Chapter 22: Puppet Surprise
"Alright...time to build my puppet!" I murmur excitedly as I rush to my room, breakfast is over and it’s time to construct the most magnificent and beautiful of puppets.
An identical puppet to my body, she will certainly be my main masterpiece, I’m not sure how strong she’ll be at first, but I believe she’ll be strong enough to match my siblings.
Due to the rules, all candidates for the throne must not increase their personal power above a certain limit, this is to keep the competition "fair" for everyone.
In other words, everyone was kept at a similar level of power until our father announced the banquet which signifies the start of the competition, meaning only Evelyn was absurdly weak in the beginning.
So now that the competition has begun, no one has that limit anymore and everyone can seek to strengthen themselves to the max.
But fortunately, even though my siblings are absurdly strong compared to me, their power was nerfed by the script of having to wait for fairness in the competition!! So they have more theoretical knowledge than practical power to use.
This leaves room for my puppets to evolve to a strength equivalent to them, after all if you consider their final power, each one is absurdly powerful and has super broken abilities.
Of course, just because they didn’t train their powers and get stronger doesn’t mean they’re easy to deal with, after all they are the elite of the demons and even without training they are at least among the 100 strongest demons.
And considering the huge size of each continent, being among the 100 strongest without any training is absurd, with training obviously each one will be in the top 10 of the strongest demons.
Besides the fact that they get stronger really fast, in less than 3 years each one should be able to grab their spot in the top 10, with the top 1 being obviously the Demon King.
’W-What madness, thinking about it I’ll have to get into the top 10 of the strongest demons to have no more danger...this will be difficult...but I should be able to do it!!’ And if you consider position, the original Evelyn was...at the bottom of the barrel.
’What a miserable fate!! How can they leave a candidate for the throne at the bottom of the barrel? This script was made to screw with my life!!’
But at least I have the advantage of knowing the future, I know each one will become very strong, and I know what to do to try to deal with them all, or almost all...Esther is still an inscrutable unknown to me.
I’ll figure it out, I won’t give up easily on this second chance, not just for myself, but also for the original Evelyn who deserved a better fate.
"...Hey Clarissa..." I open the door to my room, entering and seeing Clarissa standing in front of the door waiting.
"Evelyn-sama, I’ve already cleaned the room and brought the materials...do you need anything else?" She asks as I look at the materials, they seem good, but I need to check them more closely to confirm the quality.
"No, this will do, you’re free for the next 5 hours..." I need to create the puppet and then think of an excuse for why there are now two of me, most won’t notice the vitality.
However, the Demon King and my siblings will definitely notice, they are very skilled in magic and after looking at my puppet and me side by side, they will understand that she is something that lives through my vitality.
In other words, it’s not against the rules for me to use puppets anywhere, after all it’s my power, and I have another small advantage, I know the blessings of everyone, but the others mostly don’t know the blessings that the others have.
And since I’ve always had a lot of vitality, it makes sense for me to use it this way in creating puppets, although ironically I don’t know what happens if I exhaust my vitality all at once.
Vitality is literally life, or the HP of the game, but if Evelyn stays alive as long as she has her puppets, then even without any vitality left, I’m still alive because the puppets have my vitality?
I don’t know, and I don’t want to try to find out, anyway I have so much vitality that I’ll hardly need to spend it all just to create one puppet, although I need to be careful not to have people hurting me.
"Understood, Evelyn-sama...I collected the materials as carefully as possible," She says this addition while starting to leave, avoiding eye contact, which I notice but ignore.
’Time for the best part of my day!! Creating the perfect puppet!’ I quickly lock the door so no one will interrupt me and go to the materials, although the choice of materials is strange, they will serve more for a kind of "transmutation".
After all, my living puppets will be of flesh and bone, even if I use minerals to make them, the items used to make the puppet are not for its body, but for what they are, the abilities they will have and what they can do, as well as their strength.
Basically, as soon as I make the puppet, even if it uses raw wood, demon flesh, and a metallic item like silver or gold, the end result will still be something of flesh and bone, unless I want something else and have the appropriate material.
"Aren’t I kind of a life alchemist? Definitely I deserve a title, like...The Immaculate, or The Unparalleled!!" I say to myself as I look at the materials, the quality is really good enough.
"Excellent choices, she did a good job...but she still doesn’t deserve my forgiveness!! She’ll need much more than just a good job for me to forgive her," I hold the demon flesh, noticing that it’s dripping blood, which causes me a shiver.
’W-Why is this flesh still fresh?’ An immediate doubt arises, where did she get this flesh from?
"...Well...it’s life, I didn’t see anything, and you, Snacksy, you didn’t see anything either, right?" I ask the small alarm puppet, she shakes her head negatively.
"Then it’s settled, it’s just a piece of meat...dripping...a red thing of irrelevant name," I say as I pick up the knife I had requested for this occasion, and like an autopilot, I start to sculpt the flesh with skill and mastery.
Even though it’s the first time I’m doing this, it’s as if I’ve done it thousands of times, what I’m doing is simply "cleaning" the flesh of what is useless, the living puppet only needs the best parts.
If I leave it as it is, the puppet’s power may be reduced due to impurities, so this process, although not necessary with all items, is still necessary with some.
So the time it takes to make the puppet depends on various factors such as time to clean the material, puppet strength, material quality, and others, but ignoring that, I quickly clean all the flesh again, getting myself dirty with blood.
It seems I’ll have to get used to getting dirty with blood, dust, and other things when creating puppets, although I can ask certain things for other puppets to do.
’That’s right!! Nothing stops me from using puppets as servants or helpers!!’ Although a large part needs to be done by me since I have some special understanding in this area.
I soon leave my daydreams aside and place the flesh on the table while I go back to carve the raw wood, I remove the bark with a skill that even surprises me, I see that the metal item she left was a gold coin.
Good enough, although I expected her to give a cheaper mineral and not gold, but I’m satisfied with the gold, it will be good enough and I won’t need to do anything to it.
’What a surprise she gave me a gold coin...’ I don’t have a "good memory" with this, it reminds me of the past I saw when I evolved, a rather unpleasant scene to remember.
"Hmm, good enough..." I murmur, placing the wood on top of the flesh while placing the gold on top of the wood, then I take a few steps back as I start using magic.
"..." A purple glow occurs around the room, surrounding the items as I close my eyes, imagining the appearance and class of the puppet, I want something identical to me, every tiny detail.
Every strand of hair, every piece no matter how infinitesimal, needs to resemble me, while her ability is simple, she should be a swordswoman with good physical aptitude.
I don’t want a mage, a tank, a healer, a priestess, an assassin, a thief, or any other class, I want a skilled and fast swordswoman who can react to any attack with speed.
She will be the one who will protect me from assassins, and as my protector, she will be someone who can defend me from everything in the best possible way, with a calmer and more analytical personality so as not to be affected by the narcissism that sometimes escapes.
"..." When I open my eyes, I see a body on the table, a body exactly identical to mine, although it is completely naked, but it’s the same milky skin tone, the same beautiful purple hair.
The same physical proportions, but without time to admire, I feel my vitality being quickly drained from me and being transferred to the puppet.
’S-So that’s how it happens...’ I wait as the vitality stops being taken from me, soon the puppet on the table starts to move, sitting up on the table.
’Oh...’ I timidly look down, avoiding eye contact, she is so beautiful, but she is completely naked, I need to get a dress for her urgently.
"W-Wait a moment, I’ll get you some clothes and...h-hmm?" She suddenly gets up from the table while lifting my chin with her hand.
And ironically, speaking the same as I did when I came to this world, she kisses me, just as I kissed my reflection in a mirror, I can only get more embarrassed.