from the clown's perspective."
As the conversation turned to the circus, Ella straightened up, sparkling with enthusiasm.
Wonderstein silently laughed to himself.
Anyway, she's an unstoppable circus maniac.
He began by explaining how he ca up with the makeup and so gestures or phrases that Ella even requested to re-enact.
Although acting one-on-one with her felt embarrassing, thanks to the laughing man, he could naturally exhibit sowhat awkward human acting.
Ella nodded seriously and said, "Your script… You wrote it after seeing and writing it during the clown part, right?"
The part she had the most revisions on in the script he gave her was the clown part.
Sothing about the focus of the conversation or the punchline of the laughter seed off, so they spent quite a bit of ti fixing it.
However, looking at it now, it was a performance that suited Wonderstein's character very well.
The inability to control laughter from ti to ti, the peculiar teasing attitude—all of it.
In TT1, Wonderstein was faithful to the concept of the circus troupe leader. Whenever entering a boss battle, he would suddenly appear from sowhere to introduce the mbers and comnt on the changes in the boss's attack phases, adding jokes in between.
Ella, who didn't know about that, admired him once again.
It seed like he had been considering his own clown character from the mont he started writing the script.
Seeing her expression, he silently laughed again.
In any case, she's an incurable circus maniac.
He explained from the mont he wrote the first script, and Ella, who had experienced the beginning to the ending curtain call, clicked her tongue.
Delicious.
Despite the breath and flow being a bit lacking compared to what she directed, it was definitely a tasty stage.
"Unexpectedly well done."
"? Well, thank you."
Wonderstein felt quite proud of her praise.
Despite boasting about the highest viewer count on his Twitch livestream and putting on airs, the internet livestream and the real stage were inevitably different. He had used every trick in the book, imitating the Wonderstein character in the ga, hiding awkward expressions with makeup, and barely managing to finish the performance.
Now, hearing a sincere "well done" from the precise Ella, he could finally relax.
"To be honest… I couldn't trust you."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. How could I trust soone like you? A suspicious person who hides behind a mask."
Wonderstein had no words to respond to Ella's statent.
In the past, he had indeed been such a person, and the present him couldn't be called an entirely honest person either.
"But now I understand one thing. Your passion for the circus is genuine."
Why he was so obsessed with the circus, Wonderstein couldn't comprehend. With such imnse power, Ella could not fathom why he would settle for being a re circus director.
Still, watching him write scripts, show kindness to the mbers, witness the effort he put into getting on stage, and proposing a bold challenge to the rooster Minova, it seed that at least his passion for the circus was real.
"So, I'll entrust the remaining five days to you. At least now, I can believe in you on stage."
Even though it was a temporary relationship, even though it was a relationship that would not continue, even though it was not a connection ford out of goodwill, regarding the circus, they had co to trust each other.
"But it's quite ironic, isn't it? The way to fit into the mbers' monstrous acting was for you to give up human acting."
Wonderstein sighed inwardly.
I also played the role of Wonderstein…
But he couldn't make excuses. To clear up that misunderstanding, he needed her to understand that he was not Wonderstein. And such an argunt would likely fall on deaf ears. She would probably think he was mocking her.
At that mont, there was a commotion outside.
It seed the housekeeper had brought alcohol and snacks.
Wonderstein gestured for her to go check.
She hesitated for a mont, then stood up. Grabbing the doorknob, she turned around to look at him.
"Over there… How about going out and saying a word of congratulations?"
"?"
"Well, I an… If the director avoids it, wouldn't Grandpa Housekeeper find it strange? And… above all, this is our circus's official first performance, right? It would be disappointing without a word from the director."
At her suggestion, Wonderstein hesitated for a mont.
No quest for rejecting the mbers appeared.
Under normal circumstances, he would have refused.
He didn't want to do anything that could jeopardize the goodwill of the mbers.
However, it wasn't the case now.
Since witnessing Ella collapse once, he had beco sowhat indifferent to the system.
"Alright."
The practice room was adorned with quite a lavish spread.
When the troupe went out to eat, the food that was, spread sothing they had never experienced before.
They used to always barely manage to grab whatever the kitchen offered and brought it out in a hurry.
Even when they went outside regular al hours, they could only get bread or fruit at best.
But Batel brought back a luxurious al even during regular al hours.
Wonderstein wondered if this was the skill of the butler who had been taking care of the mansion's servants for a long ti.
Ella stepped forward.
In her hand was a glass filled with juice.
"Thank you all so much for your hard work today. You all covered for so well even though I was absent. We still have five days left, so let's not relax too much. Let's just have a simple drink and enjoy."
She raised her glass high and exclaid, "To the Grand Circus Prix!"
"To the Grand Circus Prix!"
The mbers echoed her last words.
She looked at Wonderstein with eyes that seed to ask if he had anything to say.
The gaze of the other mbers also turned towards him.
He was still a difficult ringmaster, but it wasn't as uncomfortable as before.
Standing on the stage together was an amazing experience.
In a mont, he closed the distance he had been trying to narrow for the past three months.
Wonderstein smiled at them, raising his glass.
"For the health of our assistant ringmaster."
"For the health!"
Laughter appeared on the faces of the mbers.
Glasses clinked together, making a lively sound.
[Ella's favorability has increased by 5.]
[Sven's favorability has increased by 3.]
[Bendict's favorability has increased by 2.]
[Maya's favorability has increased by 1.]
…
[Yurakne's favorability has increased by 4. As a reward for achieving favorability 30, is granted to Yurakne. Current favorability: 33 (Next reward: favorability 50)]
[Womon's favorability has increased by 3. As a reward for achieving favorability 15, is granted to Womon. Current favorability: 16 (Next reward: favorability 30)]
Notification windows poured down like a flood.
The mbers clearly didn't anticipate him coming out.
So, the mber quests didn't appear.
The system was accurate.
However, sotis crossing the line of hesitation could bring people closer.
Wonderstein realized that he had forgotten about human relationships for a long ti.
He communicated with people only through the monitor, locked in the room.
He earned a living by eting the demands of viewers.
Even here, he lived a not-so-different life.
The system rely replaced the role of a computer.
But today, he finally stepped out of that.
Laughing and chatting with people, he felt like he had returned to the orphanage days.
Triare enthusiastically talked about the performance today.
Ella echoed the story she heard earlier as if hearing it for the first ti.
No one could forget the mont of stepping onto the stage for the first ti.
Sven pointed at the food on the table, shouting, "Fresh at!" imitating Womon's performance. Womon, irritated by his continuous teasing, turned his head as if disgusted.
Bendict and Jobel silently exchanged drinks in a corner. Looking at the bottles of alcohol in front of them, it seed like they had already forgotten Ella's suggestion to drink moderately.
Yurakne grabbed Wonderstein and kept asking how her fire performance was. She blushed when praised and looked disappointed when told it didn't suit her.
Maya sat alone in a corner, quietly drawing and sipping her drink.
Ella leaned her face on a cold glass, secretly smiling.
This was it.
This was it.
Exactly this.
This was the scene he had seen on the day they first t,
The day he invited her to join,
The scenery she had been looking forward to.
If she could endure like this for the next two years and three months…
It was well worth trying.
She stood up abruptly.
"Well then, I'll show you a solo performance!"
She picked up chopsticks and spun a plate on top of them.
It wasn't surprising up to that point.
She then placed another plate on top of the spinning one using the chopsticks.
"What, what's this?"
"Is that even possible?"
"Amazing."
As the number of plates and chopsticks increased, the audience's admiration grew.
Amidst the enthusiastic applause of the audience, she could finally laugh freely among her circus colleagues.
Until the day she parted ways with him.
Without anyone getting hurt or dying.
Just like this.
Let it continue.
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