I Became the Leader of the Monster Circus Troupe

The late-afternoon party did not last long.

It was because the sun was setting.

The time Arno had promised them was coming to an end.

Soon, the reporters, realizing they had been deceived, would rush back to their original location in a huff.

Before that happened, Karen and Ruelle needed to return to their lodgings.

At night, the reporters tended to hover around Papal or Satbyeol rather than here, where the mansions of the nobles were and where the police enforcement was stricter.

“It’s a shame, but it can’t be helped. Let’s meet up again after the exam. Good luck to all of you.”

Karen, dressed as a headless knight, was the first to get into the carriage.

Tomorrow was the preliminary meeting for the Lekachep Circus School’s qualifying rounds.

Out of the five circus troupes, Golden Carnival, Silver Veil, and Monster Circus were taking the exam this month, while the other two, who arrived late in the city, would take it next month.

“I’ll come to watch tomorrow, sis!”

Rulle also wished them good luck, but Clara glared at her with a feigned angry expression instead of receiving the greeting.

“You said you were cheering for the Silver Veil Circus Troupe.”

“Th-that’s…not…please stop…”

Everyone burst into laughter at Ruelle’s flustered reaction.

Earlier, Ella and Reyna had mischievously asked Karen and Ruelle who they would support in the October exam.

Sensing their intent, Karen quickly declared her support for the Monster Circus Troupe.

With Karen’s answer out of the way, Ruelle found herself in a tricky situation.

Naturally, her heart leaned towards the Monster Circus, but choosing them would hurt Reyna, who would otherwise have no supporters.

“Ruri, who will you cheer for?”

“Of course, it’s our troupe with more friends than Reyna’s, right?”

“Poor Reyna. None of her friends are cheering for her.”

In the end, Ruelle said she would support the Golden Carnival.

At this, the Triamere brothers sighed audibly.

“Of course! The Golden Carnival is full of top-tier acrobats!”

“Yeah, it’d be embarrassing to support us nobodies!”

“Disappointing. I thought we had gotten pretty close…”

“N-no, it’s not that, brothers, it’s just…”

Ruelle frantically waved her arms, trying to smooth things over.

Then, Womon, who had appeared behind her, spoke with a hurt expression.

“Are you really embarrassed to support us?”

“W-Womon, no, it’s not…”

Others chimed in with their comments.

As Ruelle’s face grew redder, she shouted out loud.

“It’s not like that!”

She looked like she was about to cry any moment.

If Yurakne hadn’t quickly comforted her, she might have really burst into tears.

Ruelle glared at the people laughing mischievously at her.

Why did her sisters love teasing her so much?

She pulled her chick hat down over her face, annoyed by their smiles, and shouted.

“I-I’ve changed my mind! I’m cheering for Silver Veil!”

Her cuteness made everyone burst into laughter.

Pouting at the memory, Ruelle boarded the carriage.

The demon entwined in her hair whispered as it watched the people laughing behind them.

“They’re more wicked than I thought. If you want, I can slaughter them all.”

Her hair rose into the shape of a blade.

Startled, Ruelle stopped him.

“S-Samson, that’s not it. They’re just playing…”

But she couldn’t continue because she heard laughter coming from her hair.

“Heh, did you really think I would do that?”

“Y-you…really?”

“I understand why they tease you. It’s amusing.”

“S-stop it. If you keep this up, I won’t wash my hair tonight.”

“H-hey, that’s…unfair.”

The carriage carrying Karen and Ruelle departed.

The remaining people gathered in the yard to listen to Clara go over the schedule she had organized.

“The circus troupes taking the exam need to be at the school by 7 AM tomorrow. We’ve arranged three carriages for everyone. We’ll leave at 4:30. If we arrive right on time, the reporters will hassle us at the entrance, so we’ve decided to arrive an hour early. We need time to wash and prepare, so everyone should wake up at 3:30. I’ll go around to wake everyone. Yurakne, I’ll wake you 30 minutes earlier? And everyone should dress according to what we decided yesterday.”

Satisfied with Clara’s efficient planning, Ella nodded approvingly.

Thanks to her secretary-like role, Ella’s job as deputy had become much easier.

When they finally dispersed, it was past 6 PM.

The sky was as dark as midnight.

In polar regions like Yeterinpuurk, nights grew rapidly longer as winter approached.

Reyna took on the task of escorting Wonderstein to his room.

She said she had something to discuss with him before returning to her lodgings.

***

I entered the room and looked at Reyna, who was sitting in a wheelchair.

The Weeping woman.

The mask imbued with the legend of a vengeful woman looked eerie yet somehow sorrowful.

I opened the team management window to check her status.

Name: Reyna Maguire

Age: 19

Affinity: 10 (Next reward at favourability – 15)

Title: Golden Libra

Occupation: Tightrope Walker

Trait: Persona— The Weeping Woman

I had opened and closed her status window dozens of times today.

Each time, my eyes were drawn to three things.

First was her age.

Nineteen was two years older than her known age.

I had enough reason to suspect this.

She had been sold in the slave market and had her appearance altered to become “Reina Maguire.”

In other words, her social status began as the four-year-old Reyna, but her actual physical age could have been different.

There was a reason why her body was more mature than her peers.

Second was her affinity.

Her favourability towards me remained at 10.

Even though she confided in me about such secretive matters, her favourability was still low, indicating that the favourability she displayed wasn’t purely directed at me.

She reminisced about her experiences with a “kind father” through me.

In other words, when she shared her worries and acted affectionately, it wasn’t to me but to “Simon from ten years ago.”

No matter how well I treated her, her favourability remained unchanged.

She liked not the human Wonderstein but the character “Dad.”

Her psychological state undoubtedly influenced the emergence of this new trait.

Name: Persona—Weeping Woman

Applicable to: Mask of the Weeping Woman

Effect: Only the person who gave the mask can put it on or take it off.

Resources: None.

Though my body wasn’t in its best condition, I could still remove the mask.

But first, I needed to understand how this had happened.

I had never seen a team member acquire a trait like this.

“Miss Reyna, could you tell me what happened at Wonderland? I heard you hadn’t taken off the mask since the day before you returned home.”

Although I couldn’t see her expression because of the mask, I sensed she was flustered and hesitant to speak.

I patiently waited for her to gather the courage to speak.

After a while, she began to tell me, with a voice that seemed to both cry and rage like the mask’s expression, about her visit to Solana Maguire.

As soon as she mentioned she went to find her mother, I inwardly sighed, having guessed what she had gone through.

The story unfolded as expected.

I turned my head away abruptly.

It was a habit I had when the atmosphere turned sad or solemn, to hide my smile as a form of consideration.

“Yes. My whole life was a lie.”

She choked on her words, trying to hold back tears after finishing her story.

Using the soundproofing function in the Sound Room, I quickly made her voice inaudible to others.

“I’ve blocked the sound. You can cry as much as you want.”

At my words, she collapsed to the floor and wept.

Her anguished sobs were made more sorrowful by the mask’s expression.

I stiffly moved my arm to pat her back.

She buried her face in my lap and cried even harder.

I had a vague sense of the curse that had befallen her.

The persona was based on the role performed on stage.

She realized that her life as “Reyna Maguire” was just a role she had played on a stage.

Personas could be replaced, but changing a living person’s face without peeling the skin off was impossible.

So she had replaced the mask she was wearing with a persona.

All of this was merely my conjecture.

But it was convincing enough.

“I’m sorry. The director has nothing to do with this… it’s my personal matter…”

After crying profusely, she seemed to calm down and began to apologize.

I shook my head with a bitter smile.

“No, it’s alright. You can always rely on me.”

Strictly speaking, her situation was not entirely unrelated to me.

The vice president of the child trafficking organization Comprachicos was one of the three sisters of Wonderstein, known as the ‘Crow Witch,’ and the president was me.

The three major organizations in TT3 were all led by the Wonderstein, and the three witches were the second-in-command in each organization.

Of course, it wasn’t me but they who handled and led the actual operations of these organizations, but it was undeniable that I was behind all those schemes.

Seeing her unable to wipe away her tears because of the mask, I decided to wrap up the conversation.

“If I use my power, I think I can remove it.”

“A-are you sure? In your condition?”

“Oh, by power, I didn’t mean physical strength. Come closer.”

Personas could be changed with enough training.

Hawk, for example, could switch between his guard uniform and acrobat costume with a day of meditation.

Ultimately, the persona was a matter of mindset.

I suggested she spend a day enjoying herself because I thought she was troubled by being trapped in the mansion and harassed by reporters, but the cause was entirely different.

It would be hard to overcome her current identity crisis with mere meditation.

I moved my arm and removed her mask.

“Oh.”

Her face was revealed.

Her eyes were swollen from crying, but her features were still sharp and cold like a statue.

I thought this resolved the issue.

Though it was a powerful restraint, the fact that I could remove it immediately meant it wasn’t a big deal.

“Are you alright?”

At my question, Reyna, unmasked, blinked at me like a newborn chick.

Then, tilting her head, she asked in an innocent voice,

“Daddy?”

I was stunned as I checked her status through the member management window.

The moment I removed her mask, a new trait appeared.

Name: Reyna Maguire

Age: 19

Favourability: 10 (Next Reward: Favourability x15)

Title: Golden Libra

Occupation: Tightrope Acrobat

Traits: Shadow­-4-year-old Reyna

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Chapter 250: Lekachep Circus School Exam – 4