Chapter 87

Oliver fell into the hole.

Before falling, Oliver glanced around.

Joe, Arthur, and Sam came to help, but suddenly the basement passageway wall broke and a horde of zombies came out and grabbed their ankles.

It seemed like a thoroughly calculated move.

Oliver stopped himself from falling by using [Targeting] on his hand and the wall.

Then, with his quarterstaff, he stabbed the falling Corpse doll and caught it.

BOOM!

One side of the body was blown away by the [Las Bomb], and Puppet, who was inside the body of the Corpse doll pierced by the quarterstaff, said with a laugh.

“Huhuhuhu… It’s unfortunate. I put a lot of effort in preparing this, and it’s a bit embarrassing looking at someone able to respond like this…”

“Did you lie?”

“Huh? What?”

“Didn’t you say you’d release me if I win?”

“Ah…that’s right. But, you didn’t win, did you? Surely, you beat this body, but that doesn’t mean that you won over me.”

Puppet shook his head.

“Oh, please… Please, don’t do that. I met a funny chap after a long time. Don’t be like other idiots. Those idiots who injure my finger and go out to brag that they killed Puppet.”

Puppet’s words were sincere.

He didn’t care much about winning or losing, but he didn’t think he lost either.

He was not taking things seriously, as if he wasn’t even interested in fighting, but his words were sincere and he was not bluffing. 

He was different from all the people Oliver had seen so far, and it sparked a curiosity in Oliver.

“Um…Why are you doing this?”

“Let’s call it curiosity. To get to know more about Humans, it’s best to put them in a crisis, at least from my experience… It’s embarrassing, but can I ask you a favor? Can’t you just come down thinking you’ve been beaten? I want to have a conversation with you. Please.”

Oliver looked up.

“Um…what will happen to those guys?”

“They’re doing what solvers do. Fighting hard. They’re resisting well, but I’ll be able to subdue them soon.”

Joe, Sam, and Arthur were resisting, but the number of zombies was endless.

It seemed like they would be suppressed soon due to the nature of the narrow space.

“Are you going to kill them?”

“… not right now. Why? Do you want me to kill them now?”

“No, I hope you don’t kill them if possible.”

Puppet made a surprised expression.

“Hey…. were you that kind?”

“I was taught to take care of my colleagues.”

“A colleague? Huhuhuhu….you talk like a ten-year-old kid. Who taught you that? Well, okay, how about this? I won’t kill them, instead, you have to come down. Please come. Don’t worry, there are no traps down there. I just want to talk.”

“Um… It’s a tempting suggestion, I also have a lot of questions for you?”

“Oh, well? I’ll answer you when you come down.”

Oliver nodded after thinking for a second. He released the [Targeting] and fell straight down.

The ground seemed a lot below despite it being below the basement, and fortunately, there was no shock when he landed. It was thanks to the black suit, but it was also because there was something like a cushion underneath. 

The whole place was dark and Oliver couldn’t see much, so he lit up his surroundings with a small amount of emotion, which revealed the mass of seriously rotten flesh beneath Oliver’s feet.

“You have a good stomach? Colin and David vomited as soon as they saw this. Especially, you should have seen that brat Colin… Huhuhuhu… I don’t know how he can be like that even though he was a member of the Mjölnir school.”

Oliver didn’t cry or vomit, but he could understand it.

It was because this mass of flesh was more than just rotten, it was so terrible that it could not be described in words.

It looked like the flesh of people mixed like flour dough.

The pain and despair were evident in the twisted faces among the mass of flesh.

As Oliver was observing that rotten piece of flesh, he noticed something interesting on the wall.

It was a pattern, and he had seen similar a pattern in the past.

It seemed similar to what he saw on Joseph’s Secret Altar.

“A circle. Two crescent moons, an X pattern, a candlestick, and a cross…..Is this a place where a Demon is worshiped?”

“Half wrong Half correct.”

“This piece of flesh…Did Mr. Puppet do this?”

“Ummm…no, I’m getting old and shameless, but as a scholar, I have no intention of taking credit for other people’s work. It is the work of the owners of this city.”

‘Owners of the city?’

“Are you talking about wizards?”

“That’s a correct answer. You’re surprisingly quick? Talking about it is very frustrating.”

Oliver accepted Puppet’s words without question.

Not because his words were sincere, but because he expected a good reason in his own way.

“…do wizards do business with demons?”

“Yes, they research and sometimes trade. Demons are terrifying creatures who want to sicken and destroy the human world, but at the same time, humans have a lust for unfathomable wisdom. It cannot be denied that they are convenient and useful beings.”

Oliver was not particularly surprised. It seemed a bit discriminatory from the beginning to think that only warlocks could use demons… and now, he came to know that wizards also use Demons if necessary.

He still didn’t know how they could do it though.

Oliver nodded as if convinced, and Puppet smiled when he saw that.

“Huhuhuhu, you’re really amazing…..if I say wizards have something to do with demons, most people don’t believe them, even warlocks.”

“is that so?”

“Of course. Common sense is so scary. It prevents free ideas and rational guesses.”

As Oliver explored the room he was in, he once again saw a chunk of flesh and the many patterns painted on the wall.

He had no idea what the experiment was, but it seemed like something that had to do with life.

When asked about this, Puppet said:

“Well, I can tell you, but not here. Can you come to the place I ask you to? I want to talk face to face.”

Without thinking about it, Oliver left the room he was in and started walking down the hallway as Puppet told him.

Oliver focused the energy on his eyes and looked around, but saw nothing.

He couldn’t sense anything like when he first came down to the basement.

“I can’t see anything?”

“I have a lot of love for my lab and I care about security. I put in some protection.”

“Is this also a laboratory?”

“Most of the basements of District F are labs. It’s usually used for an illegal experiments. I always feel that the land under Landa is useful to both the poor and the wealthy. They use it as a place to hide their personal fetish.”

Oliver listened quietly.

The way he was talking seemed like he know a lot about this world. After all, it was said that he has been living for a very long time, so it may be natural.

“…can I ask what you’re doing here?”

Oliver asked as he passed the lab.

Numerous bodies were found in the laboratory.

There were traces of surgery rather than a simple corpse, and some of which were masses of flesh skillfully woven to form a human body.

It was like the one Oliver saw in the room he first fell into.

The only difference was that this one had a much more similar appearance to a person.

“Of course, I was doing an experiment.”

“Experiment?”

“Yes, then why would I, a scholar, be wasting my precious time here?”

Puppet kept calling himself a scholar several times.

From what Oliver had heard, a scholar was a person who was proficient in academia or a person who studies science.

It felt like irrespective of being a wizard or a warlock, one can be a scholar.

“Of course, people call me a high-risk criminal, an underworld tycoon, a great warlock, but that’s a big mistake. I just want to do research. It’s just that, sometimes it feels a bit insulting, y’know.”

His words were sincere.

It seemed like Puppet had a great attachment to his research.

Oliver wondered what kind of research he was doing.

“……Can I ask what kind of research you’re doing Mr. Puppet?”

“Hmm…well, it’s not fun to answer right away. Let’s turn the tables for a bit. Why are you working as a Solver? From my point of view, you don’t seem like a person who wants to easily make money with crude black magic skills?”

Oliver himself thought why he was working as a solver.

His thoughts became complicated.

After coming out to the world following the advice of the Paladin Joanna, he met Kent and decided to become a solver in order to use the black market without belonging to any organization.

After organizing his thoughts he briefly said about this, and hearing that Puppet asked as if he didn’t understand.

“Why are you not interested in being a part of an organization? If you want to use the black market, you’d be better off belonging to an organization.”

“Um? When you belong to an organization, there will be times when you have to force yourself to do something you don’t want to do?”

Oliver said as he recalled Puppeteer Glyph, who was collecting beggars and women to supply the Black hand.

“Then, how about attacking a large family and making it yours? After that, the subordinates will do whatever you want to and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“Um…That won’t work either.”

“…what do you mean?”

“I have been in a similar situation in the past. My colleagues work hard, but as time goes on, they stop thinking about themselves and only try to do what I want.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“It’s comfortable, but.. How to say it? Um… Everyone had their own pretty light, but as they just do whatever I want to… those lights started disappearing.”

“light……?”

“Yes, light. Don’t you know about it Mr. Puppet, since you’re also a warlock… have you ever seen it? A pretty and beautiful light that some people emit… I left the organization to explore it, and I’m working as a Solver to find out about it. Well, now that I think about it, it seemed like a good choice.”

Oliver said with sincerity.

He hasn’t really learned anything about the beautiful light after leaving the organization, but still, it was quite an enjoyable journey for Oliver.

He met Kent and met a lot of other people in pursuit of that beautiful light.

In the process, he was able to learn some things about the world, such as Brokers, Solvers, Underworld, gangsters, and Veterans.

He even found that a chore boy at the inn could learn to read if he had the courage.

Oliver felt that the world was full of such fun things.

Listening to Oliver’s story Puppet asked if he was interested.

“I don’t quite understand. What is this beautiful light?”

Oliver didn’t know how to respond or how to describe the beautiful light.

“Beautiful light is….beautiful light.”

He even knew that he himself won’t understand what he just said, but, that was all he could think of.

In the past, he had an opportunity to hear from Joanna about this, but unfortunately, he did not get any answer this time.

Oliver recalled what Joanna said to him. 

– You’re broken.

Suddenly, Oliver wondered what Joanna was doing.

He heard from the pharmacist that she returned to the Parter church Landa branch safely after negotiations, but did not know what happened to her after that.

As Oliver was reminiscing about the past, Puppet said.

“You look like a moth.”

“Pardon?”

“When there is light, a moth flies towards it. The funny thing is, it doesn’t even know why it does that. It’s just an instinct… But you know what… I don’t hate that kind of attitude. It’s a necessary skill for a scholar.”

“I’m glad. So, now, can you tell me, Mr. Puppet? What are you researching here?”

Oliver did not expect him to answer, but to his surprise, Puppet responded more docilely than he thought.

“…I’m researching how to make a human.”

“Human?”

“Yeah… it’s about resurrecting to be exact, but even after researching for a very long time, none of them I resurrected is a perfect human.”

Oliver asked with interest.

“Perfect Human?”

“Yes. Oh, let’s go back to the left here… A perfect Human, a creature that is full of flaws and gets swayed by all the emotions inside them. I imitate the shell, but the inside……the soul… it’s just the realm of the gods.”

Oliver turned to the left as Puppet told him to.

There was a door at the end, and it felt similar to going to the Secret Altar with Joseph in the past.

“Thank you for your kind explanation. By the way, it is strange to ask such a question after asking many things…, but, can I ask why you are answering me so kindly?”

“Isn’t it good to be polite? If you live for hundreds of years, life is boring.”

Puppet sighed.

“…But at the same time, I want to check it out.”

“Um, what do you mean?”

Puppet did not answer the question, and suddenly the Corpse doll in Oliver’s quarterstaff fell limp like a marionette whose thread got cut.

Oliver opened the door without much surprise, and on the inside was a man.

A man lying down in his chair. 

The man lifted his head slightly and said:

“Whether I should hand you over to the Demon, or should I use you for myself.”