86. Puppet (2)
“Would anyone like to go fight the puppet with me?”
Everyone looked shocked at the question.
It’s like seeing a one-day dog attacking a tiger.
Ah, maybe that’s the correct expression.
Oliver, who was only a solver, was nothing more than a puppy compared to the puppet.
It reminded me of something Cant once told me about puppets.
The eternal puppet.
One of the leading warlocks, and one of the representative executives of the Black Hand.
It was said that it was not even possible to estimate how long they lived, and they said that their lifespan was longer than that of a single country.
Because of that, he said that there is no field untouched such as drugs, weapons, mercenaries, illegal medical care, etc.
Of course, it was all rumors that had no substance, so half of them were treated as nonsense, but in any case, Oliver had to challenge such a being to a duel.
“Are you, are you sane…?”
said one solver. He was terrified and at the same time desperate.
“Yes? what·····?”
“Who wants to bet like that…! Is your opponent a puppet? They all look like they’re going to die?!”
Oliver looked at the man and said.
“I guess you didn’t hear me, but I was going to kill all the puppets anyway. We were just planning to disperse us and then take it apart.”
“Wow, isn’t it certain?”
“no. I’m sure. They had no intention of releasing us.”
The man, frightened by Oliver’s calm, calm remarks, and the other solvers couldn’t say anything.
Oliver opened his mouth, checking the flask he had in his arms.
“I’m sorry if you were offended by my behavior. ·····But, if we had stayed still, the puppets would have incited a fight between us, and in the end we would have fought each other without meaning. So, I moved first, so please understand. I don’t want to fight you, I don’t want to kill you.”
Taken from n̲o̲b̲l̲e̲m̲t̲l̲.̲c̲o̲m̲
No more complaining whether the persuasion had worked.Of course, it wasn’t on my mind.
There seemed to be no one to fight with, but Oliver didn’t really care. I was thinking of moving alone anyway.
Just as he was about to move, Knuckle Joe spoke up.
“Hey····.”
“…? Yes, Mr. Joe.”
“Don’t keep adding seeds, just call me Joe…. Because it’s unfamiliar.”
“ah····. Yes, I understand. Did you call me to say that?”
Sam grabbed Joe’s shoulder, but Joe pushed back and spoke again.
“Are you… are you going to go fight the puppet?”
“Yeah, because you promised? . . . I’ll probably send the zombies here right away if I don’t.”
“Is it true that if we win, we will be set free?”
“Yes. The words were sincere. At least when answering. Haven’t you seen it?”
“No, I didn’t see it at my level. I’ve only seen you… Are you sure you can win?”
Oliver thought to the question.
“Well···. I do not know. I can’t honestly say for sure, as I’ve never been in a relationship before.”
“A tendency you have never met?”
“Yes, everyone is usually interested in winning and losing, but Puppets seem like good people. You seem to be interested in something else. I don’t even know what it is.”
Then, someone muttered.
“By the way, Puppet said he was interested in immortality. Rumor has it.”
“Is it immortal?”
The murmurer carefully answered Oliver’s question.
“Well, it’s just a rumor…”
Immortal immortality…. It wasn’t an impossible story.
According to Joseph’s book, there were quite a few people who were obsessed with that part.
I have seen in past books that even non-warlocks research or invest in this.
Of course, there has never been a single case of success.
However, it was not clear to say that it was simply immortal.
Are you saying that the scattered puzzles don’t fit together?
Joe opened his mouth again.
“Hey, sorry for interrupting the conversation, but answer my question first. You can win, can’t you? . . . If you can’t win, there’s a better way for us to subdue you and negotiate with the puppet.”
At Joe’s words, his fellow solvers and mercenaries took a stance.
If you drive, you can move.
It was sincere to some degree.
“I do not know····. I don’t know if I can win or not, but I will fight with the intention of winning. It’s a natural story, but I don’t want to die either.”
“······okay? All right, then I will follow.”
“Yes?”
“I’m going too.”
Joe said frankly.
***
Oliver went into the basement passage where the search team had entered (entered) to keep his promise to Puppet.
In addition to Oliver, Knuckle Joe from the Fighter Crew, Sam with the Dual Pistol, and Stonefist Arthur the Fixer also joined.
Joe said he would follow him, and Sam followed him because he couldn’t let him go alone, but Arthur didn’t know why.
When asked about this, he answered.
“reason? What’s the reason? It’s better to be with a real man who wants to fight than with bastards trying to sell me.”
“ah·····.”
Oliver groaned. I’m sure you’d be anxious to be there.
Even for a moment, I fell for the puppet’s trick.
Of course, I couldn’t help but blame them.
What would you say? Each word of the puppet had something that shook people for some reason.
Something that digs into a person’s weak spots.
“there·····. I have a question too, can I ask you something?”
Sam intervened with a pistol in both hands.
“Yes, you tell me.”
Sam looked at Oliver and said.
“ha······. There are so many things I want to ask you, but I will ask you the most curious one. How did you find out?”
“Yes, what?”
“Puppet. It’s called an invoice doll… I didn’t know. Even if you have good eyes.”
“·················ogue.”
Oliver was silent, not knowing how to respond.
Puppet’s Invoice Doll certainly belongs to the well-made category.
He looked like a living person even if he pretended to be, and it was natural because he was well synchronized.
However, Oliver was completely different if you looked closely.
Is it just the difference between being less focused and more focused?
I couldn’t answer that.
Considering Sam’s emotional state, he didn’t seem to understand.
So, he answered with a moderate amount of flesh.
“I once met a person who is a disciple of Puppet.”
“student?”
“Yes, I’m Glip the puppeteer, and he says he’s Mr. Puppet’s disciple, but I’ve seen him pretend to be a human using a mortuary doll. So I was able to notice.”
“How did we meet?”
“We were staying where we were, and unfortunately at that time, we had a disagreement and we fought.”
“…you won?”
“Uh, yes.”
“I will ask again. You knocked down Puppet’s apprentice?”
“Yes····. I was lucky.”
Sam, Joe, and Arthur looked surprised.
Oliver didn’t quite understand why he was surprised.
“then·····. Do you have any concrete plans to take down the puppet? Since you have followed me all the way here, would you like to tell me?”
“There is no plan. It’s like meeting the puppet in person and trying to knock it down? If only he is defeated, the zombies outside will be incapacitated naturally.”
Perhaps it wasn’t the answer they liked, Joe, Sam, and Arthur’s expressions were not very good.
But I couldn’t even say anything.
There was no other way for them to do this on their own.
Arthur, who was still silent, said a word.
“··············The possibility is not completely absent. A warlock of this kind would be weak in direct combat.”
Everyone’s eyes turned to Arthur.
“Do you know anything?”
“No, I don’t know. I’ve met him a few times on the battlefield. Warlock.”
“A warlock? Are you a mercenary?”
“There are mercenaries, and there are warlocks who just came to pick up the corpses… Even picking up corpses, sometimes there were those who tried to kidnap a living person.”
“Have you ever had a fight?”
“There isn’t…. You kidnapped our squad member. It wasn’t a very pleasant memory. You’ll probably have to avoid several traps this time too… Why did you guys follow me?”
Arthur suddenly asked Joe and Sam.
“What do you mean?”
“No, it was me who was pointed out with this friend and followed, but I don’t know why you guys followed me. Especially, the knuckled-up friend there.”
Arthur asked, pointing to Knuckle Joe.
Sam said displeased instead.
“what? What does it sound like we’re up to?”
“Well····. All I know is rumors, but there are rumors that Puppet had a lot of pupils, right? So, huh?”
Sam smiled displeasedly, and gave strength to the hand holding the pistol, but Joe took it and calmed it. And then he said.
“don’t worry. It’s never like that.”
“is it?”
“Yeah, unfortunately I couldn’t find a good teacher like Puppet. I too am just taking risks to live. In my experience, it’s the most dangerous to stay still in a situation like this, so I just followed.”
It was half sincere.
Sam added one more word.
“Well, if we fight the puppet and survive, our name will increase.”
Then the quarrel subsided.
Looking back, it wasn’t just a fight.
Everyone didn’t express it, but it was because they were anxious.
Even though it had been a while since I entered the basement, I couldn’t see anything.
Puppet accepted Oliver’s offer, so I thought it would be out soon, but he hadn’t even seen his nose.
I wondered if Puppet had changed his mind and changed his mind, but there was nothing he could do right away, so Oliver brought up another story.
Everyone gets more anxious when they don’t say anything.
“Well·····. By the way, the basement here is also well-maintained.”
Oliver looked around and said.
In fact, the basement was in a neat condition with cement and bricks.
Then, someone said.
“It was originally a basement built by the owners of this street. wizards. It cost some money.”
unfamiliar voice.
Everyone was startled and turned their heads in the direction the sound was heard.
There stood a man with a saber on his waist.
‘Puppet… But how?’
Oliver thought for a moment.
I was looking around with some concentration on my eyes, but I didn’t notice it at all.
While Oliver was bewildered by the situation he was experiencing for the first time, Arthur, Joe, and Sam moved first.
Arthur gathered his magical energy into the golem’s prosthetic arm and punched the puppet that suddenly appeared.
The golem prosthetic made of stone and magical power flew like a cannon, and it was as menacing as a huge boulder.
However, surprisingly, the puppet swung the saber only once to cross the golem prosthetic arm.
Arthur said in amazement as he looked at the flying arm.
“Even a corpse golem can be crushed with bare hands…!!”
“ah····. Even though it’s a C-class, it’s a little sad to compare my work to a corpse golem, right? How about being more calm than that? I’m just here to talk-“
“-Joe.”
Sam said with a pistol in both hands.
I shot with him, and a bullet with black magic flew and threatened the puppet.
Various black magic was imbued with it, but Oliver was surprised by his unfamiliar but creative attack method.
But what was even more surprising was the puppet’s action, slashing while avoiding bullets.
It didn’t compare to Chevy’s time, but it seemed that the combat power as well as the fighting style were completely different depending on the corpse doll.
shudder. shudder.
Sam dropped the bullet.
The puppet lowered himself and dug into it in an instant.
“If at least one person dies, will you listen to me?”
“right. Only if you die.”
said Knuckle Joe, cutting between the colleague and the puppet.
He strengthened his body with black magic, attacking the puppet with sharper movements than when he had fought Oliver in the past.
The problem was that the puppet was sharper than that.
Taken from n̲o̲b̲l̲e̲m̲t̲l̲.̲c̲o̲m̲
Not only did he lightly dodge Joe’s fists with acrobatic movements, but he also diddge a surprise lower kick, then swung the saber again.Sun ━━━━ just right!
Just before Joe’s decapitation, Oliver in a black suit blocked the puppet’s blade with a quarterstaff.
The blade has emotion, so if it had just been blocked, the quarter staff would have cut it right away.
“ah·····. You don’t want to kill me yet.”
“I don’t want to die either.”
Oliver swung the quarterstaff with strength.
The puppet skillfully stepped back.
Obviously, his body movements were completely different from when he was Chevy.
I wondered if that could be possible by simply changing the invoice doll, but for now, after putting the question aside, Oliver used Hat Bullet to target the puppet.
Puppat cuts the hat bullet with a knife. Then he said as if analyzing.
“Not only do you mix manipulation and disease, but you also use firearms skillfully… What are you?”
Just—–!
Oliver quickly closed the distance and swung his quarterstaff.
“How amazing. I also have a lot of questions about Mr. Puppet. How did you kill Ki-cheok, how you can move in such a different style, where is the body?”
“main body?”
Puppet said with a laugh.
“We have a lot of questions for each other. Then, shall we talk for a moment?”
“Yeah, that’s good.”
With that said, Oliver slapped the puppet’s saber and stabbed him with a quarterstaff.
Puppet skillfully blocked it with a saber, but that was enough.
[Ras Boom]
A las boom at the end of the quarter staff exploded, smashing one of the puppet’s mortuary dolls.
Processed skin, flesh, bones, and springs were scattered on the floor, but nevertheless, the puppet was as relaxed as in Chevy.
“Oh, even if I lost two invoice dolls in one day, it seems like it’s been a long time since I lost to the same person.”
Oliver asked, pointing the quarterstaff to the puppet.
“Then shall we talk now?”
“Well, it’s a little different here, but why don’t we go further inside and have a conversation?”
Then Puppet put his hand on the floor.
The emotions in his hands moved quickly along the crevices of the floor, and with him he felt a sense of floating beneath his feet.
The floor was collapsing.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a fun friend like you.”
With him, Oliver fell to the floor with the puppet.