I Became the Leader of the Monster Circus Troupe - Chapter 547
EP.546 20. The Wandering Saint (13)
The headquarters of the Almighty Church was located deep in the mountains of Gangwon-do. After leaving the national highway and driving for over 30 minutes on a two-lane road, incredibly huge buildings appeared. The site where the buildings stood was larger than the campus of a small university, even at a glance.
“Where are the police supposed to be hiding?”
“Didn’t you see a few vinyl greenhouses next to the road before we went up the mountain? They’re supposed to be waiting there.”
“It’ll take about 20 minutes to get there. Are you sure this is okay?”
The three people got out of the car, barely suppressing their anxiety. There were children from other regions in the parking lot besides them. There seemed to be about 30 of them.
“Oh, the precious children of the Almighty have gathered like this.”
A middle-aged woman with a benevolent face greeted them. She was called ‘Kwon-sa’ because she was of a higher rank than the directors of the Almighty Won and received respectful treatment.
There was only one person who did not bow to her, the director of the Ye song branch who had brought Scarecrow’s group. He gave her a slight nod, and she was the only one of the directors to bow her head to him in greeting.
“I heard that our director has a fairly high position in the church, and it’s true.”
“But why is he working as a director?”
“I don’t know.”
The children crossed the headquarters grounds and headed for the chapel. Large buildings that had been built not too long ago stood all over the site. However, there was no sign of people there.
According to the detective, all ordinary believers were sent out of the headquarters when this gathering took place. So it was difficult to know what was going on inside the chapel.
Before long, they arrived in front of the largest building on the site. There was a sense of people bustling about. There were many people standing in front of the building, and the sound of people shouting could be heard from inside.
The children entered through the back door of the building. Inside, stern-looking believers were patrolling the corridors. The place they were led to was a waiting room right behind the chapel.
“Thank you all for coming this far. You will stay here for three days, practice, and then go on stage.”
Kwon-sa distributed scripts to them. It was a play called ‘Poison Apple’, a modern reinterpretation of the Snow White fairy tale.
Since the Almighty Church provided all the other personnel needed for the play, they could concentrate purely on acting. Of course, there was some conflict in determining the roles. However, when one of the oldest sisters among them came forward and sorted it out, the problem was quickly resolved.
She looked no different from an ordinary person on the outside. However, her fingers were rolled up in a circle and stuck together, so her hands looked like a round ball. That’s why she was known as ‘Dorami Sister’ in her area.
She volunteered to take on a role with little dialogue and attention. Not only that, but she also took the lead in doing things that others were reluctant to do outside of the performance. Even so, she never forgot to look after the other children’s feelings. The children naturally came to regard her as their leader and followed her.
“Witch, does it look like Scarecrow has a crush on Dorami Sister? He’s been staring at her the whole time.”
“Hey, stop looking around! Can’t you concentrate on practicing?”
Witch slapped Scarecrow’s back, unusually angry. He glared at his friend resentfully. Tin Man clutched his stomach and giggled at the sight of his friend.
Scarecrow, who hated the way he looked, rolled over and tackled Tin Man’s legs. He screamed and fell backward.
As they prepared for the play together, the children quickly became close. Since they were all in similar situations, it was easy for them to empathize with each other.
The three days felt too short for the children. On the day of the performance, some of the children expressed their regret at the thought of parting.
“Do you all know? If you do well in this performance, you can get your body healed by the Leader?”
“Let’s have a great performance that will impress the Leader and the main cast.”
“Then we can go outside with a healthy body and meet again?”
The children encouraged each other and prepared to go on stage. They were all excited and filled with anticipation.
“Okay. Stuffed animal preparation complete.”
Kangkang attached the camera and microphone to the stuffed animal’s body. There was a part of the witch’s hump that had been hardened and could be peeled off like tree bark without bleeding. She was able to sneak items into it by peeling it off, hiding the items inside the hump, and then covering it again.
“Please laugh out loud. Then the blessings of the Almighty will be upon your bodies. There are many people here who have already experienced it. Now, shall we all practice together?”
At the signal from the instructor, the audience laughed. Judging by the sound, it seemed that at least a few hundred people were attending the rally.
After a while, the curtain went up. ‘Poisoned Apple’ followed the basic narrative structure of Snow White, so the story began with the birth of the princess.
The queen, the princess’s birth mother, appeared with the narration recited by the instructor. The role of the queen was played by Dora-mi noona. Even though it was an insignificant role that only involved saying a few lines at the beginning and then leaving the stage, she willingly took it on.
The scarecrow had been hanging in a corner of the stage since the curtain went up. His role was the ‘magic mirror’. Since he didn’t have to move and just had to talk while hanging on the wall, there was no one more suited to play this role than him.
He quietly watched Dora-mi noona’s performance. She was the most talented of all the people gathered here. To be honest, she was too good to be in the Almighty Church.
Her acting skills were not inferior to those of ordinary actors, her singing ability was better than that of ordinary singers, and her appearance was comparable to that of models in magazines. She was even good at teaching, and she had been guidanceing the children’s acting for the past three days.
Even the witch, who had been wary of her at first, came to respect and follow her. She was everyone’s idol.
And now, she stood in front of hundreds of people under the spotlight. The scarecrow felt proud as he watched the attention focused on her.
You guys can see it with your own eyes, right? That’s our representative.
“The queen, who had given birth to Snow White, tried to hang a beautiful snowflake decoration from the ceiling for her. But she slipped and fell off the ladder.”
Dora-mi’s body, which was standing on the ladder, swayed and fell backward. But the scarecrow wasn’t worried at all. Her body was tied to a rope hanging from the ceiling. She would fall to the ground at a slow pace, just like she had in practice.
But at that moment, something unexpected happened. Her body, which should have fallen to the ground, suddenly stopped in mid-air.
“Keugh!”
The scarecrow saw her neck bent at a strange angle. The rope was not around her waist, but around her neck.
“Keugh, keugh, wheeze!”
Dora-mi noona struggled to remove the rope that was strangling her neck. Her face contorted in pain, and her mouth foamed and vomited.
From a distance, the actress playing the role of the nanny, who was rocking the cradle containing the Snow White doll, ran over in surprise. She looked around, hoping that someone would take action after seeing this ‘accident’.
However, she was mute and could not speak. All that came out of her mouth was a gagging sound.
“What is it? The maid shouted something, but I can’t hear her well.”
The instructor added narration in a mocking voice. The audience burst into laughter and booed.
The scarecrow’s head was spinning. He couldn’t figure out what was going on.
The scarecrow’s head was in a daze. He couldn’t figure out what was going on in the world.
The audience roared with laughter as Dorami Nuna was strangled to death on stage during the performance of the play ‘Poisoned Apple’. Excrement flowed out of Dorami Nuna’s hanged body, and the actress playing the role of the wet nurse was killed by a crossbow. The scarecrow watched in horror as his friends were killed miserably in the auditorium, desperately calling for help, but his voice did not reach the audience. The performance continued, and the omnipotent church rejoiced at the sight of the children dying.
Aunt Kwon had been a kind and caring person who had looked after them well for the past three days. How could she laugh at us like that? He couldn’t believe what he was seeing or hearing.
Regardless, Kwon continued to read out her mocking commentary.
“The queen struggled to live. She tried to loosen the rope around her neck. But strangely, the rope wouldn’t come loose. Aha, she had no fingers.”
Dorami’s blunt hands were covered in wounds as she tried to loosen the rope around her neck. The audience laughed at her desperate struggle. All sorts of scorn and disgust were poured out onto the stage.
Soon, Dorami Nuna’s struggle ceased. Her body hung from the rope, her tongue sticking out a full ten centimeters.
Soon after, filth flowed out from under her skirt. Her sphincter had relaxed, causing the excrement in her intestines to pour out. This happened to the bodies of those who were hanged because of the pressure exerted on their bodies at the time of death.
“Ugh!”
The actress playing the role of the wet nurse was so shocked by the scene that she tried to run off the stage. But at that moment, several crossbows fired from the ceiling, piercing her body. She rolled around on the floor, blood pouring from her body. Of course, there was no screaming, as she had no voice.
“The wet nurse, who was trying to escape from the scene of the queen’s death, was killed as the culprit.”
Once again, the audience roared with laughter. The scarecrow watched the scene, frozen in place.
“Quickly… qu, quickly…”
The scarecrow desperately muttered into the microphone. The detectives and police must have seen this scene through the camera. He hoped that people outside would come rushing in here soon.
However, it would take at least 20 minutes to drive from the vinyl house he had seen a few days ago to the entrance of the troupe. It would take more than 30 minutes to reach the chapel after passing the guards blocking the road.
How many more friends would die by then?
The scarecrow looked at the audience, his body trembling with fear. The people gathered there were laughing at his friends, who were swimming in a sea of blood with arrows piercing their bodies. All sorts of insulting words were pouring out onto the stage.
Did the people in the waiting room know about the situation here? The scarecrow recalled the situation before the performance began. They had not realized that there was an audience gathered outside until the thick double doors filled with soundproofing material opened. Perhaps his friends had no idea what was going on here.
Before long, the friend playing the role of the wet nurse stopped breathing. People who had been waiting outside the stage came up and removed their bodies and the traces they had left behind.
The performance continued. The actors who would play the next scene came up on stage. And each time, something similar happened.
Snow White, who could not see, jumped into a steel needle and died, struggling. The stepmother in a wheelchair was crushed by the stage set and died in agony.
The omnipotent church no longer seemed to care about the original story. All they wanted to see was the children who came on stage, unaware of anything, and tried to act seriously, die miserably.
The scarecrow desperately shouted at his friends to run away whenever they came on. However, his voice, trapped in the transparent glass, did not reach them. Originally, there was a microphone in the ‘magic mirror’ he was in, so that his voice could be heard outside, but now it was not working.
The audience was also amused by the sight of him banging his body against the glass, tears and snot streaming down his face. Their laughter grew louder and louder as he struggled.
The scarecrow knew what the next scene was. His friend, who was playing the role of the hunter, was about to come on. So he struggled even harder.
Soon, a scarecrow with a bow on his back and a sword on his waist came on stage.