Doll Girl

"Who are you?"

Duanmu Huai stared blankly at the mechanical girl before hastily asking. The girl merely waved her hand.

"Ah, please don't be alarmed. Although I look like a doll, I'm actually a human whose soul was sealed in here by an Evil Wizard! Could you please help me find my original body?"

"..."

What kind of absurd development was this?

Faced with the mechanical girl's request, Duanmu Huai found it rather baffling, but he nodded nonetheless.

"No problem."

No matter what, he had finally met someone here who could communicate with him. He might as well hear what she had to say.

And so, a strange mechanical girl joined Duanmu Huai and Okegis's party.

She introduced herself as Mia. She had originally been human, but an Evil Wizard had used magic to seal her soul inside a doll. This Sky City was the Evil Wizard's Rook. He had placed people like her here as exhibits. In fact, the other dolls on the table were also victims of that wizard, but their souls had already fallen asleep and could not be awakened...

"Th-thank you so much, sir, and miss."

Following behind the two of them, Mia looked deeply grateful.

"This body is so stiff that it's really inconvenient to move around in. And what makes me most uneasy is that the clothes even have cute lace trim... If I weren't in a doll's body right now, I would have burst into tears long ago. But now that I'm with you two, I feel like I'll definitely be able to recover my original body!"

"Uh..."

Duanmu Huai was utterly dumbfounded by Mia's words. Honestly, this whole direction felt strange. Sky City? Evil Wizard? Dolls? Magic? No... Miss, there was absolutely nothing magical about this place, was there? Since arriving in Sky City, almost everything he had seen had been technological creations.

Mia's body was no exception. Although she resembled Okegis on the outside, Duanmu Huai was certain that if Mia were smashed apart, she would be filled with dense steel frameworks and cables---completely different from a doll like Okegis.

It would make more sense if her consciousness had been transferred into a robot body by some kind of device!

Or perhaps Mia's consciousness came from some native? If that were the case, it was not strange for her to think this way. After all, technologies such as consciousness transfer would indeed seem no different from magic to natives from low-level civilizations.

Forget it. He would find out once they got there.

Although Duanmu Huai had doubts about Mia's story, at least her guidance gave them a destination. Thus, he and Okegis followed Mia's directions and continued toward the "Evil Wizard's residence."

Naturally, they encountered more enemies.

"Roar-----!!!"

Warhammer in hand, Duanmu Huai charged forward and slammed heavily into a burly mechanical guard. It resembled the Magic Steel Lion from before, except this robot had a tiger's head instead of a lion's.

Steel Tiger

LV30

Compared with the Magic Steel Lion, the Steel Tiger was higher level. Its attack power was not as great as the Magic Steel Lion's, but its defense was exceptionally strong. It was still a bit too much for Duanmu Huai alone to eliminate an enemy of this level. Fortunately, with the dolls he had summoned and Okegis providing support from the side, Duanmu Huai still managed to destroy the Steel Tiger before him. Seizing the moment when its claw swung wide, Duanmu Huai roared and smashed his Warhammer directly into the core on the Steel Tiger's back, knocking it to the ground. Then he swung again, crushing it into scrap.

"Phew..."

Only after the last tiger robot fell did Duanmu Huai let out a breath. He then summoned the Repair Servo Skull and began repairing his Power Armor. Just a few Steel Tigers had reduced his Power Armor's durability to below twenty percent. If more came, the armor would probably shatter outright.

What frustrated Duanmu Huai even more was that killing monsters in Soul Fragments gave no Experience Points. This had been true in the two Soul Fragments he had experienced before: Okegis's Dollhouse and that scholar's Haunted Mansion. Killing monsters inside gave no Experience Points, and completing quests gave none either. All they received were Soul Cards.

The game had been designed that way to prevent players from farming levels. After all, just like in the Haunted Mansion, as long as players did not complete the quest, they could repeat it over and over. Some players might deliberately exploit this by treating Soul Fragments like dungeons, intentionally leaving quests unfinished so they could farm monsters and level up. Therefore, the game had made it impossible to gain Experience Points from killing monsters in Soul Fragments, and completing quests gave no Experience Points either---only Soul Cards.

But... the BOSS here could not be above level forty, could it?

Duanmu Huai frowned as he looked at the Steel Tiger's wreckage before him. From the Magic Steel Lion to the Mechanical Soldiers, then to the Steel Tigers, most monsters in this Soul Fragment map were between levels twenty and thirty. If all these robots had been created by the "wizard" Mia mentioned, then he was very likely around level forty.

Of course, that was not certain. Take the scholar in the Haunted Mansion, for example. His own level had not even reached ten, and in ordinary technological worlds, individual power levels were generally not high. At least so far, the monsters Duanmu Huai had encountered in Sky City had basically all been technological creations. If so, it was also possible that the "wizard" himself was not very high level.

Of course, in settings like this, the opponent would usually create an extremely powerful robot. But if the opponent himself was weak, Duanmu Huai could use dolls to assassinate him and bypass the BOSS battle to achieve victory.

In any case, he just hoped it would not be too dangerous.

Thinking this, Duanmu Huai glanced at Okegis beside him. Although Okegis could fight enemies around level seventy, he did not want her to take risks. Duanmu Huai did not currently have any cards in his hand that could retrieve someone from the graveyard. Dolls could multiply endlessly, and ghosts could be transformed through dolls, so those were not a problem. Even if they were destroyed, he would not feel bad about it.

But if Okegis entered the graveyard, getting her back out would be difficult.

According to the Soul Card system, once a servant entered the graveyard, they could only be awakened and returned to the field through cards with Undead Summoning. As for magic cards and spell cards, once they had been used and sent to the graveyard, he would need to spend Experience Points equal to one thousand times the card's cost to reset them back into his hand.

Duanmu Huai did not currently possess any cards with Undead Summoning, so he had to proceed carefully.

Duanmu Huai had already made up his mind. If the final BOSS here proved truly too difficult, he would temporarily give up on clearing it, go elsewhere to improve his strength, and return later to deal with it.

He could not possibly let Okegis die here.

After once again crushing the mechanical army's attack, the group finally arrived before Sky City's Palace. At that moment, Mia suddenly raised her hand and pointed ahead.

"Ah, there! That Evil Wizard!!"

Hearing Mia's words, Duanmu Huai and Okegis both looked up in the direction she pointed. On the second-floor balcony of the Palace stood a robed figure, coldly staring down at them.

"I never expected you to find helpers, Mia."

"Evil Wizard, give me back my body!!"

"Hehe, you foolish idiot. Your body became part of my collection long ago. I had originally been merciful enough to let you continue living in the form of a doll, but now it seems... I'll have to teach you a lesson...!"

"...???"

Listening to the wizard and Mia's conversation, Duanmu Huai frowned slightly. Something about this did not feel right. Logically, the situation in this Soul Fragment was already clear. A wizard... whoever he was, had extracted a girl named Mia's soul from her body and placed it inside a robot body. Mia had then sought help, hoping someone could defeat the wizard and recover her body.

That seemed to be the whole story, but... Duanmu Huai still felt that something did not add up.

Compared with the Puppet Master's regret and the scholar's conflicted emotions, Mia's feelings did not seem intense enough to anchor an entire Sky City here and turn it into a Soul Fragment.

Especially since the monsters in this Sky City were not low level, and they were quite powerful... Could a Fragment World like this truly have been created by a soul like Mia's, sealed inside a robot body?

Could there be some hidden truth?

As Duanmu Huai pondered, the cloaked man raised both hands.

"Awaken, my guards, and destroy these foolish intruders!"

"Thud... thud... thud...!!!"

At the man's call, the Palace gates before them slowly opened. One after another, large robots nearly as massive as Duanmu Huai marched out. Not only that, several bizarre mechanical creations that looked nothing like humans floated above them---they possessed diamond-shaped or round cores, surrounded by rings of iron, like marvelous works of art suspended in the air.

Large Mechanical Soldier Ancient Creation Analyzing Creation Mysterious Creation

"Here they come!!"

Looking at the steel legion before him, Duanmu Huai's heart skipped a beat. He hurriedly pushed aside his thoughts and activated his Soul Cards again. Soon, an army of dolls appeared before him, facing off against the steel legion across from them.

"Attack!!!"

With the cloaked man's furious roar, the battle between steel and dolls began.