Chapter 60: A Puppet's Story (3)

The judge's name was Brazer, a young Arcanist.

He had a handsome appearance, just like Major, but he was for more poisonous and vicious at heart.

Rogers's and the prison guards' deaths alerted him that these murders might have been related to Miss Donna, so I basically ran right into a trap.

I was captured yet again.

Luckily, I was not seen as an individual acting on it's own. They thought I was just a murder weapon being wielded by someone else.

Unfortunately, they were able to find Gold through me.

I watched as they took Gold away and tormented him.

That was when I knew that I had harmed yet another master of mine.

A master who had treated me well died yet again because of my actions. I tried to tell them that I had acted on my own, not under the control of any master, but they didn't listen to me at all.

It wasn't until much later that I realized that this wasn't just because they didn't believe that a puppet could act without instructions. Rather, they would never try a puppet in court as a murderer.

Puppets were puppets. They needed to be controlled by someone!

Even if that wasn't actually the case.

In their eyes, I was merely a weapon.

As the murder weapon, it was only natural that I was slated to be destroyed.

This time, however, I was completely destroyed, body and head included.

However, I still did not die.

I felt like I was floating into the sky, along with Donna's soul.

No one could see us.

I flew and flew for an unknown period of time until I found a puppet.

That puppet was a transmission puppet. It had four arms and a bunch of components with functions foreign to me. It looked very ugly.

Yes, ugly. At this point in time, I knew what the word ugly meant.

I understood what it meant to be ugly on the outside and what it meant to be ugly on the inside.

After going through all of these experiences, I began to understand what being intelligent meant.

Being intelligent meant be selfish!

Being intelligent meant being ambitious!

Being intelligent meant being greedy!

Intelligence was the combination of every kind of mood!

My current mood was madness.

I wanted revenge.

I wanted to kill those bastards who had killed my masters.

But I wasn’t strong enough, so I needed to give myself a new body, a body that made it easy to kill.

I began to learn Arcana Techniques from my new master.

My new master was also an Arcana Master, but he was not as nice as Donna nor as sincere as Gold. He was full of ambition, and all he thought about was how to find better raw materials. He and Roger were both puppet sellers, but he was more focused on finding rare ingredients to construct new puppets. I followed him all over the continent and grew used to seeing all kinds of evil deeds.

It was for this reason that I felt no pity.

If it weren’t for the fact that I was afraid it would jeopardize my plan, I could have used the former methods to harm my new master.

At the time, however, I needed a stronger body in order to carry out my plan.

I devoted my time to my studies, searching for all kinds of materials I could use to accomplish my plan. My new master never would have dreamed that I would steal from him.

One day, my new master brought me to search a new, unknown territory along with a bunch of other Arcana Masters.

As a transmission puppet, my main responsibility was to detect any dangers that might exist and then notify my master. Perhaps because I had an extraordinary consciousness, my detection abilities far exceeded that of any of my contemporaries.

For this reason, I discovered an incredibly powerful existence in this area.

An Origin Beast!

An Origin Beast that was in hiding.

I suddenly discovered that my original plan didn’t need to be used because I had an even better one.

I didn’t warn them at all. Instead, I told my new master that there were no dangers here.

In fact, I even sent that message to Brazer.

Yes, I informed him that we had discovered an abundant mine filled with boundless riches.

I knew that he would come.

He was greedy, just like all of them.

They would go crazy over unclaimed riches like flies buzzing around a piece of rotten meat.

All I needed to do was quietly watch as they died.

The plan was very successful. Large numbers of Arcana Masters began to pour in, finding the ores and beginning to mine them relentlessly.

Unexpectedly, however, the Origin Beast wasn’t awakened.

It was too large, so large that the Arcana Masters were merely like ants crawling across its skin. There was no way that they would be able to awaken it.

I felt very agitated. If that was the case, then not only would it be impossible for me to accomplish my revenge, but I would have benefitted these bastards and made them rich.

In addition, some of them had also brought along their own investigation puppets as well. Sooner or later, they would also discover the frightening existence asleep beneath them. At that point in time, they would retreat, and my plan would have failed.

If they continued to go deeper, the other detection puppets would also discover the Origin Beast’s existence. I became frantic and decided to go deeper on my own to try and awaken the Origin Beast.

I arrived at the depths of the mining tunnels. By relying on my powerful perception, I came to the Origin Beast’s head. But no matter how I attacked it, the Origin Beast refused to awaken. This drove me insane.

I decided to take an even greater risk and began to use my consciousness power to attack the Origin Beast.

Yes, this was the only method I had at my disposal.

This Origin Beast was simply too powerful. My physical attacks might not have any effect on it, but the consciousness power attacks might do something. In any case, that was all I could do.

It was then, however, that Donna suddenly appeared.

She had always been with me. I had once thought that our consciousnesses had merged, but it was at this moment that I discovered that was not the case.

She begged me not to go, because that was a path that I could never return from.

However, I had made up my mind to go down that path. The desire for revenge had burned away all my rationality, and I would pay any price if it meant accomplishing my mission.

Before then, however, I needed to protect Donna.

I divided a portion of my consciousness and placed her in my body, then activated my consciousness power to its fullest extent as I charged at the Origin Beast.

The Gold-Devouring Ape.

How fascinating. It devoured metals, and I devoured spirits. Perhaps this was some kind of fate.

Shockingly, I succeeded.

I charged right into its consciousness, only to discover that it had already died.

Yes, it had died a long time ago in its sleep.

Even though its physical body was incredibly powerful, its consciousness power was quite week. During its long period of sleep, its consciousness had begun to slowly erode away. Finally, it died in its sleep. Incredibly, its body was still alive.

And I, a body for the Spirit-Devouring Beast, just so happened to be an expert at taking over another creature’s body, even if it was a terrifying Origin Beast. Without its original consciousness, I was still able to live in it.

The Gold-Devouring Ape was resurrected!

I emerged from the ground, unleashing the most powerful howl I had ever been able to produce ever since my creation.

Then, I saw.

I saw these bastards trembling beneath my feet, saw their terrified expressions.

I laughed loudly. My laughter boomed like thunder.

I gazed at their despairing expressions, watching as a small number of Arcana Masters expressed their unwillingness to accept the situation by attacking me. I easily ignored their attacks and swallowed them up, turning them into part of the mountainous rock that made up my body.

Brazer died. My new master died. All of those greedy Arcana Masters died.

However, I was still not satisfied.

I wanted to charge into the Arcana Kingdom and slaughter them all until blood flowed like a river to wipe this evil species from the face of the continent.

I would have done it, too, if it wasn’t for Donna’s words.

Donna was still alive.

Of course she was alive. No matter who I killed, I could not possibly kill her.

She was still in my original body, watching me, pleading with me to spare them.

She was so kind that, even after everything she had gone through, she was still trying to protect them.

However, I refused.

The flames of rage had burned away my rationality. The shreds of intelligence I had remaining were only enough to keep me from harming Donna, not to obey her.

However, I was unable to complete my journey.

Because of this continent.

After I became an Origin Beast, I finally understood why Origin Beasts needed to hibernate.

Origin Beasts relied on Origin Energy to survive, and the Origin Energy in this world had grown rarer and rarer.

At this point, it was so thin that it had no way of supporting a massive creature like me. Even standing still, I found it hard to breathe.

My lungs burned as I gasped for air. My sea of Origin Energy was in turmoil, churning up inside me - a natural reaction to a lack of Origin Energy.

Only by hibernating would I decrease my expenditure of Origin Energy, allowing me to continue living.

I could sense that, if I continued to try and slaughter the Arcanists, I would probably be dragged down by my powerful body.

What a pity. If I was a bit weaker, I might have been able to hold on for a bit longer, but I was the powerful Gold-Devouring Beast. Ironically, that was what made it impossible for me to hold on in the end.

Even this single reawakening was a huge blow to my lifespan.

Even if I went back to sleep, I wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer.

Well, since that was the case, then all I could do was sleep.

That way I would be with Donna.

I promised Donna that I would not attack the Arcanists, but Donna needed to remain with me. At the same time, even though I wouldn’t kill those Arcanists on my own, I would reawaken to slaughter them as soon as they stepped foot in the area.

My hatred for the Arcanists made it so that I was willing to sacrifice my own life to destroy them!

Donna agreed.

However, she was very smart. Even though she agreed, she also sent word to the Arcana Kingdom that there was an Origin Beast buried here, warning them to not come. Of course, she didn’t say what had happened in great detail, but made up an elaborate excuse instead.

That was also fine.

This way, no one would come to disturb me and Donna anymore.

This way, I could be with Donna.

Donna would send out a warning from time to time in order to prevent any Arcanists from disturbing us. I imagine that Donna didn’t actually want to protect them, but me. However, Donna never admitted it.

That didn’t matter. I knew that she loved me, and that was good enough.

Unfortunately, even so, my body only continued to decline. It wasn’t only because of my reawakening. For Donna’s sake, I never fully went into hibernation. Part of my consciousness was always awake, and I would often talk with her because I didn’t want her to be lonely. This came at the detriment of my physical body and only increased my consumption of energy.

It was impossible for me to survive for much longer.

One day, the Gold-Devouring Ape’s Origin Energy stores ran out.

I knew that this body was about to die.

I had no fear of death, but I didn’t want to watch Donna die just like that.

I wanted to do one last thing for her.

I gathered what strength I had left and sent it into the core of the puppet that Donna was living in to create a protective barrier. Using the power of an Origin Beast to protect a puppet was probably enough to last tens of thousands of years.

However, I was mistaken yet again. Donna did not want to live a lonely, isolated life like this.

When she saw me give up, she also chose to give up.

Our consciousnesses merged at the last second.

I suppose this is a fitting end after all.