Circo Di Cerchio Rosso

Beautiful sea and brilliant sunlight.
Never have they left my heart, not even for a moment.
In the garden where Cowanii bloomed in full,
How could I forget the precious elixir you gave me?
Alone, I long for you who set out on the Murim road,
And face the wall here, where we made our promise.
I ask according to our oath, so return, my love.
Return, return to Surriento.
-Neapolitan folk song, <Return to Surriento~Torna A Surriento~>-

Naples, Italy.

In Sorrento, a quiet fishing village on the coast, a small circus troupe had pitched its tent and settled in half a year ago.

The wandering troupe of performers, made up of only five members, came out into the streets every day and solicited customers.

A boy whose body was flexible and nimble, as if he had trained in lightness skill from childhood.

An old master of imposing build, who performed acrobatics in coordination with him.

A white-haired woman who freely controlled four-legged beasts, such as ordinary donkeys that weren’t even Fantastic Beasts with a single whip.

An expert in fire arts who showed skills such as swallowing fire or spewing flames from his whole body.

And even a man behind them who played a violin that had only one string with possessed skills.

Though one could not know what level their feats were at, it was certain that every one of them was a spectacle not easily seen in a quiet fishing village.

However.

“You have to pay that much just to watch some tricks?”
“Do they even intend to do business……?”
“Why is it so expensive?”
“I can’t understand them.”
“Do they really want to act like that in a town where people live hand to mouth?”
“Leave them be. They must have money rotting away.”

The Kung-Fuists and common people of Sorrento never visited their circus tent.

The reason was that, despite being a mere wandering troupe, the admission fee they demanded far exceeded that of famous circus troupes performing in large cities.

Not only natives of Sorrento, but even merchants transporting the fish they caught to large cities, as well as the few travelers who came through, never went to the troupe’s tent.

Red Wheel Circus.
Circo di Cerchio Rosso.

The only ones passing in and out of the entrance, where the troupe tent’s signboard hung alone, engraved with crooked and distorted Chinese characters and Italian, were the five members of the circus troupe.

From time to time, teenage boys and girls tired of dull fishing village life tried to sneak in for fun, but each time, the old man presumed to be the troupe’s leader appeared from somewhere, gently admonished the children, and sent them home.

Perhaps because of that.

The ominous rumors that had circulated when the troupe first settled in Sorrento had at some point disappeared without a trace.

Baseless rumors such as unorthodox masters who had washed their hands in gold hiding from the European Murim Alliance’s wanted notices, or digging up corpses from the cemetery every night and performing impure rites inside the tent, were buried under the children’s eyewitness accounts and vanished.

“What was inside the tent? There was nothing special……?”
“The old man’s hobby must be carving.”
“The seats were full of things like wooden crosses, statues of Jesus, and statues of the Virgin Mary.”
“It smelled of nothing but incense. Usually, circus tents are full of the stench of animals.”
“How should I put it…… a reverent atmosphere?”

The tavern idlers who had been engaged in heated debate over why they were indirectly refusing entry by setting a wicked admission fee lost interest after hearing that the five members of the wandering troupe were devout Catholics.

Those who, upon seeing the high admission fee, had cursed the troupe as a band of greedy Jews accepted them as reverent Catholics and brothers in faith once eyewitness accounts spread that the tent was filled with statues of saints.

The loyalty and human warmth of southern Italians, united as one by faith, were by no means something that could be ignored.

Toward the troupe, which had not once admitted spectators into its tent, the fishermen of Sorrento began actively showing goodwill.

They sold fresh seafood just caught off the coast of Naples at low prices to the troupe’s youngest member when he came to the market, or sent him back with extra dishes made from leftover ingredients.

Thus, over half a year, the troupe received help from the people of Sorrento and became a local attraction.

They still never admitted anyone into the tent, but they increased the amount of time they spent putting on special street performances that also served to solicit customers.

The free performances, which had become the sole pleasure of dull, fishy fishing village life, eventually settled in as a local specialty, and the Red Wheel Circus came to be loved even more by the people of Sorrento.

But the strange cohabitation between the small village on the Mediterranean coast and the troupe that had made it their new home did not last forever.

One day in June, a middle-aged man and a young woman came to the silent ticket booth of the troupe.

“Two adults.”
“……Two thousand lire.”

In the United States, it would have been no less than 400 dollars, and by the standards of the British mainland, a sum equivalent to 16 pounds.

The price named by the old man at the ticket booth was certainly money a wealthy person could take out of their pocket easily enough, but it was not an amount one would willingly pay to watch the feats of a wandering troupe in a rural fishing village with only five members.

However, the middle-aged gentleman who had come to the ticket booth did not so much as frown at the price that defied common sense, and instead ostentatiously put his hand into his pocket.

-Clink.

“…….”

The old master, whose face was engraved with deep traces of time like the holy statues he had carved, watched with emotionless eyes the single twenty-lira gold coin the man had set down.

A sum that was only one hundredth of the price he had given.

However, on the surface of the gold coin was drawn a sign of oath that was more than enough to make up for the missing ninety-nine percent.

“……It seems the Libra has tilted.”

Vittorio Emanuele II, engraved on the gold coin.
A circle drawn in blood surrounded that face.

“The Hall Manager and Incense Master command in the name of the brothers. The Red Circle shall set the tilted Libra right.”

When the messenger finished speaking, the old man knelt on one knee.

Then he reverently picked up the gold coin with both hands, put it in his mouth, and swallowed it.

-Gulp.

A bizarre act reminiscent of the Eucharist.

Yet this was precisely the ritual they had to perform in order to fulfill the old oath.

“I shall collect the price of blood and set the Libra right.”

The middle-aged man nodded with a satisfied expression, then took an envelope from his breast, handed it to the old man, and left the tent.

“…….”

After remaining on one knee in respect for a while, only when the Incense Master, the Camorra’s second-in-command, disappeared did the old man rise and return inside the tent.

A circus tent in which hundreds of statues densely filled the audience seats.

At its center, the other four acrobats had already grasped the situation and gathered.

“A new job came in, right? Great Senior Brother.”

Amid everyone’s silence, the only one grinning so widely her mouth seemed about to split was the circus’s lone woman, the trainer known as Coachwoman.

“……You are excited all by yourself again. Just when will you grow up, you wretch?”

Perhaps displeased by Coachwoman’s attitude, the Fire Eater Giorgiano repeatedly clenched and opened both his black-stained hands in irritation.

“Because of that damned oath, I had to live quietly and have not seen the babies’ faces for the past half year. Is it not about time I was allowed to have some fun?”
“I cannot understand it. How did a thing with no patience inherit the position of Red Baton?”

Instead of answering, Coachwoman split her mouth wide and smiled at the Fire Eater.
Her abnormally white teeth emitted an ominous gleam under the dim lighting of the tent.

“You know why, so why ask?”

That was right.

Those gathered here were the Camorra’s successive Red Batons, treated no differently from grand elders of other clans.

The Red Wheel Circus was only a disguise to hide their true nature.

The very name Red Circle itself meant a gathering of Red Batons.

Only the Camorra’s strongest assassin could obtain the title of Red Baton.
And among successive Red Batons, the majority met honorable deaths in the process of carrying out missions.

Only an extremely small number survived to the end, washed their hands in a gold basin, and lived out their natural lifespan.

And an even smaller number of assassins remained in the Red Circle and became legends of the Camorra.

Coachwoman Ilaria was also one of them.

It would be difficult to imagine from the youthful-looking skin visible beneath her mask, but she had succeeded again and again at commissions said to be impossible.

The virtues an assassin must possess and the level of their Kung-fu are not necessarily the same.

The reason assassins exist is murder.

Ilaria, like the other successive Red Batons, had displayed outstanding ability in killing designated targets.

The reason she was a member of the Red Circle was that, both during her active years and now, she had completed impossible missions again and again.

“……Hmph.”

As if he didn’t want to lie, Giorgiano crossed his arms and shut his mouth instead of saying Ilaria lacked skill.

Meanwhile, the acrobat boy Pine-Eye, who didn’t even look twelve, and the violinist quietly remained in place as they watched the two.

In truth, though he didn’t show it, Giorgiano, too, tired of the fishing village life that had lasted half a year, was in the same situation as Ilaria, unable to hide his anticipation for a rare job.

The white-haired old master, reading the curiosity in the eyes of the two, opened the envelope left by the messenger from Naples and checked the orders.

-♪♬~

The performer began plucking an absurd melody pizzicato to lighten the mood, but the old man Ilaria had called Great Senior Brother paid it no heed and conveyed the Hall Manager’s orders.

“An executive candidate kidnapped a sculptor to whom the Hall Manager promised protection. The target is currently imprisoned. As the price of blood, we must set things right and retrieve the Mita Holy Water. Questions?”

When the old master asked, Ilaria raised her hand at once.

“What about humans other than the target? Witnesses and the like. Do we handle them as usual?”
“Anyone who interferes, and anyone who sees our faces, dies.”
“Where are we going this time?”
“London.”

The moment she heard the answer, Ilaria dropped her head.

“This is maddening…….”

For her, a native of Naples, an order to go to England was truly no different from being forced to fast.

But for that very reason, Ilaria, as the one responsible for the Red Circle’s uncanny mobility, had just decided to finish this mission in the fastest way possible.

“When are we leaving?”
“Tonight.”

The old man’s answer did not reveal even a fragment of emotion.

Yet the masked woman was smiling with her gums bared, as if satisfied.

“In that case, this is simple.”

There was no ship that went directly from Sorrento to London, but she possessed a means of transportation others couldn’t even imagine.

“We just have to finish quickly and come back. During the trip there and back, we can eat the food piled up in the tent, so we won’t have to starve.”

After confirming that enough dishes and wine bottles for four people to eat and drink were piled on a nearby table, Ilaria pinched the grass-whistle-shaped necklace hanging from her neck between her index finger and thumb.

“Wait, this isn’t even urgent, so there’s no need to call that thing―”
“Why should we waste precious time in a place without proper food? I refuse.”
“How many times must I say that method makes me seasick……!”

Ignoring the attempts of Second Senior Brother Giorgiano to stop her, Ilaria blew into the necklace with all her might.

“Haa…… Damn it. I’m going to throw up again.”

A mystical tone impossible for human hearing to perceive rang out along the coast of Sorrento, and immediately after Giorgiano let out a long sigh.

-Gogogogo……!!!

Just as the ground began to shake violently, a gigantic lifeform surged up from underground and swallowed the troupe’s tent in one bite.

What appeared, smashing through the ground, was a sperm whale the size of a palace.

It was the strangest individual among the many wicked Fantastic Beasts tamed by the Coachwoman Ilaria, the Assault Landing Spiritual Creature, Monstro.

-Buooo!!

The gigantic whale, whose age was impossible to even guess, leapt into the skies above Sorrento with the tent, capable of holding hundreds of spectators, in its mouth.

Then, as if nothing had happened, it fell again and passed through the hole where it had appeared, returning to the Mediterranean.

-Kwagwagwagwa!!!

What followed was a great tremor and a tidal wave.

The common people awakened from sleep moved in search of high ground to escape the earthquake.

And when that bout of chaos had passed.

The fishermen of Sorrento discovered that the strange neighbors they had known for the past half year had been sucked underground together with the tent in which they had stayed.

All that remained there was a gigantic puddle filled with seawater.

It was a sight that somehow resembled the story in the Old Testament of cursed heretics who opposed Moses being swallowed by the earth.

“Could it be…… divine punishment?”

Someone asked, but no one answered.

Because there was not a single person in Sorrento who knew the truth.

The last thing the fishermen heard was only an absurd eyewitness account that someone had seen a gigantic shadow soar high into the sky.

Thus, the devils who had concealed their identities and lived leisurely in southern Italy departed westward in search of new sacrifices.

How much blood would flow in the process of carrying out their orders had never once been a matter of concern to them.