It was a fine day today. Beyond Windrock City, there was not a cloud in the sky for miles. Due to the snowfall yesterday, everywhere one looked, the entire elven plains were blanketed in white. The weather was not too cold. A gentle wind blew, carrying a touch of winter’s crispness.
A neatly arrayed troop of soldiers was slowly departing from Windrock City. This was the city’s garrison. Lord Kevin, clad in full armour, led them personally. In the midst of the column were two luxurious carriages. One carried Ye Dui, Debbie, and the others from the Nameless Magic Guild. The other bore Cass and Windsor, with Reni at the reins.
When the convoy had travelled a dozen or so li beyond Windrock City, it halted.
“I shall see you off this far. Follow this road onwards. You should reach Grey Wind Station by evening and rest there briefly.” As Ye Dui poked his head out from the carriage compartment, Lord Kevin rode up and said. His face beneath the helmet was somewhat stern and cold. He continued, “Do you truly need no detachment of soldiers from me to escort you to the capital?”
“No need. That would draw too much attention. Better to travel light as we are now.” Ye Dui refused with a smile. Standing on the carriage, he stretched lazily and surveyed the surroundings.
“Are you certain?” Lord Kevin seemed uneasy. Of course, he did not appear to care for Ye Dui personally. It was simply that Cass and Windsor’s marriage had bound him to Ye Dui’s camp. He had to consider Ye Dui’s safety.
Cass and Windsor’s wedding had passed two days ago. The news that Ye Dui was the old emperor’s illegitimate son had reached his ears through certain channels in those days. Yet so too had word of several factions scheming to ambush Ye Dui and prevent his return to the capital.
“Fear not. I can ensure my own safety.” Ye Dui replied to Lord Kevin with a smile.
“I do not understand why Prince Geller did not detach some of his black-armoured guards to protect you!” Lord Kevin was puzzled by this. Prince Geller had left Windrock City that afternoon after the wedding. Trouble had arisen on the empire’s northern border. He needed to head there en route to suppress the threat. It was no great matter. The northern barbarian tribes stirred trouble yearly. Prince Geller’s black-armoured guards need only show their banner to make the barbarians surrender meekly. He had no need to go personally. Yet for some reason, this time he had decided thus, leaving this key figure unattended?
“Truth and falsehood intermingle. Prince Geller must have his reasons.” Ye Dui reassured Lord Kevin. He had already jumped down from the carriage. Inside the compartment, Lessa, Debbie, and Guni followed suit, leaping out one after another.
“I know what Prince Geller is thinking.” Lord Kevin said coldly. He believed Prince Geller had refrained from assigning guards to avoid drawing eyes to Ye Dui. But now that Ye Dui’s status as the illegitimate son was all but public knowledge, what effect could it have? He said to Ye Dui, “But I think it pointless. In truth, once my garrison leaves you, you will be ambushed at once. My shadow swordsmen inform me that the first guild in Windrock City, the five-star guild Blue Puppet Magic Guild, has accepted a commission to assassinate you. They may even now lurk somewhere, ready to strike!”
“Is that so?” Ye Dui showed no surprise at the news. Instead, he smiled at Lord Kevin. “After Cass and Windsor’s wedding, we could have departed Windrock City immediately. Why do you suppose I lingered there for two more days?”
Lord Kevin paused. “Why?”
Indeed, two days prior, Ye Dui’s group could have left Windrock City. Yet he had idled there without purpose for another two days. Lord Kevin’s guards reported that Ye Dui had done naught but shop, buying a jumble of sundries, all daily necessities. Could there be some deeper meaning?
Ye Dui smiled mysteriously at Lord Kevin, then answered, “Because today is Saturday. Let me tell you, on Saturdays, I am invincible.”
Lord Kevin: “?”
By now, Ye Dui and the others had gathered at Cass and Windsor’s carriage. Ye Dui, Green, and Cass embraced in farewell. Debbie, Lessa, and Guni each hugged Windsor in turn. Here they would part ways. Ye Dui’s group headed for the capital, while Cass would take Windsor back to Stan Town and resume his role as mayor. His old comrade Reni would accompany them.
In truth, Cass had originally wished to join Ye Dui. He knew assaults lay ahead for him. But Ye Dui refused and told him to manage Stan Town well. If they faltered outside, they might yet return there.
“Farewell. The folk of Stan Town will always stand by you.” Cass clapped Ye Dui’s shoulder firmly.
“Heh, until our next visit to Stan Town.” Ye Dui teased, glancing at Windsor beside him with a smile. “I hope to see your little one by then.”
This made Windsor’s face flush crimson, while Cass let out a hearty laugh.
Their words were few. After bidding farewell to Cass, Windsor, and Lord Kevin, the scarred Reni turned west towards Stan Town.
Lord Kevin, his face cold, admonished Ye Dui once more to beware ambushes, then led his troops back to Windrock City.
Ye Dui, Debbie, Lessa, Guni, Green, and Jacob, the full roster of the Nameless Magic Guild, boarded their carriage and pressed south. In no time, Windrock City’s forces had vanished from sight.
In the warm carriage interior, a small stove burned. Ye Dui and the girls clustered around it, nibbling pastries and chatting. Green and Jacob alternated at the reins. When Jacob relieved Green, the latter clambered inside. He huffed into his palms for warmth and asked Ye Dui, “Guildmaster, will there truly be an attack on us?”
“Of course. Did not Lord Kevin just say? Windrock’s premier guild has taken the commission against us.” Ye Dui said with a smile, treating the matter lightly.
Green’s face grew tense. “The Blue Puppet Magic Guild. I have heard of them these past days. Their guild possesses a War God puppet from the age of the gods. They say it wields the might of a greatsword master. It is thanks to that War God puppet that they rose to five-star status. This time, they are like as not to deploy it against us!”
Green’s voice grew ever more anxious.
“I know this already.” Debbie chimed in. “Lord Kevin’s steward sought me out specially to mention it.”
“And you are not worried?” Green asked.
“Fear not. This puppet is not so formidable as rumour holds.” Ye Dui shook his head.
His Safety Guardian auto-activated to summon Jarvis. In the age of the gods, Jarvis was the god of puppets. He knew such things as the War God puppet intimately. While in Windrock City, Ye Dui had anticipated moves by the major guilds. Thus, he had entered the dream world to confer with Jarvis. From him, he learned the so-called War God puppet could indeed unleash greatsword master power, but only raw strength. Its actions and reactions were stiff and rote. Its true combat prowess fell short of a novice swordsman, or at best a middling advanced one. No cause for concern.
What more, today Ye Dui could cheat besides.
At that moment, the advancing carriage jolted to a stop. Jacob’s panicked voice carried into the compartment. “Guildmaster, folk block the road ahead. It looks to be the Blue Puppet Magic Guild!”
“Heh, speak of them, and they appear.” Ye Dui’s eyes lit up. He ducked out from the carriage. Debbie, Green, and the others followed.
In the snow ahead stood thirteen magic tutors. They wore black robes emblazoned with a blue puppet figure, marking their Blue Puppet Magic Guild. Besides these thirteen, there loomed a towering puppet warrior.
The puppet warrior stood two and a half metres tall, though it appeared much the worse for wear. Some parts were fully damaged, exposing inner mechanisms and magical runes. In his dream world, Ye Dui had seen Jarvis damaged thus, but Jarvis’s construction was far more intricate than this so-called War God puppet. And Jarvis could self-repair.
Puppets were artefacts from the age of the gods, substitutes for human fighters. Powered by magic, akin to robots. With the gods’ fall, puppet-making arts were lost. Those puppets extant today were relics from that era.
“Oh my, it seems you have waited here a good while?” Ye Dui noted the tutors’ noses reddened with cold and said smilingly.
“To kill you, what is a little chill?” Sneered an old magic tutor with white whiskers among the thirteen. “Ye Dui, or should I say Thirteenth Prince? Heh, who would have thought the one who turned Windrock City upside down of late was the old emperor’s bastard to boot? Pity, someone has paid one hundred thousand gold for your head. Your life is forfeit to the Blue Puppet Magic Guild!”
“One hundred thousand gold?” Ye Dui found the price agreeable. One hundred thousand gold could buy five luxury manors in the capital. He asked, “Might you tell us who bought my life?”
“What need for the dying to know? I shall whisper it in hell!” Bellowed a burly middle-aged magic tutor. “No more talk, lads. This boy is full of tricks. Let us power the War God and strike!”
With that, he summoned his grimoire. The War God puppet stirred. As the other magic tutors summoned theirs in turn, the puppet seemed fully alive. It flexed, emitting a series of clanks.
“They say the age of the gods brimmed with mana-rich crystals for puppet cores. But now crystals are scarce and precious. We magic tutors must supply the mana. In past outings of the War God, seven sufficed. Today, thirteen of us. Ye Dui, you are doomed!”
The white-whiskered old tutor shouted. With his words, the War God puppet charged.
It lunged at Ye Dui with a hideous snarl.
Jacob started, crying out in alarm. He glanced frantically at Green, Debbie, and the others beside him, only to find them unperturbed by the onrushing puppet. Debbie even wore a faint cold smile, arms folded as if watching a show.
This…
In his shock, Jacob heard a boom. The puppet’s pot-sized fist hammered towards Ye Dui’s face, only to be steadily blocked by another figure half its chest height, a bald man.
Teacher Saitama!
One Punch Hero raised an arm to catch the fist, his eyes curiously scanning about. “So it is winter here already…”
Clang. The puppet’s other fist smashed into Saitama’s head.
Saitama’s head swung like a sandbag. Fury kindled in his eyes. How dare you strike without cause? His free fist rose in wrath.
“Pour all your mana into it!”
One of the thirteen powering the puppet yelled urgently. The War God’s charge had been halted by this bald stranger from nowhere?
But luck would not hold next!
Then…
What followed left them utterly dumbfounded. Boom. In their sight, the mighty puppet, mountain-like, shattered. Its back cracked first. Parts flew apart in a cascade, clattering like a painstakingly built block tower deprived of its base. The whole edifice toppled. The colossal frame dissolved into scattered scrap.
With the puppet gone, Teacher Saitama held his punching pose. In his other hand, he gripped one of the puppet’s arms.
“Oops, sorry for breaking your toy.” One Punch Hero tossed the severed limb at the thirteen old magic tutors offhandedly. His face held a baffled apology. He even scratched his bald head.
The thirteen old magic tutors: “Toy!?”
“You, you destroyed our puppet!” One tutor recovered and cried in fury.
“The War God puppet, shattered just like that…”
“This, this cannot be real…” The white-whiskered tutor sank to his knees. He stared at the severed arm in horror. But soon shock turned to rage. “Kill them! Charge, lads. Slay him! The Blue Puppet Magic Guild owes its fame to that puppet! They have ruined our guild!”
Several tutors adopted attack stances.
“Guni!” Ye Dui turned and called behind him. He opened his grimoire’s storage space. The hilt of the dragon ant greatsword protruded. “These magic tutors have long relied on the War God for battle, treating themselves as batteries. Their power is feeble. Go, cut them down!”
