Chapter 766: Oliver (7)
A stark white sky, pure white snow, and a world blanketed in white.
The Land of Ice, known as the world’s end, could be summed up in those simple words. Nothing but white stretched across the landscape—nothing else existed here.
Because of this severe environment, no human had ever conquered this land, and Oliver ventured into a cavernous opening at its center.
Rather than an entrance, it resembled a cliff, a gaping chasm so daunting that approaching it felt unnerving. Yet, as Oliver stepped forward…
Thunk.
A platform jutted out from the rough ice wall, providing Oliver a foothold. As he took another step, yet another platform emerged, one by one.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
With each heavy sound, the stepping stones formed a staircase. Oliver descended along this path, deeper and deeper.
After descending dozens of meters, the scenery changed. The naturally formed giant fissure had gradually been carved smooth, as if by human hands. Numerous passageways and entrances, with hidden traps of dark magic woven between them, became visible.
These were the mechanisms set up by Puppet to ward off any foolhardy individuals who might dare to venture this far. Yet, Oliver only had to walk forward, disregarding the traps as he made his way inward.
"Hmm..."
Oliver inspected the corpse puppets concealed throughout the complex maze-like entrance of this secret base, letting out a contemplative hum.
Since this place was where Puppet’s true form resided, there were countless corpse puppets. Among them were dark magicians, wizards, druids, those skilled in mana, soldiers—practically a legion.
There was even a substantial number of zombie weapons crafted in the form of giant spider mutations. It seemed impossible for anyone to break through this barrier by ordinary means.
Yet, not a single one of the countless corpses reacted to Oliver’s presence. They stood there, motionless, as if the strings animating them had been severed.
"This place..."
Unhindered, Oliver continued his slow descent, examining his surroundings as he murmured, taking in a vast chamber that resembled a frozen storage area, where countless corpses were stored densely, like butchered meat.
It seemed this place was Puppet’s largest corpse storage and corpse puppet workshop. Given the icy surroundings, it wasn’t an unfavorable location, provided one could adapt to the harsh environment.
Descending further still, Oliver found a large-scale workshop dedicated to creating corpse puppets, equipped with workstations numbering over a hundred. Multiple-armed corpse puppets worked at each station, while complex surgical machines hung from the ceiling.
Continuing downward, he encountered a laboratory filled with an array of experimental and chemical apparatuses.
Oliver recognized it as a lab dedicated to researching souls.
And descending even further, he discovered a massive archive containing volumes upon volumes of books.
He initially assumed it was simply a storage room for the research data from the lab above. But upon closer inspection, he realized this was something else entirely.
Curiously, this space didn’t contain soul-related research records. Instead, it held photographs of children along with their childcare records.
Details of their ages, genders, heights, weights, likes, dislikes, what they learned, when they became adults, left the orphanage, and the careers they pursued were meticulously recorded.
Though the documentation conveyed a detached tone and the subjects were viewed more as experimental animals, with an undercurrent of obsession, it was clear to Oliver that these records were a collection of data on children. The sheer number of books documented how many children had passed through Puppet’s hands.
Contemplating this, Oliver also turned his thoughts to the ice cavern itself.
This ice cavern seemed like a manifestation of Puppet’s innermost psyche.
The uppermost section was camouflaged as an ordinary crevasse. But as one descended, it revealed more of Puppet’s private, sensitive side.
After exiting the book repository located at the lowest part of the ice cavern, Oliver looked around. There was no pathway leading further down, only a bottomless abyss stretching into darkness.
Oliver stepped forward, toward the dark chasm.
Click.
In an instant, he found himself standing at the bottom of the chasm. Darkness engulfed the area, and within that darkness stood a small figure.
As Oliver approached the figure, he offered a greeting.
“Hello.”
His greeting echoed deeply through the ice cavern, and even without any source of light, his voice seemed to lift the darkness gradually, revealing the figure hidden within—a small, soot-covered wooden puppet, charred all over from head to toe, as if scorched by flames.
“…”
The wooden puppet remained silent, simply gazing at Oliver.
Rather than pressing for a response, Oliver took his time to observe the puppet.
It had a black wig, a long nose, smooth, polished joints, and well-crafted limbs. The puppet bore a craftsman’s touch, and its attire—though ragged and worn after centuries—still retained the affection of its maker.
It was surely a precious outfit to Puppet. There was no other reason he’d still wear clothing this frayed.
After examining Puppet, Oliver glanced around.
Unlike the upper levels, filled with expensive equipment, security magic, trap spells, and laboratory apparatuses, the area down here was barren and desolate.
It seemed untouched, raw in its natural state, like the entrance above. The atmosphere was cold and empty, almost hellish, with nothing to fill it except Puppet’s true form.
“Do you feel cold down here, all alone? Or perhaps, as a wooden puppet, you can’t feel the cold?”
“…What happened to her?”
After remaining unresponsive until this moment, Puppet spoke up, questioning the whereabouts of Lilith.
Just as Lilith had mustered the courage to confront Oliver out of concern for Puppet, it seemed Puppet also held Lilith dear.
“I sent her somewhere temporarily.”
“A task to complete, perhaps?”
Puppet replied with an air of knowingness.
In retrospect, it wasn’t that strange. Puppet had previously repurposed several entities from the Archive as corpse puppets.
Maybe, at this point, he understood the Archive’s depths better than anyone, even Kevin. Surely, he could anticipate Oliver’s intentions.
Oliver answered frankly.
“Yes. Does that bother you?”
Puppet weakly shook his head.
Watching the wooden figure shake its head with such lifelike fluidity, Oliver thought others might find it unnerving.
“I have no objections. I no longer have the strength or will to protest.”
Puppet’s tone reflected resignation rather than acceptance.
“This outcome is likely for the best. If she must witness my end, it’s better she’s elsewhere… Now, do what you came to do.”
Puppet’s calm acceptance carried a tone of finality.
Oliver stepped closer to Puppet, who stood alone on the barren ice, a desolate figure upon the cold stone.
Standing before Puppet, Oliver took a seat, and an invisible chair formed beneath him, as if the very elements of the world were bending to support him.
“Do you really know what it is I wish to do?”
“Destroy me, of course. I killed someone precious to you. Or perhaps, you’d prefer that I suffer eternally. Either way, do as you will.”
“Heh… Bold of you.”
“…”
Puppet fell silent once more. Oliver pointed it out.
“You’re silent again.”
“What would I say? I have no power to change anything. Honestly, I’m more curious. Why go to such lengths for someone like me?”
“To converse instead of killing the wooden puppet that took Cant?”
“If you’re here to mock me, I’ll save you the effort. I’ve already tasted the deepest humiliation, seeing all my centuries of effort trampled underfoot. Physical suffering would mean little at this point. As you can see, my body and soul are already under the perpetual torment of the Burnt One.”
Puppet gestured to his scorched wooden form.
“Even if I could endure more suffering, it would be no different.”
“Don’t make such easy assumptions. There are many forms of suffering.”
“Sorry, but I’ve endured countless pains already. From physical agony to humiliation and endless efforts toward unreachable goals. Through the years beyond what any mortal lifespan could fathom, I’ve learned every pain imaginable.”
Puppet placed a hand over his chest as he paused.
“You may add to my suffering, but I assure you, there is no pain I haven’t already known.”
Oliver fell silent, though he partly agreed. Puppet, indeed, had suffered much—perhaps not entirely, but significantly.
“Though I disagree, I’ll leave that aside for now. This isn’t why I came here. I have a question: why did you wish to become human?”
Oliver laid several books taken from the repository before Puppet.
“Even while raising orphans, did you long to become a fleeting human? Was it truly because you felt unloved by God?”
“…”
Puppet remained silent yet again, though this time, it felt different. It wasn’t intentional silence; rather, it was the kind of silence that arose from an inability to respond.
Oliver waited, and Puppet eventually spoke.
“I don’t know. Even I’m not sure… why I wanted to become human. I think, at first… I may have been fine with things as they were.”
Puppet’s mutterings sounded as if he were entranced. After a brief moment, he chuckled.
“Maybe it was because of the children’s teasing.”
“The children’s teasing?”
“Don’t feign ignorance.”
Puppet’s laughter turned into a low growl.
Even with everything abandoned, the faint trace of anger showed how deeply that wound cut.
It was surprising, in a way, that such a powerful dark magician who had survived countless threats over the centuries could harbor such resentment over mere teasing from children...
“Did it anger you that they called you a puppet, rather than a person?”
“….”
“Or, perhaps it stung as much as the death of the grandfather who created and loved you?”
“I was only a replacement… a substitute for his dead grandson. No matter how well-crafted I was, I was still a fake.”
“Maybe you were in the beginning. But you know that changed, don’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter. In the end, I’m still a fake.”
“Is authenticity so crucial?”
“When a rich man dismisses money as trivial, it seems like virtue; when a poor man says it, it sounds like posturing.”
“But don’t you scorn humanity? You possess superior intellect, and compared to humans, you are practically immortal.”
“True, humanity is pitiful. Weak and foolish. I’ve dissected countless fools in my time. But did you know…”
“What?”
“Even the foolish, weak, and sometimes wicked humans are entitled to a trial after death.”
“Did you desire that? The right to judgment?”
“…”
Puppet paused, mulling it over before he smiled.
“Curious, isn’t it? To discuss this now…”
“What if it holds meaning?”
“What, are you going to make me human?”
“Oh, how perceptive of you.”
As he spoke, Oliver seized Puppet’s wooden hand.
In a blink, the world changed.
A stark white sky, pure white snow, and a world blanketed in white.
It resembled the Land of Ice, yet was not quite the same. Small villages and trees dotted the surroundings—this was the outskirts of the Kingdom of Winter, bordering the Land of Ice.
But for Puppet, this wasn’t important. What mattered more than the sudden change in scenery was the sudden change in his own body.
A chill ran through him—a bitter cold combined with sharp, searing pain.
The air, the snow falling from the sky, everything felt cold. The burns covering his entire body caused an unbearable sting. Although he had been nothing more than an unfeeling wooden puppet, Puppet now felt the cold and heat simultaneously. He felt real sensations—no longer the imitated perceptions through corpse puppets.
Raising a trembling arm, Puppet saw flesh and blood, not pinewood.
And his arm was burnt.
“Huh? Wh-what…?”
Disbelieving, Puppet touched his body, and gradually he began to accept the impossible truth: he was human.
The boy his grandfather had so desperately longed for.
Although his entire body was covered in burns, Puppet had become human.
Human!
A shock like a current of electricity surged through him, and he turned to Oliver, unable to fully believe his own feelings, and asked:
“…Why?”
A simple question: why had his enemy granted his deepest wish?
Instead of answering, Oliver posed his own question.
“Are you happy?”
Puppet said nothing, but his expression answered for him. Yes, he was happy. He could die now with no regrets.
Oliver responded to his silent answer.
“Enjoy that happiness while it lasts, for soon, you’ll face suffering unlike anything you’ve ever known. That is the punishment I bestow upon you.”
With those words, Oliver vanished as if he had never been there, leaving Puppet alone.
Alone in the pure white world where snow fell all around. It was not as completely white as the Land of Ice, however; far off, smoke rose, indicating a village, and there was a forest.
Rustle.
While surveying his surroundings, Puppet turned his head toward the sound of twigs snapping.
Puppet was no longer a dark magician with heightened senses, but a human who now depended on sight and sound. He only then realized that his black magic had dissipated.
Before he could fully process this realization, people emerged from the forest.
“Look! There’s someone here!”
They were dark magicians—bandits, judging by their ragged appearance, who preyed on villages in times of turmoil, plundering resources and kidnapping villagers.
Bloodstains on their clothes suggested they had already struck once, yet despite their menacing presence, Puppet smiled.
Though stripped of his powers and reduced to this helpless state, he was finally human.
He no longer cared what would happen to him.
As he entertained this thought, one of the dark magicians strode up to him, raising a club.
“Why’s this bastard smiling?”
Without waiting for an answer, the dark magician struck Puppet over the head with his club, knocking him unconscious.