Chapter 461: 427 ’Magical Puppet
———[Memory Manipulation].
As the name suggests, this is a magic that can manipulate an individual’s memory.
This magic can browse, erase, or even alter the memory of the target to collect intelligence or create false information. It ranks among the topmost intelligence-related magic, positioned as a powerful tenth-tier magic.
However, this magic has a flaw—it consumes a tremendous amount of Magic Power.
Like [Instant Severance], also a tenth-tier magic, [Memory Manipulation] consumes even more Magic Power. In the world of Overlord, even a fully leveled player with immense Magic Power like Ainz would exhaust all his Magic Power in a very short time once he used this magic.
Therefore, even Ainz rarely used this magic, as its cost-effectiveness was low. If one was solely pursuing efficiency in collecting intelligence, there were many more convenient intelligence-related magics available.
Even if Reiger, who possessed the highest level of "Spiritual Healing" and could recover his consumed spiritual power at an incredibly fast rate, used this magic, he might still experience the sensation of exhaustion of Magic Power and depletion of spiritual power for the first time because the recovery rate couldn’t keep up with the consumption rate.
But compared to others, Reiger could definitely last longer.
Thus, to uncover the origins of these Heartless, Reiger decided to use this magic and peer into the Heartless’s memories.
Subsequently, Reiger allowed his consciousness to delve into the memory domain of the Heartless, accompanied by the activation of the magic.
What surprised Reiger was that this Heartless had remarkably few memories, roughly equivalent to just a few years’ worth.
"This guy only has memories of the recent few years?"
Reiger frowned at this, but still began to explore these memories, opening them all up.
If it were someone else, Reiger wouldn’t dare to be so forceful.
Memory is a very fragile domain, and if the means of interference with this fragile domain are not delicate enough, it wouldn’t be surprising to affect the owner of these memories in any way.
One misstep, and Reiger could potentially damage someone else’s brain area, causing errors in their memory and even their cognitive abilities.
However, given that his target was someone with the intent to kill him and even attack those around him, Reiger naturally wouldn’t care about the subject’s life or death.
Therefore, to save time and Magic Power, Reiger forcefully flipped through the Heartless’s memories, indifferent to the consequences for the Heartless.
Thanks to this, Reiger successfully read the memories of the Heartless.
The first memory he accessed was of the day this person was born into the world.
At that time, the Heartless appeared to be lying in a dark place, his eyes not even open yet, when two voices sounded beside his ear.
"It seems we succeeded this time."
"Yes, after wasting so many people, we finally succeeded with another one."
"The efficiency really isn’t high. Can’t we think of a way to increase the success rate?"
"Be content. One of these quality magic automata can occupy a Sword Saint alone. Being able to mass-produce like this is definitely a miracle. If those great nations find out about this, they will definitely spare no expense to acquire this technology."
"...Perhaps it’s also a kind of fate that this technology fell into our hands?"
"I just want to use modern Magic Technology to recreate this technique, but unfortunately, after trying for so long, I still can’t see any hope."
"Since even you can’t recreate this technology, probably no one in the world can."
"...There is still one person."
"Oh? You mean that one?"
"Hmph..."
"Anyway, you are the only one among us who can use this technology to create magic automata. We will help you collect the materials; just focus on producing the automata."
"I don’t mind, as long as I can interpret the precious knowledge left by the ancient magic civilization. I am willing to do anything."
"I know, and that is why we trust you..."
The conversation ended here.
Perhaps the Heartless fell into a coma afterward, and for a long time, his memories were blank.
When the Heartless regained consciousness, he had already arrived at an unknown location, where he encountered many of his kind.
Then, the tedious life of the Heartless began.
They didn’t need food or sleep, and, like true puppets, they didn’t even feel fatigue. Their consciousness contained none of the numerous and mixed thoughts of humans, only an action instinct that seemed innate, driving them to follow someone’s orders and act accordingly.
The Heartless didn’t know who this person was. They had never seen his face, but whenever there was an order, the content of the order would naturally appear in their minds.
In the absence of orders, they would hide in deep mountains, forests, or even bury themselves in the soil, where they would hibernate.
In their memories, there was also no common knowledge of human society. Should the mission require, they must acquire certain information; this information would naturally emerge in their minds as well.
Like this time, the command received by these heartless ones was to eliminate Reiger, and then information on Reiger’s appearance, strength, and location flooded into their minds, prompting them to immediately spring into action.
In this operation, they received two more instructions.
One was to take those chains from another of their kind.
The other was to proceed to a location, and meet with the divine beast residing there, enter its body, and wait for the right moment.
Reiger saw that counterpart, who had the same rigid, dead-like face as those heartless ones, with no other distinguishing features.
Reiger also saw the so-called divine beast; however, all he saw was a huge black shadow suddenly appearing below the heartless ones’ feet, and immediately after, these heartless ones appeared in this cave.
The memory ended there.
"..."
Reiger silently moved his hand away from the head of the heartless one in front of him.
By now, this heartless one had fallen into a catatonic state, resembling a vegetative person.
Reiger’s ruthless Memory Reading method had, after all, impacted this heartless one.
However, Reiger didn’t concern himself with that fact and muttered to himself.
"Magic puppet... huh?"
As expected, these heartless beings without hearts were not humans, but dolls created by someone.
Moreover, from the conversation between two voices heard at the moment of these heartless ones’ creation, it could be understood that the technology to create these Magic Puppets was passed down from an ancient magic civilization, which had fallen into the hands of certain people. These people then utilized this technology to mass-produce these Magic Puppets.
But, creating these Magic Puppets wasn’t easy.
Firstly, among those orchestrating from behind the scenes, only one could utilize this ancient magic civilization’s technology to manufacture Magic Puppets.
Secondly, the production of Magic Puppets was seldom successful.
Last, creating these Magic Puppets required sacrificing many people.
"So a clue comes to light."
Reiger understood.
The reason there were so many disappearances in the Meplor territory was that those who mastered the technology to produce Magic Puppets needed living people as material.
They either collaborated with the local rulers or fulfilled other tasks through different channels to acquire a large number of people.
All this was for the production of Magic Puppets, capable of engaging even a Sword Saint in combat.
Reiger made such guesses and performed Memory Reading on the other three heartless ones... that is, Magic Puppets, eventually confirming his suspicions.
The problem was...
"Who are these people?"
"What do they want with so many powerful ancient Magic Puppets?"
"They say I would interfere with their plans; does that mean they don’t want me involved in this matter?"
This truly was interesting.
"Regrettably, I couldn’t obtain any information about that cold, eerie energy; there’s not a shred of information about this energy in the memories of these Magic Puppets."
In the memories of these Magic Puppets, they only knew that this chill energy was innate, serving various purposes—it could paralyze someone like it did Liz before, rendering them immobile, and it could also afflict the human body in various ways. Once touched by this energy, even a Sword Saint would be entangled and severely weakened.
Reiger’s earlier feeling was accurate—a typical Lv.7 would likely be killed outright by these Magic Puppets if they were unaware of this cold energy and were ambushed by it, possibly meeting their demise in front of these Magic Puppets.
Additionally, whether it was the ferocious, claw-like weapons these Magic Puppets used, or the chains filled with cold energy, in their memories, all these items were referred to as sacred artifacts.
Especially those chains, they seemed to be high-ranking weaponry among these so-called sacred artifacts; initially, these Magic Puppets didn’t possess them, nor did the other Magic Puppets, until they received orders to eliminate Reiger and then they obtained these sacred artifacts as a boost from the masterminds behind the scenes.
"Were these sacred artifacts also made using technology left by the ancient magic civilization?"
That was the only explanation.
Otherwise, if such technology capable of making weapons that even Reiger, as a Sword Saint, instinctively guarded against had emerged in the modern magic civilization, this technology would certainly have become famous throughout the entire Akashic continent.
"Divine beast..."
Reiger then lifted his eyelids and looked around the cave.
Not long after, Reiger flew to the other side of the cave, leaving only the remnants of those Magic Puppets and numerous beetle magical creature bodies around to prove the unrest that had once taken place here.