Chapter 47
Chapter 47
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 47
Chapter Title: Three Heads Together (4)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The ambition to turn the giant puppet into beads for easy portability had been thwarted.
The trio sat around the round table with dejected expressions.
The premium tea brought by the errand boy was growing cold.
Just like their hopes.
The youngest, Ryu Seran, was the first to speak.
“Still, it was fun, right?”
The second eldest of the group, Ho Hye-mun, nodded in agreement.
“You’re right. Though the ending was disappointing, it was plenty worthwhile.”
Then the eldest, Damcheong, began throwing a tantrum.
“Such a tragic end—I can’t accept it! The heavens are too heartless! Why can’t our efforts be rewarded? The world shouldn’t work this way! I’ll divine the will of heaven and find a solution!”
Damcheong burst out the door.
The two left behind hurriedly chased after her.
Seran and Ho Hye-mun could barely make out Damcheong’s silhouette speeding through the snowy night sky.
Winter night, falling snow, deer antlers, high-speed flight.
The sequence of elements stirred old memories in Seran.
It was the red-nosed reindeer, vanguard of Santa Claus.
Rudolph.
“...A nose so bright, it shines like a light. If I saw it, I’d say it glows...”
Ho Hye-mun, who had been listening beside her, asked.
“What song is that? I’ve never heard it before. Some Yu Nation folk tune?”
Seran, who had been humming unconsciously, startled and pretended otherwise.
“Folk tune? No, just something I made up on the spot. Let’s finish our tea. Damcheong probably won’t be back for a while anyway.”
“Shall we?”
The two sat calmly and sipped the now-cold tea.
When the teapot was about half empty, the door flew open.
It wasn’t Damcheong, who had gone off to divine heavenly secrets.
Geum Yeongyeong burst in, dancing merrily, and shouted.
“Overdue homework, farewell at last! Geum Yeongyeong, freed at last, makes her entrance! Is there a loyal retainer here to offer a warm drink to this chilly, parched liege!?”
Geum Yeongyeong sauntered over to the round table, shoulders shimmying, snatched up the teapot, and drained it.
The half-remaining tea vanished from the world.
Smacking her lips, Geum Yeongyeong laughed heartily.
“It’s cold. But no matter! This body is magnanimous!”
Geum Yeongyeong had just finished this year’s backlog of assignments.
She had piled up a massive amount while reveling in her escape from the stifling sect.
With the deadline just days away, she’d been swamped lately.
So now she was bursting with high spirits.
“Oh dear, everyone’s faces are so grim! What happened? Tell this body, and I’ll solve it in one go!”
Seran and Ho Hye-mun recalled Geum Yeongyeong’s origins.
The Goldforge Sect specialized in magic tools.
Nothing to lose by trying, so no reason to stay silent.
After exchanging glances, the two spoke.
“Well, actually...”
The errand boy brought fresh hot tea.
The explanation of the three-headed, six-armed giant puppet concluded.
Geum Yeongyeong, who had listened intently, declared flatly.
“Definitely, that’s a bit tricky.”
Her speech had long since returned to normal.
“Really no way around it?”
Ho Hye-mun asked with a desperate expression.
The earnestness was enough to mistake her for a mother whose child was ill.
But Geum Yeongyeong’s opinion didn’t waver.
“From what I heard, it’s a pretty big puppet, right? Complex things like puppets are hard to shrink or transform to begin with. Especially one that huge—practically impossible.”
Ho Hye-mun dropped the snack she was holding.
Her face was like a drama heroine receiving a three-month terminal diagnosis.
Utter despair, plain for anyone to see.
Seran asked persistently.
“But you transformed your Heaven-Piercing Spear just fine.”
Geum Yeongyeong countered without flinching.
“That’s a magic tool made entirely of metal. Exaggerating a bit, its structure’s no different from a metal ingot. Single material, one solid piece unless assembled.”
In summary, Geum Yeongyeong’s long explanation boiled down to: too complex and massive for miniaturization.
Overwhelmed by despair, Seran bowed her head.
That’s when something entered her view.
Crumbled snack bits on the round table.
Ryu Seran, hands clasped over her mouth, pondered briefly before asking quietly.
“Then small, simple structures can be miniaturized?”
Geum Yeongyeong boasted confidently.
“Of course! Who do you think I am? Prodigy of the Goldforge Sect! Miniaturizing simple stuff is like drinking cold tea! Bring fifty, a hundred—I’ll turn them all into beads!”
Ho Hye-mun, sensing something, spoke up.
“Have you thought of a plan?”
Seran nodded.
“Yes. It’s no good because it’s big and complex? Then there’s only one way from the start. Turn it into something small and simple.”
Many small and weak versus few large and strong.
Words Ho Hye-mun had said before.
Seran declared solemnly.
“First, we dismantle the three-headed, six-armed giant puppet.”
The three showed varied reactions.
Geum Yeongyeong looked baffled.
Ho Hye-mun was already smiling brightly.
Seran’s face was utterly serious.
“Twenty-four heads, twelve torsos, seventy-two arms. Total: one hundred eight pieces. Miniaturization by Yeongyeong.”
Geum Yeongyeong, who had bragged about fifty or a hundred, panicked.
“One hundred eight? By myself?”
Seran and Ho Hye-mun offered beaming thanks.
“Yeah, thanks so much for volunteering. Yeongyeong.”
“I’m grateful too, Investigator Geum.”
The next day, Damcheong returned as a snowman, reuniting the artist trio.
This time, bead-conversion specialist Geum Yeongyeong joined them.
The four artist kings feared nothing now.
The three-headed, six-armed giant puppet was swiftly disassembled.
*****
Registration day arrived.
Seran appeared wearing a beaded necklace around her neck.
The beads that had kept Geum Yeongyeong up all night: exactly one hundred eight.
The necklace was so long it was layered multiple times.
An unsettling getup.
The examiner felt an ominous premonition.
Somehow, it promised a tough day.
The awaited moment came.
Seran formed hand seals with a spirited shout.
“Hah!”
The beads of the necklace glowed in unison.
The beads, brimming with vast magic power, floated up on their own.
They shot out like a swarm of bees.
The beads swirling around Seran began transforming into their assigned forms.
Seran leaped high in place.
A footplate accessory caught her and flew to the vortex’s center.
Grotesque bricks transformed from the beads gathered.
They clicked and twisted into place amid the chaos.
The seamless assembly finished, birthing the puppet.
The examiner was speechless for a moment.
“No, uh...”
The instantly completed three-headed, six-armed giant puppet asked in a clanging voice.
“How is it, our masterpiece!”
Seran’s amplified voice from inside the puppet.
Despite the surreal artistry, the examiner quickly composed himself and did his duty.
“For that complex assembly and motion, what logic structure did you embed?”
“All manual control!”
“What does that even mean?”
“Beginner puppeteers control puppets directly! In a word, this is beginner level—pure foundational puppetry!”
The examiner felt dazed.
This is puppetry?
Finally, the examiner asked.
“Name—what’s the puppet’s name?”
“We call it Vajra Yaksha!”
A voice full of glee.
The examiner trudged back to the office.
He dreaded what people would think of Black Bamboo Sect if that thing roamed around.
But there was nothing he could do.
Reluctantly, he stamped the seal.
“Vajra Yaksha... is indeed a puppet...”
And winter ended.
At last, the transforming, combining three-headed, six-armed giant puppet Vajra Yaksha was born from the hands of the artist four kings.
Spring came, and Seran turned twenty-one.
Rumor spread through Black Bamboo Sect.
‘Investigator Ryu is a fine person, but her aesthetic sense is a bit off.’
*****
Seran, enjoying the spring breeze through the open window in her sleep, suddenly frowned.
Two figures appeared in Seran’s dream.
Calling them “people” was a stretch.
A book and a ghost were the protagonists.
A thick book with chopstick-like limbs bellowed in outrage.
“Outrageous!”
The dream-split girl Seran and boy Seran asked in unison.
“What’s so outrageous?”
The book shouted louder.
“You wretched brats shut me in a dusty vault—such injustice!”
Now she saw the cover read ‘Puppetry Research’.
The anthropomorphic research tome vented endlessly.
Girl Seran and boy Seran got thrashed.
What saved the beaten Serans was a kindly old man.
“Heh heh, no need to go that far.”
Once the research tome calmed, the old man told the Serans.
“I owe you two a debt I can never repay. A puppetry master no one sought gained two disciples. I’m truly fortunate.”
Now she saw his forehead read ‘Puppetry Enthusiast’.
“I entrust my dream to you.”
The old man was an imagined version of an unfamiliar research author.
It was a dream, after all—illogical.
He had been a Single Spirit Root Holder, dying in youthful form.
But dream-logic Serans fell for it.
“Gasp!”
Both yelped in unison.
Until they woke, the research tome and Puppetry Enthusiast whispered to the Serans.
“I am wronged.”
“I have no regrets.”
Alternating stick and carrot—or good cop, bad cop.
Highly effective.
Upon waking, Seran muttered.
“Thinking again, insisting manual control is puppetry does feel a bit off...”
With her cracked mind mended, Seran regained her senses.