The Battle Begins

Once the Dungeon Battle entered its second phase, Li Wei felt much more relaxed.

Not knowing where something would come from was always the most frightening part. It was like drifting alone on a pitch-black ocean. When you stared into the depths, you felt afraid-not because something was down there, but because you didn't know what was down there.

Once the monster hidden beneath the sea revealed itself, it actually became less frightening.

Because at that point, you had only two choices: fight or run.

Just like now.

Earlier, everyone had feared the Dolls because they didn't know what the Dolls intended to do to them, whether it would be good or bad. Now, when these crude, shoddily made Dolls that looked barely finished attacked them, the choice became obvious.

Kill them!

Unfortunately, although Li Wei sounded brave, his actions at the moment had absolutely nothing to do with bravery.

The main force fighting the army of Dolls wasn't Li Wei, but Katie and Henry.

Katie's little fists smashed every Doll that lunged at her to pieces, one punch apiece. Henry relied on his broad, sturdy build, swinging the axe he had picked up in the basement and hacking the Dolls apart like firewood.

Li Wei stayed behind them, occasionally firing a follow-up shot to finish off a few stragglers. He had fully settled into the role of a bystander.

Fortunately, he wasn't the least useful member. That honor belonged to Anthony. The playboy wasn't incapable of fighting; he simply seemed more skilled with knives-and obviously, even if he could silently slit an enemy's throat with a dagger, that wouldn't kill a Doll. At most, he would scratch it.

So he stayed at the very back, keeping watch and cheering them on.

Bang!

Li Wei raised his gun again and blew a Doll's head apart, scanning their surroundings as he did. These Dolls were completely different from the ones they had encountered earlier. Those had been strange too, but at least they had seemed capable of something resembling human thought and behavior.

These Dolls, however, were entirely different. They were more like beasts wearing human skin-no, beasts inhabiting Dolls' bodies. They crawled on all fours across the floor, walls, and ceiling, opening their mouths to make clacking noises as they lunged at the group with kitchen knives, frying pans, and other such objects in their hands.

They weren't much of a threat individually, but their fearless assaults caused the group considerable trouble.

"Hah!"

Katie threw a punch, smashing a Doll that lunged toward them to pieces. Just then, two Dolls no bigger than toy dolls suddenly appeared below her and threw their arms around her legs.

"Wait... let go of me!"

Katie had clearly never experienced anything quite like having someone cling to her legs and beg a big shot for help. Caught off guard, she didn't even know what to do for a moment. The two Dolls clacked away as they clung tightly to her legs, restricting her movement.

Although Katie wanted to grab the two Dolls and throw them away, the enemies lunging at her from every direction left her no time to spare. Fortunately, two gunshots rang out just then, and both Dolls' heads exploded. Feeling the grip on her legs disappear, Katie hurriedly shook their remains aside and gave Li Wei a small smile.

"Thank you, Mr. Detective!"

Li Wei waved a hand and looked around again, completely failing to notice the subtle change in the way Henry and Anthony were watching him.

Neither of them was a fool. The fact that they had been chosen as representatives for this team was proof enough of their abilities. That was the foundation of their pride, but ultimately, they also knew skill when they saw it.

And Li Wei's shooting just now had been enough to impress them both.

Those two Dolls had been clinging tightly to Katie's legs. Under those circumstances, most people wouldn't risk using a gun. One careless mistake, and they could hit Katie!

Quite apart from the young lady's status, she was a pillar of their fighting force right now. If she got hurt, it would be bad news for everyone else!

Anyone who dared to shoot like that around Katie was either incredibly reckless and never considered the consequences, or supremely confident in his own skill.

Li Wei had raised his gun and blown both Dolls' heads apart with two quick shots without so much as scratching Katie. His skill was beyond question.

If they encountered an enemy like that on the battlefield, they would stay as far away from him as possible.

But as a teammate... he was very reassuring.

The team had little cohesion to begin with. Aside from Li Wei and Katie, who had worked together a few times, everyone was meeting for the first time, so trust could only be built on their abilities. If they had previously thought Li Wei was merely a pretty boy who got by on his looks, at least now he had proved himself with his marksmanship.

After repelling another assault by the Dolls, the group reached a door at the end of the western corridor on the second floor. According to the elderly washerwoman, this was the strange young master's room.

"I'll go first. Follow me!"

Henry was still dependable. He tightened his grip on the axe and spoke to the others. Li Wei, Katie, and Anthony nodded. Henry stared at the door, shouted, and kicked it open.

For a moment, Li Wei almost thought he heard a furious cry of "FBI! OPEN THE DOOR!"

Thud!

The closed door flew open under the kick. Henry entered with his axe in hand, and Li Wei immediately darted after him, entering second and using Henry's body as cover while he warily surveyed the room.

Li Wei's first impression of the room was... it was far too stereotypical.

Everywhere in the room stood Dolls of all kinds and sizes. The largest were about the size of real people, while the smallest resembled toy dolls a little girl might cuddle in her sleep. They were made from different materials too: some were cloth, others wood. Li Wei even spotted ones made of metal... Shouldn't those be called robots?

"What the hell is all this?"

Henry stared into the room with wide eyes and muttered under his breath. Li Wei nodded in agreement. There were simply too many Dolls here. Once anything reached a certain quantity, it became eerie rather than absurd. A boy who played with Dolls might strike people as effeminate, but someone living in a room surrounded by hundreds of them would only make people wonder, Is he even human?

Just then, a low voice rang out.

"I said no one was allowed in my room."

Hearing the voice, everyone looked up and ahead, then spotted a boy in his teens sitting at a desk.

He looked somewhat pudgy and wore round glasses, giving the impression of a boy so meek at school that he would get bullied. He sat in a chair with two life-size wooden puppets beside him. His arms were extended, and his hands seemed to have been inserted into the puppets through their backs-a method many Puppeteers used to control puppets.

They were two Dolls dressed in maid uniforms. Their appearance... well, appearance hardly meant anything when it came to Dolls. All Li Wei could see were two maid Dolls with facial features painted onto wooden faces. They were bent over with their heads lowered, busily working on something on the desk.

"What are you doing?!"

Henry stared at the boy and tightened his grip on his axe.

The boy merely stared at the desk, muttering.

"Why? Why are you all so annoying? That's why I hate you. I hate humans. Everyone's the same. They don't care about me at all. They only care about themselves. I told you to leave me alone, not to come in. But you insist on coming in, and you even say it's for my own good. If it really were for my own good, you should listen to me, not just do whatever you want!"

The boy's hysterical anger left the group at a loss, but now he raised his head and looked at them.

"Dolls are better. They obey my orders. Whatever I want them to do, they do."

As the boy spoke, the maids continued their work. Only then did everyone's eyes adjust to the dim light enough to make out what lay on the desk.

It was a person!

Li Wei didn't know him, but his uniform suggested that he belonged to the same unit as the squad Li Wei had seen outside the house earlier. Which meant...

"Carter!"

At the sight of the soldier, Henry roared. He gripped his axe tightly and glared at the boy in fury.

"You piece of shit! What did you do to him?!"

"He was too noisy."

The boy lowered his head without so much as glancing at Henry.

"So I made sure he would never make noise again."

"You monster!"

Henry's eyes were bloodshot now. He stared at the corpse on the desk. The soldier had been disemboweled, his organs and blood brutally pulled from his body. Henry didn't know what his soldier had suffered before dying, but the agony twisting his face made it clear that his final moments had been terrible.

"Ugh..."

Katie covered her mouth, her face turning pale. Even Anthony put away his flippant smile. Only Li Wei paid it no mind. Hidden behind Henry's large body, he was looking around. In Li Wei's experience, creatures with this sort of curse were generally "mechanic-based monsters." Unless you found their weakness, you couldn't kill them, no matter how many times you tried.

Henry's furious outburst would have left an ordinary person trembling, but the boy showed no change whatsoever. He merely stared at the opened corpse on the desk, controlling the two maids as they carefully inserted pieces of wood into it.

"I said stop! You bastard!"

Henry clearly couldn't bear to see his soldier subjected to such cruelty. He strode toward the boy, while the others stood at a loss, unsure whether to follow.

But Li Wei paid no attention to any of that. He was still examining the room. With [Soul Sight] activated, he saw something completely different from everyone else. Every Doll here was filled with bright red Soul Energy, so much so that his vision, in a world where he normally saw only black and white, was now shrouded in mist.

He could vaguely make out something behind that mist, but only its rough outline.

At the same time, Li Wei saw Henry walk deeper into the mist, and the entire crimson haze began to churn...

"Watch out!"

Li Wei lunged forward, rammed his head into Henry's waist, and knocked him to the floor. At that same instant, a gunshot rang out, and a bullet whistled past, striking the floor behind them.

Then a figure appeared before the group.

It was another soldier.

He wore a uniform much like the man lying on the desk, but his abdomen was wide open. They could even see some sort of mechanism made of wood and gears inside, supporting his body. It was like a Doll whose outer skin had been cut open to expose the mechanism beneath, without anyone even bothering to sew the skin back together. They could even see a compressor opening and closing in this "Doll's" throat...

"Ugh..."

Katie covered her mouth. It wasn't as though she had never seen monsters. She had personally defeated the Courtesan Killer and the Vampire, but to her, those monsters had merely been enemies that "looked a little strange."

This thing, however, which skinned living people, pulled out their bones, and turned them into Dolls... pushed far too hard against the limits of human sanity.

But that clearly wasn't the end.

Soon, more soldiers emerged, one after another. Gripping their weapons like guards protecting their master, they raised their guns at the group.

"Run!"

At that moment, Li Wei made his decision without the slightest hesitation.