[※ This chapter contains unsettling themes and disturbing scenes. Reader discretion is advised!]
༺[Noel's POV]༻
Seeing the extended hand, I was lost for words.
My breath caught.
When I looked up, the face before me was not the same as the one I had met back in his quarters.
There were cracks. Long, jagged lines split across his skin, like a puppet's porcelain mask breaking apart. The corners of his mouth were slit. His eyes stretched downward, crossing like a grotesque scar carved into a face that should never belong to a human.
And yet… his voice was still human.
As his lips opened, they did not move naturally. They sank down like a puppet's hinged jaw, clumsy and stiff, but alive.
A ritual?
A transformation?
Was this what Brother Elian had become?
His voice rasped.
"Strange… you're still standing. Even the doll twins couldn't pull you under. Why is that?"
My chest tightened.
His words only confirmed that what I had felt before wasn't my imagination.
That crushing pressure, that foreign weight forcing its way into my skull… it had been real.
So it was a forced entry into my mind.
If that was the case, then everyone with me...Phoebe, Cassel, Tallen, even Father Gideon had experienced the same thing.
But why was I the only one who had screamed from the agony of it?
Was it because of my mental fortitude?
No…
The original Noel's mind had been sharper, harder than most nobles, armed with a character trait that few could endure. His mental state was strong, frighteningly so.
Yet at this moment, those traits were no longer his alone. They were tangled with mine. And that clash… that contradiction…
Perhaps that was the reason.
Then another thought came.
The way they died.
Phoebe. Cassel. Tallen. Father Gideon.
None of them had been slain by an enemy's hand.
They had killed themselves.
…Was I supposed to do the same?
Was this cycle trying to push me toward self-destruction?
Or was it different?
Did I not die when they did, but instead… now?
My gaze fell upon the puppet in front of me. Was this the point where my life ended?
Patterns surfaced in my mind. One after another, the memories unfolded like pages being flipped too quickly.
The massacre at the ISD.
The member of the Wretched Faith. The woman who had attacked under the Authority of Love.
Her eyes had been the weapon. A gaze that overrode emotion itself, pulling people to kill themselves willingly.
But she had been female. This was… different.
Saint Candidate Adele Redwyne had confirmed it herself. That woman was a puppet.
So… was this ability capable of creating more than one puppet? Or was it worse, turning people into them?
Calmly, my thoughts aligned. The weight of my character trait [Calm Demeanor] took over, forcing clarity upon me.
The Wretched Faith's Authority of Love… yes, it usually forced one to surrender emotions, to drown in them, to end themselves because of that overpowering tide. If you looked into her eyes, you could not resist.
But the doll twins… their purple eyes had not forced agony, nor sorrow, nor madness.
Phoebe and the rest had shown no emotion at all.
They had simply… emptied. As if their very souls had been hollowed out. Shells that could no longer endure the void, collapsing into nothingness.
It wasn't the same.
And now…
I faced Brother Elian.
His wrinkled old frame twitched unnaturally, strings only I could not see pulling him upright.
The cracks across his face widened.
"Are you from the Wretched Faith?" I asked.
For a moment, silence.
Then Elian smiled.
The corners of his mouth cracked wider, his head tilting with the sound of bones grinding against each other.
Only then did I realize.
He had no eyes.
Where they should have been, there was nothing.
Just hollow pits.
Gazing into them was like staring into a void that wanted to stare back.
My heart was pounding against my ribs, each beat screaming panic, but my face betrayed none of it.
A poker face. That was all I had left.
If this really was a member of the Wretched Faith standing before me, then the situation had already turned into something life-threatening.
A direct confrontation with him… I didn't even know if, in the last cycle, I had died at his hands or not. But it hardly mattered.
Dying meant returning, and returning meant the terminal illness clawing at my lifespan would tighten its grip further.
That, I could not afford.
The air grew colder. A suffocating pressure pressed down like a vice.
I didn't need to exchange words with him to know he reeked of bloodlust. Conversation was useless.
Seconds stretched unnaturally long, each one weighing down on me like lead.
My hand slipped inside my coat, searching desperately for my revolver.
Nothing.
A spike of dread hit my chest.
Where the hell was it?!
My eyes darted, and there just a few inches to the right, glinting faintly in the moonlight. My revolver lay on the ground. Relief washed over me, but it was short-lived.
Using my Authority crossed my mind, but I shoved the thought aside. A compromise I wasn't willing to make.
I had no real control over it.
At best, I could conjure something pathetic like a butter knife, maybe a sashimi knife if I pushed myself...but a sword? A proper weapon? Impossible.
The revolver, my trusted companion until now, was enough. It had to be.
The tension was unbearable. The air itself felt sharp.
And then...
BOOM!
A thread lashed out from Elian's puppet-like body, slamming into the floor with enough force to crack it open. Fragments and dust exploded into the air.
"…!"
Those threads… they were strong. Far stronger than they looked.
Worse, they were thin, nearly invisible. If not for my sharp reflexes, I wouldn't have noticed. I would've been impaled right then.
I threw myself into a barrel roll, kicking up splinters as I dove for the revolver.
My fingers wrapped around the grip, and I rolled to one knee, the other foot braced firmly against the floor in a 90 degrees angle.
I raised the revolver with both hands.
Elian's head was still turning toward me, stiff like a puppet adjusting to its strings.
I didn't hesitate.
Bang!
The bullet ripped through the air, straight into his skull. His movements froze. The puppet staggered slightly.
For a moment, hope flared.
A bead of sweat slid down my cheek. My arms dropped an inch.
Of course. I should've known better.
The momentary stillness ended. His body twitched again, jerking unnaturally.
Another thread shot out...this one faster than my eyes could track.
Instinct screamed at me. I moved, barely, but pain erupted across my face.
A sharp sting, blood trailing down. My right eye snapped shut.
"Tch…"
Compared to the agony I'd endured in this world, this was nothing.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three bullets fired in quick succession. All three were cut clean in half before reaching him.
My mind struggled to process how.
The only explanation—threads. He was slicing them midair, faster than I could see.
"…This is going to be a hassle."
But then...there.
A faint glimmer, the moonlight catching on something impossibly thin.
"That's it…"
I muttered, my mind racing.
I dove behind an overturned metal table, pressing myself low.
Thwick! Thwick! Thwick!
Threads pierced the table, stabbing through like spears, but none hit me.
I took aim at the chapel's window.
Bang!
The bullet shattered the stained glass, shards exploding outward.
Moonlight flooded the hallway.
And with it the threads shimmered, now visible under the pale glow.
"…Now we're talking."
Finally, I could see them.
Maneuvering would be possible. But stopping them? That was another question entirely.
My left eye focused on the glowing strands, my right still bleeding and useless. One eye against threads that moved faster than bullets. A clear disadvantage.
At times like this… I almost wished this world worked like the games I used to play. A sharpshooter buff, an enhancement skill...anything. But this that type of a game.
I bit back a bitter laugh.
"…I'm giving you hints, you bastard. Now would be the perfect time to appear…"
I muttered under my breath, eyes flicking to where my System Window should've appeared.
Nothing.
Silence.
"Yeah… who am I kidding…"
I hissed, lowering my aim.
I shot again, targeting the threads themselves. Each bullet cut down in midair.
The revolver clicked. Empty.
"…"
My hand trembled slightly.
No more rounds. No extra bullets.
I reached for my cane. Only then did it hit me...I hadn't used it once since arriving here.
A hidden blade lay inside, but my swordsmanship… laughable at best. Still, even a crude weapon could buy me time.
But time for what? To run?
I thought of Elyndral. If I ran, if I tried to return for help, by the time I came back, who knew what would remain of this chapel… or the children.
I couldn't abandon them.
But as my gaze flicked toward the shattered window, my stomach dropped.
A veil. Transparent, black, stretched thin but vast. Covering the window, covering the chapel entirely.
We were trapped.
"This is bad…"
My thoughts were cut short.
Thwick!
Two threads shot forward, piercing straight through my thighs.
"Aghhh!"
Agony tore through me. My body convulsed as the threads dug deeper, cutting flesh like paper.
My legs went numb. Then, slowly, inexorably...
The threads lifted me.
My body rose into the air, suspended by agony itself.
I screamed, the sound echoing in the chapel like a dying animal.
Fear crept in more as I realized I couldn't feel my legs at all…were the threads poison inducing? With no legs, how the hell was I supposed to find the children?
As if the walls themselves were listening to me, three children rounded the corner in a rush.
"No!"
I shouted.
The puppet, clearly amused, followed my gaze and smiled when it saw the children.
"Oh my…you brought yourselves right to me…my dear Aelwen."
"Brother Elian?" Bran's small voice trembled.
"No, that's not Brother Elian!" I roared.
"Run!"
"B-but we can't go the other way either!" Seris stammered.
I now saw why.
Right behind them shuffled a group of children…their eyes hollow, their faces blank. They were puppets. And among them, the nun who had been asked to care for them...her body twisted, her movements jerky.
Puppetified.
From the worn clothes the other puppet children wore, I could tell some of them were the missing ones. Survivors…turned into this.
Dangling helplessly in the air, strung up by threads, my chest tightened. What kind of nightmare was this?
For a moment, I longed to be back at my desk in the academy, quill in hand, drowning in paperwork. That at least, I could handle.
"What should I do…?"
My voice cracked. This was nerve wracking.
"Come to nanny…"
The nun's head twitched to the side, her voice soft yet hollow.
"You don't want to be naughty and disobedient children now, do you?"
Her limbs bent at wrong angles, eerily identical to Brother Elian's.
One of the puppet children lunged at Aelwen.
She resisted, her tiny arms trembling as she shoved, but she was too small, too weak.
The puppet child clung on.
Then suddenly...
Thwack!
The puppet child was knocked sprawling several meters away.
Bran stood there, panting, his fist raised. His eyes hardened.
"Get back, Aelwen!"
He said, his voice shaking but firm.
My eyes widened as he darted toward a suit of toppled knight armor that had been lying in the corridor.
On its side was a sword nearly as long as Bran was tall. He gripped the hilt with both hands, veins standing out in his tiny arms as he lifted it with effort.
It was on my blind side…I hadn't even seen it.
Bran turned, teeth grit, and planted himself in front of the two girls. The sword wavered, too heavy, too large, but he held it steady as best as he could.
"I'll protect you, Aelwen…you too, Seris.
I'll be your knight now!"
His voice cracked, but the words rang pure, cutting through the darkness.
The puppet children lunged. Bran shouted, swinging the massive blade to push them back.
I could tell he didn't want to cut through them or kill them for that matter, because as much as they were puppets now...Bran was close to them.
Each swing knocked them stumbling, but their hollow eyes never blinked. They clawed at him, pressed against him, their small hands reaching for his arms, his face, his throat.
"Stay back!" Bran cried, his shoulders trembling.
I could tell…the sword was too heavy and his arms too weak. And yet, what weighed on him more was the fear. Fear of hurting them and killing them.
They were once his friends.
At least, unlike Elian, they had no piercing threads shooting out of them.
"Elian!"
I shouted hoarsely, trying to keep the puppet priest's attention away. I ripped my cuff buttons, hurling them at him, each throw slicing another thread across my skin. Pain shot through me, but I had no choice.
"Over here! Look at me!"
But then a scream filled the place.
I turned.
Seris had been caught, her small legs yanked from beneath her by puppet children. She clawed at the floor, her nails scraping stone as she screamed, her tiny body dragged toward their empty eyes.
"Seris!"
Bran screamed, trying to move, but the weight of the sword and the press of puppet children pinned him in place. He strained, pushing them back, his teeth grit so hard his jaw quivered.
"Let her go! Please!"
His voice cracked.
The children swarmed Seris. She thrashed, kicking, tears streaming down her cheeks as her voice echoed in terror.
Then her body erupted.
Purple flames burst from her small frame, engulfing her in fire as her scream tore through the air.
"AHHHH!"
Everything was now happening in slow motion.
The flames licked the walls, searing the puppets that held her. They shrieked in silence, their faces unmoving even as their hollow bodies burned.
Aelwen fell to her knees, hands over her ears, eyes squeezed shut, sobbing and clutching at Bran's clothes behind him.
"No…no…no…" she cried, shaking.
Bran froze, eyes wide, the blade trembling in his hands.
"Seris…"
His voice broke, a whisper choking on tears. His lips quivered as the flames illuminated his wet cheeks. His small hands clutched the sword tighter, his knuckles white.
"I…I couldn't…"
His teeth sank into his lip so hard it bled, but he stood, tears rolling freely, his body trembling as he faced the nightmare in front of him.
And yet…he did not let go of the sword.
***
Why am I just watching this?
What kind of shitty bastard am I...
Did I really think a child would be able to handle all this?
A glass blade formed above my head, shimmering faintly, and without thought it cut through the air with a shrill whistle. I didn't even direct it. My body only carried killing intent.
By the time I realized where it had struck, it was already too late.
Aelwen's scream tore through the air. Her small frame collapsed to the ground, eyes wide, tears streaming down her cheeks as she reached out.
"B-Bran… your legs…"
Her voice cracked.
Bran looked behind him.
He was still crawling forward, still dragging that oversized blade that seemed twice his body's size. But below his waist there was nothing. Just a trail of blood painting the ground.
He blinked at it, lips curving into a strange, shaky smile.
"Whoa… it's like red grape juice… my favorite…"
His teeth shone bright, pure, like only a child's could. Still smiling, still pushing forward.
"I'll protect you, Aelwen… that's a promise…"
His voice wavered, a sniffle breaking through. But he didn't stop. He kept crawling, inching closer until he reached her.
His hand gripped hers, trembling yet stubbornly strong.
Aelwen clutched him tightly, sobbing so hard her small body shook. She pressed his head against her chest, holding him as if she could anchor him to life. Her dress was soaked, drenched in red, but she didn't even notice.
Bran's breath grew shallow, eyes fluttering. He chuckled weakly, though his voice was barely audible.
"…Is it me… or is the world getting watery and dark?"
"No… don't… don't say that…!"
Aelwen's voice broke, but Bran only gave her a crooked little smile, one that didn't belong in such a cruel place.
"Aelwen…"
His tiny fingers curled around hers, weak but certain.
"You know… I always thought… if I grew up… I'd marry you…"
His grip loosened. The blade slipped from his hand, clattering against the ground.
Aelwen screamed, hugging him tighter, her tears soaking his hair.
Around them, the puppet children burned and mounted over her, their bodies collapsing in fire, but she didn't care.
She only held Bran in her arms as though the warmth of her embrace could keep him alive.
"..."
My eyes darted to where Bran's lower body had been torn apart.
Right in front of it… lay a glass blade.
My body froze. My mind refused to move.
No… no, that can't be. That blade… it couldn't have been mine.
It wasn't me. It wasn't me.
I stumbled back, shaking my head violently as if that would erase what I was seeing.
"Not me… I didn't… I didn't do this…!" My voice cracked, trembling as it tore out of my throat.
Children's lives.
Snatched away just like that.
Because of me.
With my own hands, dangling helplessly like a fool.
The world tilted. My thoughts splintered into jagged shards. I heard myself laugh, broken and eerie, before my scream devoured it.
"Why?! Why is it always me?! Why can't it be anyone else?! Why am I the one…!"
Threads suddenly shot forward.
They pierced into my chest, dug into my heart, one wrapping around my forehead as blood seeped along each strand. The crimson ran down, trickling toward the Puppet Elian.
His lips twisted. His smile stretched wider, wider, as if feeding on the blood itself.
My vision wavered and my consciousness drifted. I could feel myself slipping into that cold abyss once more.
But...I couldn't die here.
If I died now… then for some reason this memory won't be carried over to my next cycle.
Through the numbness, my trembling hands searched my pockets. They fumbled, desperate, until they found it.
A fountain pen.
I snapped the tip clean off with my teeth, slicing my lower lip a little bit, jagged metal gleaming.
My breath came in short gasps.
I dragged the pen across my arm, again and again, until skin tore and blood spilled. The sting reached bone. I carved deeper until I could feel the femur structure beneath.
Stroke after stroke...my hand didn't stop.
Finally, with what little strength remained, I gripped the broken pen and shoved it into the side of my head.
Right into the temple.
Pain flared.
My vision collapsed into darkness.
The last thing I felt was the cold ink running down my skin, mixing with blood, before everything went silent.
***