Chapter 9
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The Male and Female Leads Broke Up - Episode 9
"Oh my, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. This child just joined us, and the tightrope work isn't quite polished yet."
"Then why did you put someone unprepared on the rope...!"
"My apologies. There are plenty of more entertaining acts to come, so please enjoy those instead."
Yet as the Circus Troupe members apologized to the disgruntled spectators, not a single one of them made any move to help the child down from the rope.
As time passed and the crowd's attention shifted away from the child, I continued to watch intently.
The child clung desperately to the rope, but it was clear they were reaching their limit.
I could see their grip weakening as their strength began to fail them.
I quickly shouted to the Circus Man.
"The child is about to fall!"
"Leave them be. A harsh lesson will keep them from doing such foolish things later."
"What did you just say?"
I stared at him with an expression of utter disbelief and exasperation.
But he simply continued with his work, paying the child no mind whatsoever.
'This is bad.'
In moments, the child would plummet into the pit of flames below.
While the fall itself wouldn't be fatal, the fire could cause severe burns.
I quickly hid my hands behind my dress and concentrated my focus, moving them carefully.
'Please, there's no time.'
Above all, I needed to extinguish the flames without anyone noticing, which demanded far greater concentration than usual.
I carefully exerted my power.
"Ah, they're falling!"
As someone cried out, the child plummeted into the pit that should have been blazing with roaring flames.
Fortunately, my timing had been perfect—the child fell with a thud into the extinguished pit.
The moment the child fell, the Circus Man rushed over.
"What? Why did the fire go out? Hey! The fire's gone out here!"
"What? The fire went out?"
It was truly bizarre.
They showed no concern whatsoever for the child's safety, fixating entirely on the extinguished flames.
I was about to voice my outrage at their senseless behavior when the child began crawling out of the pit.
I hurried to ask if the child was alright.
But suddenly, a Large Man who hadn't been visible moments before appeared and seized the child with his massive hand, whisking them away somewhere.
I no longer wanted to remain here, so I shook my head and quickly slipped away through the crowd.
Just as I was breaking free from the throng and catching my breath—
Something blocked my path and I collided with it, realizing it was a person only when a hand caught me before I could stumble backward.
"I apologize. Are you all right?"
As I came to my senses and looked up, the man before me was tall and strikingly handsome, and his apologetic voice carried a deep, resonant timbre that was undeniably captivating.
"Yes, I'm fine."
"Are you injured anywhere?"
"I'm all right."
When the man looked at me with considerable concern in his eyes, I found myself reassuring him repeatedly that I was unharmed.
Seemingly satisfied, the hand he had been holding me with finally released.
"Then. Porta Devia."
It was a phrase I had heard from the skewer vendor earlier.
This man appeared to be a resident of the Village.
"Porta Devia...."
When I returned the same words I now understood, the man smiled faintly before gradually moving away from my side.
I watched his retreating figure for only a moment before resuming my own path.
The Festival was reaching its crescendo.
But it was time for me to return.
The thought that Mary and William might be searching for me spurred my steps forward, and I left the bustling Festival streets to enter an Alley.
Once I emerged from the clamor, the surroundings grew quiet.
The cool night air and peaceful street appealed to me, so I slowed my pace and walked leisurely.
That was when it happened.
As I walked through the dark Alley, humming cheerfully and savoring my elevated mood, I faintly heard a dull sound and weak moans of pain from somewhere ahead.
'What is that?'
I cautiously approached the source of the sound, and before long, I saw two men clustered together in a secluded corner of the Alley.
Looking more closely, I realized a child was crouched on the ground between them, enduring brutal kicks.
'That child...!'
I recognized the child's face.
The child was the one who had been performing tightrope walking with the Circus Troupe earlier.
And the men were also familiar.
They were the Large Man who had taken the child away and the Short Man with whom I had briefly exchanged words.
I am not typically someone driven by a strong sense of justice, but children were an exception.
Regardless of the reason, I could not simply walk past them assaulting a mere child with multiple attackers.
I strode directly toward them.
"What are you doing right now?"
At the sudden sound of my voice, the men's attention snapped toward me.
"What?"
The Large Man, who had dragged the child away earlier, quickly sized me up before regarding me with a sinister expression and spoke.
"Looks like a noble lady. Why don't you mind your own business and be on your way."
The man laughed unpleasantly in a brazen tone.
It was as if he were saying: what could you possibly do?
"Child, are you all right?"
"Hey, I said move along. Who do you think you are, butting into someone else's affairs."
"You there—aren't you the performers from the Circus Troupe who were performing over there earlier?"
"Ah, a patron who watched our Circus Troupe! Yes, that's correct. Well, as you saw earlier, this one's rope-walking was absolutely dreadful, so we were disciplining him separately."
"Isn't that assault masquerading as discipline?"
"Assault?! That's quite an exaggeration!"
The Short Man recoiled at my words, his expression souring.
Yet my gaze was drawn first to the child huddled on the ground, whimpering in pain.
It was then that the child finally lifted his head slightly, and our eyes met.
'Ah...'
In that instant, my breath caught, and something surged within me.
I knew those eyes—I knew them well.
The look of someone abandoned alone in this world, the reflection I'd seen countless times in every mirror, overlapped with the child's face.
So that was it.
Without thinking, the words I'd only been considering tumbled from my lips of their own accord.
"I'll take that child with me."
"Pardon?"
"This child is a precious asset of our Circus Troupe. We absolutely cannot part with him."
"Asset?"
"Yes, that's right."
The man who'd called a person an asset maintained his confident demeanor as he responded to me.
"Who simply gives away their own assets?"
"Exactly. Unless you're offering money, of course. Hehehehe."
The two men exchanged knowing glances, their words dripping with the implication that money was what they desired.
Buying people with money was beyond my comprehension.
Yet I knew this was a world where slave markets existed.
That's precisely why these men spoke so brazenly about buying and selling people for coin.
"Then I'll buy him."
"You're buying this child?"
I nodded instead of answering.
At my words about purchasing the child, both men's faces lit up instantly.
They huddled in a corner, whispering among themselves about what price they should demand for the child, then quickly returned before me.
"Ahem. We'll accept twenty gold coins."
"Twenty gold coins?"
"Yes. Ahem, this child has a very promising future ahead, so we're actually taking a loss by selling. We cannot accept less than that."
Promising future, indeed...
I'd clearly seen him unable to walk the rope properly just moments ago, yet the man shamelessly spouted his lie.
Nevertheless, I withdrew twenty gold coins from my pocket and handed them to him.
I didn't know the exact value of twenty gold coins in this place.
When I'd toured the streets earlier, I hadn't purchased anything special, so I had no way of knowing.
But my pocket contained several times that amount, and more importantly, I didn't want to show the child his life being haggled over before his eyes.
So I simply gave them the coins without hesitation.
I felt their eyes fixated on my purse.
I quickly closed it and tucked it inside my garments.
"So the transaction is complete, then?"
"Yes, yes. There's no question about it. Hey! Get up! This is your new master. Show your respect."
The Large Man grabbed the child roughly and tried to pull him to his feet.
"Stop."
"Yes?"
"This child now belongs to me. So don't lay a finger on him."
"Yes? Ah, yes...."
At my words, the men hastily retreated backward.
I approached the child carefully.
"Can you try standing up slowly?"
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