"Who are you?"
Looking at the mechanical girl in front of him, Duanmu Huai was momentarily stunned, then quickly asked. The mechanical girl waved her hand.
"Ah, please don't be alarmed. Although I may look like a doll, I'm actually a human whose soul was sealed here by an evil sorcerer! Could you help me search for my original body?"
...
What kind of absurd setup is this?
Facing the request from this mechanical girl, Duanmu Huai found it baffling, but he still nodded.
"No problem."
In any case, at least he had finally encountered someone he could talk to in this place, so he might as well hear what she had to say.
Just like that, a strange mechanical girl joined Duanmu Huai and Olgis's party.
She introduced herself as Mia. She claimed that she was originally a human, but had her soul sealed into a doll by an evil sorcerer. And this Sky City was said to be that sorcerer's castle. He placed people like her here as display pieces. In fact, the other dolls on the table were also victims of that sorcerer—only, their souls had fallen into slumber and could no longer be awakened...
"Th-thank you so much, sir—and you too, miss."
Following behind the two, Mia looked extremely grateful.
"This body is so stiff, it's really hard to move around in. And the most unbearable part is the clothing... there's even cute little lace on it… If I still had a normal body, I would've been crying by now. But now that I'm with you two, I feel like I really can find my original body again!"
"Uh…"
Hearing Mia speak, Duanmu Huai looked utterly confused. Honestly, this whole thing felt weird to him—Sky City? Evil sorcerer? Dolls? Magic? No… Miss, nothing about your story has anything to do with magic, okay? From the moment he arrived in Sky City until now, everything he had seen was clearly technological in nature.
That included Mia's body as well. Although she looked similar to Olgis on the surface, Duanmu Huai was sure that if he smashed Mia apart, he'd find layers of intricate steel frameworks and wiring inside—that was fundamentally different from Olgis's kind of doll.
If she claimed her consciousness had been transferred into a robot through some kind of machine, that would actually make more sense!
Or perhaps this Mia's consciousness came from some local native? If that was the case, then her interpretation wouldn't be so strange—after all, to someone from a low-tech civilization, technology like consciousness transfer would look no different from magic.
Whatever, they'd find out once they got there.
Even though he had doubts about Mia's explanation, at the very least, with her guidance, the two of them finally had a clear objective. So Duanmu Huai and Olgis followed Mia's directions and continued toward the "evil sorcerer's residence."
Naturally, they encountered more enemies along the way.
"ROAR—————!!!"
Duanmu Huai charged forward with his warhammer, slamming into a hulking mechanical guard. Its outer appearance resembled the previous [Magsteel Lion], except this time, the robot's head wasn't a lion—it was shaped like a tiger.
[Steel Tiger]
[LV30]
Compared to the [Magsteel Lion], the [Steel Tiger] had a higher level. However, its attack power wasn't quite as high, though its defense was exceptionally strong. Duanmu Huai alone wasn't quite strong enough to take down such an enemy, but fortunately, with the support of his summoned puppets and Olgis flanking nearby, he still managed to take down the [Steel Tiger]. Taking advantage of a missed claw strike, Duanmu Huai let out a roar, then slammed his warhammer into the core on the tiger's back, knocking it to the ground. One more heavy swing, and it was reduced to scrap.
"Huff...…"
Only after the last tiger mech collapsed did Duanmu Huai catch his breath, then summoned [Auto-Repair Servitor Skull] to begin repairs on his power armor. Just a few [Steel Tigers] had already pushed his suit's durability below twenty percent. If more came, the armor might just fall apart entirely.
What frustrated Duanmu Huai even more was that monsters killed inside a soul fragment gave no experience. The two soul fragment missions he had gone through before—Olgis's Dollhouse and the haunted mansion of that scholar—had been the same. Killing monsters inside didn't grant any experience, and completing quests didn't either. The only reward was soul cards.
In-game, this mechanic was likely designed to prevent players from grinding levels. Just like the haunted mansion—if players didn't finish the quest, they could just keep running it over and over. There were probably players who deliberately abused this setup, farming monsters without finishing the quest to grind levels. So the game specifically made it so that you couldn't gain experience from killing anything in a soul fragment. Even completing the quest only gave a soul card—no XP.
Still… the BOSS here shouldn't be above level 40, right?
Looking at the wreckage of the [Steel Tiger], Duanmu Huai furrowed his brow. From the [Magsteel Lion] to the [Mechanical Soldiers], and now the [Steel Tiger], most enemies in this soul fragment map seemed to be in the level 20 to 30 range. If all these machines were created by that "sorcerer" Mia mentioned, then it was likely that his level was around 40.
Of course, that wasn't guaranteed. Take the scholar in the haunted mansion—his level hadn't even reached 10. In most tech-based worlds, individual combat strength was generally quite low. So far, all the enemies Duanmu Huai had encountered in Sky City had been technological constructs. If that pattern held, then it was also possible that the "sorcerer" had a low individual level.
That said, these kinds of setups usually came with a powerful mechanical guardian. Still, if the sorcerer himself was weak, Duanmu Huai might be able to use his puppets to assassinate him and bypass the BOSS fight entirely.
Anyway, hopefully it won't be too dangerous.
Thinking this, Duanmu Huai glanced at Olgis beside him. Although Olgis could fight enemies around level 70, he didn't want to let her take unnecessary risks. Right now, Duanmu Huai didn't have any cards that could retrieve souls from the graveyard. Puppets could multiply endlessly, and ghosts could transfer through puppets, so losing them wasn't a big deal.
But if Olgis ended up in the graveyard, retrieving her would be difficult.
According to the design of the soul cards, once a servant enters the graveyard, it can only be summoned back onto the field by a card with [Summon the Dead]. Magic cards and spell cards, once used and sent to the graveyard, require spending their card cost multiplied by 1000 experience points to reset and return to the hand.
Currently, Duanmu Huai didn't have any [Summon the Dead] cards in his hand, so he had to be very careful.
Duanmu Huai had made up his mind: if the final boss here was really too difficult, he would temporarily give up on this quest, go strengthen himself elsewhere, and come back later.
He couldn't just let Olgis go and die here.
After once again repelling the attack of the mechanical army, the group finally arrived before the palace of Sky City. At that moment, Mia suddenly raised her hand, pointing ahead.
"Ah, right there! That evil sorcerer!!"
Hearing Mia's words, Duanmu Huai and Olgis looked up in the direction she pointed. On the second-floor balcony of the palace, a figure draped in a robe stood there, coldly staring at them.
"Unexpected that you even found allies, Mia."
"Evil sorcerer, return my body to me!!"
"Heh heh, foolish fool, your body has long become part of my collection. I had generously allowed you to live on in puppet form, but now it seems... I must teach you a lesson...!"
"...…???"
Listening to the sorcerer and Mia's conversation, Duanmu Huai furrowed his brow. Something felt off. Logically, the situation in this soul fragment was clear: a sorcerer—whoever he was—had extracted the soul of a girl named Mia from her body and sealed it into a robot. Now Mia was seeking help to defeat the sorcerer and reclaim her body.
That much seemed correct, but Duanmu Huai felt it didn't quite add up.
Compared to the puppeteer's regret or the scholar's conflicted feelings, Mia's emotions didn't seem intense enough to fix an entire Sky City as a soul fragment.
Especially since the monsters inside this Sky City were not weak; their levels were high and their strength considerable. Could such a fragment world really be created by a soul sealed in a robot like Mia?
Was there some hidden truth?
While Duanmu Huai was pondering, the cloaked man raised both hands.
"Awaken, my guardians! Destroy these foolish invaders!"
Boom… boom… boom…!!!
At the man's command, the palace gates slowly opened. Then, row after row of huge robots, nearly as large as Duanmu Huai himself, marched out. Above their heads floated strange mechanical objects unlike anything human—some diamond-shaped, some round cores surrounded by iron rings, like floating, wondrous pieces of art.
[Large Mechanical Soldiers]
[Ancient Creations]
[Analyzed Creations]
[Mysterious Creations]
"They're coming!!"
Seeing the iron army before him, Duanmu Huai's heart jolted. Quickly regaining focus, he hurriedly activated his soul cards again. Soon, an army of puppets appeared in front of him, facing off against the steel legion.
"Attack!!!"
With a roar from the cloaked man, the battle between steel and puppets began.
(End of chapter)