Chapter 94 – 094. Heir of the Puppet Master (1)
Basically, a puppeteer is a type similar to a summoner or spiritist, and just as they strengthen their own armed forces by borrowing the power of summoned animals or spirits, puppeteers also remodel and strengthen their dolls to improve their military power. Do.
However, in the case of Arcis, it is completely different.
Because her body itself is nothing more than a doll, she and her personal powerlessness are also unmatched by others.
Eun-hyeon’s basic strategy was always the same.
Just as she battled nine white ghosts in the fight against the nine-tailed fox the other day, she first captures the existence that is the core of this fight.
It was as if this fight would end if he took the heart of the girl sitting on the throne, Archis, who was sitting on top of the dolls’ heads.
[Eunhyeon’s unique ability]
[Time Acceleration]
[Accident acceleration]
As soon as the fight started, Eun-hyeon, who used the authority of Belldandi, activated ‘Heterogeneous Hwan-wi’ and quickly approached the throne of Archis.
Eun-hyeon, who had disappeared leaving behind an afterimage of her, appeared in front of her throne, but all of her puppets were following her movements with their eyes, as if they were equipped with high-speed cameras.
The dolls, who witnessed the sight of Eunhyeon trying to reach out to their queen, all started to move according to the behavioral patterns that had been input into their heads.
[Pattern G3, top priority, Queen’s protection. Give orders.]
The actions of the puppets to which commands and behavior patterns were input were swift.
A doll with her hair carefully braided into a bun appeared next to Eun-hyeon, holding two twin swords.
Eun-hyun, who reached out to her chest, where the heart of Archis is located, attacked Eun-hyun with a sharp cut to cut off the whole arm, but Eun-hyun, who was aware of all the actions of her puppets through her ‘sense’, dared to cut off her hand. He saved his right arm by pulling it out.
As her doll’s cut-up cut her through the air and floated above her, Eun-hyeon grabbed the doll’s wrist and kicked her leg as hard as she could.
The joints in her seat begin to strain, causing problems with supporting her weight, and Eun-hyeon grabs the doll’s head, which begins to lose her balance.
Then, as hard as he could, he began to steam down toward the floor.
Kwajik!
[D3, unable to fight due to damage, pattern G6, formation change.]
Even though one of the dolls, which was no different from a companion, had its head broken and smashed, the onslaught of dolls did not stop.
It was a natural result.
They do not have feelings or a self that thinks for themselves.
Memories and experiences do not accumulate, and emotions do not arise about them.
That’s why he doesn’t feel anger or sadness even though his companion doll is broken.
But that didn’t mean he didn’t feel any emotion after destroying the dolls that were the legacy of Archis and his children so mercilessly.
‘Let’s suppress it so that it is not damaged as much as possible.’
However, even in the state of breaking arms and legs, it was quite unreasonable to subdue the dolls that silently rushed only to obliterate the enemy without damaging them.
It was time to avoid the attacks of the puppets that kept running into them, smash them, and the number of puppets exceeded twenty.
A doll summoned a sphere and threw it into the air.
Quaang!
A small explosion sounded, and black-purple smoke began to encroach on the interior of Archis’ palace, centering on the exploded sphere.
There was no way Eunhyeon, who was well aware of Archis’ puppet tactics, was ignorant of that.
‘Is it poison?’
Just by inhaling that smoke, people rot their lungs and damage their internal organs.
That method, which boasts an overwhelming killing ability that can drive a person to death just by breathing, is a scary method that can be used because the users are dolls, not humans.
[Single Digit Normal Magic]
[Blast]
It was a simple general magic that even Erin could use, but the gust of wind created by Eunhyun was on a completely different level from the result created by a novice wizard.
A gust of wind quickly created by Eun-hyeon ruthlessly disperses the poisonous fog inside the palace.
“Fuha!”
Eunhyun, who held her breath and withstood the onslaught of the dolls until the poison fog dissipated, finally let out her breath.
[Pattern G6 failed, move on to the next plan. Pattern G…]
“It doesn’t work.”
Eun-hyeon, who occupied the back of the doll that served as the elder brain, giving orders to the puppets under her command, grabbed the puppet’s head with both hands.
“Sorry. You have no ill feelings. I probably don’t know how to restore it to its original state like now, but I’ll definitely fix it. You are the children of Archis.”
[Unable to understand the intruder’s words…]
Paperweight!
Through the tips of his fingers, he channeled mana into the doll’s head.
Even on Earth, if an excessive output voltage is applied to a machine that cannot withstand it, the machine cannot withstand and its lifespan is shortened. For puppets who use a certain output of magical power as a power source, excessive output of magical power is a fatal poison.
All power and action principles of puppets originate from magic signals.
In a short period of time, the elder brain doll, which had been injected with excessive output mana into its head, began to tremble and fight.
Eventually, as if the power of the switch went down, it sagged.
As the elder brain doll, which was giving orders, fell into a state of incapacity to fight, the human beings around them all went to a standstill.
[Confirmed Elder Brain’s inability to fight. The election of the next elder brain…]
Even though it is the same one-on-one fight, compared to the previous fight with the nine-tailed fox, if there is something easier, it is that the dolls do not have egos.
The white ghosts of Baekgwi Night basically followed the orders of their leader, the swordsman Baekgwi, but they were intelligent people who knew how to think and move on their own.
On the other hand, despite the fact that Archis’s puppets have a difference in troops three times that of Hundred Ghost Nights, if the elder brain, who has to issue orders, is attacked, the puppets under his command fall into a state of panic.
Not missing the small gap, Eunhyeon took out a sphere from her bosom and threw it onto the floor in the center of the palace.
Then, he summoned a huge shield that was large enough to cover Eunhyeon’s body, and lowered a long stake protruding below it into the floor to fix it.
‘3, 2, 1.’
Kwaaang!
Along with the sound of the explosion, a huge gust of wind swept through the interior of Archis’ palace.
Hiding behind the shield, Eun-hyeon put strength on her arm holding the handle of the shield embedded in the floor, and did her best to keep the shield from being pushed away.
After the strong gust of wind ended, Eun-hyeon stood up inside the shield and confirmed the horrors around her.
The interior of the palace, which was swept away by the gust of wind, including the pillars and walls that were the center of the explosion, and the coffins where the dolls were sleeping, was in a state of difficulty even maintaining its proper shape.
Sparks flew, and the dolls around them who were sitting on the floor began convulsing all at once.
“Mana Pulse… I tried making it with Illyana as a test, but the power isn’t bad.”
The form of putting pure high-concentration compressed mana inside a jewel and safely locking it so that the mana inside does not explode is like a grenade commonly used by the Earth’s military.
The resulting effect is to scatter waves of powerful magic power from the center of the explosion, and it succeeded in neutralizing the puppets that use the surrounding magic power as a power source.
The principle was that the Earth’s Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) concept was created in the Arcana Continental style using magic, but Eun-hyeon was satisfied with the effect of this experimental grenade.
“Because the power was made to a minimum in the first place. If you want to raise it, you can raise it as much as you want. Is there only improvement left now?”
The only thing left was to gradually increase the amount of mana injected and adjust the power and range of the explosion.
Eun-hyeon took her eyes off the helpless dolls and looked at Archis, who was sitting on the throne unaffected by the explosion.
Eunhyun, who walked without a word, arrived in front of Archis without being disturbed by anyone.
“…”
Eun-hyeon stared at her still doll girl with her head bowed as she stood still, then got down on her knees and lowered herself so that she could look up at her on her throne.
“You put me on the blacklist.”
Perhaps Archis had in mind that someday Eun-hyeon would come to extort Eun-hyeon herself, rather than handing over her legacy to someone else.
Regarding that, Eunhyeon felt an indescribable, inexplicable feeling.
Maybe this is sad?
When he himself was caught up in a strange feeling, saying he didn’t know, Eun-hyeon felt another wave of magic and looked up at him.
Above the throne, a magic circle was formed on the mural with a huge sun pattern, and a girl’s face appeared in the center of the magic circle.
Unexpectedly, Eun-hyeon put on a puzzled expression when she saw the face of a girl she knew well through magic.
“Beautiful… Kiss… ?”
[I thought maybe you could come, but I didn’t know you would come.]
Archis spoke in a calm tone that matched his grave expression.
[Come on. The fact that you came to my labyrinth like this is probably one of two things, right? Either you brought an heir, or Eun-hyeon, you yourself came to take over the position of my heir.]
“…”
[But if you are the one who entered the ordeal, it must mean that you really came to become my successor. It’s really unexpected that you make such a choice.]
Despite being a doll, not a human, Archis’s mocking laughter, which even mimicked human facial muscles, was so natural that it could be compared to a real human laugh.
[Still, if you really made that choice, I’d be really happy to accept your choice.]
“What… ?”
Eunhyun put on a dumbfounded expression at the unexpected answer.
No, then why on earth did he blacklist them, and why did he pre-set the puppets to kill him?
[Then you might want to ask why the hell did I put you on the blacklist and set up my kids to kill you?]
“That is correct. Did you learn mind reading before you died?”
[This is just anger.]
There was no way her will, recorded in her own malicious jokes, would answer.
What touched Eunhyeon more than that was her words afterward.
[So why did you learn my puppetry when you said you would teach me? If you had even shown puppetry to prove that you are my successor, my children would not have issued the order to annihilate you.]
“…”
In her past, Eun-hyeon had suggested that Archis teach her how to make dolls, but she had rejected her offer.
There are many things she needs to take care of, and since doll making requires a lot of work, Eun-hyeon in the past, who suffered from a lot of work, had neither the time nor the mental space to devote to it.
Above all, Eun-hyeon is a man who is far from the word death, but always lives a life close to death.
As long as Archis’s wish was to leave the doll arts and countless knowledge built into his head to posterity, even if Eun-hyeon accepts the position of her successor in this part, he will not be able to fulfill her wish. There was no
It seemed that Arkis was deeply upset about it.
Eunhyun, who had nothing to say, closed his mouth and quietly looked at the face of Archis in the magic circle.
[Still, thank you for coming here. If someone else had come, I might have been anxious, but if it’s you, I can trust you and feel at ease. At least you won’t use my skills for evil.]
After meeting Eun-hyeon and spending a lot of time together, Archis recognized Eun-hyeon’s talent and her human nature, and in her mind, had her mind set on Eun-hyeon as his successor.
To pass on all of his knowledge, powers, and skills to Eun-hyeon so that he can be a little bit of a help on the way he walks.
However, Eun-hyeon did not notice Archis’ inner thoughts, and he refused to inherit her skills.
[Actually. There was a time when I thought that if I was with you, I would just die fighting demons like that. However, I had a mission to pass on my skills to the future, and in order to accomplish that mission, I had no choice but to leave you, who always stood in the middle of death. I’m really sorry.]
Humans and machines, even if they are of different races, have a strange commonality in that they live in an immortal time.
Although they were two beings who did not fit in everything, such as values, lifestyles, and principles of action, stemming from differences in their race, they were both beings with the same characteristic of immortality, so in the end they had no choice but to understand each other.
“No. Do not be sorry.”
Eunhyun shook her head.
[I put my mission ahead of you.]
“So do i. Because I put my mission first, I didn’t notice your heart.”
I never thought that Archis would have the idea of wanting to be of help to Eun-hyeon by handing over the essence of all his knowledge, including puppetry.
Who can call her her doll?
Even if her body is not a human with flowing blood, she has a heart that thinks of herself and cares for her, and she definitely has a human aspect.
Archis was a comrade, human, and friend who shared Eunhyun’s immortality.
[For coming to me, even if it’s late, and for making me decide to accept all of me… Thank you so much. My one and only friend.]
“… Shit.”
I thought it was broken now.
The emotion in her heart, which she thought was dry, began to cry and a drop of water fell from Eun-hyeon’s cheek.
