A World That Judges by Looks

Dealing with this girl wasn't dangerous for Duanmu Huai, but it was quite troublesome.

"Listen to me..."

"Don't come any closer!"

"I'm not your enemy..."

"No, don't come closer! Father told me not to talk to strangers! Go away!!"

"Haah..."

Looking at the purple-haired maiden across from him, Duanmu Huai was practically speechless.

At first, Duanmu Huai had thought he would have to fight a fierce battle with her. But once they actually exchanged blows, he discovered that the girl before him was not all that strong. She was roughly evenly matched with him. That was something of a relief. Fortunately, she was not very powerful. If it had been Okegis, one punch from her—and she would probably have dropped to her knees and begged Duanmu Huai not to die.

That was combat strength capable of tearing apart a Bloodthirsty Maniac barehanded. The current level 20 Inquisitor Duanmu Huai simply could not withstand it.

But Duanmu Huai soon regretted it.

He found that he would rather have fought her.

Perhaps because she had witnessed her father being killed with her own eyes, the girl had fallen into a frenzied, hysterical state. No matter what Duanmu Huai said, she acted like, "I'm not listening, not listening, don't want to listen," and Duanmu Huai was close to despair.

There was no helping it. Since reason would not work, he had to use force!

With that thought, Duanmu Huai gritted his teeth and charged at the girl again. This time, he gripped his Warhammer tightly and swung it at her with all his strength. One blow sent the wrench in her hand flying away. Before she could react, Duanmu Huai reached out with his large hand, grabbed her slender wrist, and slammed her hard against the wall.

The girl's wrist was so thin and frail that Duanmu Huai could completely grip it in one hand. She was now utterly terrified, twisting her body and struggling desperately. Duanmu Huai sighed, then used his free hand to remove his helmet and stared straight at her.

"Look at me properly!"

"Eek—!!!"

Startled stiff by Duanmu Huai's roar, the girl instinctively raised her head and looked at him.

Then... her head tilted to one side, and she lost consciousness.

At the same time, the ground around them began shaking again, as if an earthquake had struck. In an instant, the entire manor collapsed with it, and boundless darkness completely swallowed Duanmu Huai.

When he opened his eyes again, the manor from before was gone. In its place stood ruins covered in vines and weeds. A ray of early morning sunlight emerged through a gap in the forest, illuminating the crumbling wreckage before him.

"...Haah..."

With a helpless sigh, Duanmu Huai silently picked up his helmet and put it back on.

It looked like he had failed.

Although he had failed, Duanmu Huai did not leave. This place was like a dungeon instance, containing a looping world. In other words, once night fell, he could enter that manor again and repeat everything he had seen before until he found the solution—damn it, how was he supposed to solve this?

Duanmu Huai more or less understood what had happened here. A father had lost his beloved daughter and wanted to revive her. Yet the revived daughter was not the daughter he had known, but an entirely new life. Still, no matter what, he had touched the taboo of resurrecting the dead, so someone had come to eliminate him. After witnessing her father's death, the girl had gone mad. In the end... since the elf scout could tell this entire story so clearly, did that mean justice had ultimately triumphed over evil?

Then how was he supposed to break this deadlock...?

Although this was Novice Planet, Duanmu Huai had never experienced the Empire storyline. Before being transported here, he had started in the eastern Zhendan, since starting regions had been assigned according to server location at the time. As for the Empire's storyline, Duanmu Huai had only heard about some of its more famous events and had never participated in them. He had even less of a clue about a fragmented instance dungeon like this.

"I don't understand, Master."

Just as Duanmu Huai was racking his brains over how to break the deadlock, Okegis suddenly spoke.

"Hm? What is it?"

"That gentleman."

Okegis thought for a moment before speaking softly.

"I don't understand why his actions were so contradictory. I could see the love that gentleman showed toward his daughter, but at the same time, he deeply hated this daughter. Yet if he hated her, why would he risk his life to protect her?"

"Humans are just that contradictory."

Duanmu Huai shrugged before continuing.

"I can more or less guess. On one hand, he was heartbroken because the one brought back was not truly his daughter. But on the other hand, his daughter really had been revived."

"...I do not understand what you mean, Master."

Okegis frowned, thought for a moment, then shook her head.

"For humans, there are two ways to identify the self. One is appearance, and the other is the soul."

As he spoke, Duanmu Huai pointed at Okegis.

"Look, just like the name Okegis. It represents your existence. It is a name that belongs only to you. When I call the name Okegis, I mean you—the doll girl with silver twin-tails, a beautiful dress, a cute face, few words, and a heart full of curiosity. The first part describes your appearance, while the latter describes your personality and inner self. If one day, your soul were replaced by someone else, and you were no longer so quiet but became a cheerful, outgoing girl, then in my eyes, you would no longer be you... at least, not the you I know."

"But would I not still be myself?"

"Self-perception and other people's perception often do not match."

It was like how everyone playing a game imagined they were a hot-tempered Sichuan girl, never realizing there was actually a two-and-a-half-meter-tall greasy old man behind the screen.

As he spoke, Duanmu Huai stood up. He planned to search through the manor ruins carefully and see if any clues had been left behind.

"That is why humans are so complicated."

Hearing this, Okegis fell silent. He did not know whether she understood or not... but Duanmu Huai had said all he could.

"Oh, right."

At that moment, Duanmu Huai suddenly thought of something. He turned around, removed his helmet, and looked at Okegis.

"Okegis, what do you think of my appearance?"

Come to think of it, Okegis had seen him take off his helmet more than once, yet she had never reacted. That made Duanmu Huai somewhat curious.

This time, however, Okegis answered quickly.

"I like Master's appearance very much."

"Oh? Really?"

The doll girl did not speak much, but Duanmu Huai felt that she would not lie. Hearing her answer gave him a small burst of happiness. It seemed someone did like his type after all.

"Yes. I am currently unable to distinguish humans very well. Master's appearance is highly recognizable, and I like it."

"..."

Hearing Okegis's reply, Duanmu Huai silently put his helmet back on and turned away.

Well, thank you very much.

After being lightly stabbed in the back by Okegis, Duanmu Huai quickly pulled himself together and resumed searching for clues.

He first went to the graveyard he had seen in the soul Remembrance before—well, it had already been smashed into fragments. Even the tombstones had been shattered beyond recognition, making it impossible to tell who had been buried there. Left with no choice, Duanmu Huai returned to the manor ruins to see whether he could find anything useful.

Yet as he searched through the wreckage, Duanmu Huai's heart was full of doubt.

The reason was simple: that man's death had been far too... ordinary.

If someone unaware of the truth had witnessed that earlier scene, they might have thought the Pawns had gone too far. But Duanmu Huai knew that if the man truly had been a Necromancer, then the Pawns had done nothing wrong.

But that was exactly where the problem lay.

A legitimate Necromancer, no matter how specialized, would not die so pathetically.

Could he have faked his death?

Didn't seem like it...

Assuming everything Duanmu Huai had seen was true, then the man reviving his dead daughter could indeed be considered standard Necromancer practice—but... there were subtle differences.

As an experienced player, Duanmu Huai knew Undead, Immortality, and Necromancers very well. He also knew the various methods Necromancers employed. Simply put, if a Necromancer wanted to revive the dead, there were generally only two methods.

One was to use forbidden Undead magic to bind the dead person's soul within their body, creating the illusion that the deceased had returned to life.

The other was to revive only the body, turning it into something without self-awareness, similar to a zombie or puppet.

But the purple-haired maiden's behavior was unlike either of those. She had none of her former memories, yet she was not a puppet without a self.

Of course, it was also possible that the Necromancer had made a deal with a Chaos God, which had deceived him through some means—but Duanmu Huai had ruled out that possibility as well. When the purple-haired maiden had gone berserk earlier, he had not sensed any power or aura belonging to a Chaos God.

The final, utterly unbelievable conclusion was that this man... had used some method to... create an entirely new soul inside a dead body?

It was not impossible. When Duanmu Huai subdued the girl, he had keenly noticed the bandages around her neck, as well as the seam-like marks on her body and chest. Combined with the bolt on her head that looked as though it had pierced straight through her skull, it was easy for Duanmu Huai to think of a famous monster from his own world.

Frankenstein.

This story was also widely known. Doctor Victor had used the bodies of the dead, stitched them together, created an entirely new life, and awakened it. Of course, the story ended in tragedy, but that was not important. What mattered was that if he viewed everything through the lens of Frankenstein's story, then all the questions surrounding this place had answers.

First, that man was not a Necromancer at all. He might have been some sort of scholar or scientist who had revived his daughter using a method similar to Frankenstein's. Of course, outsiders would not care about such details. As long as they saw his dead daughter revived, they would assume he had either sold his soul to an Evil God or yielded to darkness and become a Necromancer.

That also explained why the man had been so weak, because he might originally have been nothing more than an ordinary scholar with no strength to even truss a chicken, naturally lacking a Necromancer's power.

Second was the soul within the purple-haired maiden's body. A newly born soul. As far as Duanmu Huai knew, neither magic nor Evil Gods could create an entirely new soul out of nothing. Only Frankenstein's story offered even the slightest possibility.

Unfortunately, this did not help his current investigation at all.

Duanmu Huai turned the entire manor nearly upside down, yet still found no useful information. He did not even know the purple-haired maiden's name—well, if he knew her name, perhaps communication would go more smoothly.

But perhaps... who knew?

As night fell, Duanmu Huai had no choice but to abandon hope of finding clues among the weeds, vines, and remnants. Time, that merciless butcher's knife, had almost erased every trace left here.

Now, it seemed he could only enter that world again and search for clues within it.