Chapter 186 - Blazing Fire (1)

1

“I was born in a lousy backwater,” said one-armed Yumar.

“There’s no work in the countryside. Even after I was old enough to know better, there was nothing to do, so I just hung around with the other little shits my age. Sometimes we kept watch for tigers coming down from the mountains, or collected tolls from merchants passing through... It was a tiny town, poor as dried-out tree bark.”

Yumar scratched his forehead, creasing the green skin.

“Ever killed anyone?”

“Yes.”

“Right. Quite a few, by the sound of it.”

The one-armed actor nodded. He didn’t seem particularly surprised.

“Where did you first spill blood? On a battlefield? Or...”

“In a hunting ground. I ambushed and killed him.”

“Ah. Not much of a warrior’s accomplishment, then.”

The corners of Yumar’s mouth rose.

People confessing to murder smile at least once as they tell their story. Everyone does.

They aren’t laughing and joking about the murder. They’re mocking themselves for bringing it up, mocking the very act of confessing. Secretly, they want me to join in that mockery.

“Yes, that’s right. I wasn’t a warrior.”

That moment is the most important. That is precisely when I must not join in the derision.

Without changing my expression, I calmly asked, “What about you?”

“...”

The smile vanished from Yumar’s lips as well.

“... How many years ago was it? Thirteen already? The village chief kept going back and forth to another town. At first I thought he was visiting a friend, but he went far too often. Seven months later, he came back looking full of confidence.”

「I’ve found a business for our village, you morons.」

The business the village chief claimed to have learned in the next town was manufacturing drugs.

“At first, he gathered the village layabouts to get things started. There were at least six of us. Backwaters have plenty of young punks like me to spare. Well, there’s this stuff called [Silver Vine Flowers], the stuff you fairies go crazy for when you eat it. You use that as the raw material, extract it, then harden it into pills...”

“You weren’t just some drug dealer. You were the gang’s boss, weren’t you?”

“...”

One-armed Yumar fell silent.

“How did you know?”

“I could tell after just a short conversation. You’re intelligent, and your memory is extraordinary. You said this happened thirteen years ago, yet you remember that the village chief spent seven months sniffing around the next town. You have a head for numbers.”

I poured tea into Yumar’s cup on the table. Thanks to Raviel’s personal instruction, my skill in the art of tea had improved by leaps and bounds. It was a shame the troupe only had cheap tea leaves.

“You even know how to manufacture the drugs. You remember the village chief’s every move, so surely you weren’t some low-level flunky. The boss, or at least the second-in-command. You must have been one of the gang’s key leaders.”

“... You’re damn quick on the uptake.”

Smiling bitterly, Yumar lifted his teacup with his remaining arm. He took a sip, then raised his eyes in mild surprise.

“Fuck. Why the hell does this taste so good?”

“Thank you. So what actually happened?”

“... Well, you’re right. I was the boss running the village gang. Turns out I had a knack for gathering the boys and putting them to work. I was lucky, too.”

He hadn’t merely been lucky. He was a genius.

Yumar’s [business] grew rapidly.

“I was born with luck in business.”

He gathered the town’s young men into a militia, swallowed up the neighboring town, and expanded his gang. As the boss, Yumar personally supervised every step of drug production to guarantee its quality.

Recognized as premium goods, Yumar’s drugs spread along the waterways through elven ports.

「Juice of Divine Favor.」

「Late Learner’s Powder.」

They were all products Yumar had turned into hits.

Despite having no particular talent for aura, Yumar commanded a hundred followers. They called him a [warrior among warriors].

As those hundred smoothly grew toward five hundred, Yumar sensed it.

“All of a sudden, I felt we’d be fucked if we kept going.”

It was instinct.

“The Fire River Council is lenient. We weren’t selling drugs to Earth Spiritfolk, either. They don’t bother with every little hoodlum selling a few drugs to rich fairies. But when those hoodlums number a hundred, five hundred, that’s a different story.”

Yumar’s gang had done well. Far too well.

“I had no evidence, not even grounds for suspicion, but I just felt it. Now! If we didn’t cut our losses right then, we’d all fucking die.”

Yumar gathered his friends and told them to close down the business.

The friends his age who had once extorted tolls with him in the village had become gang leaders, and their fangs had grown.

“Those pigs nodded and said they understood, right to my face.”

“So did you shut it down?”

“Like hell. That very night, they all barged in and tied me up. Threatened me to get the drug recipes. I’d bought every dagger they carried, and they held them to my throat, the fucking bastards.”

Sobbing, Yumar divulged his methods. He even swore he would never seek revenge or touch the business again.

His childhood friends graciously accepted his oath.

“They took my right arm off.”

In exchange, he kept his life. The gang boss became ‘one-armed Yumar.’

“I didn’t join the troupe out of any particular ambition to act. I was just drifting around the streets, and the director here took pity on me and took me in. That was ten years ago now. It’s all ancient history. Well, acting became fun once I started doing it.”

“What happened to the gang?”

“...”

“It was destroyed, then.”

One-armed Yumar silently looked down at his teacup.

“They were wiped out less than a year after I was kicked out. I heard the Council sent thirteen of its top hundred warriors. All five hundred members died.”

“What happened to your friends from home?”

“They fucking died. They were leaders, after all.”

Yumar’s nose twitched.

“You think it was your fault.”

“...”

“You think you were too talented, that you were wrong to build the gang up so successfully. If the business had done only moderately well, or failed outright, the people from your hometown wouldn’t have died. You blame yourself for not stopping the village chief back then.”

“Fuck.”

The Hobgoblin tossed the remaining tea into his mouth.

“Serves you right, you dumb bastards.”

Next.

The one-eared actor came in last, clutching an old stuffed lion to his chest.

“I was a servant in a distinguished household...”

The one-eared actor’s name was Sakum.

“I happened to see the master of the house fucking someone outside the marriage. No, I didn’t see it. I heard it through the wall. It wasn’t like I was trying to listen. Hearing it didn’t turn me on, either. But they said it disgusted them that I’d heard their moans, and cut off my ear...”

One-eared Sakum muttered expressionlessly, “Isn’t that a bit much?”

One-eyed Ilika. A gambler’s son.

One-armed Yumar. A former drug lord.

One-eared Sakum. A former servant in a distinguished household.

“All right.”

I nodded before the actors.

“Let’s dance, gentlemen.”

A week later, the day of the performance arrived.

Every seat was filled.

2

“Is this Theater Troupe Bullshit?”

“Strange. I’ve been here before, but it wasn’t called...”

The place was swarming with customers thirty minutes before the play began. Some had come after seeing the street performances, others after hearing the rumors. Others had happened to pass by and come inside to see what had drawn such a crowd.

Not only the VIP seats but even the standing room was packed.

“No watermelon beer? What about fried watermelon? Uger, I can’t believe it.”

“Does this theater even want to make money...?”

“It’s true. There’s a fairy working here who’s incredible. The way she controls aura, she made sounds out of thin air. No, I mean it! Why would I bullshit you...?”

“Uger. Unless you confess right now to grabbing my ass, what you’ll be watching won’t be Cavefire, but carnage.”

“They say it’s a play without a single line of dialogue.”

“Must be exaggerated advertising.”

“They said they’d give refunds, too.”

“There are too many people!”

Voices clamored over one another. It was practically a marketplace.

Backstage, the senior actors stole glances at the audience.

“Fuck.”

They were scared stiff. One-armed Yumar was especially nervous.

“I saw him. I saw him! The guest with the red tattoos in the special seats—that’s definitely Morkan, twenty-first in the Council rankings. Fuck.”

“Who’s that?”

“A lunatic who added a centimeter to his tattoos every time he took an enemy’s head on the battlefield. Look at the tattoos all over that bastard’s body!”

One-eared Sakum also muttered anxiously, “Actors from [Blaze] and [Inferno] came to watch, too.”

“Ugek. Where?”

“Over there... The two wearing masks in the special seats. Their faces are covered, but I’ve seen them often enough to recognize them. One is Sormakunda, [Blaze]’s ace. Sitting beside him is Jamahan, the most popular actor in [Inferno] these days...”

“Why would they come to see us?”

“Well, they didn’t come to see us,” said one-eyed Ilika. He kept checking the mirror for anything odd about his makeup.

“They came to see Sonia.”

Not that his makeup was anything special. He was bare except for a cloth around his waist, with black tattoos covering his whole body. That was all.

“Right. It’s amazing. Our honored rookie was only recruited a week ago, wasn’t she? This performance is her debut. Filling the house on her very first stage appearance—that has to be one of the greatest debuts ever for a fairy actor.”

“I think it’d rank among the greatest even if you included our race...”

“Let’s get started.”

I spoke up. The senior actors, who had been chattering to settle their nerves, abruptly stopped.

“You practiced yourselves half to death for a week. Don’t worry. Even if your body suddenly freezes or your limbs won’t cooperate, it’ll be fine. Just relax every muscle.”

“Won’t that ruin everything...?”

“I’ll control your bodies with aura. Just don’t try to fight it for no reason.”

“That’s impossible. Can you even... No, I suppose you can. Fuck.”

The four of us brought our hands together. I gently sent aura through them.

“Relax.”

Red aura flowed along their arms. Their shoulders twitched.

But perhaps the past week’s intensive training had already accustomed them to my aura. Soon, they took deep breaths and calmly accepted it. I loosened the actors’ muscles as though giving them a full-body massage.

“Mmm.”

“Ugor...”

Their expressions relaxed. The atmosphere was decidedly less tense than before.

“There’s no need to worry. As you know, nobody out there has any expectations for your Cavefire. Their expectations are rock-bottom. If we just do what we practiced, the customers will think it’s a smash hit. Okay?”

They nodded cautiously.

Okay.

“We’re starting.”

I stamped my foot.

BOOM!

My footwork sent vibrations through the air on my aura.

“What’s that?”

“What’s going on?”

Beyond the stage, the audience was startled. At the sudden sound, the Hobgoblins stopped talking and looked around. Unperturbed, I kept moving my feet.

BOOM, BOOM! BOOM!

These footsteps carried more than rhythm alone. I gave each one a musical pitch.

“Aura?”

When the audience realized the sounds followed a particular pattern, they expressed a different kind of surprise. Most astonished were the VIPs sitting in the front row.

“Good heavens. That’s the sound of air being struck with aura alone, not a voice?”

“Yes. It’s aura. I told you, at the street performances, too...”

Then one-eyed Ilika dashed out onto the dark stage. Like a runner, he stretched his legs as far as he could, taking broad, broad strides that carried him across it. Naturally, the audience’s eyes turned toward him.

BOOM...

But the entrance of a single figure wasn’t the only reason their attention had been captured.

BOOOM...

Every time Ilika’s foot touched the stage, a new melody embroidered the air. The single melodic line grew into two.

Before the audience’s bewilderment could subside, one-armed Yumar and one-eared Sakum dashed onto the stage in turn.

Again, it was the same. Every time an actor’s foot touched the ground, rhythm flowed through the entire theater.

Three actors’ melodies. Three strands overlapped, and at last, the music began.

“My God.”

By then, the audience had fallen silent. Quite a few guests had their mouths open, but not deliberately; their lips parted as involuntary murmurs escaped.

“Don’t tell me all of that...”

“Is being produced by manipulating aura?”

Yes.

Music, not dialogue.

A dance drama, not a play.

Through aura, I was conducting a one-person orchestra.