Delusion Puppet

Yan Shaozhe drew his gaze back from the wind and snow and turned to Owl Bro. Now that he was aboard this ship, he needed to know something about its crew.

"Owl, since I'm the First Harbinger now, you might as well tell me what the Fatui actually has to work with.

"Besides you, which of our colleagues are here? I'd like to know who's who."

Owl Bro's grin faded a little. He quickly ran through the names in his head.

"Counting me, there are two Harbingers here."

He pointed at himself, his tone teasing. "I'm the Fatui's Ninth Harbinger, Pantalone. The title sounds impressive, but I mostly handle diplomacy and logistics. Fighting isn't really my thing."

Then he shifted his finger toward the far end of the party carriage.

There, someone lay hunched over a table, oblivious to the noise around him.

He held a fine carving knife and was engraving what looked like an ordinary glass bead.

"The other one is over there." Owl Bro lowered his voice without realizing it, a trace of awe creeping in.

"His seat is just below yours. He's the Fatui's Second Harbinger, codenamed 'Dottore.'"

"Dottore?" Yan Shaozhe frowned slightly and looked at the figure's back.

As if to prove Owl Bro's point, the Clone called Dottore suddenly stopped working.

"Tsk."

A sharp, impatient click of the tongue rang out.

The glass bead in Dottore's hand burst apart. A terrifying wave of cold erupted from him, freezing the entire solid-wood tabletop and the air around it into an ice sculpture.

"You're all too loud. You broke my concentration."

Dottore stared at the shattered glass on the table, his voice thick with resentment.

He looked at them as though they were barbarians who had destroyed a priceless masterpiece of his.

"The thirteenth-stage experiment to