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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“Captain! Over here! There’s a doll that looks like a totem!”
“Damn curse casters.”
The moment the train arrived at the Clockwork City station, the dwarf security team that had surrounded the platform rushed in and began searching the train.
Soon after, the dwarves succeeded in finding the totem.
It was a wooden doll carved from wood.
A small amount of demonic energy was detected inside.
They concluded that this totem had indeed cast the wide-ranging curse over the entire train.
The security team immediately destroyed the totem and collected the fragments.
Afterwards, all passengers were subjected to questioning.
Of course, Yoo-jin and Undecided couldn’t avoid the inspection either.
“C-could this be… a blood ghoul?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll need to do a saliva test.”
“I’ll comply.”
There was brief chaos, but it quickly settled down.
Blood ghoul test kits were widely distributed throughout the world.
The test quickly proved that Undecided didn’t have the blood ghoul virus.
It wasn’t a problem to keep a blood ghoul whose fangs had been removed and posed no infection risk.
Of course, given the great fear of blood ghouls, it would be problematic to advertise having one all over town.
But since I said I would keep her hooded and hidden, the security team didn’t say anything more about Undecided.
“You. What’s your occupation?”
“Mercenary.”
“You don’t look like a mercenary…”
“I also carry this dagger.”
“Wah! A knife came out of his underwear!”
However, they still seemed unsure about Yoo-jin, as the questioning continued to drag on.
He must have looked quite suspicious.
Surrounded by smelly dwarves with bushy beards, he desperately wanted to escape and bury his nose in Cornelia’s hair.
“What are these marks on your arms and nape? There are so many.”
“It bites a lot.”
“Ah. Aah. You have a puppy.”
“No. Her.”
“…?”
After enduring this for quite a while, Yoo-jin was finally released.
The security team seemed to have concluded he wasn’t a curse caster.
Only after getting out did he learn that they hadn’t managed to catch anyone suspected of being the curse caster.
What the curse caster had snuck onto the train was an avatar.
So the main body was likely outside the train.
Even if they had been inside, they were skilled in shapeshifting, so they probably transformed into an insect and scurried away.
‘Can’t catch them. Let’s just go on our way.’
If it was someone he knew, he could roughly predict their movements and catch them.
But since this was a new face he had never encountered in 12 rounds, there was no good way to catch them.
The dwarf security team would handle it, probably.
“It’s been so long since I’ve been here too.”
The moment they exited the station,
A majestic view unfolded with smoke billowing from countless factories lined up along the river.
This was the Clockwork City.
It was the city with the most natural resources buried in the north, and the largest industrial city in the north.
There were so many resources that if you dug anywhere with a shovel, oil would gush out, coal would pop up, and natural gas would leak.
They literally made money by digging up the ground.
They used those abundant resources to run factories, and there were quite a few types.
Iron works, textile factories, construction material factories, shipyards…
Basically, they produced everything themselves except food.
But the real distinctive feature of the Clockwork City appeared when leaving the factory district and entering the downtown area.
A branch of magical engineering that developed only in the Clockwork City.
A street lined with displays of clockwork machines appeared.
“…Wow.”
Undecided couldn’t help but exclaim in admiration.
Each shop was full of unique machines.
From clockwork clocks to machines that automatically wrote letters to jukeboxes that played music.
And that wasn’t all.
On the well-paved roads, machines resembling cultivators rolled along instead of carriages.
Store doors opened and closed automatically, and under the bridges, steam-powered ships puffed out smoke as they passed.
It felt nostalgic visiting after so long, but…
“Wow. It’s really damn noisy.”
“…Yes. Ears, hurt.”
It was always such a noisy city no matter when you visited.
No matter how much lubricant you slathered on clockwork machines, they would inevitably make creaking sounds.
This was also why clockwork machines couldn’t be found outside this city.
Of course, in exchange for the noise, clockwork machines had advantages over other magical engineering.
Clockwork machines could create more complex and precise devices.
Theoretically, using clockwork machines, you could even make computers.
Of course, they would be enormous in size and quite inefficient, but…
“The clockwork dolls have really disappeared completely, huh.”
Clockwork dolls.
Clockwork machines resembling humans that were once wildly popular.
In the very early stages of the story, right after regressing, if you rushed to the Clockwork City, you could see the spectacular sight of clockwork dolls filling the streets.
There were maid clockwork dolls, butler clockwork dolls, and even coachman clockwork dolls driving carriages.
There were even movements to develop artificial personalities to put into the clockwork dolls.
But that was just a temporary fad.
The clockwork dolls quickly became obsolete due to their extremely low fuel efficiency.
Even nobles found them burdensome to use, which said it all.
But he knew that some places still took custom orders.
There was occasional demand from humans and beast-folk…
It seemed a certain amount of people with unique tastes existed in any world.
“Let’s quickly take care of our business.”
He didn’t plan to stay long.
This place was insanely noisy even at night.
It was a city where only dwarves who could drink beer, get thoroughly drunk, and pass out snoring as soon as their head hit the pillow could live.
“…Water. Scary.”
“Close your eyes. Hold my hand and walk. I’ll tell you when we reach the stairs.”
Because Undecided was afraid of the river water, he had to hold her hand tightly every time they crossed a bridge.
Passing through the bustling downtown of the dizzying Clockwork City, they entered an alley and gradually came upon a run-down street.
At the end was a shop.
The sign was so rusty it was about to fall off.
The windows and doors were all blocked.
It looked like a closed-down workshop, but this was where the legendary technician, Cern, lived.
“Hmm…”
Knock knock knock.
There was no response even after knocking on the door.
At this point in time, Cern’s dementia symptoms should have worsened considerably.
He was probably not in his right mind.
“No choice then.”
He placed his finger on the keyhole and cast an unlocking spell.
Mana flowed into the hole, and a pleasant clicking sound was heard.
Clunk.
The lock opened and the door creaked open.
The dark interior of the house unfolded before them.
“Wait.”
“…”
Undecided was about to use fire magic, but he stopped her.
This wasn’t an abandoned house, so they just needed to turn on the lights.
He felt along the wall for the switch, and when he pressed it, everywhere brightened up.
Unlike the exterior, the interior looked like a neat mansion.
It was well-maintained, with furniture and walls clean without a speck of dust.
“Grandpa Cern! You’re not dead already, are you?”
Shouting, he walked down the hallway towards the inner rooms.
Cern would be in the main bedroom.
Though it looked clean on the surface, it must have been quite old, as creaking sounds came from the floorboards with every step.
The moment he turned the corner of the hallway.
[Impact detected]
“Ah! You startled me.”
He bumped into a woman with a pale face.
After being startled for a moment, he quickly realized this wasn’t a person but a clockwork machine.
[Recalculating route]
“Ah, it’s Linda.”
The maid robot seemed to make eye contact with him for a moment, but as soon as he turned slightly, it looked into space and continued speaking.
Though the front view was quite convincing enough to be mistaken for human, looking at the back revealed messily intertwined gears moving about.
This one’s name was Linda.
It was a clockwork doll that took care of Cern.
Of course, “taking care” just meant regularly delivering food to his room, cleaning along programmed routes, or simple interactions.
[Ding. It’s cleaning time. Starting dusting.]
Linda started cleaning without any regard for the two strangers who had entered.
It simply wasn’t set up to react to intruders in the first place.
‘This is a bit strange.’
Usually, if they put so much effort into the exterior appearance, the software would be excellent too.
But this one’s software performance was far inferior to even the clockwork dolls that were popular back then.
Voice recognition and simple conversation were already basic features back then.
Was there a reason he deliberately installed poor software?
[Impact detected. Recalculating route.]
“Undecided. Move aside.”
“…Okay.”
It was an unimportant, outdated luxury item.
Ignoring Linda as she passed by, he reached the main bedroom and turned the doorknob.
Inside was an old dwarf man lying in bed with his eyes wide open.
Cern.
The man once called the greatest clockwork machine technician.
He was about 60 years old, not particularly old for a dwarf.
But perhaps due to overwork, he suddenly developed dementia one day, and ended up bedridden like this.
“Grandpa. I need a commission.”
“…”
There was no reaction even when he waved his hand in front of Cern’s face.
He was in no state to do mechanical work, let alone communicate.
How could he entrust a commission to such a senile old man?
There was a way.
A privilege only known to the story writer.
He knew a kind of Easter egg.
‘There are ghosts in the machines.’
If he recited this one sentence, Cern would regain his senses.
Without knowing the Easter egg, Cern was just a faded glory of the past.
But if you input the command, he became a living legend.
So what did it mean that there were ghosts in the machines?
He didn’t know either.
He just accepted it as part of the setting.
He gently leaned towards Cern’s ear and whispered the command with his hands cupped.
“There are ghosts in the machines.”
“…”
Twitch.
Cern’s body trembled slightly.
Then his pupils, which had been fixed on the ceiling, moved to look directly at Yoo-jin.
The dying old man was gone, replaced by a dwarf full of passion, his eyes burning with enthusiasm.
And then Cern…
“Kyaaaaaaah!!! Ghosts in the machines! Ghosts in the machiiines!!!”
He screamed hysterically, rolling his eyes as if he had lost his mind.
Oh dear.
It seemed his symptoms had become even more severe.
Caern jumped up from the bed, ran to the window, opened it, and
“People of the neighborhood!!! There are ghosts in the machines! Exorcist! Call an exorcist!!!”
He started shouting at the top of his lungs to the outside.
“Kyaah! Eek eek eek!!!”
“Oof. What strength.”
It took a lot of effort to pull Cern away from the window.
As expected of a dwarf artisan, his practically compressed muscles were no joke…
After finally detaching him from the window and closing it, Cern let out a whimpering sound and flopped back onto the bed.
“Hueng. Ghosts are scary.”
“This is driving me crazy…”
Something had gone wrong.
Originally, upon hearing the command, Cern should have exuded elderly charisma and said lines like “So what’s the commission?”
In fact, this had worked in previous rounds.
But why did his dementia symptoms worsen this time?
What variable had come into play this time…
It gave him a headache.
“…Grandpa. Broken.”
“Not broken. We can fix him.”
Of course, there was a way to fix this.
In this world, dementia wasn’t an incurable disease.
Among curses, there existed ones that could alleviate dementia symptoms.
But how could he find a curse caster in this Clockwork City?
Here, curse casters were often treated as quacks and frauds.
Ah, if only a curse caster would just drop from the sky.
“Oof!”
“…?”
Just as he was thinking that, the door burst open roughly and a shrill voice was heard.
It was a somewhat familiar voice.
And what appeared from behind the door was a girl in a familiar nun’s habit.
“I heard you were looking for an exorcist! I am the exorcist recognized by the church bigwig! No, the exorcist nun! Starting fee is 1000 gold… Uh…?”
The nun’s face turned pale as she confirmed Yoo-jin’s face.
It was certain.
This was the one who had carried out the curse terror attack on the train.
Though she looked younger than before, it was common for avatars to be made more attractive than the main body.
“You. You’re the curse caster from the train.”
“N-no, I’m not?”
It seemed heaven had answered his wish.
Sending him a curse caster he could use.
He would make good use of this.
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THERE’S A GHOST IN THE MACHINE!? IT’S FNAF!