Delayed Transfer

Mark, Liriel, and the twins were waiting excitedly for the show inside the huge dome of the neighboring circus to start. While they were waiting, all of their eyes were roaming everywhere. The colorful banners above brought joyous excitement to the area and the excited whisperings of the audience added to the thrilling feeling in the air.

Soon, loud music from a large band started. All kinds of trumpets and stringed instruments played a happy song and to the delight of everyone, especially the kids in the crowd, clowns entered the center of the circus dome and began performing a funny slapstick comedy routine to the delight of everyone.

Mark was delighted to see that the twins and Liriel were laughing happily while watching the clowns and to be honest, the routine of the clown performers was top-notch. He found some of the routines of the clowns familiar since their acts were almost cliché but it was not the performer’s fault since he had seen these types of acts in the comedy routines in movies.

Even if the acts were familiar, Mark couldn’t deny that they were hilarious so he was laughing together with the crowd.

After the performance of the clowns, trained animals and acrobats performed next. There were regular animals like horses, elephants, and lions but there were also some animals that Mark hadn’t seen before.

There was some sort of bear with wings that looked ridiculous to Mark since bears were heavy creatures. What good were their wings? As expected, when he was watching the bears with wings, they were just flapping and were unable to fly. They weren’t even able to use their wings to jump and wondered what happened to their evolutionary path that they had developed full wings that were utterly useless.

But since this was a magical world, there was a good chance that they were either the result of an experiment by a mage or a result of a magical phenomenon.

Regardless, the wings of the heavy bear gave a much funnier aspect to the animal’s performance.

Another weird animal that Mark saw was some sort of huge ostrich animal but the head was an alligator’s head. The animal looked terrifying and if Mark had found it in the wild and was running towards him just like what it was doing towards the acrobats and the tamers, he would have killed it immediately with a spell.

The acrobats slash tamers' performance with the animals was truly outstanding and the audience enjoyed every moment. Liriel and the twins kept laughing and shouting and soon Mark had to quell the boys since they were beginning to sound hoarse.

The next performance was a flying trapeze act. The crowd was still enjoying the performance but not much for the twins since they had experience flying with Mark and with Mark’s void dragon, Yoda.

The last act was a magic act and the twins and Liriel were beginning to get bored. Although the audience was enjoying the magic acts, the twins and the little girl had seen magic every day.

The whole act inside the circus dome was around two hours so after the show, Mark and the kids wanted to see more of the circus so after exiting the dome, they roamed around. The second circus also had stalls and although they enjoyed browsing, they were not interested in purchasing anything.

The twins even looked at the toys that were for sale with disdain. They also tasted some of the sweets for sale but Liriel and the boys threw them away immediately.

“It tasted so bad!” Aaron said.

Mark tasted the candied apple they purchased and there was some sort of unpleasant aftertaste so he threw his immediately as well.

Aside from the stalls, Mark was informed by one of the stall owners that all the acts in the circus beside theirs could be seen in the dome. They performed several times a day and according to the stall owner, there were several varieties in the performance. Mark thanked the man and they all went back to the RV so the kids could take a nap since they were looking a bit tired. The twins made Mark promise that he wouldn’t visit the other circuses without them.

Since it was a bit noisy outside the RV due to Milena and the others selling the items that Mark replicated, he tucked the children in the main bedroom for their naptime and soon, the twins and Liriel were asleep.

Mark joined Milena in their stall but didn’t interrupt them in selling their items. Milena and her assistants were enthusiastic in introducing the products they were selling and he couldn’t believe how fast the items were being sold.

Based on his calculations, all the items would be sold out after about a couple more hours. He left them to their devices and Mark visited the elven sisters. They were selling carved wooden trinkets and some of them had simple enchantments on them like the one small fairy with glowing wings. He would have liked to purchase some of what the elven sisters were selling but Hamil did announce that members of the circus were not allowed to buy products from each other since the main goal of selling their items was also to draw their customers to their circus.

Mark laughed out loud when he saw Norunta set up a fortune-telling booth. He remembered the witch specifically told him that she didn’t know any divination spells so that meant that her acts were all fake supported by illusion magic. Sunetta, who was acting as Norunta’s assistant and the one taking the coins from the customers greeted Mark when she saw him.

Mark then went to the Yoda Roller Coaster and the crowd of people watching the dragon was huge. The queue was very long and the excitement on the faces of the customers was invigorating. The crowd kept gasping and shouting at Yoda’s every twist and turn in the air as if watching Yoda fly was also an act and a free one for that matter.

After visiting Yoda, Mark then went to the movie theater tent. He could hear the crowd gasping from the outside of the tent and based on the sounds, Hamil boldly started with Star Wars: A New Hope as the first movie the circus leader presented to the citizens of Narcone.

Mark also discovered that Hamil created a new system for the movie theater and instead of the customers queuing to enter the theater slash tent, they were lining up to purchase tickets that had specific times when the movie would start. He then checked the ticket and Mark saw that the movie showings would start around two in the afternoon every day and would last until midnight with a one-hour interval between movies.

He saw that Hamil planned to show the moviegoers, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Return of the Jedi on alternate days so today it was A New Hope, the next day would be The Empire Strikes Back and the day after tomorrow would be The Return of the Jedi, rinse, and repeat.

Mark also saw that the price was exorbitant and wondered if it would cause an issue. As of right now, the queue at the ticket booth wasn’t long but he was sure that after the first showing, its popularity would explode.