Once, Master asked me a question.
‘Pyeong-a, do you know what a Daoist must avoid?’
Without hesitation, I gave him the only answer I feared.
‘Dying without becoming an immortal?’
Master wore a sorrowful expression for a moment at my answer.
‘That is true as well, but what a Daoist must avoid most is another Daoist.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that lot only knows how to look after their own gain. Look at them. Claiming they alone must live forever, they shove everything said to be good for the body down their throats. So when you meet another Daoist, you must keep your eyes wide open and watch carefully. They will surely covet what is yours as well.’
‘But you do not covet what is mine, old man.’
‘That is because you keep your eyes wide open.’
His wrinkled hand stroked my head.
‘You do not need to worry too much, though. The more someone knows their own body is precious, the more fearful they tend to be.’
‘Are you fearful too, old man?’
‘What more is there to say? Ha ha.’
Master burst into laughter, then said,
‘From now on, I will teach you an art used by cowards. A way to win a battle without stepping forward yourself.’
What he taught me was the Puppet Art, an art used to make puppet soldiers.
The Puppet Art was useful in many ways. Perhaps I was a coward as well, because I preferred controlling things from behind to fighting head-on.
The only time I had personally taken action was against that flower-thieving bastard.
In any case, I intended to use the Puppet Art to create a dependable guard who would protect me day and night.
A formation could only serve as support. After trapping an enemy in a formation, I needed an attacker to finish them off.
That was when I noticed the armor set in the corner of the room. It looked far too sturdy to be mere decoration, and it covered the entire body without gaps. It seemed that even if someone were inside it, no one would notice.
“Lili.”
I tugged on the hem of Lily’s dress as she knitted.
“Yes, Young Master.”
“What is that?”
“Yes? Do you mean the armor?”
“Mm-hm.”
She smiled. Her expression seemed to say that a little boy’s interests were predictable.
“Among the Young Master’s ancestors was a great knight named Ivan Esterji. That armor was an object Sir Ivan treasured dearly.”
“Is it a decoration?”
Perhaps she thought I had used a fairly difficult word, because she looked pleased.
“It is not merely a decoration. It has been carefully maintained, so if the Young Master becomes a brave knight one day, you may even wear it yourself.”
If it was not a decoration, I could make use of it.
The fact that it was an ancestral relic bothered me a little, but if I did not use it, there might not be a future for me at all.
Making the armor move would be easy.
The important question was how much power I could give it. I would have liked to pour as much strength into it as possible, but I did not have enough Dao Power to spare.
If I had possessed that much power, I would have turned that brazen brat into charcoal on the spot.
Still, I was not without a method. I happened to know someone so overflowing with power that he could barely contain it.
***
“Healer Colin?”
“Mm-hm.”
Lily looked visibly flustered. She had not expected me to ask for that noisy old man again.
“Is something hurting?”
I shook my head.
“I am sorry, but Healer Colin is busy managing his diocese, so he can only visit when the Young Master is ill.”
“Call him! Call him!”
The best thing about having a baby’s body was that people tolerated it when I threw unreasonable tantrums. I had become rather accustomed to flopping onto the floor in protest, to the point that I wondered whether I was truly regressing.
“What should we do?”
The maids exchanged troubled looks.
“…Request that the Bishop be admitted to the palace.”
Lily spoke as though she had made up her mind.
“The Young Master may wish to meet the Bishop personally. There are not many adults around him that he can depend on.”
After about an hour, the white-haired old man appeared at a brisk pace. As soon as he entered the room, he looked about in every direction and asked,
“Is it true that the Young Master wished to meet this old man?”
“Yes. He called the Bishop’s name several times.”
“Ha ha, what a thing.”
The old man let out a hearty laugh. I wondered whether I had forced the issue a little, but he was so happy that I almost felt embarrassed.
But the real contest began now. I grabbed his priestly robes and shouted my trump card.
“Colin, pray for me!”
He looked at Lily in confusion.
“You said nothing was hurting him.”
“Yes. He is very healthy. It seems the Young Master views the time he spends with the Bishop as a kind of play.”
“Hm… Well, why not? For the Young Master, I can offer prayers any number of times.”
Just as the old man joined his hands to pray, I pointed at the armor standing in the corner.
“Do it there!”
“There? What in the world is there?”
“That is my friend!”
“Y-Young Master…!”
Confusion crossed Lily’s face. The old man, however, took it in stride.
“Oh dear, it seems the Young Master’s knight was wounded while fighting bravely. Very well. I shall offer a prayer to Solitas.”
He cleared his throat once, then cried out in a resonant voice.
“Solitas, Parent of Metals! I beseech your firmness, steadfastness, immutability, wisdom like bedrock, and mercy that never wears away!”
His voice was as powerful as ever.
As was his stamina.
That day, Colin poured out divine magic without rest for four hours, claiming that he was saving me. His body was filled with energy of an entirely different nature from mine.
A shimmering beam of divine light shone down on the armor. The spell formula I had inscribed inside began charging with external energy. When I giggled and clapped my hands, the old man grew excited and raised his voice even higher.
“Oh, blessed indeed!”
***
“I got one.”
Rex said.
“No.”
Torin disagreed.
“I said I got one.”
Rex waved his fishing rod as though showing it off. Torin did not budge.
“The line is loose. If you had hooked a goldfish, the line should be much tighter.”
The two fell silent for a while. After a long time, Rex suddenly spoke.
“We should not have taken that job.”
“If you say that one more time, it will be the eightieth time, Rex.”
Torin immediately snapped at him.
“What was that kid’s name again? Iden? Iden Esterji?”
“That is right. Iden Esterji.”
Torin answered in an indifferent tone. A seagull screeched as it passed overhead.
“I found it suspicious from the beginning. Fifty thousand Baht just to dispose of a kid who had not even been weaned off milk? Even if he was the Duke’s son, the amount made no sense.”
“If you found it suspicious from the beginning, why did you not say something?”
“I was going to. If not for the loan.”
The two grumbled as they began packing their fishing gear.
What Rex had cast into the sea was not actually a fishing rod, but a spear. Until he became stranded on an uninhabited island, he had never imagined that he would use his weapon as a fishing rod.
The container holding Torin’s fish was a helmet. The helmet that had saved his life several times had now been reduced to a basket reeking of fish.
It was not as though they had given up on everything from the beginning. About six months ago, when they infiltrated a secondary palace to assassinate the Duke’s third son, they had been brimming with confidence.
Yet when they arrived at Iden’s palace, the two men had been greeted by an endless sea.
They returned to their makeshift shelter and sat around a campfire. Rex blew warm breath over the firewood as he lit it, while Torin skewered the fish they had caught onto a branch.
“You know, Torin.”
Rex spoke as he dried his wet body.
“After thinking it over, we are trapped inside an incredibly powerful illusion spell, right?”
“Probably.”
“But an illusion spell ultimately acts on the mind.”
“So?”
“So I heard that if we did something in a way the mind does not normally act……something I would never do under ordinary circumstances, shocking myself might let us escape the illusion.”
“Have you forgotten already? We have tried everything together. We built a sandcastle ten stories high, fasted for five days, and walked around the island backward ―”
“It does not seem like that was enough. It was novel, but not enough to shock us.”
“Then what should we try next?”
“…Something I swore I would never do.”
Rex reached out and gripped his fishing rod. Torin frowned. He quietly pulled the helmet that reeked of fish closer.
“Rex, calm down.”
“I am calmer than I have ever been, Torin.”
“No, you are not yourself. You have spent too long here and lost your mind.”
“That is the problem. We have spent too long here.”
Rex pointed the end of his spear shaft at Torin. Torin let out a heavy sigh and pulled the helmet over his head. A lugworm wriggled down through his hair.
“Hey, do not do something you will regret.”
“I would rather do something and regret it. I will regret it anyway.”
Rex lowered his voice. Torin extended his right hand and assumed a fighting stance. Intense fighting spirit seized the two men.
Then it happened. The ground beneath their feet began to shake as though an earthquake had struck. Unable to keep their balance, they fell face-first onto the ground. In an instant, everything before them was sucked into a point the size of a fist, then spat out a familiar scene.
A cold stone floor.
Ivy vines stretching in through a window, with countless stars floating beyond them.
It was exactly the same as six months ago. They had been sucked into the uninhabited island at this exact spot.
But there was one sight that differed from before. A massive suit of armor stood upright, blocking the passage. Around its helmet, red eye-light flickered like torchlight.
And a ghost-white child sat on the armor’s shoulder, looking down at them.
Iden Esterji.
He was undoubtedly the target of their commission. Yet neither of them dared move even a finger.
Six months of confinement, a living suit of giant armor,
And the devil’s child controlling it all.
At last, the boundary between reality and unreality was collapsing.
“Torin, when the hell is this crazy illusion going to end?”
“How would I know?!”
THUD.
The armor drove a massive halberd into the floor. The paving stones split into two and sprang upward, and Rex and Torin felt terror so great that their hearts seemed to stop.
The commission no longer mattered. They threw down their spear and sword, turned around, and bolted.