I Became the Leader of the Monster Circus Troupe

Her condition had improved significantly over the past two days.

Though she occasionally exhibited peculiar behaviors, at least her demeanor in formal settings had returned to that of a restrained model student.

However, separate from her weakened state, her illness seemed to have worsened.

Her complexion had grown even paler.

Her friends looked at her with pity, knowing she had stayed up all night in the dormitory caring for a sick pet.

Of course, Clara knew all too well that the story was entirely false.

She wasn’t ill, nor was she under the influence of painkillers.

Naturally, she hadn’t been caring for the pet either.

Clara recalled the events of the past two days.

She had undergone rigorous posture correction training from Pyrene overnight.

Walking like Clara.

Smiling like Clara.

Greeting like Clara.

After much effort and practice, she had finally mastered Clara’s usual behaviour, only to be met with Pyrene’s ridicule.

“How pathetic. It took you this long just to mimic Clara’s steps and actions. Any newbie could have done it in a day.”

Expecting praise, Clara’s expression darkened at her words.

Pyrene’s continued taunting and mockery made her feel truly inadequate and deficient.

“Can you even continue attending school like this? What about important performances? If you fail twice in the end-of-month exams, you know you’ll be expelled, right?”

“W-what would happen then?”

Seeing the frozen mentor, Pyrene sighed as if she was pitiful.

“If you leave school, you’ll have to find other work. What kind of work could a girl do in the city? Maybe working in a potato-peeling job or in a sewing factory would suffice.”

“Ah….”

A gloomy light flickered in Clara’s eyes.

Even with knowledge or magic, she needed social status or money to utilize them.

But she had none of those things.

Pyrene decided to try to comfort her now.

She gently embraced Clara from behind.

“Or how about doing cleaning and kitchen work at my house? It would be better than living outside for no reason. I can provide you with a generous allowance.”

As Clara pondered her words, she slowly nodded.

Although it was humiliating for someone who had been a master of the Magician to work as a maid, she had no other choice.

At present, she couldn’t do anything without Pyrene.

Clara consoled herself.

Anything would be better than falling back into the hands of the Black Magician..

She remembered the days she spent trapped in the first bottle.

At that time, she didn’t know who had created her or why she was being imprisoned.

She only saw the face of a man outside the bottle.

By breaking out of the bottle and venturing into the world, she could gather information and piece together clues about the being who created her.

The Black Magician.

The mastermind behind the Great Circus Grand Prix Terror.

The Biomancer.

The one who dealt with the Curse Plague, Debulroots.

If it was known that she was alive, she would never see a good ending.

Clara and her friends headed towards the platform.

There stood a tall man in a black cloak, organizing lecture materials with his back turned.

“The instructor arrived first.”

“The director of the Wonderstein Circus. It’s Ella’s circus.”

“He was really handsome.”

Clara stepped forward.

She intended to greet him as the representative student.

As he turned his head, she bowed her head.

“Hello, instructor. I’m Clara, the top student of the senior class.”

He also bowed his head in return.

“I am Frank Wonderstein, director of the Wonderstein Circus.”

They both lifted their heads.

They stared at each other for a few seconds.

Clara felt her entire body freeze the moment she faced him.

The person before her eyes.

He was the owner of the face she had seen countless times when she was in the first flask.

The Black Magician.

Why was he here?

Clara tried to calm her trembling body.

But she couldn’t calm down at all.

Be calm.

I’m not the nameless demon in the bottle.

I’m Clara.

He will never recognize me.

Then, a single word uttered from his mouth shook her mind.

Originally, it was a whisper too soft to be heard.

But even though she had lost most of her powers, she could still pick up on nearby conversations to some extent.

She could understand it.

“Oh, it is you. You’re alive.”

Clara lost consciousness right there.

***

Wonderstein thought he had seen Clara somewhere before when he faced her.

Was there a character in the game who resembled her?

He hesitated for a moment, then remembered ‘The Seven Legends of Lekachep.’

Lekachep had all the elements to be a school setting.

One of them was the urban legend circulating among the students.

Most of them were not much different from real school ghost stories.

Stories like Victor’s statue and the emperor’s statue coming to life at night and fighting each other, or counting the bamboo trees in the gym and one growing for each count, and if you step on it, you slip and break your neck, or there’s a secret room in the school where a demon lurks and uses female students as hosts to resurrect.

“The suicide of Clara” was one of those legends.

She was a student with excellent grades and beautiful looks, but one day she committed suicide.

In the story, there were clues and Easter eggs that could be guessed about the Seven Legends, like in reality, if certain conditions were met, Victor’s statue and the emperor’s statue would come to life and fight monsters.

However, there was no clear explanation for Clara’s suicide.

She was just found hanging from a tree one day.

There were many speculations in the story.

She committed suicide due to academic pressure, or she had a child of a a professor, or she was bullied.

The school authorities couldn’t find answers, so they just classified it as suicide and moved on.

Clara’s parents invited a shaman for a ritual, but all they got was a vague answer, “there is no soul” from the body.

Where did her soul go?

Is it still wandering somewhere in the school?

Or is it possible that someone is possessed by her every year and continues her school life forever?

There were only speculations.

The image of her that could be found in the game was just one old photo inserted between diaries.

He could recognize her only after hearing her name, Clara.

She was supposed to be the top senior.

Considering the timeframe of TT2, she would have committed suicide this month.

What could have happened?

Clearly, something was wrong somewhere.

He could see that she didn’t look well.

As soon as they finished exchanging greetings, she lost colour in her face and fainted.

Wonderstein caught her falling body.

He held her and hurriedly moved her to the lecture preparation room next to the stage.

While students went to call Dr. Nahimov, the responsible person for the school infirmary, he asked her friends.

Had anything happened to her recently?

They immediately testified about Clara.

“She seemed to be struggling for a few months now. Being active as the student representative, she was inevitably compared to the previous senior, Charlie.”

“She panicked suddenly when attacked by the pet she was raising. There was also a time when she seemed to be running wild.”

Dr. Nahimov, who arrived shortly after, examined her condition.

He concluded it was exhaustion and gave her a few vitamin pills, leaving a message to visit the infirmary later.

Her friends seemed relieved, but Wonderstein couldn’t leave it alone.

He knew.

This wouldn’t just end as a simple illness.

The end she would face was ‘suicide.’

If he didn’t know, he wished he didn’t, but he couldn’t just leave and watch.

The lecture time was approaching.

He also had to go to class.

But he couldn’t leave the room because he was worried about Clara.

In the end, he opened the door and went in.

Clara, who was sitting blankly on the couch, looked surprised when he entered and stared at him.

Her eyes lacked focus, and her body seemed to tremble as if she had a nervous breakdown.

What could have made this child so distressed to the point of making such an extreme choice?

He sighed inwardly with pity.

“Are you up?”

Clara smiled at him as she looked at him.

The appearance of his matched the man she saw from the flask.

The man known as the Black Magician to the world.

She pondered what excuse she could make but soon gave up.

There was no use pretending.

He already recognized her.

“Oh, long time no see….”

Long time no see?

Wonderstein, who was thinking for a moment, soon remembered that she had greeted him as the representative of the students.

At that time, he was too focused on Lord Fantastic and didn’t pay attention to her.

“It’s been a long time since then.”

It was a reunion after 17 years.

Clara nodded her head with trembling eyes.

Wonderstein remembered her as a confident person who stood in front of thousands of people.

What happened between them that made her crumble like this?

“A lot has changed since then.”

Clara thought he recalled her old appearance.

The appearance of a wretched, writhing black mass in the flask.

“Many things happened.”

“Is that so?”

Wonderstein approached her.

She was startled and backed away.

She was afraid of what he might do to her.

But he didn’t lay a finger on her body.

He pulled the blanket that had fallen on the floor over her body.

Then he poured cold water into her cup and filled it with fresh water from the pitcher.

“You must have had a hard time.”

Clara looked at him with a trembling gaze.

Wonderstein had seen many students, but he had never seen anyone as broken as her.

“Since that day, many things happened.”

That attitude and tone were endlessly gentle.

Is that the Black Magician?

The information she had collected did not include this….

Of course, she knew the weaknesses of the ‘Garden of Whispers’.

It only collected rumors circulating among people.

It was far from truth or reality.

But considering what he had done, or at least what was known he had done, he was definitely not a saint.

She never expected it to turn out like this at all.

“You’re quite different from what I’ve heard.”

“Hehe, are you talking about the rumors about me?”

Wonderstein tilted his head as if tired.

Coward, swindler, slave trader, abuser of the disabled, and so on.

Starting with the incident with Vergsong, malicious slander became more frequent as his fame grew.

It was really difficult to shake off that reputation because of the eerie Monster Circus.

How absurd it was to hear recent rumours that he possessed an Inspira to seduce women.

“You’ve done a lot of research, it seems.”

“…Yes.”

Wonderstein remembered what Ella had warned him about.

He had heard that Lekachep’s students were trying to devour external lecturers.

Even last week, Lord Fantastic had been questioned throughout the lecture about rumours and weaknesses.

“It’s okay. I didn’t come here to fight. I just came to talk.”

At his words, Clara swallowed her saliva.

Now she understood his kindness.

It was obvious why he left her alone, even though he could easily kill her.

“Do you have something you want from me?”

She asked with a guarded tone.

“No. Just pure goodwill? Hehe.”

Although he said so, it didn’t seem that way at all to Clara.

Seeing the skeptical look in her eyes, he quickly added.

“If you want something, I just ask for you to live. I won’t make any other demands.”

“To live…? Is that really all…?”

She looked as if she had been struck.

It was a completely unexpected statement from him.

So she was considering suicide after all.

Seeing the startled look in her eyes, he nodded.

Wonderstein paused for a moment before recalling an old story.

It was about a person who couldn’t do anything without the help of others.

They were such a petty existence that they couldn’t even sustain their own lives in a small room.

Clara could understand who he was talking about.

It was her story.

“Watching others from outside, sneering and mocking, was all he could do.”

Wonderstein recalled his days before starting the game broadcast.

Indeed, he was such a person.

Filled with anger and inferiority towards the world, he roamed the internet.

Clara scratched the sofa in embarrassment.

He was seeing through her completely.

“But that person got a new name. He broke out of the room and went into a new world. He wanted to bring joy to the world and receive applause from people.”

Clara blushed.

Suddenly, she felt embarrassed.

It was his misunderstanding.

She never had such noble thoughts.

She just wanted to avoid his gaze, she took away this body and name to comfortably manipulate society from behind the scenes.

Ironically, she couldn’t even do that properly and was considering living off someone’s money.

She couldn’t lift her face in front of him, whom she should call her ‘Parent’.

“Without knowing my situation… I’m not even that kind of existence….”

“I just wanted to say that I support you. If it sounded like meddling, I’m sorry.”

The voice of the assistant calling him from outside could be heard.

It was time to start class.

Wonderstein felt sorry.

He wanted to deliver some courageous words, to encourage her, but ended up just talking without substance.

As he stood up to leave, he threw in one last piece of advice.

“Replacing someone else’s position is a difficult task. You don’t necessarily have to follow that person exactly. You’ll find your own way.”

Wonderstein recalled his experience as a ‘possessor’ as he said that.

Of course, it was somewhat disconnected from what she was struggling with as a student representative.

The demon shrugged.

It sounded like a message to stop obsessing over imitating Clara.

“Oh, and it’s common for pets to act out suddenly. It’s hard to live if you stress over every little thing like that, hehe.”

He said the last words reminiscent of what Ella used to say and left the room.

After he had completely left, Clara realized the meaning behind his last words and muttered with a bitter voice.

“Pet?”

It was as if his cherished cat leaving home had caused him a headache.

To evaluate her own escape and seventeen years of struggle in such a manner.

Come to think of it, she remembered the term of endearment she used to call him by a long time ago.

She used to call him that while he was administering nutrients outside the flask.

“Master…..”

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Chapter 184: Demon in the Bottle – 23

Chapter 186: Demon in the Bottle – 25