[Reberu] ga Arunara Agerudesho? Mobukyara ni Tensei Shita Ore wa Gēmu Chishiki o Ikashi, Hitasura Reberu o Age Tsudzukeru - CH 130

Hi everyone. The latest advanced chapter on Patreon has caught up with the raws, so LVL will once again be on hiatus until the author drops new chapters.

See you guys in the next chapter!

[Don’t Get Mad!]

“Okay then… seeing as we’re trapped, let’s get out of here asap so I can contact the one behind the attack and get information about the dungeon out of him. Any question?”

“I knew it was going to be like this, but that was too brief, Sakurai-san. You can start with the conclusion, but if you want us to understand your thought, please break down and explain it one by one.”

My self-created time-saving communication style instantly gets shot down by Iris, so I give up and decide to explain properly.

Well then, let’s start with sorting out the situation we’re currently in. We got attacked by a mysterious enemy and are trapped in the underground archive. There’s no way out and we can’t expect help from aboveground—that’s the common understanding we have.

Which begs the question, “Who is the attacker?”, “Will rescue come?”, and following that, “How do we get out?”, and “What do we do after we get out?”.

“I still don’t see where the part about you, Tōru, contact the attacker coming from, but let’s just put that aside for now. More importantly, that means you already have a suspicion on who the enemy is, right?” Ethel asks.

“Righto. I was just about to explain that part as well.” I reply.

“Sakurai-sama. Before that, may I ask something? Why would ‘will rescue comes’ be a question in this abnormal situation?” Cordelia-san asks, still lying down on the table using my coat as a pillow.

Normally, rescue would definitely come in such an abnormal situation where the saintess got attacked, but the fact that such an incident took place in the great library in the Elf Territory—not to mention the attacker being trusted escorts—is unprecedented.

She is the best person in the room when it comes to non-violent conflicts such as discussions, but it seems that because she rarely gets involved in a real battle, she doesn’t have the ability to judge whether rescue will come.

“…Rescue won’t come,” Ethel mutters.

“Why won’t it, Ethel?” Cordelia-san asks.

“The ‘Nexus Crystal Balls’ given to us are linked to each other, so those aboveground wouldn’t even know that we’re in an emergency. And given the scale of the attack, the attackers must have collaborators in the aboveground section of the great library. I’m not sure how many are involved in this attack, but rescue will certainly not come,” Ethel says.

“Well, they’ll notice the absence of the saintess before long, but it’s not going to be today, nor tomorrow,” while supplementing Ethel’s explanation, I add that I also see little possibility of rescue.

Doing research in the great library—not to mention, in the forbidden book section—can take a whole day, and the enemy is in control of Terrence from the ‘Traditionalist Faction’ that venerates the First Saintess’s Bloodline.

A ‘Traditionalist’ will never do anything that may bring harm to Cordelia-san or Ethel—it’s easy to see that such a preconceived notion will delay the discovery of the situation, and even if the church notices something’s wrong, considering that the great library is practically Terrence’s territory, it’ll have to make some preparations to break us out.

“Once the church notices we haven’t come back from the great library and cast suspicion on Terrence and his lot, it has to make necessary preparations such as gathering troops for breaking us out and also capturing them. That’s not something that can be done in one or two days, don’t you agree?” I ask Cordelia-san.

“…It will take three or four days at the earliest.”

“Hmm. Being uninjured, things are better for us, but to wait for days for rescue that may or may not come without anything to eat or drink would be a bit difficult. In case we’re finally cornered and forced to act, it’ll be a problem if we don’t have the stamina,” Iris says.

“My mom’s injury may get worse if we stay holing up in here to begin with, so I think we’d best assume that rescue wouldn’t come and try to escape by ourselves,” Ethel remarks.

“So in conclusion, rescue may come in the long run, but for now we better proceed with the assumption that ‘rescue won’t come’,” I say.

The three of us may be not full-fledged adventurers, but being students of the adventurer academy, we put ourselves on the battlefield on a daily basis. At our words, Cordelia-san gets convinced, saying “I see”, and nods.

Now that’s settled, this time Ethel questions me in a furious tone.

The topic is, of course, about the ‘attacker’ who has hurt her mother.

“Seeing that the escorts prepared by that old geezer Terrence attacked us, it’s safe to assume that he’s the mastermind… but the matter isn’t that simple, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Take a look at this.”

“Eh? Hyaa!?”

What I’ve thrown to Ethel is the hand of the knight I cut off during the attack.

I’d been keeping it because I thought it’d come in handy for explaining the real identity of the enemy I had in mind.

That said, anyone would be surprised if a hand was suddenly thrown over to them, and the moment Ethel received it, she screamed and almost dropped it.

However, when she takes a closer look at the hand with an expression that looks like she has bitten a bitter worm, that expression turns into a suspicious one.

Her eyes are directed at the flat, ham-like cross-section created when the hand was cut off.

“What’s the deal with this hand? It has no bones or blood vessels,” Ethel mutters.

“I got unnatural feedback when I had struck with my rod; was this the cause? Sakurai-san, can you elaborate…?” Iris asks.

“—No, it can’t be.”

“Mom?”

Just as I’m about to explain about the hand, Cordelia-san unexpectedly reacts.

The stunned Saintess reaches out her hand and gently touches the cross-section of the hand. Then she frowns and mutters in a quivering voice, “This… is a puppet.”

“Puppet?” Iris tilts her head.

“I’m not quite sure about the details, but when those with the ‘Puppetry’ skill make a puppet out of a living being, the inside becomes stuffed with meat like this. It acts like cotton in stuffed animals.”

“Mom, you’re acquainted with such people…?” Ethel asks.

“It is one of the skills inherited by the court jesters living in the royal capital. The skill is originally used on inorganic puppets, as the use on living beings comes with ethical and cost problems. In addition, because puppets made of living beings are boneless, the body balance and consistency will be impaired, which can cause the meat inside to leak out from various ‘holes’ when moved, making it pretty much useless.”

“Oh, I see. The court jesters, eh.”

I was wondering how Cordelia-san noticed that it was a puppet hand, but turns her knowledge comes from the court jesters.

Court jesters are people who inherit skills that have become obsolete and give various performances using them.

On the outside, they’re entertainers hired for events, but behind the scene, they’re playing the role of giving help, advice, and sometimes warnings to important people involved in the operation of the nation or large organizations by virtue of their specialized knowledge.

To get a better idea, imagine them as ‘that guy who suggests substituting the crystallization of the latest technology that got ruined with the thing in the museum’, ‘that veteran pilot who brings up the propeller plane when the jet plane got busted’, or ‘that former employee who realizes that the cause of the problem is the technology that’s supposed to have been lost’ in movies.

Back in the game, there were some skills that could only be acquired by interacting with them, the ‘Puppetry’ skill being one of them.

They often went on about what would happen if they were to abuse their skills—it was part of their job, they said. That’s probably how Cordelia-san, the saintess of the religious organization, learned about it.

“Then this will be quick. The knights escorting us have been turned into puppets. It’s safe to assume that their reinforcement is the same.”

“So you’re saying that some shitty puppeteer is the one behind all this?” Ethel asks in an angry tone.

“Please hang on a second. A puppeteer has to personally control every single movement of their puppet to have it move in a seamless manner. The difficulty spikes up when it comes to puppets made of a living being, and given the condition of their insides, they shouldn’t be able to produce a voice,” Cordelia-san remarks.

“But the fact is the knights escorting us have been turned into puppets, right?” I retort.

“My eyes are able to see the ‘heat’ that the heart emits, but I couldn’t see any ‘heat’ from the two escorts and the archers who came after. I thought it was strange, but it’d make sense if they were puppets who didn’t have egos.” Iris says.

“That’s… but there is no way that all the knights have been turned into puppets. If that’s the case, that means the puppeteer was manipulating the movements of more than 10 people-turned-puppets at the same time. I don’t think that’s a feat that can be done by one person.”

Well, if you don’t have any special source of information such as my knowledge or Iris’s magic eyes, Cordelia-san’s doubt will be understandable.

In the backstory, those who have the ‘Puppetry’ skill are called ‘puppeteers’, and it’s said that they have to consciously think and decide every single movement of their puppet when controlling it.

And the way they control their puppet is not by threads, but by embedding a part of their consciousness inside it, and when it comes to a puppet made of a living being, the puppeteer even has to simulate how the muscles, bones, internal organs, etc. works in order to control it perfectly, increasing the burden.

In the beginning, puppeteers tried to move the puppets while leaving their inside as is. Yet that proved to be a poor decision because it resulted in a number of accidents such as the bones broken due to the burden from moving, the internal organs falling down to the lower abdomen due to the movements of the muscles of the whole body not being individually determined, and sudden leaking of excrements.

Moreover, if the inside of a puppet is emptied out and filled with meat, there’s no way it can carry out human-like activities such as ‘conversing’ anymore as doing so will remove the organs to make a voice.

Hence, if a puppeteer wants to impersonate someone using the said person as the raw material for the puppet, they have to overcome a great number of hurdles like ‘how to make it behave naturally so no one notices any strangeness’, ‘how to let it have the ability to converse’, and ‘how to make it move fluidly in case of a fight’; a very tall order.

It can be imagined how difficult of a task it is just moving one human-turned-puppet, not to mention more than 10 simultaneously—it’s impossible for one person alone.

That’s why it’s unthinkable that the knights all have been turned into puppets, let alone being controlled by one puppeteer.

It’s reasonable for Cordelia to come to such a conclusion, but… ‘Joseph Asanaga’ is a master puppeteer capable of that feat.

(Besides, the chain that attacked Cordelia-san was obviously made and controlled by magic—clearly, the owner wasn’t the puppeteer. And when it comes to someone who manipulates a chain by magic and works together with a puppeteer, no one comes to mind except ‘Asanaga Ayako’.)

I have to explain to that Cordelia-san somehow until she’s convinced and then lead the discussion, but…

“Ahh, uhh… mm…”

I’m… getting tired… of explaining to Cordelia-san…

Since I have the knowledge of the original game, I can almost immediately identify the enemy, but Cordelia-san knows nothing about the Asanagas.

Because of the disparity in knowledge, it’s necessary to explain all that one by one and to make her understand and convince her, I have to use up all my vocabulary.

But I’m not gonna gain a single experience point by using up my vocabulary. And it’ll be less persuasive if I explain while practice-swinging, so that’s also a no.

………….

“The enemy is a master puppeteer capable of doing that! End of discussion!!”

“You got tired of explaining, Sakurai-san?” Iris asks.

“Eh, for real? You can get tired of explaining in this kind of situation?” Ethel wears a disbelieving expression.

My motivation’s gotten squeezed dry and there’s not even a drop left, so it can’t be helped.

To begin with, if humans were to be equipped with the ability to transmit their knowledge and thought processes to one another, we wouldn’t have needed to share information by using PDFs or the like, and having arguments to the point that you run out of words wouldn’t earn you experience points, either—in short, it’s the world’s fault. Give us an organ that can allow us to transmit radio waves at the frequency of 5 GHz band, will you?

“Our enemy is an extremely amazing puppeteer and a mage who manipulates a chain! Terrence and his subordinates may have been turned into puppets! What we’ve gotta do now is do our best to escape from this place, then we go take shelter in the place of someone whom we can trust! Simple, right!?”

“Tōru, what’re you going on about all of a sudden? You look like a madman.”

“Um, Sakurai-sama. I apologize if I’ve said something that offended you.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for, Cordelia-san. Sakurai-san has just reached his limit. Don’t mind him.”

Currently, we better not expect help, hence the action we should take is to escape from here.

The ‘attacker’ is, without a sliver of doubt, Joseph the puppeteer, and it’d be better to assume that Terrence and his subordinates have died and been turned into puppets or betrayed us, thus making them our enemies.

I already have the way to escape all figured out, and once we’ve escaped, I’ll get Cordelia-san and the others to the place of someone we can trust. Then I’ll go make sure what Joseph’s aiming for and use that to negotiate and pull-out information out from him.

Knowing Joseph, he must be doing this at Ayako’s request, all without knowing that it’s part of her preparation to get rid of him, that’s for sure!

If I can find out the reason why’s he targeting Cordelia-san, I may be able to make a deal with Joseph and at the same time form up an alliance with Ayako, then I’ll get rid of Joseph by betraying him at the last moment with Ayako’s cooperation.

“If possible, I’d like to use Cordelia-san as a negotiation card!”

“What did you say?”

If all goes well, the threat to Cordelia-san’s life can be eliminated—which is most definitely what Ethel wants as well—this incident will be resolved, and most important of all, I may get a clue to solve the dungeon blockage!

It’ll be a happy ending for everyone—everyone except Joseph, of course! So there’s no need to hesitate!

I promise I’ll give it my all for everyone’s sake! So—!

“—So everyone, shut up and let me use you!!”

The cry of my soul that had been suppressed for a while now echoed in the forbidden book section.

Iris sighs in a disappointed manner, Ethel has a vein popped up on her forehead, and Cordelia-san wears a troubled expression on her face as if she’s seeing a rare animal and not knowing how to treat it.

After getting those words out of my chest and regaining composure, I look at everyone’s reactions—especially Ethel who seems to have been getting closer to me after I said I’d like to use her mother—and make a little smile with a “Fuh”.

“I can only think of one way to get out of here, and even if we get out, we won’t be able to resolve this matter unless we find out the reason behind the attack, so please hear me out for now!”

“I’ll hear you out; after I give you a slap.”

“Okay, then come at m—buh!?”

I don’t think hitting someone with the heel of your palm counts as a slap.

“Hmph! I won’t let you off this lightly next time, so you better choose your words carefully, Tōru.”

Actually, it didn’t hurt that much, but because I overplayed it by rolling on the floor a little exaggeratedly, Ethel thought she had used more strength than she had intended and dropped the matter.

Iris is aware of it, but looks like she’s chosen to stay silent and close her eye to it so that the discussion can proceed.

“That hurts~… Phew, okay, I want to confirm two things before we get into my escape plan.”

“What is it?” Ethel asks.

“Does the barrier cover only the entrance? Or does it cover the entire room?”

“It’s the latter. After all, it’ll be a problem if someone can get inside by breaking in through the ceiling or underground,” Cordelia-san answers.

“I see. Then next I’d like to know the strength of the barrier but, can Uncle… I mean, my master, the Sword Saint, really do something to this barrier?” I ask while remembering what Ethel had said before we escaped into this place.

To the question, Ethel puts on a dubious look, muttering, “Well, that’s what the rumor says, but…” and turns towards her mother, then Cordelia-san answers the question in Ethel’s stead.

“Not many know about this, but… About 20 years ago—around the time when your master started to be called the Sword Saint—the manager at the time asked him to try breaking this barrier to check its strength. It seems that the manager was actually doing it out of the desire to give the barrier the fame of being unable to be broken even by the Sword Saint, but the result was horrible—the barrier ended up broken with just a slash.”

“With just a slash? Are you sure?”

“Huh? Y-yes, I’m sure. Is something the matter?”

Not at all, but thanks to you, we’ve now confirmed that we can break through the first hurdle to our escape.

Otherwise, I’d have to seriously consider about breaking through the front, so I have to give my gratitude to Uncle for getting caught up in a bothersome matter in the past.

Thanks for breaking this barrier in the past, Uncle.

“Aight, that’s pretty much it. Then we’ll begin our escape in an hour, so be prepared.”

“What do we have to prepare, though?” Iris tilts her head.

Well, to be honest, I’ll be the one to prepare everything and open up the escape route, and all Iris and Ethel will have to do is help Cordelia-san to move, so they actually have nothing to prepare.

That said, there’s one thing that they have to mentally prepare themselves for.

“Please prepare yourselves to bottle in your anger until this is all over!” I smile and say. Iris then releases a big sigh as if she’s given up.