Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 94: Half-Truths and Half-Lies
“What kind of person was Mr. Tenney?” Salaar answered the question with a question.
“…An ordinary old man.”
Mag froze for a moment. She truly couldn’t think of a more precise description. The United Library had many young, promising geniuses who acted eccentrically. Compared to them, that old man was ordinary to the point of being ordinary.
“But I think he wouldn’t let those old researchers remain dolls for the rest of their lives.” She hesitantly added, and then her tone gradually became certain. “Since he deliberately left the Sea of Concepts to the library, and even considered security, he wouldn’t make ‘returning to normal’ too difficult.”
They had reached another topic of human psychology that Myss had no interest in. He went limp and gave a huge yawn, letting Salaar hold him tightly.
Salaar didn’t cut in. He only smiled and looked toward Mag.
Mag had already sunk into thought. “For entering and leaving the Sea of Concepts, ‘dollification’ must have a conversion ritual that is easy to operate.”
“As long as the library investigates a little, they’ll be able to connect the dolls to Mr. Tenney… Mr. Tenney wouldn’t set up some complicated metaphor. This ritual must be directly related to Mr. Tenney… My goodness, could it be…”
She suddenly climbed down the bookshelf on all fours and ran to a nearby worktable convenient for placing books. The stick figure used all her strength to drag over an application form, then hauled over a bottle of ink.
“Mr. Tenney was the United Library’s archivist. Borrowing books and calling up materials requires a checkout slip and a return slip.”
Mag spoke breathlessly. “Try it. Sign a ‘return’ on this and see what happens.”
“I’ll do it.”
After confirming that dolls wouldn’t be attacked by the monsters, the Dragon Fae volunteered. “I saw the gemstone decoration on the ink bottle cap. If it works, I’ll have the easiest time hiding.”
Salaar nodded.
Tass poked his cloth hand into the bottle mouth, dipped it in some ink, and laboriously scratched out the word “Return” on the paper.
The moment the last letter was finished, the small doll body was swallowed by a cloud of cotton-like white smoke. When the smoke dispersed again, only the slender Dragon Fae remained in place.
Tass flew up in emotion. “My wings are back, whoo!”
In the next instant, the nearby monsters all turned their heads together. Thousands upon thousands of deformed strange eyes looked toward Tass.
Tass landed without daring to move. “Uhhh… Goodbye, I’ll hide first.”
He shot into the black crystal on the ink bottle cap, pretending he had never existed.
However, the monsters had no intention of letting him go. Countless limbs began pressing in his direction, looking as if they were about to crush the ink bottle. Mag drew in a breath and dragged the application form beside the ink bottle.
“Write ‘Borrow,’ quickly!” Mag shouted anxiously. A claw that looked very much like an eagle’s talon was poised to come crashing down.
Tass fully displayed the speed advantage of a Dragon Fae. He flashed back to the application form like lightning and quickly wrote down “Borrow.” Another puff of white smoke burst out, and the Tass doll appeared in place.
The enormous claw stopped in midair and slowly withdrew.
“It seems you found the answer,” Salaar said peacefully.
“Thank you for your hint.” Stick Figure Mag bowed.
Seeing Salaar unconsciously put on an elder’s manner, Myss snickered softly. “…Actually, you didn’t know how to change back, did you?”
“That’s right. After all, I didn’t know Mr. Tenney.” Salaar replied quietly. “I only knew he had no ill intent, and that Lady Mag is, without a doubt, a top-tier scholar.”
Myss rubbed against Salaar’s shoulder for a while, pressing his head into the softest spot. “Oh, top-tier scholar.”
“Then remember to properly explain to this ‘top-tier scholar’ why your face is exactly the same as her younger brother’s.”
……
Two hours passed.
The group randomly chose a book and entered the Divine Realm, then returned to reality through that copy of ‘Brave Salaar’.
“It seems our ink holes aren’t very complete.”
Brief wiped the hard cover of the picture book. “They should be connected together, so you can zip straight across without going through the book content. Then you won’t have to walk so far through the restricted book area…”
“This book didn’t connect to the Divine Realm normally, so it’s natural for it to have some flaws.” Mag comforted him.
Stick Figure Mag found a small house in the picture book and lay down to sleep. Lady Mag’s consciousness returned to her physical body, and she was sitting properly in her office.
The Divine Blood cage that had covered the book had already been removed. The leftover Divine Blood residue was given by Mag to Brief, because he said he wanted to repair the two ink holes.
The priest stood quietly in the corner, staring into space. The Dragon Fae had returned to normal and was flying all over the room, trying to make up for the amount of exercise his wings had missed.
Only Salaar and Myss still maintained their tiny doll forms.
“Nominally, we’re in your confinement room. It’s inconvenient for us to appear in public.” Salaar explained it this way.
Myss’s reason was even simpler. He had to first turn back into human form, then use magic to weave new clothes.
Lord Archdemon didn’t place much stock in human etiquette, but he didn’t want to appear naked in front of everyone with only Salaar’s coat on his body.
Mag picked up the bread basket, padded it with some silk handkerchiefs, then placed the two dolls inside.
“I’ll take these two to see my confinement room first, so we can match the story.”
She nodded to the priest and the Dragon Fae who stayed behind. “You two can rest here for now. I’ll be back soon.”
Under the fragrant bread cloth, the Myss doll spread his limbs and grew drowsy. He was exhausted. Salaar looked so flat that he was almost just one layer of cloth. Myss had no idea why this cheap cousin was in such a hurry.
Salaar, however, had no unexpected reaction. He quietly leaned against Myss, one cloth arm lying across Myss’s chest.
Lady Mag’s confinement room wasn’t far from her office.
Although it was called a confinement room, it wasn’t especially dark.
Inside, there was a narrow bed, a desk, a simple bathroom partition, and bookshelves covering three walls. The lighting in the room was sufficient, there was a bottle of fake flowers made of silk on the desk, and the ceiling even had a false window that projected underwater schools of fish.
Blue faint light mixed with warm orange lamplight, giving the whole room a peaceful, quiet atmosphere. If not for the portrait of Saint Salaar hanging on the only remaining wall, Myss would have liked this place quite a bit.
Mag carefully shut the door of the confinement room. The sounds from outside instantly vanished, as if only this small room remained between heaven and earth.
“The authority over this room belongs entirely to me. There’s no surveillance, and the soundproofing is also the finest.”
“Now, I think I can understand why that Professor Gentry wrote an introduction letter for you. You’re absolutely not my useless younger brother, and I don’t want to allow my family to make enemies of you… But I think you probably don’t want to make your identity public either.”
Mag solemnly placed the bread basket on the desk.
“If there is anything you need to tell me privately, now is the best time. Anything within my ability, I’ll gladly do for you.”
Speaking with a clever person really saved effort. Mag was indirectly probing his true identity. After the trip through the Sea of Concepts, pretending to be Kendrick Karns no longer made much sense.
The Salaar doll sat up and worked hard to straighten his shirt collar. “Kendrick Karns used that Divine Blood slave as a living sacrifice and mistakenly summoned us.”
“That failed ritual caused us to lose most of our power, and we could only investigate the human world and serve our God in this state.”
Mag’s expression turned solemn.
…Legendary Divine Attendants?
With her rank, she had only heard scattered mentions a few times, and she had no related materials in hand. At this stage, research into “gods” was all over the place. She had only touched the edges of “Divine Realms,” and knew some people were conducting related experiments.
As for true “gods,” apart from existing in the mouths of religious believers, no one had truly seen Them. These God’s Divine Attendants were, at most, magic geniuses, with nothing especially unusual about them.
However, from a scholar’s perspective, since Divine Realms existed, it wasn’t impossible for real gods to exist somewhere in the world.
Then true Divine Attendants…
“I understand. I’m willing to help you investigate that failed ritual and make up for my younger brother’s mistake.”
Mag hurriedly said, “In addition, I’ll remain in contact with you at all times and provide as much assistance as I can. As for the Karns family’s kill order…”
“We don’t wish to make our identities public. We’ll resolve the kill order ourselves.”
The Salaar doll gave a very lifelike sigh. “Rest assured, we won’t take our grievances out on the Karns family.”
Only then did Mag let out a breath of relief.
Compared to the disappearance of her unlucky younger brother, she was clearly more worried about whether Salaar and Myss would move against the Karns family.
Seeing that Salaar had no intention of continuing, she immediately took over the conversation. “I’ll inform the family according to your explanation and say that based on my observations, ‘Kendrick Karns’ has turned over a new leaf because of love. Aside from that, do you have any other needs?”
“What exactly did that Ken-whatever do? His reputation seems absolutely abysmal.”
At last, they had reached the free-request segment! Myss couldn’t wait to poke his head out.
He hadn’t the slightest interest in the tedious details of cleaning up and handling the aftermath, but he did have an interest in hearing scandals about Salaar’s current vessel, and quite a large one.
Mag’s expression dimmed for an instant.
“This isn’t something an older sister should say aloud. But with Kendrick Karns gone, I actually feel much more at ease…”
Kendrick Karns was the youngest child of their generation. He had lost both parents early, and he was born unable to use magic, so their grandfather had been fairly fond of this unlucky little guy.
Even though Kendrick had been disagreeable and perverse as a child, the Karns family endured it. After all, who could blame him, given his wretched luck? Even if Kendrick became a useless dandy, the Karns family could afford to keep him.
If he broke valuable things, the Karns family would at most scold him a little. If he injured servants, the Karns family would pay ample compensation and find more people to watch the boy, until…
“For a period of time, he firmly believed that the birth of his older brother, Peyton, who was three years older than him, had caused their mother’s health to weaken and affected his own constitution.”
Mag’s voice carried a few degrees of coldness. “At an important dinner, he tried to kill Peyton and make Peyton pay the so-called ‘price,’ causing Peyton to lose sight in one eye… At that time, that boy wasn’t even an adult.”
“That incident was more or less the trigger for Grandfather sending him off to the border.”
Peyton? Had this person been mentioned before?
Myss tried hard to recall. He remembered that the ones who wanted to kill Kendrick were the turnip twins, the mud knight, and the useless garbage who hired Tass. Among them, there didn’t seem to be a human named Peyton.
Mag understood his confusion. “Peyton is a very kind child. He’s now a devout monk of the Church of Candance. He’s indeed at home during this period. I’m willing to guarantee with my honor that he will absolutely not act against you.”
So that was how it was.
In one second, Myss threw the name “Peyton” out of his mind.
Mag suddenly realized something. “Could it be that you two still intend to personally go to the Karns family to discuss the kill order?”
“I can handle it on your behalf, truly! At least I’m confident I can persuade my eldest brother and eldest sister…”
Halfway through her words, Mag swallowed them herself.
Everyone in the Karns family who had a brain knew that she and Kendrick had never had much contact, and that she had previously greatly disliked this wicked cousin. How could Kendrick simply turn over a new leaf and have her rush to speak for him?
But these were Divine Attendants indirectly acknowledged by Professor Gentry!
If some brainless person, especially her other useless cousin, Owen, offended these two to death, who knew what kind of trouble that would cause?
Mag swallowed and still couldn’t help asking, “If possible, could you, could you tell me which god you two serve as Divine Attendants?”
Please let it be a god that sounded very upright. Preferably a god from a fairly popular religion. That way, she could still judge the conduct style of the Divine Attendants based on the religious style.
Before Myss had time to spout nonsense, he saw Salaar split his mouth in a grin.
“I’m a Divine Attendant of the Chaos Archdemon.”
The author has something to say:
Mag, who considers herself a descendant of Saint Salaar: ?
A literal challenge.jpg
But this is only Saint Salaar gently appeasing the Chaos Archdemon. [OK]
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