A Different Approach

Everything began again.

Just as before, Duanmu Huai and Okegis entered the world of Remembrance and once again witnessed the man's heartbroken grief over his daughter, as well as his joy after reviving her.

Then, that moment came again.

"Bang bang bang! Bang bang bang!!"

Urgent knocking rang out as the Pawns smashed through the front doors and stormed into the manor, clashing with the man once more. Then one of the Pawns drew his longsword and thrust it at the man...

"Bang!!"

However, at that moment, an iron hammer suddenly appeared and sent the Pawn flying. Then Duanmu Huai emerged with Warhammer slung over his shoulder, standing between the man and the Pawns.

"Who are you?"

Only then did both the man and the Pawns notice Duanmu Huai's presence. In fact, Duanmu Huai had been standing there all along, yet both sides had seemed blind to him. It was not until he decided to interfere with the story that they suddenly "saw" someone standing there.

"Are you an accomplice of that necromancer too?"

The Pawns' expressions changed drastically at the sight of Duanmu Huai, and they hurriedly backed away. Duanmu Huai merely sneered and raised Warhammer.

"Leave this to me, sir. I'll wipe out every last one of these annoying insects!"

He practically radiated the aura of a final boss's lackey.

"Ah... Oh... This..."

The man was equally startled by Duanmu Huai's sudden appearance and had no idea what to say. But Duanmu Huai did not waste any more words. Instead, he swung Warhammer in a wide arc, blasting all the Pawns blocking the entrance out of the way. Then he strode out through the manor doors. Outside, dozens of heavily armed warriors stood there, staring at him in terror and bewilderment.

"Come on, boys."

Duanmu Huai tightened his grip on Warhammer and fixed his gaze on the Pawns before him.

"Let me have some fun with you!"

He was laying the villain act on thick.

"Attack! Destroy these filthy, evil beings!!"

The Pawns quickly swarmed forward and clashed with Duanmu Huai.

Dealing with these Pawns posed no difficulty for Duanmu Huai. Unlike those elusive ghosts, their attacks could not penetrate his Power Armor. So Duanmu Huai showed them no mercy, enduring their offensive head-on as he began his counterattack.

At first, Duanmu Huai's battle went rather smoothly, but as the fight continued, he began to sense that something was wrong.

Duanmu Huai remembered seeing only thirty or forty Pawns when he first stepped out of the manor. Yet more than four hundred had already died beneath Warhammer, and still there seemed to be no end to them.

Could this be some kind of bug?

If this had been a game, Duanmu Huai would have reported it to the GM immediately. This endless monster spawning was obviously broken! Which part of the program had gone wrong? Or was the dungeon itself bugged?

Or should they just keep dragging this out?

In the end, Duanmu Huai decided to keep at it and see who could outlast whom. And as they kept dragging it out...

Dawn came, and they were kicked out of the dungeon again.

"This is really strange... What exactly is wrong?"

Chewing on a piece of tough Jerky, Duanmu Huai stared at the ruins before him, unable to make sense of it. He had bought these rations before leaving Silver City. They did not taste very good, but they filled his stomach well enough. Duanmu Huai had originally thought that, with his experience, solving a dungeon-space puzzle should have been a sure thing. Yet he had failed twice in a row...

There must be some clue I haven't noticed yet.

Duanmu Huai had encountered similar dungeon scenarios more than once in games, and he was highly experienced. He was certain that among everything he had seen before, there had to be something he had overlooked.

So what was it?

Wait, had he gotten it wrong?

As that thought occurred to him, Duanmu Huai seemed to realize something. He had overlooked a crucial point.

That was... whose core thoughts had created this space?

Every fragmented space drifting through Warp Space was shaped and stabilized by some being's powerful will and emotions. For example, the Doll House Duanmu Huai had visited before was stabilized by the Puppet Master's emotions. The person who tied the knot had to be the one to untie it; the ultimate goal of any space raid was to deal with the core.

So who was the core of this manor?

At first, Duanmu Huai had thought that the Purple-Haired Maiden had formed this core space. But upon reflection, that did not seem right. Although they had later seen the Purple-Haired Maiden witness her father's murder firsthand, that did not mean she was the core of this space. The man might not have died immediately and could have seen something before his final breath. After all, they had also seen the man carry his daughter's corpse back to the manor, and the Purple-Haired Maiden had clearly not awakened at that time.

Could the man be the one who formed the core, then?

But if that were the case, why had his earlier rescue attempt bugged out? For that man, having someone help fend off the pursuers while he escaped with his daughter and fled for their lives should have been a good option, shouldn't it?

Or perhaps, taking Frankenstein's story as a reference, the daughter wanted a companion like herself? But she did not seem to have that need. If she had, it would definitely have been made clear in the Remembrance he had seen before.

Damn it, if my Charm stat were the same as it was in the game, I could pry more information out of him. But Duanmu Huai's current Charm of 1 was really... There was nothing he could do.

It was not as if he could not keep trying through trial and error, but every failed attempt lowered the mission rating. If this continued, he might not even get the guaranteed minimum reward... Wait!!!

At that thought, Duanmu Huai's eyes flashed as he suddenly recalled Okegis's earlier question.

Why did that man both love and hate his daughter?

Duanmu Huai had explained it to Okegis at the time, but upon closer thought, perhaps the "clear condition" was hidden within that contradiction?

Duanmu Huai did not think his understanding was wrong, but he could not think of a way to solve this problem for the moment. After all, no one could truly know another person's heart. Even if the man did have complicated feelings toward his daughter who had returned from death, how could that problem be resolved... Perhaps even the man himself had no answer.

"Sigh..."

Duanmu Huai sighed. Whenever he encountered this sort of thing in games before, he had often simply bulldozed through it with high Charm. As long as one's Charm was high enough, missions of this level became relatively simple. You could persuade someone to let go of their emotional baggage, or simply make them agree with your views. In short, high Charm made silver-tongued persuasion more powerful. Clues became easy to find, and missions easy to complete.

It was like playing an RPG. If you were a warrior, you could only kick down doors, explore mazes, and fight monsters head-on. If you were a thief, you could open the maze's back door and go straight to the finish.

But now... forget about it. Duanmu Huai himself was that miserable warrior.

And his Charm was the kind that dragged him down.

No choice. He would try one more time.

On the third night, Duanmu Huai and Okegis entered that world again.

This time, when the man smashed open the grave and pulled his daughter's corpse from it, Duanmu Huai blocked his path.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Of course."

The man held his daughter's corpse and did not even glance at Duanmu Huai.

"You might regret it."

"If I don't do this, then I'll regret it."

"..."

Fine. Your words, not mine.

Duanmu Huai shrugged and stepped aside, watching the man carry his daughter's corpse back into the manor. Then he sighed helplessly and followed him inside.

In his view, this attempt would probably fail again.

If worse came to worst, he would switch to another Soul Fragment.

Sighing, Duanmu Huai pushed open the manor doors.

However, to his surprise, what appeared before him this time was not the foyer and living room from before, but a dim corridor that seemed to stretch endlessly into the distance.

Oh? A change?

Duanmu Huai immediately perked up at the sight.

A change was good. He did not know whether it was good or bad, but any change meant there was still a chance to turn things around!

"Be careful."

Duanmu Huai gave Okegis a quiet warning before walking inside.

The doors slowly closed behind them. For a moment, the entire corridor sank into silent darkness. Then, a torch along the wall suddenly flared to life, illuminating the path ahead.

Duanmu Huai walked over and saw an oil painting beside the torch. It depicted the man and an unfamiliar woman—from their intimate posture, they were probably husband and wife.

At the same time, the man's voice rang out once more.

"Back then... I never thought I would marry a woman like her..."

As the man murmured, torches lit up one after another, illuminating the road before them. The oil paintings along the walls appeared scene by scene alongside his narration. He met his wife and married her. His wife died in childbirth. The man loved his daughter dearly and swore to his wife that he would take good care of her. But the good times did not last. His young daughter contracted a serious illness and ultimately died amid the man's grief-stricken cries. Yet the man did not give up. He used his knowledge and every method he could think of in an attempt to revive his daughter. In the end... he succeeded, and he failed.

"My daughter never called me Father. Who is she?"

The man's voice grew increasingly hoarse, filled with Despair.

"I only wanted my daughter to return, but why did I create an entirely new soul? That's impossible! Human Remembrance should be stored in the brain, shouldn't it? Then when I revived this body, shouldn't she have recovered her original Remembrance as well?"

So that was it...

Hearing the man's anguished cries, Duanmu Huai nodded to himself. Clearly, this man truly was a scholar. From his description, he had apparently used a method similar to Frankenstein's to revive his daughter. And his reasoning was not entirely unreasonable—human Remembrance was indeed stored in the brain, so ordinarily, as long as the body could be restored to life, the Remembrance should return once the brain began functioning again...

Well, that was only theory. In a world like this, scientific theory might not necessarily reflect reality.

"She is not my daughter, but I love her. I want her to become my daughter, the most perfect of Creations. This is the last comfort I can offer my daughter..."

At the same time, Duanmu Huai and Okegis finally reached the end of the corridor. He reached out and pushed open the door at its end once more. The man, dressed in a white lab coat, sat dejectedly in a chair. Behind him, the Purple-Haired Maiden lay quietly on what looked like an operating table.

Then the man raised his head and looked at Duanmu Huai.

"Do you think I was wrong?"

"To be honest... I don't know either."

Duanmu Huai spread his hands helplessly.

"All I can say is that, no matter what, your daughter has come back to life. As for whether this is what you wanted..."

Duanmu Huai shrugged and said no more. The man lowered his head again.

"You're right. Is this what I wanted? I don't know myself. On one hand, as a father, I have failed. I did not revive my daughter. But on the other hand, as a scholar, I succeeded, because I created an entirely new soul. It is a great achievement that even the gods have never accomplished!!"

So that was it—the fusion of guilt as a father and excitement as a scholar. No wonder he had become such a mess.

"Then there is only one thing left for me to do."

As he spoke, the man stood up and looked at Duanmu Huai. At the same time, a massive Skeleton Undead appeared behind him.

"Come, let me see your strength!"

"Whew..."

Seeing this, Duanmu Huai instead felt his heart settle. He reached out, gripped Warhammer tightly, and fixed his gaze on the man.

Things had finally returned to the path he was best at!