Tracing the Strings
A multitude of questions were resolved in an instant.
Why had the culprit's identity remained a mystery? If it was a puppet created by someone, there was no way it would show up no matter how much they searched the database. They had been wasting their efforts trying to find a ghost that didn't even exist.
The method of its elusive disappearance was also obvious. Since it didn't need to consume nutrients regularly like a human, it could easily vanish from the city simply by hiding down a manhole.
Disposing of it entirely made it even more foolproof. A perfect crime possible only because of magic. The reason it had deliberately exposed itself to the security cameras was likely to throw off the investigation.
Using a different puppet for each crime was also a meticulous touch.
"Think of it as a remotely operated humanoid machine," Yen immediately transmitted her thoughts to Muzark.
"Even at a glance, the craftsmanship is outstanding. It seems to focus heavily on athletic capability, so there's no telling what kind of hidden mechanisms it might have. Seeing how it doesn't shy away from combat, it probably has a countermeasure against Shields as well."
An anti-mage specification puppet.
Naturally, such things were rare. Puppetry was a field that required even more specialization than alchemy, and a level of completion like this was hard to find even in the criminal underworld.
It was safe to assume this was a highly specialized unit, rare even for a master puppeteer.
"You have to destroy the core. No matter how high-performance it is, the principle remains the same."
The core supplied the mana to move the puppet and served as the link to its caster. Unless it was an autonomous self-powered puppet, it would inevitably stop functioning once the core was damaged.
Conversely, as long as the core remained intact, it would keep moving even if its head was torn off.
In Yen's estimation, the matchup was highly unfavorable for Muzark. Unlike humans, who died once their visible vital points were pierced, destroying a puppet required wide-range, highly destructive offensive magic.
Muzark had no such magic in his arsenal.
"I'll look for the mana signature. You, just try to be as—"
Just as she was about to advise him to be as careful as possible—
Thwack!
Muzark lunged forward and slammed his gauntlet right into the bridge of the puppet's nose. Even with reinforcement, the human skeletal structure dictated that a direct hit to the face would throw the upper body backward.
He followed up by driving his crowbar straight into its right eye.
Synthetic blood of an unknown composition sprayed out like a fountain.
"Hey? Can you hear me?"
“I hear you.”
"Then why are you acting like this?"
“How the hell am I supposed to find the core?”
"I literally just said I'd find the mana signature!"
“If it were that easy to find, someone would've caught this thing a long time ago.”
Yen couldn't refute that. If it were a crude puppet leaking mana, traces would have been left at the crime scenes. However, the reports stated there were absolutely no magical residues left behind.
Having reached that point in his reasoning, Muzark came to a conclusion.
“If I just beat the crap out of it, it'll break eventually.”
"What kind of barbaric logic is—"
Yen tried to point out the flaw in his logic, but she quickly shut her mouth.
“See? It's staggering.”
Surprisingly, the puppet's movements as it pushed itself back up were oddly unnatural. True to its nature, it didn't utter a single scream, but it was clear the blow hadn't been entirely ineffective.
"Does that even make sense? Was the core in its head?"
She briefly wondered what kind of idiot would place a core in the head, but then—
Her knowledge and experience as a mage formulated a plausible hypothesis.
'He called it Cryptofetica.'
Having shared his journey, she had eventually learned the name of Muzark's magic. Though she had only heard the name, having watched him from the very beginning, she knew all too well how vicious Cryptofetica was.
'Did the magical interference reach the core...?'
What if that alone was causing errors in the spell formula?
It was far more persuasive than the idea that he had simply gotten lucky and struck a core located in the head. After all, it was hard to believe a skilled puppeteer would place a weakness in such an obvious, predictable spot.
'It defies common sense, but then again...'
It was a bit late to be shocked by his absurdity.
Yen couldn't sympathize with Muzark's nickname, "Dirt Mage," in the slightest. How could someone born with such an out-of-spec magic be considered dirt-class?
Any sense of crisis completely vanished from her mind.
"Fine, do whatever you want. I guess this brute-force approach suits you best."
“I think so too.”
Crash!
The massive figure, standing well over two meters tall, was pushed back repeatedly until it collapsed onto the hood of a sedan. Crunch! This time, instead of the crowbar, a piece of rebar—cut and sharpened into a short spear—drove deep into the puppet's shoulder.
Still, it didn't utter a sound, nor did it even blink. With its upper body bent backward, the puppet thrust its arm forward. Blades tore through its sleeves from the inside, springing out from both sides of its forearms.
Muzark lightly dodged the surprise strike with a simple tilt of his head.
“Your reactions are getting slower.”
By the very nature of puppetry, a minute delay was inevitable. A lag caused by operating a body that wasn't one's own. In close combat, where reaction speed was everything, this was by no means a negligible difference.
And that gap was widening even further because of Cryptofetica.
Boom!
Muzark clasped his hands together and brought them down like a sledgehammer. The puppet barely managed to dodge, leaving only a deep dent in the innocent car hood. Immediately after, the puppet swung its blade-studded arm in a wide, sweeping motion.
Just as Yen had suspected, it had a countermeasure prepared; Muzark's Shield was sliced through. However, due to the slight delay, the blade only grazed his clothes by a hair's breadth.
That "slight delay" continued to accumulate, second by second.
Thud! Crack!
'What on earth is this?'
Watching the puppet get beaten to a pulp, Yen revised her thoughts.
'This is an absurdly favorable matchup for him, isn't it?'
She had assumed it was unfavorable, but it was quite the opposite. If Muzark's specialty had been mid-range combat like other mages, it wouldn't have been this easy.
'With a durability like that, firing basic Bullets at it would have been useless.'
It would be like firing pistol rounds at a tank.
Though, in Muzark's case, he was literally tearing the tank apart with his bare hands.
After taking several more hits, the puppet's movements began to stutter and lag, as if suffering from a severe frame drop. Not only that, but it was gradually forced into a purely defensive posture.
Despite its expressionless face, its sheer panic was plain to see.
“Right side. Block it.”
His hand, now drenched in synthetic blood, darted toward the puppet's eyes. The arm that tried to defend the right side swung through empty air. Muzark's iron-clad fingers gouged deep into its left eye.
“My right, not yours. You should've thought twice.”
With that, both of its eyes lost their function.
Yet, it hadn't completely lost its sight. Perhaps the creator had anticipated the weakness of mimicking human anatomy during the design phase, as an auxiliary camera was mounted right in the middle of its neck.
Which meant its line of sight had suddenly shifted downward.
That awkwardness created yet another slight delay.
Muzark ripped out another piece of rebar, drove it straight through the puppet's mouth, and pinned it to the car hood.
"That's the last of them. That was your last piece of rebar."
The puppet was now a complete rag. If it had been human, it would have died a dozen times over. Just as Muzark was starting to tire from his relentless beating, a change occurred in the puppet.
An unidentified fluid mixed with synthetic blood began to leak from its wounds, and its limbs bent at grotesque, unnatural angles. Its crushed eyeballs rolled around aimlessly as steam hissed out from every opening in its head.
“What's wrong with this thing? It's creeping me out.”
"You beat it to this state and you're asking why? It's over."
The magic formula had collapsed, causing the control signals to distort. It was the result of the continuous strain placed on the internal core. Soon, the puppet's limbs went limp, hanging like those of a corpse.
The battle was decided.
"I've never seen a mage break a puppet by just beating it to death before..."
“And I've never seen a puppet like this. It's got a real uncanny valley vibe.”
"True. It is a bit goosebump-inducing when they're this detailed."
“Are you sure you don't want it? It seems like a decent body for you to settle into.”
"A puppet? Absolutely not."
Yen flatly rejected Muzark's suggestion.
"A puppet is just a puppet. It can't serve as a vessel for a soul. It was made as an object from the start. Since it's not a living creature, your emotions would slowly fade away."
“Is that so?”
"Puppetry has very clear limitations as a school of magic. What's the point of making a hundred or a thousand puppets? They can never replace a single genuine mage. At best, they're only useful for factory labor or committing crimes."
It was an overwhelmingly convenient yet ambiguous field for a mage. It was only useful for menial labor in research, and in actual combat, a single powerful mage could easily sweep them all away.
That was why puppeteers were so rare.
It was a magic on the verge of extinction in Yellowline.
Hearing her harsh critique, Muzark nodded.
“As expected, there's no magic quite like a good fist.”
"Crazy bastard."
As always, he ignored his hater's opinion.
“I need to restock my weapons. Maybe I should buy a proper one?”
"With the way you use them, I feel like even a bought one would break in no time."
“I wonder if there's a super-alloy Orichalcum crowbar out there somewhere.”
"As if. If you want one that badly, go get it custom-made."
While he was seriously considering an Orichalcum crowbar, the distant rumble of engines shattered the silence of the night. Several vehicles were speeding down the empty road toward them.
Soon, five burly men stepped out of the cars.
Only one of them was holding a weapon, but all of them were in a combat-ready stance. Muzark waved at them as they warily prepared to cast magic at any moment.
“Hurry up over here. I've caught the culprit red-handed.”
Who did?
The investigators couldn't hide their bewilderment at his behavior, which made it look as if he were turning himself in. From among the hesitant group, a familiar face stepped forward toward Muzark.
“What on earth is going on here...?”
Aiden Bern narrowed his eyes as he surveyed the scene. Muzark looked as if he had showered in blood, a brutally murdered corpse lay nearby, cars were crashed, and the asphalt was cracked in various places.
“I think I have the gist of it. What do I need to know?”
“They say it's a puppet. The Oliver Welton and Jesse Penn cases are probably the same.”
With just the word "puppet," the puzzle pieces clicked together in his head.
“Indeed. A blind spot.”
“And Yirang got hurt a bit.”
Hearing this, Aiden Bern headed toward the crushed vehicle first. Meanwhile, a few investigators gathered around the puppet, while the rest checked the van that had rammed the car.
Checking on Yirang's condition, Aiden Bern clicked his tongue.
“Why are you pretending to be asleep?”
“Ahem! Uh, well, it's not what it looks like, sir.”
“Were you lying around like this while your junior was fighting for his life?”
“I've been wronged, sir. I was planning to step in if things got truly dangerous...”
“Save your excuses for your bank account and your payslip.”
As expected, his life wasn't in any danger.
He seemed to be on the sturdier side for a non-mage.
“There's no mistake. It's not human.”
“The driver here is a puppet too!”
At the subsequent reports, Aiden Bern smirked.
He walked back to Muzark and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Good work. You've made a tremendous contribution.”
“The dark circles under your eyes have gotten worse in the meantime.”
“Don't even get me started. I've been nagged to death from all sides over the past few days.”
Though his eyes were heavy with fatigue, they shone with sharp intelligence. While he appeared as calm as usual on the surface, there was a subtle undercurrent of excitement.
It was a natural reaction. They had been toyed with all this time, after all.
Had it not been for Muzark, they might have lost the trail entirely.
Now, it was time to step on the gas.
“Leave the rest to me.”
“Do you already have a plan?”
“A puppeteer always leaves a puppeteer's unique traces.”
To properly maintain a puppet, maintenance was absolutely indispensable. The higher the quality, the more care it required. In other words, for a puppeteer to operate, they needed a continuous supply of materials.
And goods in the city always left a paper trail.
Especially if they were specialized materials not commonly used.
Following that trail would lead them straight to the puppeteer's workshop.
“I'll finally be able to go home.”
It wouldn't take long.