"Alright, fine.
I'll help you, Doctor Blooper or whatever your real name is.
But on one small condition: answer my question first, and grant my request.
Let's see what you've got."
Jester leaned closer, his painted grin crooked and sharp.
"Did you set a perfect hunting plan to kill that monster Cardinal Ambrose Valerius?
And tell me, what's a handsome man like you dressed like that doing in an orphanage anyway?
Hmm… maybe I already know the answer. Let me guess.
Do the kids go to the main church once a week, and you manifest as one of them to sneak in?"
Dr.blue smiled. "You're right."
"So, you want to play the guessing game? Fine. Let's play."
"I followed you to the tavern, Jester, just to know what your role and your goal are."
"I assumed you were a spy. You entered the church with strange behavior, so I classified you as a variable that might ruin my plans.
You caught my attention, and I followed you secretly to the tavern. I hid in the hardest place to spot me and tried to understand you—your personality, your masks.
But it wasn't easy. You're hard to read. I can't tell what you're thinking.
You're one of the few people I can't read at all.
And as hunters say the prey without a face is the hunter's mirror; try to read it, and you'll lose yourself in your own reflection.
You dirtied your clothes with food to look exhausted. But there's a problem: the food stains came from two different places, meaning you weren't working.
You smell faintly of tavern perfume.
And most importantly, you bought those gifts to win the children's affection, to manipulate them. You exploited that girl Serena's naivety to draw her in.
And the time between you leaving the tavern and reaching the market was too short…
Unless you shake it there and with a physique like yours, you could've been a circus star, not a bar clown."
Jester clenched his hand tightly, barely controlling his nerves.
The pride of a clown was different from that of other men.
A clown could deceive, betray, cheat, or lie…
But to be mocked by a joke for being a clown — that was a red line.
That was the lesson Jester learned as a kid.
"I know you're planning something vile and ugly," he said coldly. "But I don't care. I won't interfere with anything that doesn't concern my mission.
After the mission, we go our separate ways."
"Alright, Doctor Blooper. I have a few requests for this mission.
I want to be healed. I broke my nose and teeth… and I want a gun like yours.
Don't expect a clown to go to war without a weapon.
Unless you want me to throw jokes instead of bullets."
Dr.blue smirked. "Don't worry. My gun runs on magical energy and my personal blessing—it's made for me alone.
But I can ask my right-hand man, Peter Gearhart the Clockwright of Calamity to design one that fits your… personality, at a fair price."
Cough… cough… who's talking about me?
In the dimly lit chamber, Peter Gearhart sat with his two legs stretched across the table, resting lazily.
His black hair gleamed like spilled ink under the light, and a monocle over his left eye shimmered faintly with unseen equations.
To his left lay a dark red book titled Quantum Thaumaturgy and the Mechanics of Reality Distortion, By P. G. Arthen 7th Revision.
To his right, a cup of coffee sat cold, only a single sip missing.
A golden clock rested against his chest, its hands ticking backward, producing a faint metallic heartbeat—
as if it synchronized with the world's hidden rhythm.
Without looking up, Peter spoke in a low tone, as if he were talking to the equations like a real person.
"You know why most mages fail to understand quantum thaumaturgy?
They think magic follows Euclidean logic.
But the truth? Magic operates in a fourteenth-dimensional probability field, where a meta-particle can exist and not exist affect and not affect at the same instant.
Reality begins to unravel once you reach the aetheric hadronic threshold.
That's when physical and conceptual particles start to overlap—when thought becomes matter, and intent becomes a wave."
He fell silent for a moment, staring at the clock.
Its hands suddenly returned to their proper positions for a heartbeat—then resumed spinning backward.
"But I'm close… If I can stabilize the probabilistic equation before it happens, I can make magic respond before it's invoked.
Magic wouldn't just be energy we activate—it would be a system yearning for execution."
He laughed quietly—without joy.
"But there's something strange. Every time I get close to the answer, one of my experiments disappears from my records.
The last time I wrote about equation E-13/14, I woke up the next day and the paper was gone.
Strangest of all—you didn't even remember I was running that experiment.
Sometimes I think stabilizing a phenomenon before it occurs simply means… something must be erased first, for balance to exist."
"I'm fixed? No… No! It's time that's slipping away, and I'm the one trapped!
Heee… ha… Naaaahhh!"
He gripped his head. "Damn it—if I sit here any longer, I'll go insane."
He looked into his monocle again; the clock's reflection pulsed inside it.
"You know what's really unsettling?
I think someone tried this before me.
And maybe they failed… but their failure was rewritten."
He stood abruptly. "Damn it. I need to get back to my lab.
Damn you, Dr.blue —why did I even come here?
Ah, right. You gave me that book in exchange for this trip.
I still don't know where you get these things.
"Anyway, I have other theories to test — like proving the existence of parallel worlds, and the possibility that different types of energy might exist there.
I'll stop this one for now… because every time I make progress, I end up back at zero.
Damn it!"
Blue raised his left hand; blue fire flickered between his palms.
"The Blue Phoenix Flame… Burn away the pain. Let the body rise anew from its ashes."
Jester didn't have time to react.
Before the flames could devour him, a scream tore from his throat—the blue fire turned black, writhing violently.
He rolled on the ground, trembling in agony.
"Seems you're rotten to the core," Blue murmured. "To turn a phoenix's flame black… you're quite the mass of evil walking the earth.
No matter—it doesn't concern me. You're healed."
He began to walk away.
"Wait—"
Dr.blue turned back toward Jester, who was lying on the floor, gasping.
His arm was restored, his teeth back in place—but his energy was gone.
Blooper crouched, grabbed Jester's remaining coins, and pocketed them.
"Almost forgot my treatment fee."
"That's theft, you bastard.
Didn't a wise man once say, 'I don't steal from them; I just share their salary'?"
Dr. Blue smirked. "See you tomorrow.
And don't forget — my name is Dr. Blue, not Blooper.
Otherwise, I'll tie you up without your trousers and let everyone watch — maybe then you'll make a proper clown."
"Tomorrow, then. Be ready. We're heading to the church.
It's the day the children go there."
Dr. Blue turned, walked to the door, and vanished from Jester's and Velmoro's sight.