A World That Judges by Appearance

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

"Listen to me..."

"Don't come any closer!"

"I'm not your enemy..."

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

"Haa..."

Looking at the purple-haired maiden opposite him, Duanmu Huai was nearly speechless.

At first, Duanmu Huai had thought he would have to fight a bitter battle against her. But once they actually exchanged blows, he discovered that the maiden's combat ability wasn't particularly strong. She was merely on par with him. This allowed Duanmu Huai to breathe a sigh of relief. Fortunately, the maiden wasn't very strong. If Okegis had been here instead, a single punch from her would probably have left the maiden kneeling on the ground, begging Duanmu Huai not to die.

That was the kind of strength capable of tearing a Bloodthirsty Maniac apart with her bare hands. With Duanmu Huai currently only a level 20 Inquisitor, he simply couldn't withstand it.

But soon, Duanmu Huai regretted it.

He discovered that he would rather fight her now.

Perhaps because she had witnessed her father being killed with her own eyes, the maiden had fallen into a crazed, hysterical state. No matter what Duanmu Huai said, she acted as if she were saying, "I won't listen, I won't listen, I don't want to listen," driving him nearly to despair.

There was no choice. Since the soft approach wasn't working, he could only use force!

With that thought, Duanmu Huai gritted his teeth and charged at the maiden again. This time, he tightened his grip on his warhammer and swung it hard at her. The blow knocked the wrench from her hands. Before she could react, Duanmu Huai reached out with his large hand, seized her slender wrist, and slammed her against the wall.

The maiden's wrists were extremely slender and frail. Duanmu Huai could wrap one hand completely around them. At that moment, the maiden was also overcome with terror, twisting her body and struggling desperately. Duanmu Huai sighed, then reached out with his free hand, removed his helmet, and stared at her.

"Look at me carefully!"

"Eek-----!!!"

At Duanmu Huai's roar, the maiden froze in fright. Then, almost instinctively, she raised her head and looked toward him.

Then... the maiden's head drooped to one side, and she lost consciousness.

At the same time, the ground around them began trembling again, as if an earthquake had struck. In an instant, the entire mansion collapsed, and boundless darkness swallowed Duanmu Huai whole.

When he opened his eyes again, the mansion was no longer before him. Instead, there were ruins covered in vines and wild grass. A ray of early-morning sunlight emerged through the gaps between the trees, illuminating the wreckage before Duanmu Huai.

"...Haa..."

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

It seemed he had failed.

Although he had failed, Duanmu Huai didn't leave. This place was like entering a dungeon, with a looping world inside. In other words, once tonight arrived, he could enter that mansion again and repeat everything he had witnessed 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, but the daughter who came back to life wasn't the daughter he knew. She was an entirely new life. However, no matter what, he had violated the taboo of resurrecting the dead, so people had come to eliminate him. The maiden, having witnessed her father being killed, had gone berserk, and in the end... Since even the Elf Scout could recount the entire story, 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's storyline. Before he crossed over, he had started in Zhendan in the east, since the initial regions had been assigned according to server location at the time. As for the Empire's storyline, Duanmu Huai had only heard of some of its more famous events and had never participated in them. He had even less of a clue when it came to fragmented dungeons like this.

"I don't understand, Master."

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

"Hmm? What's the problem?"

"That gentleman."

Okegis thought for a moment, then spoke in a low voice.

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

"Humans are just that contradictory."

Duanmu Huai shrugged, then continued.

"I can more or less guess. On one hand, he truly felt heartbroken because the one revived wasn't his daughter. But on the other hand, his daughter really had been revived."

"...I don't understand what you mean, Master."

Okegis furrowed her brow. After thinking for a moment, she still shook her head.

"For humans, there are two ways to confirm one's identity. One is appearance, and the other is the soul."

As Duanmu Huai spoke, he pointed at Okegis.

"Look, just like the name Okegis. It represents only your existence. It's a name that belongs solely to you. When I call the name Okegis, I'm referring to you—the doll maiden with silver twin-tails, wearing a beautiful dress, with a cute appearance, few words, and a heart full of curiosity. The former describes your appearance, while the latter describes your personality and inner self. If one day your soul were replaced by someone else's, and you were no longer quiet and reserved but instead became a cheerful and outgoing girl, then to me, you would no longer be you... at least, not the you I know."

"But wouldn't I still be myself?"

"Self-perception and the perceptions of others often don't match."

It was just like when people played games and everyone assumed they were a hot-tempered girl from Sichuan, never imagining that the person inside was actually a two-and-a-half-meter-tall, foot-scratching burly man.

As he spoke, Duanmu Huai stood up. He planned to search the mansion ruins more thoroughly and see whether any clues had been left behind.

"That's why humans are so complicated."

Hearing this, Okegis fell silent. It was impossible to tell whether she understood or not... but as far as Duanmu Huai was concerned, that was all he could say.

"Oh, right."

Just then, Duanmu Huai suddenly thought of something. He turned around, removed his helmet, and looked toward Okegis.

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

Speaking of which, Okegis had seen Duanmu Huai without his helmet more than once, but she had never reacted. This had made Duanmu Huai somewhat curious.

This time, Okegis answered quickly.

"I really like Master's appearance."

"Oh? Really?"

The doll maiden was quiet by nature, but Duanmu Huai felt that she wouldn't lie. Hearing this answer made him a little happy. So there really was someone who liked my type.

"Yes. I still can't distinguish humans very well. Master's appearance has a very high degree of recognizability. I like it very much."

"..."

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

Well, thank you very much.

After receiving that little backstab from Okegis, Duanmu Huai quickly composed himself and resumed searching for clues.

He first went to the cemetery he had seen in the soul's memories and looked around. Hmm, it had already been smashed into pieces. Even the gravestones had been shattered, making it impossible to tell who had been buried there. With no other choice, Duanmu Huai returned to the mansion ruins to see whether he could gather anything useful.

However, as he searched, Duanmu Huai was also filled with doubts.

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

If someone who didn't know the truth had witnessed that earlier scene, they might have thought that the soldiers had gone too far. But Duanmu Huai knew that if the man really was a Necromancer, then the soldiers' actions had been perfectly justified.

And that was precisely the problem.

A genuine Necromancer, no matter how specialized, wouldn't die in such a completely unimpressive manner.

Could he have faked his death?

It didn't seem like it...

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

As a veteran player, Duanmu Huai understood both the Undead and Necromancers very well, and he knew all sorts of Necromancer techniques. Simply put, if a Necromancer wanted to resurrect the dead, there were generally only two methods.

The first was to use forbidden necromantic magic to bind the dead person's soul within the body, creating the illusion that the dead had been resurrected.

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

But the purple-haired maiden's behavior differed from both. She had none of her former memories, but neither was she a puppet without a sense of self.

Of course, it was also possible that the Necromancer had made a deal with the Chaos God, who had deceived him through some method. But Duanmu Huai dismissed this possibility as well, because when the purple-haired maiden had gone berserk earlier, he hadn't sensed any power or aura from the Chaos God.

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

That wasn't impossible either. When Duanmu Huai had subdued the maiden at the end, he had keenly noticed the bandages around her neck, as well as what appeared to be stitching across her body and chest. Combined with the bolt on her head that looked as if it pierced straight through her skull, it was easy for Duanmu Huai to associate her with a rather famous scientific monster from his own world.

Frankenstein.

The story was also widely known. Doctor Victor used the bodies of the dead to stitch together and create an entirely new life, then awakened it. Of course, the story ended in tragedy, but that wasn't important. What mattered was that if the story of Frankenstein was taken into account, then all the questions surrounding what had happened here had answers.

First of all, the man wasn't a Necromancer at all. He might have been some kind of scholar or scientist who had used methods similar to Frankenstein's to revive his daughter. Of course, outsiders wouldn't care about such details. Once they saw that the man's dead daughter had come back to life, they would assume that he had either sold his soul to an evil god or surrendered to darkness and become a Necromancer.

This also explained why the man had been so weak. He might originally have been nothing more than an ordinary scholar, completely incapable of fighting, so naturally he wouldn't possess a Necromancer's strength.

Next was the soul inside the purple-haired maiden's body. It was an entirely new soul. As far as Duanmu Huai knew, neither magic nor evil gods could create a brand-new soul from nothing. Only the story of Frankenstein offered even the slightest possibility of that.

Unfortunately, this was of no help to his current investigation.

Duanmu Huai searched through practically the entire mansion from top to bottom, but still found no useful information. He didn't even know the purple-haired maiden's name. Hmm, if he could learn her name, communication might go more smoothly.

But perhaps... who knew?

As night fell, Duanmu Huai had no choice but to give up hope of continuing to search for clues among the remnants of wild grass and vines. The passage of time had nearly erased every trace that remained here.

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