76 – Wind-up City (3)
“Linda. Bring me an omelet. I’m hungry.”
[Command confirmed. Preparing dish #2. Omelet.]
“And don’t pour the egg in the wrong skillet and fuss around this time!”
[Unrecognizable command.]
“Hey!”
As Linda scampered out of the room, Kern’s loud yell echoed.
‘Yerina was here?’
I was lost in serious turmoil.
I’m screwed.
Thoroughly screwed.
If you ask if I’ve never been screwed before. Well, that’s not true.
This time, things took a different turn.
If it was just Jill or Yulia, it could be somewhat manageable.
One could say that the difficulty level of running away has increased.
But if it’s Yerina, then the story changes.
Yerina is relentless, she’ll chase me to the end of the world, to the depths of hell.
Keeping tabs on me, tailing me with fabricated excuses, it’s all part of the game.
Using investigative techniques beyond the imagination of ordinary people to track my every move.
Recognizing my footprints in the snow or on dirt roads and pursuing me.
Even beings with heightened senses, picking up on my faint scent and following it.
How is it that every time I replay the 12th chapter, new methods keep popping up?
She’s like an onion, the more you peel, the more you discover, with a charm that never ends.
“Isn’t there surveillance even here?”
Suddenly feeling uneasy, I quickly check outside the window.
It’s pitch black outside, no one in sight.
But I can’t let my guard down.
When I came here earlier,
I remember encountering a being in the alley.
Could that being be Yerina’s subordinate?
“Uh…”
When people are filled with fear, they entertain a thousand suspicions.
I close the curtains and turn away.
The water has already been spilled.
Yerina coming here is not a matter of the future, but of the past.
What’s important is the present.
I have to leave as minimal trace as possible in the city of Taeyeop.
“That woman. She may want to hide her identity by dressing in plain clothes, but she couldn’t hide her nobility. Living on the northern continent, it’s impossible not to recognize her face. She was definitely the Lady of Pallana.”
“…”
I take out a poem from the drawer and bite down on the pen, stopping any further happy-go-lucky thoughts of her being someone other than Yerina.
“Have you bought the Northern Lord’s grudge?”
“Let’s go with that.”
“It seems like a complicated situation. When I told the Snow Lord that I haven’t seen a man like that before, he did retreat willingly. But he asked me to contact him if that man comes looking for him.”
“It’s best not to contact him.”
“hehehehe. There’s no need to be so wary. What sort of prosperity can one expect to enjoy in a courtyard where one’s mind is already in disarray? Unless, of course, you’re some heinous serial killer.”
“It’s not like that…”
Luckily, Kern is an indifferent person.
In a courtyard where he is only waiting to die, there’s nothing good that will come from trying to impress the Snow Lord.
Kern won’t desire wealth or status.
“Well, then forget it. You woke me up, so I must repay the favor. I’ll take on a commission and create a magical tool. I’ll have to adjust Linda and then get back to work.”
“Are you waiting for something?”
“Me? Waiting? Huh… No way. Suicide is a sin, so being alive without being able to die is its own punishment. I’d rather just sleep and croak. Ah, don’t worry. Even if I die, I will definitely repay the favor before I do.”
“…”
Something feels off.
Kern has lost his entire family and even stopped working on the Leaf Machine.
At first glance, he seems to have no attachment to life.
Therefore, he has no reason to feel grateful for being cured of dementia.
No reason to repay the favor.
Could there be some other reason that requires him to regain his clarity of mind?
“Understood. The commission will be for a magical tool. Here’s the blueprint…”
But such matters are not within my knowledge.
Once the magical tool is made, I will never have to see Kern again.
I don’t want to delay any longer, so I take out the blueprint from my pocket and hand it to Kern.
My drawing skills may be lacking.
But if it’s a blueprint that I draw directly, it’s fairly well done.
It’s not something I created, just a reproduction of something I’ve seen, so it shouldn’t be difficult.
“This is…?! A magic tool that intervenes in spacetime, isn’t it?”
As Kern carefully examines the blueprint, his eyes widen.
As expected of a genius engineer, he can guess what kind of magical tool it is just by looking at the blueprint.
Just as Kern expected, it’s
In the original story, it’s a magical tool that several wizards and magicians barely manage to create in the extreme latter part of the game.
One of the essential items to challenge the final boss.
In other words, it’s a technology far ahead of its time.
Cairn recognized a technology that doesn’t even exist at this point in the game.
His cognitive ability, despite his debilitating dementia, is breathtakingly genius.
But what if Cairn, originally supposed to be babbling nonsense in his room due to dementia, is awakened through an Easter egg?
‘It’s possible to save a tremendous amount of time by creating the final item in advance.
We can completely skip the touching stories about gathering the knowledge and strength of people from all over the world in one place.
It was originally a gimmick created for speedrunners, but……
Regrettably, the game had completely failed even before someone could attempt a speedrun.
Instead, I went on to use it very well in my own speedrun.
“This can’t be activated. I’m not proficient with time-related magic, but I can tell from the blueprint alone. It’s a defective product.”
“I know. Please make it according to the original design without corrections.”
“Huh… If you insist, I will. Quite strange.”
Cairn stares at the blueprint again with a strange eye.
As Cairn said,
This is a blueprint whose normal activation is impossible.
For now.
To activate this magical tool, you need to gather one more part…
Which can be found later at St. Francesco Fortress.
Whether it’s because of the part or not, it’s a place we have to visit anyway, so we can stop by later.
“It’ll be fairly easy to gather other materials… but it may be tricky to supply the magic stone for the core. It needs to be both pure and fairly large.”
“In that case, I will procure it.”
I thought we would get stuck at this point.
There is a Black Star dungeon near the Clockwork City, so we can get magic stones from there.
The dungeon’s cores there are quite large and beautiful.
Just the right size for the core.
As long as certain conditions are met, there are no changes to the operation of the magical tool’s core.
So, without unnecessarily bothering me, any craftsman can process it here.
From Noble mtl dot com
Tonight, I’ll infiltrate the dungeon and obtain the magic stone.
If I hand it over for carving early tomorrow, the finished magic stone will be ready by tomorrow evening.
I should be able to deliver the processed magic stone to Kern by tomorrow.
“I just need to proceed with the production, leaving out the core. It’ll take about three days. Keep in mind that the magic stone should be delivered within that time. If it’s delayed more than a week, I might lose my mind again. The last time I regained my sanity, I was able to hold out for about a week, so it might be even shorter this time.”
“That’s enough.”
Last time it was a week.
How many days will it be this time?
Kern might only have a few days left in his right mind.
I’ll make sure to complete the task.
I bow to Kern and leave the room.
“…”
In the middle of passing through the hallway after leaving the room, I spot Linda coming down the corridor with an empty bowl.
A wind-up doll without any soul, her face expressionless.
Her resemblance to a real human is astonishing, anytime I see her.
Without a close look, one could easily mistake her for a human.
In fact, even if you take a close look, as long as she keeps her mouth shut, she looks human.
‘I feel unnerved. Is it just in my head?’
Linda passes by.
From under her maid apron dress, I can see the wind-up mechanisms, tangled and moving.
Something sparks in my mind at the sight, but then quickly fades.
Deciding it’s not worth troubling myself over, I hurry on.
[I have completed the omelette.]
“Hey, you! Is this another empty bowl! Where did you spill the eggs!”
Leaving behind the sound of Kern’s angry shout.
We left Kern’s house.
“So, am I free now? Isn’t that right? Okay? I can go now? You won’t follow me, right? Right? Okay?”
“…”
All the way to our next destination.
The droning noise from my side is really irritating.
“If you’re so curious, why not try running away just once?”
I questioned whether her liver had jumped out in fear, but the toad nun followed me diligently with a look of dissatisfaction, despite her short legs.
“No. I still have work for you to do. Just one more favor.”
“Again?!”
The toad nun drooped her shoulders and made a face of despair.
Her reaction was so exciting, it made me want to torment her even more.
“You said if I wake up that dementia patient, I’d be spared! This isn’t right! You’ve got to let me go now! You’re breaking our contract!”
“If we do it one more time, it’s really the end.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Really.”
Really. Truly.
These two words no longer have any effect on our trio of main heroines.
I’ve lied using these words more times than I can count.
Fortunately, the toad nun seems to be buying it.
Of course, whether I’ll actually free her once this is done, even I can’t say for sure.
Shamans are such valuable human resources…
I can even manipulate them as much as I want.
A shaman with no human rights because she’s a monster? Quite valuable.
“So what do we have to do this time? Let’s get it over with.”
“You see that door over there?”
“You mean… isn’t that a dungeon?”
Long after we’ve left the city, we reach a mountain path.
A massive stone door embedded in the steep cliff wall.
A dungeon situated in an absolutely out-of-the-way location, much like any other.
There are countless signs, fences, and barbed wire laid out before the dungeon entrance.
‘Black Star Dungeon’, ‘Turn Back’, ‘No Entry’, ‘Death at Your Own Risk’ and other fierce warnings are paired with menacing illustrations.
It’s a familiar sight.
I roughly cut the wire with my sword and break through the fence, moving forward.
“Think you could put a curse on this dungeon?”
“A curse on the dungeon?”
The Zinaesu nun’s head cheekily tilts to one side.
The very idea of cursing the dungeon is a novel one.
I’ve never tried it before either.
Much like cursing the whole of a train, wouldn’t it be possible to cast a debuff over the entire dungeon?
This was my starting premise.
Of course, if one were to abuse this method, one could possibly use it to strengthen the monsters inside the dungeon…
“There’s no way that’s possible!”
“Just give it a shot.”
Only someone out of their mind would attempt such a thing.