After we enjoyed our bath full of skinship, Karen and I made our way back to our wagon. Rina first wanted to come along and join but thankfully, Lily was able to read the mood and stopped her.
Seriously, after she enjoyed touching everyone all over in the bath she still wanted more? Rather greedy she was.

“Yumi, what did you want to fetch from Ria’s place anyway?”
“Nn? Ah, we collected the remains from the puppet and I wanted to bring them along.”
“The remains?”
“Nn. Everything we found, at least.”

Seeing how some splinters were the size of my fingernail, we weren’t able to find everything. And who knew how far they really flew around. Not like it mattered, really. Not even Korwen would complain about that… right?

“Hmm… You’re still curious about them?”
“Nn? Well, of course I am… Those puppets seemed pretty dangerous to me. But they’re similar to my dolls, so I wonder what the difference was…”

The size was of course one difference then. And they were carved. But was that enough to make such a difference in performance?
Also, how did they even manage to animate those puppets? When I tried I completely lost control of the mana and it also needed quite a bit of it too.
To be honest, how couldn’t I be curious about all this? Although, having it explode into my face sure wasn’t pleasant and still worried me a little.

“Dangerous, you say…”
“... Sis, I know I’m not the best person to judge that. But even I could see that they were pretty strong. Also, if they weren’t strong, she wouldn’t have brought them in the first place.”

After all, they seemed to be her bodyguards. And she immediately retreated the very moment they were out of commission. Maybe she was a bad fighter as well, just like me.

“I guess you got a point…”
“Nn.”

Glad she agreed.
Then again, she had seen neither the puppets nor Yumelia herself, so her doubt was quite reasonable.

“Yumi.”
“Nn?”
“When you filled that puppet with mana, did you notice anything strange?”
“Strange? Well… It kept wanting more and more mana. As if it was bottomless. And the mana didn’t settle down in the least.”
“It didn’t settle down?”

Her head turned around and her silver eyes stared at me in wonder.

“Nn… How to say it… See, when I’m giving mana to the dolls, the quantity doesn’t feel like it matters, but the mana stays inside. I didn’t really think about that when I tried it with the puppet, but it was like… the mana wasn’t accepted at all?”

The dolls were fine even with very little mana. They’d just immediately stop moving again without a mana crystal. But the puppet didn’t take my mana and I could really feel how the mana was trying to slip away.

“It wasn’t accepted?”
“Nn. It was weird, now that I think about it.”
“... Maybe the problem isn’t the amount of mana?”
“... Maybe.”

That thought had crossed my mind as well. But then, what had been the issue?
The more we talked about this, the more I wanted to find it out.

“Ah, there’s Ria’s tent. But it doesn’t seem someone’s inside.”
“She said she’d leave them there so… Ah, there, that bag.”

A rather large bag was right next to the entrance. Karen approached it and then peeked inside.

“Lots of wood. Seems this is the right one.”
“Nn. Let’s take it back with us then.”
“Okay.”

Karen lifted the bag and hoisted it over her shoulder. She made it look so simple but… That bag was quite heavy… I really was a bit envious of that strength.

“Let’s go.”
“Nn.”

---

After we arrived at our wagon we said good night to my escort. He apparently would stay around a little longer, though, so if there was something wrong we shouldn’t hesitate to call on him. He wasn’t going to stay there the entire night, was he?

“Ahh… This bed is great…”
“Yumi… And here I thought you would immediately try something with those wood remains…”
“Ehhh? This is this and that is that.”

A bed, how long had it been since I could just let myself fall down onto a bed in the evening? Barely a month. Or already a month, depending on how you looked at it. Either way, it was a long time for me.

“So, you want to sleep now?”
“Nn… No, I’ll just lie down a little… I’ll come in a moment.”
“... I have the feeling that won’t happen.”
“...”

I shouldn’t tell her that I thought the same thing…
But on the other hand, once laid down… It was so hard to get back up. And the longer you were laying there, the worse it’d get.

Probably should force myself up then…

Realising the small predicament I was in, I sat up and quickly left the bed. The temptation was strong. But thankfully there was something even better around.

“Sis, could you sit down?”
“I can? Why do you… Ahhh...“

With a wry smile, Karen sat onto the chair in front of the desk and patted her lap, telling me to sit down.

“Nn… This is the best place, after all.”
“... You’re quite spoiled, you know? What should I just do about you?”
“You could spoil me even more.”
“I won’t. If I do, you won’t ever do anything.”
“Eh? I’m… I’m not that bad.”
“...”
“... Right?”

Hey, this silence scared me? I wasn’t that bad, was I? Sure, I could admit that I was a little lazy but I would surely not turn out that bad. I wouldn’t turn into a useless bum just because of a little spoiling.

“Let’s just keep it at that. There’s no need to find out anyway, right, Yumi?”
“... Nn.”

True, there wasn’t… How unfortunate. I’d put it as my future goals to get Karen to spoil me rotten.

“Yumi.”
“Sis?”
“You know, I love seeing you spoiled, but I also love it when you work hard.”
“... You’re really unfair. Aren’t you the one who is sly?”

If she said something like that I had no choice but to work, did I?

“I’ll be as unfair as I have to be if it’s for you.”
“You’re really unfair, you know?”
“Ehehe.”
No, laughing isn’t going to cover that up.

Really… I was going to hug her really hard for the entire night after this for sure. And I was going to bury my face in her chest and all the other stuff. Yeah, that sounded good. Now I was really motivated.

“Sis, can you give me some of the wood. I can’t reach it from here.”
“Ah, yes, one second. Here, take as much as you need.”
“Nn, thank you.”

After taking an armful of wooden pieces from the bag, I spread them out on the table. Cautiously, of course. Splinters could hurt quite a lot.
There were all kinds of sizes of splinters. Most were actually decently large, a little larger than my fist. You could still see the smooth, carved parts on some of them. And you could obviously also see the places where the puppet was ripped apart…

“Nn… Sis, what kind of wood is this?”
“What kind of wood? I don’t know…”
“I see… It looks different than the trees around here, doesn’t it?”

The wood was quite a bit darker than the wood I had gotten in the forest or from the mercenaries for the dolls. Rather than brown it was more a dark grey.

“I might be able to tell you if I could see the tree but… I think Ria or the craftsmen know more about that.”
“Nn… I guess so…”

Well, the wood might have been one reason for the difference after all. With that said, I’d probably find out soon enough if it was. I only had to mould this now and… Huh? Uhhh…

“Mmm… This is weird…”
“Yumi?”
“One moment…”

I was trying to mould it with Life mana again but… The wood was still hard. I couldn’t mould it at all.

“Sis, can you try moulding it again? I’ll keep the mana up.”
“Eh? Okay?”

I handed Karen the piece of wood while making sure it was still close enough for me to keep up the mana supply.

“Huh? This…”

Karen grabbed the piece of wood with both her hands and squeezed it as strong as could. It was changing in form but… Even Karen’s strength was barely enough.

“This is quite hard.”
“Nn… Actually, maybe that’s why they were carved instead?”
“Maybe… Can’t you try using more mana?”
“Not without a mana crystal.”
“I see… Then, let’s try with some.”
“Eh?”

Karen took a few mana crystals from her bag and handed them to me.

“Nn… I don’t know if I can keep that up for long, though.”
“As long as it won’t explode again.”
“It… won’t.”

The amount of mana I had used with that puppet was significantly more than the amount we were going to use just for moulding this. I still should be careful. Even if the amount of mana was less, an explosion from point blank would hurt for sure, no matter how weak it was.

“I’ll start now, Sis.”
“Okay.”

After extracting the mana from the crystal, I tried to add it to the already existing mana in the wood. Proved to be a little harder than expected. I never really paid attention to the amount of mana I used for this and adding mana suddenly was… It felt like stuffing an already full bag even more. I was worried it might actually burst for a moment but despite the slight difficulty of adding the mana, it still accepted it for the moulding. Odd that this worked, more or less.

“Oh, it’s gone softer.”
“Nn… So the amount of mana makes a difference.”
“Seems so. So, what should I do with this now. It’s become softer but it’s still pretty stiff.”
“I see… Let’s use some more wood and make a doll out of it.”
“Okay.”

Of course, adding more wood also meant adding more mana. I had the subtle feeling that I understood how difficult making a human-sized puppet actually was. The more wood was used, the more mana I had to use to soften it. And if that was the case…

“They might have just carved it because it’s too difficult…”
“Yumi?”
“Nn? Ah, sorry. Let’s finish this first.”

I had to concentrate. Stray thoughts would just get in the way right now.
It took us a short while, but we finally managed to make a doll. Probably due to the hardness it was a little rougher than the others, though.

“So, Yumi, what did you mean with difficult?”
“Nn, Ria and the Elder theorised that they are just imitating this kind of magic, right? But with wood this hard, wouldn’t it be possible that they just decided it was too troublesome and they carved them instead?”

If Karen wasn’t here, I would have had no idea how to process this wood at all. Even with more mana added, I still couldn’t even make a dent into the wood.

“And with such a large amount of wood, they’d need a lot of mana to soften it, right?”
“Mm… That might be true… But Yumi, can’t you soften only a part of it?”
“... Ah.”

Yes, I could.
That slipped my mind.

“Nn… They’d still need someone with quite a bit of strength to mould it, though.”
“But it’s not impossible.”
“It isn’t. But at that point, they still might rather opt for the carving, wouldn’t they?”
“... They might.”

I sure hoped there was a good reason they used this hard as hell wood, though.
Like, come on, the wood I used was significantly easier to deal with.

“We should tell them tomorrow.”
“Nn. We might find out more as well.”
“True. So, are you trying to animate it now.”
“Nn.”

This time, I had to be more careful, though. If it didn’t seem to accept the mana, I’d first have to look for a different method. No brute force approach this time.

“Let’s see...“

I provided the doll with some mana in an attempt to bring it to life.

“... It’s not working, huh.”
“The same as with the puppet?”
“Nn. It doesn’t work at all.”

This was weird…
The wood was taking the mana if I intended to mould it but if I tried anything else… Nothing happened. Well, even moulding proved to be difficult, but it worked at the very least.

“Maybe you should try with a mana egg?”
“Nn… Guess so.”

That would lower the chances of it exploding as well. That alone was already quite a bit better. Should’ve thought of that earlier with the puppet as… Huh?

“Sis…”
“Yes?”
“Did the puppet have a mana crystal?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Nn… How did it work without one? Even assuming it would have accepted my mana… How did it continue working?”
“... Ah. You’re right.”

If the puppet had no mana crystal it shouldn’t be able to run for long. In fact, if the consumption was larger with the size as well, it probably would barely run an hour, if at all. It wouldn’t surprise me if it would stop moving within a few minutes.

“That’s weird… How was it moving?”
“Maybe it had a mana crystal?”
“Nn… I am sure Ria or the Elder would have mentioned that, though… Or did they mention it? No, wait, didn’t they say something that it had one but it broke?”
“... I think they might have said that.”

It sure felt like they had told us that… Well, no use in speculating about whether they had or not. We could just ask them again later.

“Let’s just try it out for now with the mana egg… Sis, can you hand me some more mana crystals?”
“I can.”

After making a mana egg from the crystals she handed me, I tried to insert it into the newly made doll. Only for me to fail…

“... Sis, can you do it please?”

The mana egg didn’t just sink into the doll and I had nowhere near enough strength to push it inside.
Thankfully, Karen could do it just fine.

“It’s still not moving, Yumi.”
“I wonder why…”

It had a mana crystal, the form of a doll and so on. But it didn’t work. Were we overlooking something? Was I simply unable to do it with this wood? Or was there some other reason?

“Haaa...“

I held up the doll in my hand and looked at it from all sides. It simply looked like all the other dolls, albeit a little darker in colour. That was all.

“Maybe there’s something else we need?”
“Something else…”

But what could that be?

“Yumi… This might be a little far fetched but… maybe the other dolls can help?”
“The other dolls?”
“Yes. They made more by themselves, right? So, maybe they know what the problem is.”
“... That’s actually a pretty good idea.”

I could also take the opportunity to figure out how in the blazes they were multiplying anyway.

“But… Are any of them here?”
“I haven’t seen any…. But you could try calling them.”
“Calling them… What do I say? ‘Hey, dolls, come here!’ or something like that?”

Then again… It had worked when Korwen called them. But how… no, it was better not to question this part. I felt like I would regret questioning it.

“Okay, then… Dolls! If you hear me, some of you should come here! Mm… That good?”
“Hopefully…”

We waited for a minute or two when suddenly something knocked on the window.

“They really came…”
“Nn…”

After opening the window, a whole bunch of dolls dropped into the room. They quickly stood up and lined up in front of me. All the while even more of them dropped through the window… Within a minute, more than two dozen dolls had lined up in front of me.
Thankfully, it stopped at that number.

“Okay… You dolls, I need your help.”

I squatted down and put the lifeless doll made from the puppet remains on the floor.

“I want to animate this doll but it’s not working well. So I’d like you all to he— Woah?!”

Before I could even finish my request, the dolls swarmed their yet lifeless comrade.
They didn’t seem to be doing anything, though, only standing around it. Maybe they were taking a look?

How do they even see? How do they do anything, seriously?

Then, some of the dolls separated from the group, walking to the crates with the mana crystals.

“Nn? Do you need some?”

The dolls bobbed their heads up and down, probably as an attempt to nod.
I opened the crate and scooped up some mana crystals for them. The mana crystals were quickly taken from me and brought to the lifeless doll…
And then, something… odd started.

“Yumi. What… are they doing?”
“Ehhh…”

The dolls had formed a ring of mana crystals around the lifeless doll. Then, they stood in a large ring around it and started to… dance… They were… dancing....

“Is this some kind of ritual dance?”
“I don’t know, Yumi…”

They continued to dance. It was a very simplistic dance, they simply circled around the lifeless doll, jumping, raising their legs and arms and stuff like that. In a clear, simple rhythm.

“Oh? Look, Yumi!”
“... No way.”

Whatever kind of demon summoning ritual they were performing there… Something was definitely happening.

“The mana is… Sis, does that actually mean… The dolls can use magic?”
“It does seem like that’s the case.”

The mana from the mana crystals was mysteriously flowing out and into the lifeless doll’s mana egg. The mana crystals that slowly lost all their mana turned brittle and broke apart. But even when all the mana was gone from them, the dolls continued dancing around.

“Are they still using magic?”

I couldn’t see any movement in the mana anymore, so I was a little confused.

“Probably? Let’s just wait for now.”
“Nn.”

Karen and I both sat down on the bed and watched the dolls. They continued dancing and dancing for several minutes without any change.

“Weird… Maybe they can’t do it either?”
“Mm… That might be the case.”

Karen tilted her head as if she was lost in thought.

“Sis? Something wrong?”
“Well… If neither you nor the dolls can do it… Just how did the worshippers manage it? No matter whether they are using the same kind of magic or just an imitation, it still means that you should be able to copy it… That’s what I think at least.”
“Nn…”

She wasn’t wrong there…

“Haaa… I hope you are right.”

There was nobody who could tell me, so I had to figure it out myself. It was bothersome for sure but it couldn’t be helped. The only person who could help me would be Yumias… Who also hasn’t come back for quite a while now.

“Yumi! Look!”
“Nn?”

Karen suddenly stood up, looking at the dolls.
Following her gaze… I saw something… Something like a shadow surrounding the lifeless doll and entering inside.

Don’t tell me this really was a demon summoning?!

Once the shadow or whatever it was disappeared into the doll… The doll started moving. Slowly, clumsily, it stood up. The other dolls stopped dancing, throwing their arms up in the air as if they were celebrating.

“Sis… What… happened there?”
“I have no idea, Yumi.”

Either way, the doll had… somehow come to life now. I still had absolutely no idea how, though.

“Ehh… Okay, let’s ignore the how for now… Uhm… The new doll there, come here.”

With staggering steps, it slowly made its way to me. It didn’t look like it was any stronger than the other dolls. In fact, seeing it stagger so much, I felt like it was a complete failure.

“Okay… Ehh… Show me what you can do.”

A little vague but it would probably work. Surely. The dolls were clever, after all.
The doll stopped moving for a moment before straightening it’s back and saluting…
Seemed that their weird military-like hierarchy was still strong in this one as well.
The next move it did… surprised me, though. It was tottering towards the desk for some reason…
Once it finally arrived there… it jumped. It jumped. From the ground, straight up onto the desk.

“It jumped.”
“It sure did…”
“The others can only climb.”
“Nn…”

On the desk… The doll moved to the large bag with the wood that Karen had left there. It grabbed onto it and then pulled. It pulled… and actually moved the bag. The bag… The one that was quite heavy for me as well.

“... So, it’s the wood?”
“It sure seems like it… Or maybe the thing the dolls did?”
“... I feel like I got more questions than answers.”

Watching the doll pulling and pushing the bag off the desk was surreal for sure. Once the bag was down on the ground, the other dolls swarmed around the bag and pulled on it while the dark doll instead moved towards the crates. Maybe it was just me, but it seemed like its movements were slowly becoming smoother.
It jumped onto the crate and actually managed to lift the lid.

“Nn… It definitely is stronger than the other dolls. But… I still feel that’s not quite right...”
“What do you mean?”
“Nn… Those puppets… They moved smoothly and they were fast… I couldn’t even see them moving. But that doll is still moving like the others, it is just a little stronger. That’s all.”

It was an upgrade over the dolls. But it wasn’t enough of an upgrade.

“Maybe the size makes a difference?”
“Nn… I wonder.”

How the heck was I even going to animate a puppet as large as that? Could the dolls do the same weird ritual on it?

“Speaking of which, what happened to the other puppet?”
“The other puppet is with Elina. She took an interest in it for some reason.”
“Ahhh… Maybe she figured something out.”
“Nn, maybe.”

While we talked about the other puppet, the dolls had started to collect mana crystals in the middle of the room as well as small wooden splinters. The splinters were each small, the size of my fingernail at most. They completely ignored anything larger in the bag. Then, they made a new circle of mana crystals and one of the regular dolls positioned itself right in the middle of it, holding one of the splinters above its head.

“Hey, Sis.”
“Yes?”
“They aren’t going to… do this again, are they?”
“...”

And they were… They started dancing again, around the circle of mana crystals, around that one doll holding the splinters.
This time it went a lot faster though. The mana from the crystals flowed into the doll relatively smoothly. Then, after a minute, the weird black shadow appeared again around the doll and the splinter. I honestly had no idea what in the blazes it was but it probably was some form of mana. It couldn’t be a soul since it had been Karen who noticed it… And she couldn’t see the tiny souls of the…

The… souls?

The souls… The souls of those puppets... There were none… That’S how I noticed they weren’t living, after all... But the dolls had tiny souls. Including the now slightly darker doll.

“... This becomes weirder the more I think about it.”
“Yumi?”
“Nn… I just keep wondering how those puppets worked.”
“Ahh…”

No souls. No mana crystals.
Seriously, they were a mystery. And then they were high-performance dolls nonetheless.

“Ah… It’s turning dark.”
“...”

The doll that had been holding the splinter was turning the same dark grey as the other doll. The splinter in turn had vanished, as if it had been absorbed.

“Now there are two of them.”
“Nn… So, they can… uhm… upgrade the dolls?”
“Upgrade?”
“Nn. Like, making them better.”

That sure was convenient if they could do that themselves. They could multiply on their own. They could upgrade themselves on their own… They were feeding the tentacles… If you ignored for a moment that one doll was actually rather weak on their own, they were quite impressive.

“Ah, look, Sis, they started with the next one.”
“They aren’t going to do this for all of them now, are they?”
“... Well.”

They probably were going to do that, weren’t they? No, they definitely were…

“Nn… I wonder if there is enough wood though…”
“I think we should maybe stop them there. If that’s some wood we can’t get again, it’d be a bit of a waste to use it all up now.”
“Ahhh… That’s true.”

The other puppet was still intact, after all. If we somehow managed to figure out what to do, we might be able to animate that one.

“But, at least we figured out quite a bit already. The material actually makes a difference.”

We definitely should ask what kind of wood this was. If we were able to prepare more of it, we could upgrade all the dolls. Korwen liked them because they were convenient, and even if they were just a bit stronger, it would probably help quite a bit.

But I also have so many more questions now… The only one who knows anything regarding souls is the Elder, so I’ll have to ask her in regards to that. As for everything else, Ria probably knows about it. And if she doesn’t, she might know who can help me.

Now… There were still a few things I had to find out, though. But honestly, it was getting late. The stars were up and shining outside—not like I could even see them from inside the wagon.
Either way…
After we stopped the dolls from upgrading another one for a third time, we kind of threw them out of the wagon. We did want our privacy now.

“Sis.”
“Yes?”
“... Shall we… go to bed?”
“... Let’s go.”

Of course, we wouldn’t just go to sleep…
We finally had a night for ourselves… And we sure would enjoy that time plenty.