WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 296
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As the day of my advancement evaluation drew closer, I became quite busy myself. Not because I was training for the evaluation, but because I had to clean up the things I had set in motion.
After planting the magical power curse in my body, I had shut myself inside the tower for a year. It was only natural. I had no idea what might happen if I wandered outside with a frail body that could not use even a speck of magical power.
Even if I could change bodies, considering how devious mages were, it was necessary to guard against danger in advance. So I had spent all my time in the tower without any outside activity.
Naturally, I had no choice but to neglect the matters that needed handling outside. Running the shop in the city had been especially difficult.
Unlike ordinary attendant puppets, my puppet workshop offered custom-made puppets for everyone. That meant someone had to be stationed at the shop at all times to manage it.
But I had locked myself in the tower, and Isabella was also occupied with the process of creating a soul. The shop had been running without anyone truly in charge.
Of course, I had not simply left the shop alone. I had entrusted it to the inner demon puppets, who were at least somewhat reliable.
And naturally, they caused plenty of trouble, just as they had in the tower. True to inner demons born from a treasure's desires, they caused trouble in truly innovative ways.
I knew the losses were gradually piling up, but there was no one else suitable for the job. I had no choice but to keep leaving the shop to them.
Still, there were a few sensible inner demon puppets, such as Nun, so fortunately the workshop had not collapsed. Several members of my workshop had helped as well.
I smiled faintly as I thought of Repo, my first member. When I met her yesterday for the first time in a while, she had come to greet me with a remarkably well-fed face. The woman who had once looked like a wanderer was nowhere to be seen.
Seeing that, I knew the seed I had wished to plant was growing well. As long as I protected her profits, she would become a tool for me.
Still, the fact remained that I had left the puppet workshop unattended. I found that quite a few problems had arisen with documents, technical matters, and the like.
That was why, after being freed from the magical power curse, I had no choice but to visit the city regularly. I needed to maintain my connections and resolve the accumulated problems. The recent exchange meeting had been one such occasion.
And I had barely managed to finish dealing with all that. It was two days before the advancement evaluation.
With a smile, I raised the teacup before me.
Before undergoing an advancement evaluation whose course I could not predict, I was enjoying a brief moment of peace. I took a sip of tea and quietly marveled at its fragrance and flavor.
The earthy scent of lotus flowers and gentle sweetness swirled through my body. The magical power blooming within it flowed through my veins, beginning to form a single current.
That magical power soon flowed into my inner image and caused a flower to bloom atop my tree. Recognizing the flow, the tree accepted the flower's magical power and swayed in delight.
I smiled as I felt the tree grow, if only a little. I had heard of a tea with this sort of effect before. Was it called Hwasimro?
I had heard it was quite expensive. As I had just experienced, it was a kind of elixir, so that was only natural. I nodded while taking another sip.
Of course, it was not much of a burden for someone like me, who was earning a decent amount of points. Even so, I had marveled because I had never expected to drink it here.
I glanced around me. A small cavern came into view. The roots of a tree stretching down from overhead formed a magic circle, and it was truly a magnificent sight.
This was where the On Puppeteer Association, the organization I belonged to, held its gatherings. It was a place reached by tunneling into a mountain near Stalactite City.
I glanced up at the magic circle overhead. They had said that it prevented this place from being detected, had they not? Its craftsmanship was impressive every time I saw it. Just looking at it made me realize how lacking I was.
Across from me, Mauro, the old man who had been enjoying tea with me, let out a hearty laugh. As he stroked his long beard, he seemed to exude a deep sense of ease.
“I’m glad you like it. I heard you enjoyed tea, so I raided the association’s funds to buy it.”
“I can only thank you for giving me something so precious.”
I calmly bowed my head. I truly meant it. I never expected the puppeteer association, which had once struggled in poverty for lack of points, to give me tea as a gift.
Then I heard someone click their tongue beside me. It came from Koite, who was seated at my side. He shook his head and sighed.
“Ha. They can afford things like that because they have some breathing room now. If you hadn’t sponsored them, they’d still be digging up dirt to eat.”
Koite jerked his chin. At the end of his gaze, many mages were sprawled across the floor. All sorts of puppets sat near them.
They were all puppeteers from the association. Unlike before, they looked fairly respectable now. They wore proper robes and their faces were well groomed.
As Koite had said, they had escaped their former beggar-like state and become so presentable because I had consistently sponsored the puppeteer association.
“I never thought I’d live to see those beggars look human. To think such a useful junior would come out of this idiotic organization. I can hardly believe it. It’s a miracle.”
Koite muttered emotionally. He stared at me with burning eyes. I gave an awkward smile at the intense desire in his gaze, which seemed to say he would never let me go.
“It’s nothing. I only help because there is something I want as well.”
I shrugged lightly. It was not as though I helped them out of goodwill alone. This was something I had done after careful calculation.
I was a puppeteer, after all. That meant they could not help but feel a sense of kinship with me. The more debts I etched into them, the more goodwill they would naturally hold toward me.
So investing points to maintain this relationship did not feel wasteful at all. Like the members of my store in the city, they would become a wall protecting me.
It was also convenient to receive help with my concerns. I shifted my gaze and began looking for someone.
I had come to this gathering partly to enjoy some leisure, but more importantly, I had come for help with my advancement evaluation. They were all seniors who had advanced before me.
That did not mean I intended to hear from everyone. It would be enough to hear from the most reliable person.
As I looked around, a woman soon caught my eye. It was Amelia, who could be considered my direct senior. I had heard she would soon complete the basic curriculum.
As if proving it, she possessed excellent magical power. I could clearly feel that her magical power and body were in harmony.
But unlike that magical power, her current behavior was rather pathetic. Like the other puppeteers, she was rolling about on the floor, wearing a vacant smile that did no justice to her pretty face.
The enormous werewolf I had seen beside her several times before was nowhere to be found. Instead, she held a small werewolf in her arms.
I frowned slightly as I examined the face, which looked closer to human than wolf. That werewolf was giving off magical power somewhat similar to Amelia’s. After confirming it, I shook my head.
“Don’t tell me Amelia has finally reached the end of the puppeteer’s road as well...”
They said old puppeteers eventually fell in love with their puppets. And those who fell in love dreamed of having children with them.
Had Professor On and Tiena not been the same? Amelia must have fallen into that sort of love and ended up creating a child with her werewolf puppet.
“It’s probably not what you’re thinking. You’ll understand once you take a closer look. Amelia, come over here. Your junior says they need help.”
Mauro shook his head and beckoned her over. Focus gradually returned to Amelia’s eyes as she lay sprawled on the floor. She soon got up and approached us.
“Y-you called? H-help? For a t-talented, great, brilliant, and kind junior to need someone l-like me, it’s an h-honor...”
Amelia half-knelt before me and looked up. As she stared with sparkling eyes, I could almost feel her loyalty toward me overflowing.
I avoided her gaze and smiled bitterly. No matter how often I declined that troublesome form of address, she insisted on using it.
I knew very well why Amelia acted this way. While sponsoring the association, I had lent points to several mages who needed help.
Had Amelia borrowed around five hundred thousand points? Since I had made it interest-free with no repayment deadline, she had never stopped borrowing points from me.
There was no reason for me to refuse. There were many ways I could make use of them without receiving points in return.
I examined the small werewolf in Amelia’s arms. No, it seemed more appropriate to call it a wolf boy puppet. As Mauro had said, I realized I had been somewhat mistaken.
A faint soul fluctuation came from the sleeping wolf boy. It somewhat resembled the soul Saplings I had created.
Of course, that soul was not complete. It did not exist independently and was connected to Amelia. It was more accurate to call it her split soul.
Even so, it was quite a convincing puppet. I nodded with quiet admiration.
Previously, I had revealed the process of making soul Saplings to all the puppeteers at a gathering. Based on those records, many puppeteers had tried to create souls.
Had the puppeteers of Icewall City not also used it as a reference and produced the respectable result known as corpse puppets? That method had given me much inspiration as well.
It seemed Amelia had likewise taken my method and added her own recipe. This, too, was a distinct result. Perhaps sensing my admiration, Amelia began to grin foolishly.
“Hehe. Th-this is the child who protected me before. I-I made the form this child wanted. I-it must have considered my tastes, right? So I’ll r-raise him well like this until he becomes a prince who thinks only of me... Hehe...”
Seeing drool at the corner of Amelia’s mouth, I subtly leaned back. Well, perhaps I had not been mistaken after all. She already looked like a severe case of puppeteer madness.
Fortunately, Amelia’s delusions did not continue. Koite, who stood beside her, struck her on the head with a long rod.
“Stop talking about your puppet. No one cares.”
“V-violence? Y-you really are violent. I-I don’t know why someone so violent is in our association.”
Amelia clutched her head and groaned. Koite shook the rod at her threateningly.
“If you don’t want another hit, shut up. Remember that a pig like you is wasting our precious junior’s time. You haven’t forgotten how much you owe, have you?”
Calling her a pig seemed a little too harsh. As I thought that, Amelia flinched and began watching my reaction. I shook my head at the gaze that regarded me as her master.
“Mr. Koite is joking, so you do not need to take it to heart. More importantly, I wanted to see you because of the fourth-floor advancement evaluation. I will be taking it soon, so I came to hear about your experience.”
“M-my experience? W-well, aside from me, the other puppeteers are all o-old people.”
“Ah. Old people?”
Koite immediately scowled. Not wanting to be hit again, Amelia slightly covered her head and watched him cautiously. Still, her muttering did not stop.
“I-it’s true. Aside from me, the y-youngest person joined eighty years ago, so they are old. Y-you too, senior.”
Koite gritted his teeth but could not hit Amelia. She had crawled behind me on her knees to hide. She then continued slowly.
“W-when I advanced, I listened to the old people, and do you know how startled I was? Y-you were the same, senior. They said I only had to show my best puppet, so I brought one, and I was chased out in t-three seconds.”
Amelia seemed to have a great deal bottled up inside, and she kept muttering. Koite gave a quiet cough, perhaps because something about her words struck home.
“It couldn’t be helped. That was a long time ago. The popular methods are probably a little different now than when I experienced the fourth floor.”
I quietly sipped my tea as I listened closely to their conversation. An advancement evaluation was certainly conducted face-to-face between two individuals.
Just as Merov had focused on the purity of magical power before, the difficulty changed depending on how the officer conducted the evaluation.
But not everyone was like that. Merov had a terrible reputation among others, to begin with. That was because what he pursued did not align with others.
There were not many officers like Merov who had such firm personal standards. Most officers instead conducted evaluations according to certain standards.
You could call it matching a specification. They put forward principles applicable to many mages. It was probably because that was the best method for evaluating mages.
These evaluation standards changed every few generations. Magical theory kept changing, and trends naturally changed along with it.
Mages put great effort into finding such patterns. In that sense, many organizations accumulated experience with advancement evaluations and passed it on to those beneath them.
For an organization to have a solid structure, it needed to help its members advance.
At the same time, this information did not easily circulate outside. Even the secret association did not sell information related to it. There was no helping it, since the security surrounding advancement evaluations needed to be maintained.
If too much information spread, would the officers not change the system as well? That was why information on the matter was quietly passed around only among groups such as organizations.
That was also why so many people wanted to join organizations.
But as Amelia had said, only she and I had joined the puppeteer association recently. There was nearly a twenty-year gap between us, at that.
That was why she was the only one in this association from whom I could receive advice. Of course, there was no need to seek this information only within an organization.
Had I not sought such information from many people myself? Kronia, who had connected me to my officer, had also given me a little information.
Even so, I had come to Amelia because Mauro had told me not long ago that she might be able to help.
I stroked my chin lightly. The person who had overseen Amelia’s evaluation had belonged to the same organization as Horae, who would be my officer.
I had heard that organization was called Rewinding Clockwork. Like how our association accepted only puppeteers, it was an organization open only to Meisters who could create magic tools of Grade 3 or above.
It was supposedly one of the subordinate organizations of the Technical Coalition. That was probably why Kronia could exert influence over it.
And if they belonged to the same organization, their general approach to evaluations would naturally be similar. That was why I had sought out Amelia.
At my question, Amelia stroked the wolf boy in her arms and shifted her eyes. After searching through her memories for a while, she slowly opened her mouth.
“I-I don’t know if my story will help, but... what mattered when I advanced was integrity.”
“Integrity?”
“Yes. K-kind, gentle, benevolent, and brilliant junior. W-when I listened to those old people and brought a puppet, my officer told me they could sense d-dissonance.”
Amelia puffed out her cheeks slightly and glared at the other puppeteers. Then, while watching my reaction, she continued.
“I t-thought about it a lot, and I passed on my f-fourth attempt. And during that process, I realized my own s-shortcomings.”
Integrity, shortcomings, and dissonance. I could roughly infer where this was going. Amelia let out a sigh.
“My officer must have felt that I d-depended on my puppet. My dependence on something outside myself must have shown in my m-magical power. So I tried to get rid of that shortcoming.”
“Ah, you tried to become more perfect by filling in what you lacked.”
I nodded quietly. But Amelia only blinked at my words. She soon shook her head slightly and continued.
“N-no. I just emptied everything.”
Emptied everything? As I hesitated at those incomprehensible words, she lifted the wolf boy in her arms. Her eyes as she looked at him were full of affection.
“I r-realized it. The d-dissonance came from my inability to trust my puppet completely. S-so if I emptied myself and depended on this child more... then the dissonance would disappear too. S-so I decided to entrust myself to him.”
“Entrust yourself? What do you mean?”
“This child’s death will b-become my death. I-if I die, this child will die too. In that connection, we became more deeply joined. The d-dissonance disappeared as well. That was how I reached the fourth floor.”
My mouth fell open. As a puppeteer, I realized what she had done.
Handling puppets was fundamentally about maintaining connections. The many puppets within my inner image being represented by stars was an expression of those connections.
I continued to communicate with those puppets through will, and the connections naturally grew stronger in the process. That was the basic method of a puppeteer.
But Amelia had not stopped there. She had expanded the passage of that connection even further, to the point that the puppet’s will could flow into her soul.
That meant the puppet was practically Amelia herself. I had wondered how she had made such a convincing variation of my magic. Had she been sharing her soul with the puppet?
Apparently, we were not the only ones who had heard this mad method. The puppeteers rolling around nearby began gathering one by one. With deeply moved faces, they applauded Amelia.
“My goodness, what a moving story!”
“Elja, I’m sorry. While our junior goes this far, this fool couldn’t even entrust my life to you! I’ll give you half my life right now!”
As the puppeteers began creating a loud commotion, Amelia gently stroked the wolf boy’s head in her arms. Her touch was full of love.
But Koite seemed displeased by the puppeteers. He clicked his tongue and rubbed his forehead with a look of clear contempt.
“Damn it. When I become association head, I’ll modify every last one of these lunatics.”
“Hoho, don’t be so harsh. Aren’t they all truly passionate?”
“...Tch.”
Perhaps he could not touch Mauro, because Koite abruptly turned his head away. Watching them, I quietly sank into thought. Emptying oneself. Was that something I could do?
Perhaps Amelia misunderstood my silence, because her face stiffened and she began bowing her head before me. Her pale face made her impatience clear.
“I-I’m sorry for explaining it so carelessly. If I go into more d-detail, I would have to reveal my magic... Ah, of course, if a kind and gracious junior like you wishes it, I will reveal even my i-insignificant magic at once...!”
I hurriedly waved my hands at her manner, which made it seem as though she would reveal even her unique magic.
“No. You helped me enough. I was only thinking about how I should respond. You may go now. Since you have been such a great help, I will reduce your debt by thirty percent.”
“Wow!”
Amelia’s face brightened at my words. When she raised both hands, the wolf boy in her arms blinked awake and let out a soft howl.
It seemed Amelia’s emotions had flowed into him as well. Stroking the wolf boy’s head, she began rolling around on the floor again.
“Tch. Was that halfwit really any help? You don’t need to pay attention to her.”
Koite muttered suspiciously. I shook my head and smiled quietly.
“She helped me greatly. I was able to confirm that the direction I had been preparing was not wrong.”
“Well, if you say so. Hurry up and advance. You need to get up there quickly so the other associations will show us at least some consideration. Damn it, if only I could become association head, I could have entered the auction.”
Koite crossed his arms and ground his teeth. A trace of resentment seemed to emanate from him as he gave off killing intent.
I knew very well what auction he was referring to. It was the auction I was holding. I gave a bitter smile as I thought of the coin engraved with Professor On’s face.
That coin, which proved that I was Professor On’s successor, was the desire of every association head. Since Koite was practically the next association head himself, he had probably shared information about the auction with Mauro.
I briefly considered the timing. Was there roughly a year left until the auction? Feeling how quickly time was passing, I shook my head.
Of course, I too coveted the professor’s position. But I knew well that it was not something I could have. It was prey far too large for a mage who was only just trying to advance to the fourth floor.
So I needed to use it to gain as much profit as possible. I recalled what Hwaryeong had said when the exchange meeting ended.
Hwaryeong had subtly sounded me out about whether I could dissolve the contract. It meant that if I let go of Hongryeong and took her hand instead, I could settle matters more easily.
I still could not judge what intentions she had when she said that. I had not found anything that could be called a clue.
So for now, I needed to prepare for everything. And the most important part of that preparation was increasing my own strength, and beyond that, my influence.
The greater my influence became, the more difficult it would be for Hwaryeong to touch me.
In that sense, the association auction was a great opportunity for me. If I could draw them to my side, they would surely become dependable allies. If the associations of the twelve cities cooperated, no one would be able to dismiss them easily.
Of course, to establish such a cooperative system, I needed to advance quickly, just as Koite had said. I also needed to resolve the request Tiena had given me.
In that sense, this advancement evaluation would be the stage where I proved my potential. With that in mind, I continued talking with Koite.
The puppeteer gathering soon came to an end.
Not long after, the day of the advancement evaluation dawned. Feeling a faint tension stir within me, I glanced upward. A woman was standing atop a tall wall.
Deep magical power flowed from the woman, whose face was deeply tanned red. Proving that she was a Meister, she wore tight leather clothing rather than the robes of an ordinary mage.
The thin leather clothes revealed her muscular body without concealment. Her muscles, infused with powerful magical power, looked hard enough to crush most mages with her bare hands.
She was Horae, the officer who would oversee my evaluation. I met the eyes of the woman, who looked somewhat sullen, and smiled quietly.
I would pass this time.
That was not a resolution. It was certainty.
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