Record of a Thousand Lives - Chapter 94

There was a killer.

His name was Rick Elrickerson.

He was a serial killer.

Nobody survived after meeting him.

He was a killer who only killed children.

Lalalala~

The smell of blood fills the air.

The jackknife has become dull.

A kid is crying.

The kid’s round head rolls along the ground.

Rick is laughing in ecstasy.

Lalalala~

The day after he stabbed the king’s child.

Rick finally realized.

That he was crazy.

He tried to find his sanity.

He managed to become sane after a long time.

But Rick was still on the edge of insanity.

Lalalala~

Rick was lonely.

He was depressed.

‘What the hell did I do?’ he asked himself.

Rick apologized to the children he had killed.

Was he confessing his crimes to the authorities?

Lalalala~

Rick said.

No.

Turning myself in isn’t atoning for my sins.

The children I killed won’t come back to life.

That’s right, let’s bring those kids back to life.

Lalalala~

Rick pondered.

Necromancer?

No, an undead isn’t a perfect resurrection.

Shall I try alchemy?

No, nobody has created a resurrection potion.

Rick finally decided.

‘That’s right, I’ll become a Puppeteer.’

Lalalala~

Rick grabbed his sculpting knife.

He sculpted hundreds of dolls every day.

He never let go of his sculpting knife, whether it rained or snowed.

He finally managed to make a set of miraculous tools.

Lalalala~

Rick collected the dead children’s corpses.

He turned the corpses into dolls with the tools he created.

Their decayed skins were removed, and their lacking muscles were filled with sawdust.

That’s how the kids became dolls.

The kids he toyed with finally went back to their parents’ embrace.

Rick laughed happily.

He gave a name to his miraculous tools.

‘Body Crafting Kit’.

Lalalala~

Rick was obsessed with puppeteering.

He collected carcasses, dug graves, and spent countless nights creating his final masterpiece.

However, everyone called Rick a madman.

Nobody knew of Rick’s final moments and his final masterpiece.

Lalalala~

—An Old Folk Song, ‘The Madman Rick’

“Where are you from?”

“Mongol, Ulaanbaatar.”

“There’s a lot of Asians this time. I’m from Singapore, Singapore.”

It was the man’s habit.

“What do you mean?”

“The capital of Singapore is Singapore. My name is David,” David introduced himself as he sharpened his knife.

The Mongolian woman said, “My name is Xayah. Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead,” David said.

“What will you do with me?” Xayah asked.

“I’ll kill you,” David replied.

Xayah bit her lips, and the sound of the blade being sharpened filled her ears, but she could not move at all as her body did not listen to her. She asked, “How can I cut these threads?”

“Those are mana threads used to control dolls. You can’t cut them with brute force,” David replied.

“P-please, spare me,” Xayah pleaded.

“I don’t want to,” David said mockingly.

Xayah looked at David with pleading eyes and asked, “Why did you abduct me?”

Xayah was an Archer, and archery was something she had been confident in even back in the real world. In fact, she was a very skilled archer who could deliver numerous headshots to boss monsters during numerous raids.

‘If only I hadn’t been swayed by my conscience and had shot that bastard…’ Xayah thought, cursing inwardly at herself.

She had been overconfident in her own abilities and gone out hunting, only to find herself being abducted by David. She had heard numerous rumors of adventurers being abducted, but never had she imagined that she would be the victim of those rumors.

She had already been in this place by the time she regained her consciousness, but she had no clue where it was.

‘Where the hell is this place…?’ Xayah thought. She looked around and saw numerous other people who were bound by mana threads. She could deduce that all of them were Travelers, judging from the devices on their wrists.

“Aren’t you a Traveler too? Why are you trying to kill me? Are you trying to increase your level by committing murder?” Xayah asked desperately.

“It’s something like that,” David leisurely replied as he checked the sharpness of the blade he had been sharpening on the whetstone just a moment before. He continued, “You’ll die, but you’ll also stay alive.”

“W-what are you talking about…?” Xayah asked nervously.

“You’ll become a monster in this ruin!” David proudly replied.

Xayah’s eyes trembled in horror, and her body soon followed suit and trembled uncontrollably as she looked around. What she saw was a dusty stone wall, with various tools she had never seen in her life hanging from it.

“A-are you telling me that this is a ruin? The kind of ruin where hundreds or even thousands of monsters reside?” Xayah asked, panicking.

“Correct,” David replied leisurely.

“But why will I become a monster?!” Xayah exclaimed as she struggled to break free from the mana threads binding her. However, the threads did not budge an inch and showed no signs of breaking at all.

David pointed his blade at Xayah’s neck and said, “It’ll be very painful at the start, but you’ll get used to it in the end… because you’ll lose your mind by then.”

“No! Don’t! Don’t touch me!” Xayah screamed tearfully in despair.

However, that did not seem to bother David at all as he swung his blade down.

Sukeok!

A pool of blood formed on the floor, and an arm with a wrist device attached to it fell to the floor.

Thud!

***

“Henrick,” Iris said.

“What is it?” Henrick asked.

“Whitey has died,” Iris said.

Henrick, who had been fiddling with his sculpting knife, suddenly stopped fidgeting and asked, “Who’s Whitey?”

“The white horse I was riding!” Iris shouted, tears welling up in her eyes.

Henrick awkwardly scratched the back of his head and asked, “Then… Are we having horse meat for lunch?”

Whoosh!

“Hap!” Henrick exclaimed as he ducked hurriedly and avoided Iris’ fist aimed at his midsection.

“Henrick is bad!” Iris screamed, before running away in tears.

Henrick was dumbfounded by the turn of events, and he put away the sculpting knife and the piece of wood he was sculpting.

Shaneth let out a sigh, approaching Henrick and saying, “Have some sympathy at least, ahjussi.”

“Yeah, I think the horse meat comment was too mean, now that I think about it. I guess I should’ve told her that we would hold a funeral ceremony for the horse for four days and nights,” Henrick grumbled.

“You’re pretty quick-witted at times, but you don’t seem to understand women at all,” Shaneth said.

“She’s not even going to be my woman, so why should I care to understand her?” Henrick said, sounding annoyed.

“You might end up regretting not understanding women earlier if you end up with a woman later,” Shaneth said.

“Hey, you punk. Which woman do you think would even want to be with a man like me?” Henrick shot back as he dusted his pants and got up from the ground. He wondered, “But why did the horse die all of a sudden?”

“It’s not only Iris unni’s white horse. All of our horses were also dead all of a sudden when we woke up this morning,” Shaneth said as they both walked to where the horses had been tied up.

There were four horses lying on the ground underneath a large tree. They were not breathing at all and their eyes were out of focus.

“Why the hell did these fellas die all of a sudden?” Henrick exclaimed.

“Sudden Death Syndrome.”

“Ah! Are you a ghost or something? Can’t you make a sound or something before you show up?” Henrick exclaimed, jumping in fright.

“Where did you go so early in the morning?” Shaneth asked.

“To collect some medicinal herbs in the forest,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied as he observed the dead horses. He noticed that all of the horses had purple spots of some sort on their bodies.

‘Sudden Death Syndrome spreads quickly to anything that comes in contact with the corpses, and the bacteria won’t die from normal antiseptics,’ Kang Yoon-Soo thought.

A black magician who spread that disease lived at the edge of the forest. He not only spread various kinds of disease and pestilence, but also made corpses rot, making it difficult for them to be resurrected and used as undead.

‘But the investigators will take care of that guy,’ Kang Yoon-Soo thought.

That was the reason why Kang Yoon-Soo had asked Halven to request for 1st Grade investigators to be dispatched to the forest.

‘The black magician who’s spreading the disease is a nuisance to kill. It’ll be better to not waste any time with the nuisance and let the investigators take care of him instead,’ Kang Yoon-Soo thought. He had decided to let others take care of difficult and unrewarding tasks, since he now had a mountain of tasks to finish as soon as possible before the Demon Lord appeared.

“Let’s walk the rest of the way,” Kang Yoon-Soo said.

“Can’t you just raise the horses as undead?” Henrick grumbled.

“They’ve rotted, and it’s dangerous to ride them,” Kang Yoon-Soo explained. He took out a large flat dish and started to crush the medicinal herbs he had foraged from the forest; he then mixed the thick paste he had made with the strongest alcohol he had.

“Drink it,” Kang Yoon-Soo said.

“W-what is this…?” Shaneth asked nervously.

“You won’t get the disease that causes Sudden Death Syndrome if you drink this,” Kang Yoon-Soo explained.

Shaneth scrunched her face up as she drank the medicinal concoction, which tasted extremely bitter. Kang Yoon-Soo and Henrick gulped it down as well.

“Where is Iris unni?” Shaneth asked. She looked around all over the place, but could not find Iris.

Henrick raised an eyebrow and said, “Did she get lost in the forest or something?”

Then, Kang Yoon-Soo went into the forest. He came back out in less than thirty minutes, dragging Iris by the wrist.

“I want to see Whitey alive again,” Iris said, her eyes red from crying.

Kang Yoon-Soo extended the medicinal concoction toward her and said, “Drink it.”

Iris gulped it down without even leaving a drop behind before sighing and saying, “I have no appetite…”

“Don’t people usually say that before they eat…?” Henrick grumbled. Then, he looked at the horses’ corpses and saw that an army of flies had already made their way over, buzzing fiercely.

“I have a bad feeling these guys will cause an outbreak if we just leave them be…” Henrick said.

“Then what should we do?” Shaneth asked.

“What else? Let’s burn them,” Henrick replied.

Iris glared at Henrick and said tearfully, “Henrick is ruthless, emotionless, and stupid.”

“It’s called being realistic,” Henrick said with a shrug.

Shaneth looked at Iris for a moment before approaching her and asking, “Can we burn them now, unni?”

“Give me a moment,” Iris said. She walked toward the white horse’s corpse and whispered something into its ears, then got up and said, “You can burn them now.”

“Pyrokinesis,” Shaneth muttered.

Fwaaaah!

A stream of flame shot out from Shaneth’s hand, engulfing the horses and burning them. Shaneth’s control over her flame had significantly risen across their travels, and she carefully controlled it so as not to burn the entire forest down.

Iris leaned on Shaneth as she sniffled at the sight of the horses burning. Shaneth asked Iris out of curiosity, “What did you whisper, unni?”

“I told Whitey to be reborn as my child in the future,” Iris replied.

“It’ll happen if you wish for it,” Shaneth said in consolation. Henrick could not say anything and just clicked his tongue.

“Let us go. I do not wish to see Whitey burn any longer,” Iris said. The trio packed up their belongings and walked up the road.

Meanwhile, Kang Yoon-Soo stayed behind and watched the horses burn, then collected a horse bone that was covered with purple spots. Then, he carefully wrapped it in a handkerchief and placed it in one corner of his backpack.

“What are you doing?” Henrick called out.

“I’m coming,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied.

***

David wiped his blood-drenched hands in front of twenty-nine Travelers lined up before him. The Travelers were from diverse backgrounds—Mongolian, Lebanese, East Timorese, and the like.

‘I’ve got quite the variety,’ he thought. Checking the nationality of his victims was a habit he had had for a long time. However, that habit of his was what had led to his capture back in the real world.

‘There was that woman who managed to escape before I got to kill her,’ David reminisced.

David had been a convict on death row, and his crimes as a serial killer were so heavy that the chance of him getting out on parole had immediately been denied by the courts. Additionally, he had the hobby of stitching together his victims’ body parts.

‘I never knew my hobby back in the real world would be helpful over here.’

He had been transported to this world, which had made him extremely happy. The prison that had held him was no longer there, and he could have a fresh start—which was why he let his instincts go wild.

‘How many have I killed so far?’ he thought.

He had never cared what his level was, or what remained back in the real world.

‘I’ll kill until I die.’ That was his natural instinct.

This ruin was where David was transferred to when he was summoned from the real world to this world, but it did not have any monsters inhabiting it, and at first was only littered with various kinds of crafting tools.

He immediately knew as soon as he was summoned to this world that it was a dog-eat-dog world. He thought to himself, ‘I have to kill to survive in this place.’

He mercilessly killed all of the other people he had been summoned with, and did not leave a single one alive. Then, a message popped up from his wrist device when he killed the final one.

[You have become the new owner of the Shy Doll Ruin.]

[This is a desolate ruin with no monsters inhabiting it.]

[You will obtain additional experience points if you kill intruders entering the ruin.]

[You will unlock additional abilities when you upgrade the ruin.]

[Will you become the successor of Madman Rick?]

‘It’s like a defense game.’

He had played a few games that were similar back in the real world; they were about becoming the dungeon boss and killing all of the intruders to defend the dungeon. However, David could not understand the final phrase.

‘Madman Rick?’ He had no idea what that meant and who Rick was, but he liked the word ‘madman’ used to describe Rick.

“I’ll accept and become his successor,” David said. A wave of new knowledge flooded his mind, and he instantly learned how to use the Body Crafting Kit, which he had never seen before in his life.

He started to stitch the corpses of the Travelers who had arrived with him into dolls. He also killed any intruders who entered the ruin and turned them into dolls.

[You have obtained the final masterpiece as the successor of Madman Rick.]

[Only a person who has reached the peak of crafting and puppeteering can use this.]

[The number of combat dolls stationed in the ruin has exceeded 500.]

[You are now able to install arrow traps and poison puddles in the ruin.]

[You have installed the traps in the ruin very well.]

[You have obtained the knowledge to craft a new and more powerful combat doll.]

[You have killed more than 200 intruders in a month.]

[The ruin has reached Level 5!]

[You are now eligible for class advancement.]

David advanced into the class of ‘Ruin Master’. It was a unique class that allowed the holder to become the boss of the ruin they owned. With that, he thought, ‘I can freely kill more people in this world.’

He immediately started going to work turning twenty-nine corpses into dolls, and stationed them in various places to guard the ruin. After a while, the ruin had grown to house more than 1,500 combat dolls and there were just as many traps installed in it.

“It’s getting boring…” David said with a sigh.

The ruin had grown exponentially, but any intruders were very easily taken care of and did not even manage to properly enter the ruin. David no longer felt the thrill of killing his prey, and he had too much time on his hands these days.

Right when he was severely bored and unmotivated, however, his wrist device suddenly vibrated.

Brrrr!

[A group of travelers has been spotted near the ruin.]

[It consists of a single Traveler, two Continentals, and one monster.]

David had developed a hobby of abducting Travelers and turning them into dolls due to his boredom. He noted the location displayed on his wrist device. It was an ability granted to the Ruin Master class.

‘I hope it’s someone who can entertain me this time…’ David thought as he left his ruin.