Pinocchio (1)

Linea didn’t feel anything at first.

She didn’t suspect anything either.

Only belatedly did she turn pale upon realizing the boy wasn’t human.

Dangerous. She had already voiced her suspicion about who he might be.

Even if she was wrong, this was no ordinary person.

His reaction was unpredictable.

Linea slowly backed away from the boy who stared at her with an expressionless face.

And then.

“Hello, noona.” (TLN: Going forward, I’ll be keeping some Korean honorifics instead of translating them to the English ones. Forgot to tell you this on previous chapter)

“Eh…?”

An expression appeared on the boy’s previously expressionless face as if painted on.

The face of an innocent child.

For a moment, Linea was bewildered by this stark contrast.

The earlier sense of dissonance vanished. Her fear faded too.

Maybe it had been her imagination? Perhaps stress had made her mistake an ordinary boy for a mechanical device?

Such doubts began floating through her mind.

Even though she could still hear sounds like meshing gears coming from the boy – sounds that couldn’t come from a human.

Linea raised her guard to its highest level as she felt it trying to slip.

Something was wrong. This was absolutely not a situation where she should lower her guard.

The other party had made it so.

But how?

‘Almost like a real person…’

A perfect match for the image that would come to mind when thinking of a boy that age.

As if countless samples had been gathered and woven into one form.

Why go to such lengths?

“Do you know what this big building is for?”

“It’s a mansion. A place where people live.”

Linea answered honestly.

However, she didn’t specify who lived there. The boy’s target might be Geppetto’s life.

She only needed to say things that wouldn’t matter if revealed.

“What about these walls?”

“The walls are… just walls?”

What other explanation could be needed? He didn’t seem to be unfamiliar with what walls were.

“Who are the walls meant to keep out?”

“Outsiders, I suppose?”

“Is that so?”

“Probably… yes.”

Linea kept her words to a minimum.

She dodged even the question of who the walls were for with a vague answer.

“Then am I an outsider?”

“…I wonder?”

This question was a landmine.

One wrong answer and she’d be pulling the trigger herself.

Linea still didn’t know the boy’s purpose. She couldn’t give a careless answer when she wasn’t even sure if he harbored hostility.

“I see.”

Linea had given the best answer she could manage. She drew a line suggesting she had no connection to the mansion’s owner, as if it didn’t concern her.

But the boy seemed to arrive at his own conclusion, as if sensing the deep-seated fear within Linea.

The boy returned to his expressionless state and looked up at the building’s walls.

High, solid walls of separation.

After staring blankly at the walls for a while, the boy shuffled away.

“…”

Only after the boy was out of sight could Linea move again. This was no ordinary matter.

She had to tell someone. But who should she inform?

‘Titan?’

Linea first thought of Titan, the party’s core fighting force.

Would telling him work?

>>A trial, you say?

>>Where is it now?

>>I should see just how strong it is.

>>Thud!

No good.

Linea shook her head.

Thoughtlessly telling Titan would be like pulling the trigger. There was nothing to gain from needlessly provoking a trial whose purpose they didn’t even know.

Then she needed someone who could analyze the situation more coolly, even if they lacked raw power.

Next she thought of Lost, who could be considered the party’s center.

>>What? A trial? Are you sure?

>>How can you be certain?

>>Suspicious? A little kid? Why?

>>Don’t you have some strange ability or something?

No good.

Absolutely not. How hard had she worked to keep this secret until now?

She couldn’t create opportunities to be caught.

Linea shook her head vigorously. Titan was out. Lost was out too. That left only one option.

“Claire!”

“Linea-unnie?”

Linea’s logic circuit had malfunctioned.

She knew it wasn’t the right decision, but Claire was the only one left after eliminating the others.

“This, this is bad.”

“…What could have happened in just 30 minutes?”

Claire backed away hesitantly from Linea’s extreme change, when she had been smiling brightly just moments ago.

“Well, you see!”

Driven by instinctive fear, Linea began rambling about what she had experienced.

Claire listened with a composed face and drew her conclusion.

“Shouldn’t you tell Lost?”

“That’s…”

“Is the gap in the content the issue?”

Claire couldn’t miss it.

The crucial reason why Linea found the boy suspicious was missing.

She was hiding something.

And she didn’t want Lost to discover it.

‘Do you like him? That kind of person?’

Claire’s judgment was harsh.

Lost was human garbage.

It was an extremely subjective judgment filled with her prejudice.

‘Linea-unnie deserves better…’

Whether in social status, wealth, or ability, Linea deserved better.

Naturally, she felt more affection for Linea who regularly nursed her.

“Then let’s do this.”

Either way, it wasn’t her place to interfere. Right now, she was still debating whether to kill Lost or not.

“I asked to go outside because I felt stuffy, and Linea-unnie happened to spot the boy and spoke to him.”

“Oh, is that okay?”

“Of course. You even gave me such a lovely gift after all.”

Linea quietly nodded. It was a sad thing.

Such a kind child.

Why did she have to live such a harsh life?

“Don’t panic.”

“Okay.”

“Take deep breaths… and speak calmly.”

“Okay!”

Claire comforted Linea, who still hadn’t shaken off the tension from encountering the trial, then lay back down.

She felt oddly tired.

‘What are you planning to do here?’

He said they came to Nidavellir to get her weapon. A weapon that Claire, who lacked the strength to wield a sword, could use temporarily.

Nidavellir had many such weapons. Weapons for the weak.

Most notably, guns.

Weapons that could kill with just a trigger pull.

Besides those, there were plenty of unidentified weapons believed to have flowed in from deeper in the city.

Was Lost looking into such weapons then?

‘No, he has a different purpose.’

Though it hadn’t been long, Claire had noticed something about Lost. He was a suspicious person.

Someone harboring many secrets he wouldn’t tell others.

And he drew people into his plans. So naturally that even they didn’t realize it.

He was skilled at reading people.

So even when you knew, you ended up going along with situations he created.

‘He’s terrible.’

Claire stared blankly at the ceiling before rolling over.

She saw the test Lost had made.

“…He’s good at making things like this.”

Unlike the terrible book he bought after falling for some strange scam, the test Lost had organized and created was quite well made.

It was easy to understand and clearly showed what could be learned through the problems.

He even laid out objectively and comprehensibly how the problems could be applied to different fields.

Though perhaps not as much as Linea, Lost’s education level was far higher than she had imagined.

“But why…”

He was intelligent. Someone good at understanding people’s hearts.

Yet he put up walls.

He was like a traveler who only unpacked the minimum, ready to leave at any time.

“They’re all just children.”

Though she might be in no position to say it being quite young herself, there were no real adults among their group.

“Everyone is… immature like me…”

Claire felt her eyes slowly closing. It was a comfortable bed.

“Maybe…”

He might have provoked Geppetto for her sake, since she was weak.

That might be why they could stay in such fine accommodations.

*     *     *

Linea ran calmly and composedly as Claire had advised.

“Lost! This is terrible!”

That was only in her mind, of course.

While wandering the mansion’s interior, she had fallen back into panic.

Her mind was racing but Lost was nowhere to be seen.

Being a relatively normal person, just thinking about meeting a transcendent being made her heart sink.

“…What on earth happened?”

Lost scratched his cheek as he watched Linea catch her breath.

He had never seen her overreact like this before.

“I-I met a trial!”

“What? How?”

“…Claire said she wanted some fresh air so I took her out, and I met this strange boy. He looked completely human but… he was mechanical.”

“Hmm.”

Fortunately, Linea had calmed down somewhat while delivering the excuse she had thought up with Claire.

“What did you talk about?”

“Well, that…”

Lost asked with the cool demeanor Linea had hoped for.

Of course, Lost hadn’t imagined such a situation either, let alone Linea encountering a trial.

But it wasn’t impossible.

Perhaps she had been able to notice the boy’s secret in the first place because she was a beastkin.

Those with superior senses generally didn’t come to Nidavellir.

The noisy city was only painful for them. Even if they had business here, most were people who could control their senses.

There weren’t many fools like Linea who wandered around with their senses fully open in such a loud, headache-inducing place.

“And at the end… he asked if he was an outsider and left.”

“That’s ominous.”

“Yes! It’s ominous! I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”

She couldn’t bear it if her words brought great calamity to Nidavellir.

Hadn’t she hidden everything about herself to blend in with people?

Such fear was constricting her body. As if it were a fate she could never change no matter what she did.

As if she would face people’s contempt.

“First, calm down.”

Seeing Linea’s fox ears trembling with anxiety, Lost took both her hands.

Then he clasped them together as if in prayer.

Whether the gentle touch calmed her, Linea’s breathing steadied along with her drooping ears.

“It’s nothing serious. If Nidavellir could have problems from a few words you said, they would have happened long ago.”

“You think so?”

“There probably wasn’t any malice to begin with.”

Lost closed his eyes as usual and lit his tobacco. His personal ritual for calming his mind.

A way to control fear with different fear.

Making the mind clear by dedicating consciousness to ritual.

“The child seems so anxious.”

Looking at the flickering ember at the end of his tobacco with hazy eyes, Lost quietly turned and asked.

“Why don’t you say something? Old Man Geppetto.” (TLN: I made a mistake when translating Geppetto title. It should not be “Master”, instead, it should be “Old Man”.

Geppetto’s complexion was beyond pale, practically white. He was too shaken to hide his expression.

Perhaps they were lucky. Since it was an inexcusable situation.

“If my guess is right, he came to meet you.”

Geppetto squeezed his eyes shut.

Lost was right.

<The Future Drawer> had come to meet him. Moreover, now that he had shown such an obvious emotional response, hiding it was impossible.

“…Linea, how did that child appear to you?”

It had never happened before.

<The Future Drawer> coming to find him. No, perhaps he simply hadn’t noticed, and that child had always been waiting, blocked by the walls.

“Well…”

Looking at Geppetto’s devastated expression, Linea swallowed dryly.

Her worry about possibly causing problems had disappeared. Thus, she could judge the past events somewhat objectively.

“He seemed… lonely, maybe.”

But she wasn’t confident.

The boy had been smiling.

Just like a child his age would.

Thinking he seemed lonely was just how his questions had felt.

Unfortunately, Linea hadn’t sensed any emotion from the boy.

Yet she gave such an answer because Geppetto’s expression looked so desperate.

“Yes, of course. That would be natural.”

Geppetto, who had been trembling while staring at his hands, finally spoke as if having decided something, his eyes wide.

“As you said. The child called <The Future Drawer> Deus Ex Machina – I created him.”

It must have been a miracle, Geppetto insisted.

“And it’s my fault he became like that.”

“Whatever the case, let’s first correct the subject.”

Lost spoke to Geppetto, who had spat out the words as if purging something. He hadn’t come to condemn Geppetto.

This was purely for resolution.

Defeating or denying the other party wasn’t the only solution.

The Saintess she respected had always lived like a pushover. Did that seem foolish? No, it didn’t.

That way of life deserved more respect than anything else.

“For a relationship that troubles you so deeply, and thus must have been close, surely there’s a name you gave him, rather than one thoughtlessly assigned by ignorant people?”

Not grand names like <The Future Drawer> or Deus Ex Machina, but the name that stirred the dwarf Geppetto’s heart.

“That child…”

Geppetto lowered his head.

He never imagined this.

Until now, no one had even cared about the real name of the child who came to be called a trial.

Perhaps that’s why.

“His name is Pinocchio.” (TLN: Ah, so that’s why the name Geppetto used here.)

Perhaps that’s why he decided to reveal the secret he had been bearing alone all this time.

The man grinned.

“Sounds like a name that would give parents some trouble.”

At such an ordinary response, Geppetto smiled bitterly with tears in his eyes, as if recalling a forgotten past, and answered in a trembling voice.

“Yes… He was quite the handful…”

And so Geppetto’s frozen gears began to turn.