Chapter 61 – The Puppeteer IV

[Translator – Jjsecus]

[Proofreader – Gun]

Chapter 61 – The Puppeteer IV

“Huff...!”

Bloodshot veins appeared in Jung Sangguk’s eyes. His mouth and tongue were gagged by puppet strings, preventing him from speaking, but it didn’t matter.

Body language is a universal language, after all. Jung Sangguk’s entire body was thrashing, emitting SOS signals.

I felt sorry for him, but my priority wasn’t the parents; it was the child. Jung Sangguk’s struggles only provoked Lee Hayul.

“.......”

Without a word, Lee Hayul drove an awl under his fingernail.

Rip! The nail tore apart. Suddenly, another competitor in the same business was opened up.

“Mmpphhffh!”

The excessive bleeding from this competitive overreach caused Jung Sangguk to faint.

I mourned inwardly. It was all because he was born in the wrong era. Had he been born during the Japanese occupation, a traitor of his caliber wouldn’t have undergone fingernail torture.

I spread my hands.

“Lee Hayul, I have no intention of interfering in your business with Jung Sangguk. As I mentioned earlier, my goal is merely to persuade you to come to the academy.”

“.......”

“Let me introduce myself again. I am Doctor Jang. I eradicated Ten Clans in the Korean Peninsula. Currently, I serve as the vice principal at Freiheit Academy.”

By this point, it was appropriate for Lee Hayul to introduce himself. But that didn’t happen.

The housemaid marionette who had opened the basement door for me stood behind Lee Hayul’s wheelchair. She opened her mouth and spoke in a puppet’s voice.

“Lee Hayul. Puppeteer.”

“Hmm. I understand your caution, but can we not converse using your own voice?”

“Impossible.”

“Why is that?”

Lee Hayul opened her mouth wide. Her neat teeth were visible, beyond which lay an abyssal darkness.

I tilted my head.

What is this? Unless she’s mistaken me for a dentist, this pose makes no sense.

At that moment, the housemaid spoke like a puppet being ventriloquized.

“Vocal cords. Disabled.”

It was an unexpected revelation.

“She can’t produce sound.”

“.......”

“Therefore, she can’t converse.”

Only then did I understand that the disabilities afflicting Lee Hayul extended beyond the loss of her legs.

A physical language disability.

...If so, the girl before me must have endured extreme discomfort before her abilities awakened. The inability to move. The inability to communicate.

Moreover, considering her status as an illegitimate child of a prominent politician, one could add the constraint of social status to her burdens.

Indeed, the ability known as [Puppeteer] was nothing short of a miracle for Lee Hayul.

“...I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s alright.”

Lee Hayul closed her mouth. Her expressionless face as a puppeteer revealed no emotion.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Hmm.”

“How did you find this place?”

It was a bizarre scene.

Although the housemaid was speaking, the conversation was between Lee Hayul and me. The direction of the gaze and the voice didn’t match.

Despite the strange feeling, I kept eye contact with Lee Hayul.

“I followed Jung Sangguk. It was suspicious when he asked me to wait at the lodgings for two days. I saw him entering this Dollhouse and decided to eavesdrop for a while.”

“.......”

The girl’s eyes softened slightly.

It seemed she liked the term “Dollhouse.”

“Thanks to that, I could listen in on your conversation with Jung Sangguk. If you saw me rampaging upstairs, you’d know I’m good at using aura.”

Lee Hayul tilted her head.

“Aura?”

“...Yes.”

I manifested an aura on my palm. A dark flame. My aura was achromatic.

“This. Earlier, you infused golden aura into the puppet strings, didn’t you?”

“So, it’s called aura.”

“Some people call it internal energy. It’s a matter of preference. Some call it demonic energy, others pronounce it as aura. Did you learn it on your own?”

“Yes.”

“Impressive.”

“That’s what the Magical Girls said, too.”

For reference, Magical Girls were the strongest group of awakened individuals in Japan, and later, they essentially took over the role of the Japanese government as members of the “Magical Girl Council.”

How such a ridiculous situation came about... well...

For now, let’s just say awakened individuals tend to be stronger the crazier they are. There’ll be another chance to talk about them.

“Magical Girls? Did they try to recruit you?”

But his resistance failed. So the two ended up alternating as they spoke, as if they had forgotten my presence entirely, their emotions clashing violently yet diverging on a single path.

“Of course! I’m the head of the provisional government! If I lived in a shabby place, it would disgrace all the Koreans exiled here! Do you even understand how much the Japanese care about appearances?”

“Why did you stop feeding mom when she was sick and bedridden? Why didn’t you visit her?”

“I told you! I was out of my mind back then! Busy! And where do you think food comes from, the ground? Everyone was starving and struggling!”

“And mom’s funeral?”

“Of course I couldn’t go! I keep telling you! I’m not just one person. The future and hope of Korea depend on me!”

“You said you wanted to save your family. Just a moment ago. Then why suddenly talk about the country?”

“That was at first! Only at first! When I started looking after the Koreans here, I felt a sense of duty! Do you think a person stays the same forever? Does a traitor remain a traitor for life? Should a bad person just be killed? How can you be so harsh? Even if the whole world wants to kill me, family should protect each other!”

“Lies.”

“No, it’s not!”

“You didn’t protect us.”

“I couldn’t protect you! Yes! I’m sorry, Hayul. Okay? Dad was wrong!”

“Another lie. You didn’t apologize. Only after you knew about my abilities did you apologize. Why can’t you admit your lies? Why live like this? Why?”

“Why can’t you understand your father’s sincerity!”

...It was like a bizarre play.

I was speechless, watching a scene unlike anything I had ever seen before.

On one side was a child who couldn’t speak until she awakened her ability. On the other side was a man who had always been able to say anything.

Normally, we think of dolls as things that can’t speak.

But isn’t someone who says anything also a kind of doll? After all, if words never convey true feelings, aren’t they similar?

“You’re not my daughter! You’re a madwoman who tortures people!”

“You’re not my father either.”

Their anger had reached its peak.

But I thought they were both wrong.

Jung Sangguk was a doll too.

When he was the mayor of Busan, he was a doll that said anything to gain favor with the citizens. As the representative of Fukuoka, he was a doll that said anything to win Japanese support.

To him, words didn’t matter at all. It didn’t matter if he called the exiled group the Second Provisional Government. It didn’t matter if he renamed Fukuoka to Busan.

The only difference was whether it was his country or a foreign one. Jung Sangguk was a lifelong slave to national power, a national puppet.

If language defines a person’s essence, then Jung Sangguk was mimicking essence.

Something that imitates a human. Don’t we call that a doll?

Strangely, the genes of a doll were passed down to a doll.

For Lee Hayul, who grew up watching her mother and father, the essence of a human was imprinted as a doll.

Parents, whether they intend to or not, inevitably pass down some legacy to their children.

Even the parts he had ignored, his child couldn’t ignore. She couldn’t look away.

That was the fate of being human.

“Lies.”

“It’s not a lie...!”

And if someone had dedicated their life to power, they must also accept this kind of end.

In a battle of spirals that would never intersect, the one who holds the stronger power always wins.

Before they came to Japan, and shortly after arriving, the one with power in their family was undoubtedly Jung Sangguk. He had the power to control other dolls.

“Lies. Everything. All of it.”

But not anymore.

Now, the master of the “Dollhouse” was not him, but Lee Hayul.

“Guh—Hnng?”

Jung Sangguk’s neck was constricted.

Lee Hayul said nothing. Just as she had been since birth. She looked at her own blood relative the way she did when she was born.

The puppet strings dug into his skin.

A choking, convulsive sound.

“......! ......!”

A bit of struggling.

And then.

“......”

The doll went limp.

The basement fell silent.

In the end, the last words of a politician who had stirred up this apocalypse were these:

It’s a lie.

Everything.

All of it.

A testament cut into three words. Three segments of a broken neck.

As I looked at Lee Hayul, drenched in blood, I wondered whether those last words were closer to the truth or another lie among the many Jung Sangguk had uttered in his life as a politician.

“......”

Some might think that because those words weren’t spoken by Jung Sangguk’s own will, they can’t be considered his final words.

Maybe so.

But they were undoubtedly his legacy.

[Translator – Jjsecus]

[Proofreader – Gun]