Touhou: Dragged Into A Death Game, I Summoned Kaguya! — Chapter 209

Chapter 209: Magic Against a Boundary Youkai?

“Eight people in total. Put it all on his tab.”

Haruto flicked his wrist, casually tossing the handful of retrieved ghost coins into a jagged, eye-filled Gap that tore open in the air beside him.

The Circus Troupe Leader blinked, finally snapping out of his momentary daze. A deeply playful, almost sadistic smile crept onto his painted lips. He shifted his gaze to the Man in Top Hat, studying him for a long second before giving a slow, deliberate nod.

“Very well.”

The Man in Top Hat stiffened, the reality of the situation crashing down on him. “Wait, wait!” he stammered, waving his hands frantically. “I just meant—”

He didn’t get to finish. Haruto had already turned on his heel, leading Kaguya and the rest of his entourage down the dimly lit hall.

Left standing in the cold draft, the Man in Top Hat froze. He looked at the Troupe Leader, then cast a desperate glance toward the Grand Performance Area, and finally brought his pleading eyes back to the boss. His face scrunched up in a miserable grimace, looking entirely ready to weep but lacking the tears to do so.

“…Can I get a discount?”

…

After passing through a short, velvet-draped corridor, the main audience area opened up before them.

The Grand Performance Area wasn’t overwhelmingly massive, but its tiered seating provided more than enough room for the surviving players. They were scattered sparsely across the bleachers, huddled in small, paranoid groups across the front, middle, and back rows.

Haruto swept his gaze across the gloomy amphitheater. “Where do you want to sit?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.

“Anywhere is fine with me,” Kaguya replied, offering a lazy shrug of her slender shoulders.

The five random players who had attached themselves to his group stared at him with unblinking reverence. Wherever this monstrously overpowered boss decided to sit, they would follow. Clinging to the thickest thigh in the instance was the only guaranteed way to survive.

Haruto paused, his eyes filtering through the tense crowd. It didn’t take long to spot a few familiar silhouettes huddled in the far back row on the left side. Lin Que, Wu Lian, and the rest of their squad.

Without a word, he led his parade up the steps toward them.

Hearing the approaching footsteps, Lin Que snapped her head up. A genuine smile of relief washed over her face the moment she recognized Haruto’s casual stride. However, that smile quickly morphed into utter bewilderment as she noticed the small army trailing behind him.

“Who are these people…?”

“Don’t worry about them.” Haruto waved a hand dismissively. “Just some strays I picked up on the way.”

Lin Que’s mouth twitched. She glanced at the five strangers, who were all nodding fervently with expressions that practically screamed ‘The boss is absolutely right, we are just strays.’ Deciding it was better for her sanity not to pry, she sighed.

“I didn’t expect you to bring a crowd. We might not have enough seats in this row…”

Before Haruto could even open his mouth, two of the tagalongs scrambled backward in a panic.

“It’s fine, it’s fine! We can sit in the next row!” one blurted out.

“Yes, yes! You sit here, boss. We’ll just guard your rear!” the other chimed in, practically bowing.

Haruto shook his head in mild amusement. “Suit yourselves.”

Kaguya gracefully took the seat next to Lin Que, smoothing out her skirt, while Haruto dropped into the chair beside her. Then, under Youmu’s entirely bewildered gaze, he reached out, grabbed the swordswoman’s wrist, and yanked her directly into his lap.

“This will do perfectly.”

He wrapped his arms around Youmu’s waist, hugging her tight against his chest like a life-sized, incredibly soft plush cushion. He even shamelessly nuzzled his chin against the crook of her neck.

Poof.

The ghostly Half-Phantom floating beside her instantly went limp, draping over Haruto’s shoulder like a deflated balloon that had lost all will to live.

Youmu’s youthful face erupted into a brilliant shade of crimson. Steam practically whistled from her ears. Every instinct screamed at her to bury her face in her hands and hide from the staring crowd, but her strict discipline as a sword attendant forced her to keep her chin up, her silver eyes darting around the theater to maintain absolute vigilance.

The heavy velvet curtains finally parted. The performance began.

At first glance, the actors were the exact same ones from the daytime shows, but the atmosphere permeating the circus tent had undergone a sickening transformation. During the day, the performers had at least bothered to maintain a thin veneer of humanity. Now, under the bloody glow of the stage lights, that illusion was entirely shattered.

They moved like a troupe of malicious ghosts poorly stuffed into human skin suits. Their limbs bent at unnatural, sickening angles, their bodies twisting into grotesque shapes that belonged to neither man nor beast.

The circus animals, conversely, seemed to have briefly regained a horrifying spark of human sanity. Their wide, bloodshot eyes darted around the stage, brimming with raw, unadulterated terror and agonizing pain.

The sheer psychological horror of the sight caused most of the players in the audience to instinctively squeeze their eyes shut or avert their gazes. Haruto’s row was no exception. While he, Kaguya, and Youmu watched the stage with varying degrees of casual indifference, Lin Que, Wu Lian, and the others immediately snapped their heads away, terrified of triggering a death flag.

“No need to close your eyes,” Haruto’s calm, lazy voice drifted over the tense silence. “Looking directly at the rational animals isn’t a rule violation. You guys should have realized that after the knife-throwing game on the first night.”

Hearing his absolute confidence, the group finally mustered the courage to peek back at the stage. Still, their postures remained rigid. They kept their gazes cautious and narrow, terrified that the circus might have hidden a few irrational, rule-breaking beasts among the sane ones just to bait them into a trap.

The second night’s performance proved to be brutally interactive. Almost every single act required mandatory player participation. Knife throwing, high-wire acrobatics, jumping through blazing rings of fire… once a player was selected, unless they possessed some heaven-defying life-saving item, a gruesome death was practically guaranteed.

Watching the bloody spectacles unfold, Haruto finally understood exactly why Lin Que and her team had deliberately chosen to cower in the furthest, darkest corner of the bleachers.

Unfortunately for them, the circus operated on the same sadistic logic as a strict university professor. The teacher didn’t always pick on the poor students sweating in the front row; sometimes, they took immense pleasure in calling out the ones trying to hide in the very back.

A tall, unnervingly thin Magician stepped into the spotlight. Without a word of introduction, he raised a white-gloved hand and pointed a single, impossibly long finger directly and unerringly at Haruto.

Instantly, the terrified gazes of the entire surviving audience swiveled toward the back row.

Haruto blinked. He looked to his left, then to his right, confirming that every single pair of eyes was indeed locked onto him. He shifted his gaze back to the Magician, his brow furrowing in mild annoyance.

Testing the waters, Haruto leaned hard to the left. The Magician’s finger smoothly tracked the movement.

Haruto leaned hard to the right. The finger followed, locking onto his chest like a heat-seeking missile.

Sighing, Haruto simply picked Youmu up by the waist, vaulted over the backrest, and plopped down into the empty seat in the row ahead. The Magician’s finger dipped downward, tracking the maneuver perfectly.

Haruto sat in silence for a second, then picked Youmu back up, vaulted backward, and settled into his original seat.

The white-gloved finger remained steadily, stubbornly pointed right between his eyes.

Out of all these trembling, easy targets, you just have to pick me? Haruto felt a deep sense of righteous indignation wash over him.

The surrounding players exchanged highly complicated looks. They weren’t quite sure whether to feel deep sympathy for the guy or just cringe at the sheer awkwardness of his evasion tactics. Normally, when a player was chosen, they either marched down to the stage in silent despair or sat frozen in terror until ghostly hands erupted from their chairs to crush them into meat paste. Who else possessed the sheer audacity—and the free time—to casually hop back and forth between rows just to see if the ghost would lose aggro?

Youmu poked her small, delicate face out from the crook of his arm, her silver eyes flashing with sudden, icy lethality. Her hand drifted toward the hilt of her katana.

“Haruto-sama, do you need me to slay him?”

“Forget it, forget it.” Haruto patted her head to calm her down, sighing helplessly as he finally stood up. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he began the long walk down the bleacher stairs toward the stage.

Stepping into the harsh glare of the spotlight, Haruto found the sensation of being stared at by hundreds of terrified eyes deeply annoying. He stopped a few paces away from the Magician, clicked his tongue, and spoke up.

“Stop spacing out and start already. How do I cooperate with this? I want to finish early so I can go back to my seat.”

A collective gasp echoed through the amphitheater. The entire audience stared at him in stunned disbelief.

Sure, they had all deduced that this guy possessed extraordinary strength and a uniquely eccentric personality—his team had casually slaughtered circus members earlier, and his seat-hopping antics were fresh in their minds—but absolutely no one expected him to be this brazen.

He wasn’t just taunting a single ghost. Every single twisted actor and freakish performer was currently gathered in the Grand Performance Area. Not to mention the Circus Troupe Leader lurking in the shadows, an entity whose terrifying aura far eclipsed any ordinary monster in this instance.

If the audience felt a chill down their spines, the Magician standing directly across from Haruto felt it tenfold. Every single player who had stood on this stage before had been a trembling, weeping mess, desperately begging for their lives. No one had ever treated a life-and-death horror game like a tedious chore, let alone actively hurried him to get it over with.

“Dear guest… are you in a hurry?” the Magician asked, forcing a stiff, unnatural smile onto his pale face.

“Duh. Why else would I be rushing you?” Haruto stared at the ghost with an expression that clearly said, Are you an absolute idiot? “Hurry up. What are the rules?”

The Magician’s gloved fingers tightened around his wand until the wood creaked. Despite the murderous rage bubbling beneath his skin, he maintained his wide, professional grin.

“Well then. Let us partake in a magic performance. It will be a turn-based competition, and the lovely audience will score us.”

The moment the words left his mouth, a mechanical whirring filled the theater. Small, archaic display screens rose from the armrests of every occupied seat in the audience, featuring a simple numeric keypad.

“From one to ten points, the audience will score us based on the quality of our performances,” the Magician explained, his voice echoing with eerie glee. “And do not worry about rigging the votes. If an audience member inputs a score that is significantly higher than their true, subjective judgment, a corresponding amount of their own vitality will be instantly drained.”

“However, as a seasoned professional, it is only fair that I offer you a handicap.” The corners of the Magician’s mouth stretched higher and higher, threatening to tear his cheeks. “As long as your final score reaches exactly half of mine, you will win this game and receive a handsome reward.”

“But if you lose…” He trailed off, bringing an elbow up to cover his mouth. He was shaking slightly, terrified that his sadistic, ear-to-ear grin would spiral completely out of control and ruin the suspense.

Yet, in his twisted excitement, the Magician completely failed to notice the deep pity in Haruto’s eyes. The Boundary Youkai was looking at him like he was the most tragic fool in existence.

Competing in magic tricks against a Boundary Youkai?

Are you seriously that eager to die?