Chương 209: I Have Found A Toy

This little event allowed me to realise a few things. First of all, Xlown definitely is my daughter. She has it in her blood to terrorise people–I hadn't intervened at all until now, I had left all of my little darlings to strategise by themselves, as a little moment of bonding between niece and aunts.

It was a bit odd to say since the niece was technically the youngest, but the oldest-looking one, and probably the most mature of mind as well, since she acts and behaves exactly like a young adult woman, while my spectral cuties are still not quite there yet. In any case, Xlown and Poppy had hit it off very well and had managed to make a very nice sequence of events for the intruder to go through, maximising the sheer amount of negative emotions he was feeling until Xlown and Coco came into the picture…

As it turns out, the masked invader was rather competent and powerful, but he simply hadn't been ready for what was waiting for him inside the Purging Station. It was indeed quite complicated to predict that the seemingly amorphous monster-clown girl would specifically decide to stretch out her shadow toward you so that a mechanical menace hiding within said shadow could reach out and grab you. In fact, I would be surprised if anyone could genuinely predict something like this.

It would require literally being able to see the future, or some senses so sharp that they might as well put bloodhounds out of a job. Nonetheless, the man had almost evaded it all, only being a moment too late to move one of his legs, allowing Coco to grab it. Leading to a self-amputation, which had been the right move. I had asked Coco to show me how he would deal with enemies, and this fellow was about the idea I would make of the cross between a berserker gorilla and an alligator that hadn't eaten in a week.

It was beyond being a brute at this point. Indeed, him biting someone's head off was the merciful way. If he got his hands on someone and–For reasons unknown besides just feeling like it–Absolutely destroy them. As such, severing his foot had been the best decision the intruder could have made. Anyway, I also quite liked the team effort between Gigi and Annie. In particular, I hadn't actually seen Annie's empowered fear infliction before today, and it was indeed something worth talking about.

She had run around the Purging Station for a while, so although her overall speed wasn't too great due to the many turns she had to make before getting the invader, the distance she had travelled had greatly added to her scare. According to Nara, the man had only managed to break out of it due to immense willpower and a hefty dose of dangerous mana usage. Such a scare had the potential to cause some people a heart attack, but of course, this guy was an agent of the Boorizar or something akin to that.

So he had some good resilience to him. Everyone else participated to some extent, but not everyone could have a highlight in such a situation. Some of my little sisters needed to get too close to be effective, and this bastard was simply too dangerous for me to allow them anywhere near him. Anyway… Now that I was done very rapidly thinking about past stuff, it was time to focus on the present. Namely, perhaps the ugliest creature I had ever had to lay my eyes upon.

It was like a cross between several ugly beings, but the stand-out feature was naturally its now broken and deformed face–Courtesy of my right fist–When it came to ugly things, goblins were always mentioned. I am fairly certain there were thousands of different species bearing this name, including some sapient ones, but everyone was more familiar with the little pests whom nearly all of existence hated to the core.

As a learned lady, I knew that the hatred directed at them was mostly vestigial, as the cause for it was a handful of goblin species which had been hunted to extinction a long time ago already. Nonetheless, such an ugly face was an insult to all with the gift of sight. I looked down at my right fist. The fucker had shown some resistance to my surprise full-powered direct punch, but compared to SHLAD? This was nothing. The robot bastard would hurt me by sheer force of toughness. Here, I was without any damage.

My fingers moved in succession before I gave a thumbs-up. This seemed to confuse the misshapen one, but it was intended for Elowen. She was the one who had just turned the lights on. As nice as the darkness was for messing around, I couldn't actually see in the dark. Now, what exactly is this thing, Nara?

In terms of physical appearance, it is merely a kind of solitary goblin, but it was summoned through magic and is somewhat akin to a golem and spirit fused together, like what Vilador was known for Of course, the process is completely different here. I guess it can be compared to Coco to some extent, it is made entirely out of the man's mana, but mimics flesh Even then, the comparison is far from perfect.

This man has a very uncommon and specific affinity, which allowed him to imbue a semblance of life into the mask he was wearing. It looks like that since the mask and the kind of life he placed into it were a match, and he poured so much into it all, that he was able to summon this thing Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Well, I suppose the process and stuff are interesting, but in our case… Just beat it to death as you would with anything else.

Its existence as both flesh and mana is not developed enough to be a problem, and at the end of the day, this is just a powerful goblin Alright then. Let's do this. The goblin rose from the ground, pulling itself to its feet by grabbing onto the bent railing. The foul creature yelled at me, mindlessly charging in a straight line without any sort of strategy or plan. It was so stupid that I almost found myself suspecting that it was a trick, but no.

I slammed the pest across the jaw as it approached, sending it rolling onto the floor like the piece of garbage it was. Oh, wait, it isn't charging at me. It's trying to get into the room behind me, where the more sensitive machines were… Well, I guess calling these things machines was a bit of a misnomer. They weren't mechanical in any way, but they made noise like machines and kind of looked like they would fit the bill at a glance…

Anyway, I didn't know what the intruder was here for, but I had been presuming that it was about doing some sabotaging, and I suppose it made more sense to sabotage some of the more important and complicated constructs. Regardless, it seemed like this summoned thing had a case of tunnel vision, being overly focused on one thing to the point of ignoring the wall blocking the way–In this case, the wall was my gorgeous self.

As such, what might have been an interesting fight since the goblin was quite tough and seemingly quite strong, turned into that one sport where you had to hit a ball, make it bounce against a wall opposite to you, and then rinse and repeat… The motherfucker just wouldn't figure out that it should get rid of me before trying to get in, resulting in this ridiculous scene to play over and over again until finally… It struggled to get back up, allowing me to finish beating it a pulp on the ground.

Well, at least my darlings had some fun with this… This bastard doesn't even give experience… Oh, the caster didn't die? As I realised the actual guy hadn't met his end after falling unconscious, the goblin fell apart into sparks of mana, the wooden mask used to manifest it popped out of its body, bouncing against the ground and sliding a little bit before being picked up by Ophelie.

"Do y–you find some–some–thing interesting about it?" The small blonde looked up at me with her adorable, soft brown eyes. She held up the mask.

"I just think that… I could do something… Similar… With my plushes""Oh? Cou–ould you?" Ophelie nodded as I reached out to pat her head. As the youngest of the spectral band and the only one to have not been part of the original crew so far, the small blonde was actually quite different from the others. First of all, she lacked the ability to inflict fear or any other negative emotions like the others.

Since her plush-making ability was just a skill she always had, her only true special ability as a ghost was the wooden stake driven through her chest. Remnant of a piece of her house that had fallen upon her back then. This stake could be pulled out and used to stab people and other beings, having the effect of rendering the victim far more susceptible to the abilities of Ophelie's allies. So far, that was it, but it seemed like she had only needed some inspiration to figure something out…

She began curiously inspecting the deer plush she carried around all the time. I didn't know what this would end up like, but I was confident she would be making progress quite quickly. As I was speaking with Ophelie, Elowen and the others arrived, with the tomboy dragging the unconscious body of the intruder, and… He was actually even uglier than the mask he had been wearing. It was no wonder that he wrapped himself in bandages on top of wearing a mask.

This was a face only a mother could love, and even then, I wouldn't be so certain of that. Apart from that, I was surprised that he was alive. Nara had told me that he had gone far beyond his limits while injured. By all means, he should be a corpse right now, but he somehow survived. Was it a good thing? Well, in the grand scheme of things, being alive was an immense fortune on its own, and thus, not dying was something to celebrate, however… I don't think this guy is going to be very happy about his survival.

Well, I need to consult with my fluffy employer first…

"Maya. Where… I mean, I know where… I am thankful that you defended the Purging Station. A problem there could have been terrible for the whole city, but is it really wise to keep someone who is very likely an agent of a greater noble family alive? I think you should just make him disappear as you did with the rest" As expected, Leou was a bit worried about my idea.

"Do–Don't worry, Leou. You–ou've done your due di–diligence, there is no w–way for this guy to be tra–cked. Let me interro–rrogate him""Right, I know that he shouldn't be found, and that he is harmless right now, but is it really necessary to set up a torture room inside the sewers? This whole setup looks worse than if he were just found restrained inside my main building. People are allowed to restrain intruders, but string them up to the ceiling and torture them for information? That's…

That's a bit much""Do n–ot fret, Leou. I wi–will be testing–ing things on hi–him""Like, trying to replicate the Nightmare Plague on him?"

"Yes""Well… I don't like the idea of a torture chamber, but if you can indeed replicate the Nightmare Plague, it would be an incredible boon for the whole organisation, so I guess you can go ahead, just… Just be careful if you make him scream, the sewers are big and mostly empty, it might echo around a whole bunch""No worr–ies" Leou yawned. I had woken her up in the middle of the night after all, and headed back to sleep. It is quite impressive how…

Messy her fluff is directly out of bed, I bet it feels nice like this. However, the focus right now is this guy right here. Leou actually gave me some nice gadgets to help me get him to speak. Heheheh…