Leave a comment

Where was it… I can’t tell with all that clown make-up. I can’t imagine him being Mr. Mitsuo, since his dandy looks don’t fit this mascot.

Now he started spinning plates. He balanced a white plate on a stick and started rotating it. But then he dropped it, likely on purpose.

Just for a moment, it evoked dejected shouts. Incidentally, Rir’s and Sakura’s were among them.

Still, this was a circus. The moment the plate hit the ground – maybe because it was made of rubber – it bounced back up and into Long-Heart’s hands.

“Incredible, this is quite a difficult trick. To bounce it right back even though it’s spinning.”
“You’re right…”

It was amazing… To be blunt, while all of us, except for Rir, where here the second time, the first had been ten years ago, so I’d forgotten almost everything other than the really impressive stuff. What I was seeing right now felt new.

There was clapping and cheering. I obviously also joined in.

“Oh, looks like it’s not over yet!”
“The service here is incredible.”

Now Long-Heart was taking out something like darts. A troupe member who’d been selling stuff earlier appeared some distance away from Long-Heart with five inflated balloons on their waist.

“He’s going to pop them from this distance? Though I guess we could manage that easily.”
“Some skills are effective even on this side, Kanata, you can’t use as a comparison! Hmph!”
“Bro, please don’t puff out your cheeks… I get what you mean.”

“There!”
“Mph-”

Mika put her hands on my puffed-out cheeks and forced me to expel the air. Was that how a burst balloon felt?

“Aw, he missed…” Rir shouted after the first throw.

Well, it was obviously staged. The second throw also missed like the first. And the third…

“Oh”

The third dart finally hit the balloon and burst it. Long-Heart was jumping in apparent delight.
The fourth throw also hit. The balloon burst with a satisfying pop.

“Oh, looks like they’re increasing the distance.”

Both the salesperson and Long-Heart stepped back from their positions and the latter readied his darts again. They were quite far apart. Well, it still was a distance you often enough saw on TV shows.

Then, he threw darts with both hands. Each of them spectacularly popped one balloon.

“Woof! That just now was amazing!”
“Yep, this is a circus, after all!”

Yes, it would’ve been difficult already to just hit with one of them, so to hit two at the same time was quite the feat. But on second thought, this was also something you regularly saw on TV. Though experiencing it in person made a big difference.

“They’re increasing the distance even more!?” one of the spectators shouted.

Long-Heart signaled the salesperson to step back even further and then took quite some distance himself, too. He was getting pretty close to us.

“No way, this distance ain’t gonna work,” Shuu muttered.

He’d been commenting on quite a few things earlier, which told me that he had fun.

I suddenly felt that something was off and used the zoom on my phone’s camera to look at the salesperson.

“Is something wrong, Ayumu? Are you making a video in case he succeeds?
“Well, not exactly…”

As long as it wasn’t inside the tent, people were generally allowed to make recordings. But that wasn’t what I was going for. For some reason, I had the feeling that the staff members were just as surprised as the guests. A hunch… which turned out to be true.

The salesperson who assisted with the performance looked shocked. The other staff members who surrounded Long-Hart at some distance also seemed surprised at him further increasing the distance. I could tell that their expressions were genuine. Was Long-Hart attempting something that hadn’t been planned in advance?

The clown started to rotate his arms in a large, deliberate motion. Then, he took the stance of a baseball pitcher and threw just the dart’s needle. It flew without losing speed and it soon hit the balloon the salesperson, who was standing quite far away, was holding.

“Woah~, incredible~!!”

Loud cheers rose. I myself felt like shouting. It was incredible, truly amazing! To reach it at that distance. People were taking photos and recording videos.

When I looked back at the salesperson, they had a genuine blank look on their face. It seemed as if it hadn’t been arranged in advance, after all.

Unaware of his colleagues’ shock, Long-Heart now pulled a pink balloon from his pocket. He attached it to the nozzle of a container likely filled with helium gas, which he was carrying on his waist, and inflated the balloon. Then he twisted it several times, creating the standard balloon-dog.

He tied a string around it, put his hand to his forehead, and then started searching the audience for children. Said children were obviously looking excited. Well, none of our group looked like a child, so he surely wouldn’t pick us.

The moment I had that thought, the clown’s head stopped turning when he saw us, and he briskly walked our way. Finally, he pointed at Sakura.
Looking surprised, she pointed at herself. The clown nodded.

Since she had been chosen, Sakura stepped forward and accepted the balloon-dog.

That moment…! That moment it happened! Long-Heart looked at me. Not just once or twice… but three times with a truly shocked expression on his face. Finally, he spoke with a voice that was somewhat muffled but still laced with surprise.

“Could it be… that you’re Alim!?”

TL notes:
What a huge surprise! Who could’ve guessed the overly talented clown was Mephistophales? Seems like he also brought some skills over from Anazumu.

For those who’ve read the LN; this chapter has lots of similarities to volume 2’s eBook bonus story. While there might be future chapters featuring his tricks, my guess is that the bonus story was mostly based on this chapter.

Support Us

Unlock Early Access ------- Select Project ------- Project Gender Bender Project Necro ∴ Support your favorite series and unlock chapters before the public release.