Chapter 516: Doll's Casket (2)

The village was deathly silent and still; there wasn't even a single breeze.

- Yehehe, hehe, yehe!

A peal of hideous laughter echoed throughout the village, seemingly teasing the team.

Seo Jun-Ho spoke, "Team Leader Gong."

"Yes, Specter-nim?"

"Burn those buildings down."

"Okay!" Gong Ju-Ha answered gallantly, and scorching flames poured out of her hands.

Fwoosh!

The flames roamed the village to burn down the buildings. The buildings were made out of wood, so it would only be a matter of time before they were razed to the ground.

Seo Jun-Ho retrieved White Dragon and held it tightly.

The rest of the team also looked around warily.

Crackle! Crackle! Crash!

The buildings collapsed and turned into ashes one by one, and the beings that had been hiding in the buildings emerged.

"T-the...

"The failures...!"

The failures had already died twice, so they fearlessly ran toward the team.

Splat!

A failure's head was instantly separated from their shoulders upon receiving Rahmadat's punch.

"...Huh?"

However, the sharp fingernails of the failure pierced Rahmadat's chest.

The failure was still moving, even though they no longer had a head.

"They're annoying..." Rahmadat grumbled.

He grabbed the failure's shoulder and pressed them down.

Crackkk!

The failure's every bone was shattered as Rahmadat forcefully squeezed them down.

"Hey! Flame brat!"

Gong Ju-Ha pointed at herself and asked, "...Are you talking about me?

Rahmadat nodded and gestured with his chin at the failure wriggling beneath his feet.

"Can you cremate this punk?"

"Um... I mean, it is possible."

"Then, why don't we do this?"Skaya cast Gravity and easily crushed the remaining failures. "From now on, we will immobilize the failures, and you'll cremate them. Got it?"

Gong Ju-Ha looked up at Skaya with shining eyes. She was honored to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with the Heroes whom she had always admired. Gong Ju-Ha clenched her fists and exclaimed, "Yes! I'll do my best!"

Meanwhile, Seo Jun-Ho was eagerly looking around the village.

'Where are they?'

The buildings had already been razed to the ground, but the Players were still missing.

'Have they already been abducted somewhere else?'

At the thought, Seo Jun-Ho shook his head. He reckoned that the enemy had to be nearby, and it was evidenced by the hideous laughter that was still echoing throughout the village.

"...They said the woman stuck her head out of that well, right?"

"Yes..." Kim Woo-Joong made quick work of a failure before turning to Seo Jun-Ho. "You should go ahead. I'll follow you as soon as I'm done here."

"I'll leave it to you, then."

The best move would be to go down the well because they were running out of time.

Time was of the essence, but they still had no idea where the Players were being held and if the Players were still alive.

Seo Jun-Ho started moving once more, and the failures reached out toward him.

"Leave him alone. He's busy."

Slice!

Kim Woo-Joong's sword aura ruthlessly severed the failures' wrists.

Kim Woo-Joong smiled faintly and muttered, "I'll play with you all on behalf of him."

***

Seo Jun-Ho looked down into the well.

"..."

The well was so deep that he couldn't see the bottom at all.

Seo Jun-Ho gathered magic in his eyes.

'No...'

The well wasn't deep. He simply couldn't see its bottom because the disgusting, unknown energy was hiding it.

'Disgusting...'

The well was so impure and disgusting that it was nauseating to look at.

- Hehe!

However, one thing was certain—the annoying laughter was coming from the bottom of the well, and it was luring Seo Jun-Ho to come down.

"...All right. I'll bite."

Seo Jun-Ho decisively jumped into the well.

Splash!

The water was shallow, and it only came up to his ankles.

'But it's surprisingly wide down here...

It was so wide that Seo Jun-Ho wondered whether he was actually at the bottom of the well or not.

Seo Jun-Ho slowly walked down the path he found after looking around.

"Hehe."

The hideous laughter grew louder and closer.

As Seo Jun-Ho walked down the path, the surroundings widened and brightened.

"..."

Seo Jun-Ho came to a halt upon seeing a workshop filled with hundreds of dolls. The workshop also had various needles, threads, nails, and hammers.

"Hehehe, hehe...!"

Seo Jun-Ho saw a woman's back in the distance. The woman was sitting next to a pool of water, and she was diligently sewing something while humming.

Seo Jun-Ho decisively snapped his fingers.

Crackle!

The pool of water instantly turned into sharp awls that flew toward the woman.

"Ah!"

The woman flew into the air and turned around upon being struck.

At last, Seo Jun-Ho could finally see the woman's visage.

"..."

Seo Jun-Ho shivered upon seeing various negative emotions crawling out like bugs from the woman's empty eye sockets.

The woman raised her hand and said, "Ta... ta-da...!"

She was holding a grotesque-looking humanoid doll in her hand.

"I-it's my doll... hehe."

"...!"

'Wait. She's speaking Korean?'

The woman grinned upon seeing the surprise in Seo Jun-Ho's eyes.

"S-surprise...! hehehehe, human..."

The sentence structure wasn't quite right, but she was definitely speaking Korean.

'She's dangerous...'

This meant that the woman was intelligent enough to quickly grasp languages.

- Partner, she's more than just dangerous. I feel like she's more dangerous than Tepes.

'That doesn't make sense...' Seo Jun-Ho refuted almost immediately. 'Tepes was the Floor Master of the 6th Floor. Are you telling me that an enemy near the entrance of the 7th Floor is on the same level as Tepes?'

If Keen Intuition's words were true, then this floor wasn't made to be cleared.

"Where are the Players?" Seo Jun-Ho asked.

"P-Player, Player...? Oh! Kehehe!" The woman laughed as if she understood before pointing at a wall. There were dozens of bizarre-looking dolls haphazardly lying around on a desk in front of the wall.

"..."

Seo Jun-Ho stared at the dolls, but he quickly felt disgusted.

He turned to the woman again and asked in a cold voice, "Let me ask you again. Where are the Players?"

"T-this! This...!"

The woman shook the doll in her hand. Seo Jun-Ho took a closer look at the doll and saw that the doll's outfit was exceptionally familiar. The doll was wearing a white cassock.

'Christin Lewis?' Seo Jun-Ho immediately dismissed the thought. He just couldn't believe that a human could become a doll.

"D-don't trust, why...? T-trust..." The woman frowned, and she proceeded to rip off the doll's arm in her hand.

A scream of agony quickly filled the entire workshop.

- Aaaarrrggghhh!

"That voice belongs to...!" Seo Jun-Ho's expression turned ugly. The voice definitely belonged to Christin Lewis.

'Then, those dolls are really...'

His gaze toward the dolls changed, and the workshop felt even creepier when he realized that there were hundreds of dirty dolls here.

"..."

Seo Jun-Ho finally realized why he felt disgusted staring at the dolls.

It was all because the dolls were humans.

The four blades orbiting Seo Jun-Ho pointed at the woman.

"I'm sure you won't listen to me even if I tell you to turn them back, so I have no choice but to kill you."

"Kekehe! M-me. Kill me? Ahehehe!" The woman boisterously laughed as if she had just heard the most hilarious joke she had heard after a long while. She stood there trembling while laughing, even though awls made out of ice were still sticking out of her.

Seo Jun-Ho couldn't watch any longer. He snapped his fingers.

Swoosh!

However, the blades flying toward the woman abruptly came to a halt.

"..."

Dozens of people suddenly appeared between the woman and him.

'And I know them all...'

"Specter-nim?"

"What is going on?"

"W-what is this feeling... I-I can't control my own body...!"

The Players gripped their weapons and approached Seo Jun-Ho with confused looks.

"Yehehehe! Yehehehehehe!"

The woman stood behind the Players and laughed boisterously while twisting her limbs at impossible angles. The awls dug deeper into her. She was bleeding, and her erratic movements worsened her bleeding, but it seemed that she didn't care at all.

'She's insane...'

Seo Jun-Ho was calm on the surface, but he was genuinely disturbed.

'What should I do here?'

The people approaching him were the Players whom he had spent time talking with until yesterday.

"P-please don't kill us!"

"This isn't me...! I'm not the one holding this sword!"

The Players charged at Seo Jun-Ho with tears in their eyes.

"...!'

Seo Jun-Ho's expression distorted, but he eventually put down his weapon. He deflected the weapons coming toward him and pressed the pressure points of the Players.

'Damn it.'

Seo Jun-Ho had just pressed on their sleep pressure points, but they were still standing.

Now, he had no choice but to use a rougher method.

Crack!

Seo Jun-Ho broke the Players' limbs, immobilizing them.

"Yehehehe!"

The woman clapped excitedly at the scene. She turned toward the other dolls scattered throughout the workshop and ordered, "C-catch human... my dolls...!"

The dolls instantly grew huge, and they pounced on Seo Jun-Ho.

"Damn it!"

Seo Jun-Ho tried to get out of the workshop, but the Players had already blocked his exit route. They had climbed over each other to block the path.

"Please... please don't kill us!'

"Aaaah...!"

The Players' begging faces were stained with fear.

'If I cut them down, I will be able to get out of this workshop. But they're living people, do I really have to cut them down?'

Seo Jun-Ho couldn't find an answer to the conundrum.

Eventually, he turned around and ran in a different direction.

"Ughhhhh!"

"Awgh...!"

Fortunately, the dolls that weren't Players had lost their intelligence long ago.

Seo Jun-Ho cut them down without hesitation.

Splat! Splat!

However, the dolls regenerated their limbs in the blink of an eye.

Their regeneration speed was similar to the failures.

"Watchguard." Seo Jun-Ho called out.

Darkness gathered and took on the shape of dozens of wolves.

"Eat the immobilized dolls," Seo Jun-Ho said. He reckoned that the power to disregard would be able to eliminate the dolls, and he ended up being correct.

"Hehehehe...!'

Seo Jun-Ho had never taken his eyes off of the woman, even while he was fighting the dolls.

'What is she doing right now?'

The woman started sewing something.

The Keen Intuition hurriedly cried out.

- Partner! I don't feel so good about this. You have to stop her!

'How am I supposed to do that...'

The hundreds of dolls chasing after him were troublesome enough, and he also had to be careful about restraining the dolls containing the Players rather than killing him. In other words, Seo Jun-Ho's hands were already full.

"Damn it."

Seo Jun-Ho had no choice but to activate Dignity of an Emperor (S).

The woman sensed the change in Seo Jun-Ho's energy, prompting her to look up.

"S-strong doll... Me want..."

"You better come to your senses. I will never be one of your dolls." Seo Jun-Ho growled before shouting, "Hart Weeper!"

Darkness and ice intertwined in the air, and they quickly took on the shape of a humanoid figure. In the blink of an eye, a towering knight made out of ice was made.

The knight abruptly opened his blue eyes.

"Take this!"

Seo Jun-Ho hurled Twilight Sword toward Hart, and Hart snatched it out of mid-air before quickly taking on a stance.

Swoosh!

Hart swung once, beheading dozens of dolls at once.

"There are Players among the dolls! Don't kill them, just overpower them!"

Hart nodded and started pushing away the dolls with his towering height alone.

'It's open...!'

Hart had carved a path to the woman.

Seo Jun-Ho immediately took advantage of that opportunity.

'I need to kill her instantly.'

A flower bloomed at Seo Jun-Ho's fingertip.

"...?"

The woman was so engrossed in her sewing that she had just noticed Seo Jun-Ho.

Unfortunately for her, it was already too late.

"This is my gift for you."

Seo Jun-Ho hurled a flower at the woman.

'She's going to look good with that flower on her head...'

Seo Jun-Ho had thrown Moon Eye[1] at such close proximity to his opponent.

'There we go. There's no way she can dodge this attack.'

Seo Jun-Ho was right, the woman couldn't dodge Moon Eye.

Crackle!

The woman's eyes widened as she turned into an ice statue.

'It ended much easier than I thought....'

However, a question popped up in Seo Jun-Ho's mind.

Crashhhh!

"..."

Seo Jun-Ho was disturbed to see that the dolls were still rushing toward Hart.

'Wait, the main body is dead, so why are the dolls still moving?'

Seo Jun-Ho's intuition immediately gave him an answer.

'Wait, the main body?'

Crash!

The human pyramid blocking the path to the workshop crumbled, and someone walked into the workshop.

Splash, splash, splash.

"..."

Seo Jun-Ho felt suffocated. The woman he had just turned into an ice statue just a few moments ago was standing near the entrance to the workshop.

However, there was a stark difference between the two women.

"Ahehehe!"

The woman standing near the entrance to the workshop was holding dolls that looked just like Rahmadat and Gong Ju-Ha.

1. You may have seen this one translated as Primrose on the 6th Floor arc. There has been some confusion, and Primrose is actually Moon Eye, while Little Primroses is Minor Moon Eye. After some deliberation, we decided to keep Moon Eye, so we're changing them back to Moon Eye/Minor Moon Eye ☜