episode_0040

Clap clap clap clap!

A thunderous applause.

Then the audience started cheering and urging Fluffy on.

“Wow, Vanderbühne! Vanderbühne!”

“Start the show quickly! My throat is sore from waiting!”

“Right!”

“Haha, everyone is in a hurry!”

Fluffy then cheerfully raised his magician’s wand with a purple crystal attached to it.

Then, he looked around the audience in a cheeky manner and proudly asked a question.

“So Fluffy is even more excited! But ladies and gentlemen! Do you all know what our Vanderbühne is famous for?”

“Puppet show! A colorful puppet show that is said to be the best on the continent!”

“Bingo! That’s the right answer! The traveling troupe’s specialty is short plays that can be performed easily and simply while traveling!”

Captain Fluffy responds wittily to the responses from the audience.

“And our Vanderbühne’s bread and butter is a puppet show that has no counterparts in the empire, no matter where you go in the east, west, south, or north! It’s a vivid yet bizarre puppet show!”

“Wow-!!”

The heat of the area rose in an instant. Watching this, I just blinked my eyes in bewilderment.

“… … Is the Vanderbühne puppet show that great?”

“Amazing? It’s not something that can be expressed in such simple words?”

The audience felt like they were watching a first-class circus rather than a puppet show.

Then Maurice, who was sitting right next to me, started to giggle and said:

“Of course, there is no scenario or direction as superior as the works of the great writer Phantom. However, instead, Vanderbühne is a theater company that specializes in pleasing people’s eyes.”

“What do you know so well? When have you seen it before?”

“Once when I went on a family vacation to the West. Wow, that was an incredible show. I didn’t know puppet shows could be this exciting?”

“I remember that time too. Maurice spent the whole vacation writing love letters to me without asking about me and only writing about the Vanderbuyne.”

Julianne, his girlfriend, who is sitting next to him with a pouty face at his fuss.

She was a cute yet cheeky orange-haired girl with light freckles.

She smiled crookedly and spoke to Rosalind, who was sitting across from me.

Since she had been dating Maurice for quite some time, her relationship with her senior was also quite familiar.

“Even when you went to see Farewell My Concubine, you even said that you were jealous of Xiang Yu dating a quiet woman like Yu Xi. You should break up with me and meet another woman. Don’t you think so, Rosalind Senior?”

“Oh, really? Did Maurice say that?”

“You’re wrong, Maurice. Go apologize to your girlfriend.”

“No… … That’s not it, Julian, I wish you would just tone down your temper a little. Men are more like that than a brat, ugh!”

Julian pinches his arm and Maurice lets out a small scream.

But it doesn’t feel particularly brutal, since they both know it’s a joke.

Whenever I see couples bickering like this, I just laugh.

“… … ugh.”

“Senior? Are you okay?”

“Ugh, uh.”

On the other hand, when Farewell My Concubine was mentioned, Rosalind blushed again.

He turned so red that I was worried he might have a serious fever.

Then Captain Fluffy pointed to the ceiling of the tent with the crystal on his staff and shouted.

“Okay, let’s get started! Vanderbühne’s secret show!”

Boom! Boom!

The tent’s magic lanterns turn off or dim in sequence as a signal.

Then comes the sound of a child’s laughter, in an exaggerated falsetto voice.

And then, in the next moment, someone trudged onto the stage under the spotlight.

[Hello, everyone? My name is Jonah! I am a marionette born from the gallows tree where sinners were hung! Nice to meet you!]

A strange puppet with its limbs tied to strings hanging from the ceiling.

The puppet, which looked like a nightmare version of Pinocchio, spoke with creaking joints.

[But what can I do? The truth is, I want to be a real boy, not a marionette! But to do that, I have to cut these strings and be free! Can I be free, everyone?]

“Of course, Jonah!”

“Quickly cut the rope with scissors and get your freedom back!”

“Cheer up!”

The audience cheers on the marionette boy’s challenge.

But on the contrary, I ended up losing my temper and letting my guard down.

‘Hey, what is this? Just a rope-cutting performance?’

I’ve seen that kind of thing often in puppet shows in my past life.

Isn’t it a trick where the fake strings that are visible are cut with scissors, while in reality, a puppeteer continues to control the puppet from above with transparent wires?

Yare yare. As expected from the uncivilized people of this fantasy world. They all make a fuss over such a cheap trick.

It was a car that was making a fuss while feeling the sentiment of the so-called modern genius theory.

[Really? Is that really okay?]

The marionette Jonah dances happily and cheers.

Then, all at once, the ropes attached to the guy’s arms and legs snapped.

[Hehehe! I am free-!!]

Jonah suddenly bursts into eerie laughter and disappears into the darkness.

The atmosphere changes abruptly as red and blue lights flash in succession.

Swish! An ominous mist rose, casting a sinister, deep blue hue over the stage.

Then, a night march of a hundred ghosts that I could never have imagined unfolded before my eyes.

“What, what, what?!”

These dolls have a bizarre visual that seems to come straight out of director Guillermo del Toro’s filmography.

Amidst the eerie and creepy music playing, they emerged and performed their own one-act plays in their own way.

… … and the way it all unfolded was beyond my imagination.

Kyahahaha-!!

Kiruruk, kirik! Kiririt!

Giant bats and ghosts spread their wings and fly quickly over the tent.

It passes over the heads of the audience precariously and lets out a strange crying sound.

I can’t figure out how the puppeteer is flying when there’s clearly no place to hide.

But this is only a little bit.

Ching! Chae-chang! Kang, Kaga-kak-!!

Hehehehe-!!

Puppets the same size as humans, running around the stage and competing with real swords.

These are Asuras from the East who wear goblin masks, reminiscent of the Japanese Oni and Hannya.

The martial arts moves are exquisite and without any unnecessary decoration, and the bright red drops of blood that spurt out whenever he is cut by a sword or a sword blade are so sharp that it makes you doubt whether he is really a doll or not a human.

Hahahahahaha-!!

The one-act play ended with the puppet, who was left alone after killing all the other Asuras, laughing madly while covered in blood.

The performances of the fortune tellers that followed made my spine shiver even more.

[Oh my, Lani! You look hungry! What do you want to eat?]

[I’m a flesh-eating ghoul! Rani wants to eat people! Live human meat is the best!]

[Really? You want to eat people? How exactly do you want to eat them?]

A Suin tribe ventriloquist who sits on a chair on stage and tells stories while holding a small puppet.

At his question, the creepy-looking ghoul doll opened its red mouth wide and shouted.

[Hahaha! Let’s cut it! Let’s split it! Let’s cut it! Let’s chop it! Let’s bite into the fresh meat!]

Of course, if that were all, it would have been considerably more boring than what came before.

But in reality, this was the most creepy performance ever.

[Cut it! Split it! Cut it! Chop it! Slice it! Bite it!]

[Cut it! Split it! Cut it! Chop it! Slice it! Bite it!]

[Cut it! Split it! Cut it! Chop it! Slice it! Bite it!]

Identical ghouls appeared one after another throughout the dimmed stage.

At first glance, dozens of ventriloquist dolls are in sync, all shouting in the same voice.

For a moment, I felt like I was going crazy from the echo that resonated like an acapella horror song.

‘What is it? How do you really do it?’

Are there dozens more twin ventriloquists? Or is it just some illusion magic?

A variety of one-act puppet shows continue without a break.

They each show off their individuality with their own unique and attractive style.

It was only then that I realized where Vanderbühne’s fame came from.

‘Was this a grotesque show?!’

Grotesque.

A term derived from the strange and unfamiliar images of ancient Roman ruins discovered in the 16th century.

An artistic image that simultaneously confers fear, disgust, and a heterogeneous charm can be called a grotesque.

Grotesque is a trend that developed in the Middle Ages, focusing on art and extending to other fields such as literature and music.

Didn’t visual arts such as movies and plays also actively use dreamy and disgusting materials as they entered the 20th century?

‘I never thought I’d see this in a traveling troupe in a medieval otherworld.’

Could it be because the church does not interfere too much with the development of art?

Although it is a very provocative show, it does not seem to have been subject to any particular sanctions or censorship.

Paradoxically, it may be that the spicy flavor is optimal for traveling troupes that are sensitive to short-term profits.

Well-made horror has been popular throughout the East and the West, past and present.

“Wow, I’m scared! What should I do, Maurice!”

“Me, me, I’m scared too! Hug me, Julian!”

“But it’s so fun! So I can’t take my eyes off it!”

“What the heck! Me too!”

They argue well.

The couple sitting next to me are hugging each other and making jokes because they are scared.

Even Senior Rosalind was trembling as she held my arm.

“Hic! Balthazar… … !”

Even though I have a high tolerance for fear because I was often exposed to horror movies in my past life, my senior, who is from another world, seems to be far below that level.

But the last song, Vanderbühne’s ‘Highlight’, almost gave me a heart attack for a moment.

Geek!

That extreme, that extreme!

“Wow!”

“Mom! Look at that!”

A series of cries of shock and exclamations.

Then a huge shadow stretches over the people’s heads, reaching all the way to the tent ceiling.

A huge doll that looks like it could be used in a street parade.

A puppet in the grotesque likeness of a legendary giant approached.

A monster with a creepy appearance that you have no idea how to control.

It stretched out its huge hand and swept over the heads of the audience.

And the next moment.

“Gyaaak-!!”

Rosalind, whose face had lost all its color, ran towards me and hugged me.

“Ugh, ugh! Ba, Balthazar… … !!”

“It’s okay, senior. I’m here with you. The play will be over soon, so just hold on a little longer.”

My senior was shivering with his face buried in my arms.

I whispered to her while hugging her tightly and patting her back.

That reflex allowed me to swallow back the curses that were about to burst out and calm down.

‘Fuck… I thought it was Attack on Titan!’

A giant with a unique, heterogeneous texture unique to dolls and a life force resembling a real creature.

If you encountered it without any prior knowledge, it would be a sight you would believe to be an ignorant giant from some Japanese anime.

The experience of something like that coming at me with its palm open and swinging was not just scary, it was a shock of a whole other level.

As I watched this, my heart sank and I took a deep breath… …

… … At the same time, I felt a bright idea flash across my mind, and I smiled with genuine amazement.

‘I wonder if it’s possible to reproduce such an excellent extreme.’

An age-old fear of the unknown, something we cannot communicate with, empathize with, or understand.

This is the essence of mysterious horror created by the combination of creepy visuals and dreamy atmosphere.

“… … The most powerful and oldest emotion felt by humans is fear!”

And the most powerful and oldest of all fears is the fear of the unknown!

He gave a monologue, recalling the novelist who pioneered the genre called cosmic horror.

Aversion to cephalopods, curiosity about the abyss, fear of the devil, and so on – time-honored fear codes that Western society has shared across the ages.

Although he was criticized for racism and glorifying fascism, he was a man who made good use of it and left a dark mark on genre literature.

My brain was spinning as I recalled the modern-day ‘myths’ he and his followers had woven.

In the past, the external world played out by Charlie Chaplin was used to express comedy.

This time, it was time to show the gloomy inner world that had followed the lonely writer his entire life in order to express fear.

Meanwhile, at that moment, it was a gloomy and dark place where the exact location could not be identified.

Someone was being dragged around, tied down to a cot on wheels.

In a remote room with a dim light, grotesque monsters that look like chunks of flesh glued together.

“Hey, let this go! Can’t you let this go right now?! Aaaah!”

A man struggling desperately to escape from bondage.

But once you’re tied tightly with rope, no matter how hard you try, escape is impossible.

And as the monsters’ footsteps quicken and the room in question gets closer and closer.

Crunch! Crunch!

Ssaaaak, ssss, ssaaaak… … !

The gruesome sound of flesh being cut with a knife and bones being cut with a saw was vivid.

“Eek, euhik!”

The monsters burst open the door and brought the terrified man into its center.

The moment they staggered back, someone wearing glasses appeared on the other side.

“Oh? The new test subject has already arrived? Good work. Bring it here quickly.”

A bespectacled shadow holding a claw covered in blood and flesh.

He said it nonchalantly, brushing the dregs off his cleaning gloves.

“And then go out and find more people to be test subjects. Roughly two people? That should be the end of the day.”

“This, this, what the hell is this! Kidnapping a pedestrian on the street without permission!”

Flesh monsters that follow the shadow’s instructions and meekly retreat outside.

The man tied up tightly in that eerie scene flailed and screamed.

“Dude, you! Don’t you know this is a crime?! What on earth do you have against me to do this to me!”

“… … Resentment? Aha, maybe you misunderstand your own situation a little? ”

Kicking. The bespectacled shadow spoke with a sly sneer.

“I don’t hold any grudges. I just needed a test subject. A fresh test subject for my immortality research. Well, in the end, you were just unlucky enough to get caught, so that’s too bad.”

“Oh, you’re unlucky? You just caught it by chance?!”

“Yeah. But don’t feel too bad about it.”

Click-!!

A blood collection device designed to draw blood from a patient and inject medication into the blood vessels.

The bespectacled shadow added, spraying a stream of the anesthetic contained within.

“From now on, you will contribute to the advancement of humanity. By offering up your useless body that will rot away after you die anyway.”

Experimental subjects, research on immortality, advancement of humanity, useless bodies.

At the ominous series of words, the man turned his head and looked around the room.

The next moment, his already pale face turned even whiter.

“Ugh, ugh… … !”

They were everywhere.

Human limbs and organs sliced and torn to pieces by sharp tools.

A glass bottle containing an eyeball and a heart, a human skin that had been forcibly peeled off and stretched out, and an alchemist’s flask bubbling with an unidentified drug.

“Okay, don’t move. If you struggle, it’ll only cause more pain.”

A shadow approaches, wielding a bloody surgical knife, and taunts.

The man stared into the spectacles, which were gleaming like the pupils of a demon, and ended up peeing himself.

With his nerves paralyzed by fear and his tongue frozen, he mustered up all his strength to ask the question he was most curious about.

“Da, you… … who the hell are you… …?!”

“Na? The name is unnecessarily long, so there’s no need to know it.”

Kick. The bespectacled shadow answered with a single, sinister laugh.

“Just call me ‘Doctor’ comfortably.”