SHC Chapter 9

9. Circus Show

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Ssshwak–!

The show began with the crack of the ringmaster’s whip.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the Small Hell Circus!”

With his booming voice, thunderous cheers erupted from the audience. For whatever reason, the crowd was ecstatic. Behind them, Pink Bear peeked out through a gap in the tent, then disappeared again.

While I secretly watched from backstage, the beautiful magician poked me from behind.

“Remember the rehearsal?”

As if I could forget. I had sliced her waist in half two hours ago.

“Just do it the same way!”

Smiling brightly, she really lived up to her title—she was truly a beautiful woman. There were several faces in this circus so stunning they could make your eyes wobble, and she was one of them.

It was funny yet fitting that her stage name actually included “Beautiful.”

“My body’s like pudding, so as long as you don’t tremble like a crying mess, I’ll cut smoothly just like before.”

She had told me herself it was just a trick, but even so, I rubbed my face in distress.

‘Ah, I really don’t want to do this.’

I had nine jobs to do today.

Slicing the beautiful magician’s waist, holding the hellhound’s leash for the beast tamer, throwing shurikens at Big-Head’s giant skull, screaming realistically as bait tangled in Spider Woman’s web, and various tasks like making the audience laugh.

“Sigh…”

We had rehearsed them all, but I was still not in the right state of mind. Some of them were things no sane person would willingly do. One of them being slicing the magician’s waist. Maybe because I had thrown the shuriken at Big-Head earlier, I didn’t run away, but putting a blade to something that looked human was incredibly stressful for me.

Meanwhile, the performers who were being cut or stabbed acted like it was completely normal, leaving me the only one shocked.

“My stomach feels sick.”

I rubbed my eyes and looked away from the show where someone juggling rings with sharp outer blades had lost a finger.

‘Why do they do this?’

The audience today was all bizarre shapes.

Most had human outlines, but they didn’t look human. Among them, the most normal-looking was a pale-faced shaman wearing a rainbow-colored jeogori and a red hat with pheasant feathers, but even if that person was human, they were terrifying.

The ringmaster continued the show’s introductions without rest. Someone of his status could easily delegate and take a break, but he coldly announced each act to the audience himself.

“Being a showman isn’t easy, I told you.”

From behind came a voice I had grown used to hearing, and without turning around, I answered,

“Your greeting duty is finished?”

“Yeah.”

Kiss, with a teardrop-shaped cubic crystal stuck on the center of his right cheek, rested a hand on my shoulder from behind.

“You smell good.”

He pressed his nose to my neck and sniffed loudly. Instinctively, I hunched my shoulders and pushed him away with my arm.

“Cut it out, that’s gross.”

But Kiss only smiled.

All circus members speak casually to each other; it was a rule. As a newly accepted member, I was allowed to speak casually to everyone, too. Except the ringmaster, I was told to maintain respect toward him as much as possible.

It wasn’t strange to show respect to the head of a group, so I understood and agreed.

While I was thinking it over, Kiss slipped right back up against me and spoke playfully.

“It’s true. You smell really nice. And like a dog, too.”

Like a dog.

“Well…”

Maybe the smell stuck when I fed Samdu that extra bowl earlier.

“Hmph.”

Kiss blew out a strong breath, then clung even closer.

“Go away.”

“Why? I like you.”

“You liked me so much you forced me into a contract?”

What he did to me when I was locked in the cage was, honestly, cowardly. Maybe he sensed my expression, because Kiss tilted his head and rested it lightly against mine.

“But if I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t be able to stay with you.”

I shot him a deeply annoyed look, but Kiss brushed it off like nothing.

“I really do like you, you know.”

What is he saying?

“Why don’t you believe me? You left a huge impression on me when we first met, so I wanted to get close to you.”

Of course, I left an impression. He saw me locked in a cage.

“Why is the dog smell so deeply stuck on you?”

Since I didn’t answer, Kiss continued talking to himself as he pressed his nose to my neck again and started sniffing. I shoved his white head away and stepped aside as if escaping. He pouted for a moment, then grinned.

“Did you do something with the ringmaster? Did you go to his quarters?”

Why bring that up while talking about dog smell? Oh… maybe Samdu used to live in the ringmaster’s quarters? That could be it. When I was locked in the cage, Samdu wasn’t there.

At least this time it was easy to answer.

“When I went to get my clothes earlier, they were dirty, so I borrowed the bathroom and washed up.”

“Ah. No wonder. That explains it.”

Kiss lifted a hand and flicked my cheek lightly with the back of his index finger.

“I knew it. Your bare face looks better.”

“?”

“Assistant Choi! Stage!”

Before I could even ask what he meant, I was pushed onto the stage, leaving Kiss behind.

The moment I stepped on stage… Tap… my mind went blank.

The lights were hotter than I expected, the stage felt wider up close, and the curious gazes of the audience made my vision blur.

Through the wavering view, I suddenly saw, across the stage, the ringmaster’s expression, completely dumbfounded.

It was exactly the face of? Why are you coming out from there?

He was the one who told me to be an assistant, so why make that face?

As I grumbled internally, the stiffness in my body faded. My ears then caught the cheers and applause of the audience. At some point, the beautiful magician had taken her place beside me.

She merely lifted both arms upward, yet the applause grew louder.

She stood at least 180cm tall, and with her killer heels, she was close to 2 meters. Next to her, I probably looked like a dwarf.

I’d been worried about how I was supposed to stay calm while cutting her waist, but being on stage, doing it as part of the show, made it surprisingly doable. And like she said earlier, her body sliced easily like pudding, so my guilt lessened.

But then, when the flood of blood hit the floor, I panicked, threw the saw, and bolted to the edge of the stage.

“Wait, why… why is there blood?”

During rehearsal, there hadn’t been any blood. I was sure of it.

Did I mess something up? Did the trick malfunction?

I couldn’t see inside the magic box to check if the magician’s body was intact, and the uncertainty was killing me.

As my mind spun with possibilities, the beautiful magician lay there with her eyes wide open, completely still. She looked dead, and fear made me instinctively look toward the ringmaster.

But instead of checking on what looked like a dying performer, he was glaring at me.

His jaw was clenched so tightly I could see the tension in it. When I scanned the audience, even they had gone quiet, watching the situation unfold.

No one moved, so I approached her carefully.

“Um, excuse me… Beautiful Magician?”

Even in this moment, I called her by her full title, just as she had insisted I never drop the “beautiful” part.

“Are you okay?”

She didn’t move, and I was on the verge of tears as I got closer. The floor was slick with blood.

“Beautiful Magician.”

I could hear my own voice trembling.

And then…

“Wah!”

“Argh!”

But when she suddenly leapt up with a shout, I screamed and fell backward onto my butt.

Her bright, clear laughter echoed through the circus tent. Then the audience burst into laughter and applause.

When she opened the magic box door herself and stepped out, her waist was perfectly fine.

“This was a reality magic show with no tricks or illusions!”

Lifting her clothing slightly, she showed her bare waist, there was a vivid mark where she had truly been cut and reattached. Even now, I could clearly see the skin tissue knitting itself back together.

“Were you scared?”

She winked at my still-stunned face and helped me up.

“Oh, the blood? Just a prop. I don’t have any blood.”

Then the grunt workers hurried onstage to mop the floor clean and clear away the props for the next trick.

In a daze, not even sure how I assisted the next acts, I got offstage, only for someone in the audience to point right at me and clap, saying, “You were good!”

I had no idea whether I should feel happy about that. The moment I stepped backstage, the beast tamer grabbed me and dragged me right back up.

When I reappeared, that same audience member whistled at me, too.

“……”

And the ringmaster’s stare when I met his eyes again was exactly the same as before. But this time the detail felt different. Earlier, it was Why are you coming out from there?

Now it was more like Why are you coming out again?

I awkwardly lifted the corner of my lips and looked away.

A little later, as planned, I held the hellhound’s leash on standby. Despite having a body more than twice my size, the black-maned lion-beast wasn’t as scary as I expected.

‘Yellow from Samdu was scarier.’

I almost got roasted earlier when I fed him before the show.

Thankfully, he calmed down once he realized I brought food.

When I came offstage afterward, the beast tamer grabbed both my shoulders and shook me.

“Incredible! Amazing! You’re the first newbie who didn’t get his throat ripped out by the hellhound!”

“…What?”

He briefly explained how vicious and unpredictable the hellhound normally was, then cheered me on as I got dragged out to the stage again.

“Sigh…”

Even though he was far away, I could swear I heard the ringmaster’s sigh.

The slight parting of his lips and the way his shoulders drooped dramatically amplified the image of that sigh in my mind.

The whole time I was on stage, he never took his eyes off me. As if checking whether I was going to cause trouble at any second.

‘Yeah. I showed up again.’

Ignoring the audience now pointing and whispering about me, I walked behind Big-Head and collected the shurikens.

After going onstage two more times, the first act finally ended.

“Whew…”

I stumbled into the backstage waiting room and practically collapsed into a corner.

The performers who were done with Act One began preparing for their break. Meanwhile, I desperately tried to recall everything I had to do in Act Two.

Why… why does it feel like I have the hardest workload out of everyone performing?

I buried my face in my palms and rolled onto my side.

I want to go home.