Chapter 39: Shadows of the Puppeteer

Puppeteering, despite its name, encompasses a vast range of practices.

Most puppeteers deal with ordinary puppets—figures made of wood or minerals, shaped like humans or animals.

However, there were other forms of puppetry.

Some manipulated weapons, while others controlled intangible elements like wind or light.

What they handled and how they manipulated it differed entirely from the norm.

Despite appearing as completely distinct fields, these practices were all considered puppeteering because they diverged fundamentally from other forms of magic.

Many wield weapons—most notably swordsmen.

Puppeteers who worked with weapons shared many similarities with swordsmen.

Crafting and honing their tools through experience and magic were nearly identical practices.

The same applied to those who summoned spirits.

Spirit magic, which involved controlling intangible forces like wind or fire—or even abstract concepts like thought or space—bore a superficial resemblance to puppeteering.

Yet, their magic was not considered puppeteering.

What puppeteers created was fundamentally different from what other mages, commonly called artisans, produced.

Artisans crafted objects usable by others, free of significant limitations.

This principle extended to summoning magic; whether it was a corpse or a spirit, others could wield the summoned entities.

Puppeteering, however, was unique.

What puppeteers created could only be animated by their magic.

Even if someone else inherited their creations, the puppets would cease to function without the puppeteer’s energy.

Thus, puppeteering was an art reliant on talent, categorized as a broad classification of magic.

Yes, only their magic could animate their puppets.

That was the root of all problems.

***

After finishing the modifications on the puppet, I stretched my arms.

This was my fiftieth commission.

The client, a student, had a peculiar request.

He wanted the puppet to be wearable.

He explained that moving on his own was a waste of time, so he wanted the puppet to handle everything while he focused solely on his training.

I took great care in the modifications to ensure his comfort inside the puppet.

It had been a fascinating project.

Once I infused it with magic to animate it, the puppet joined the others in the corner of the workshop.

I checked the time as I stretched.

4 a.m.

Time to move.

This was the hour when magic was at its weakest, so I always conducted my inspections around this time.

I decided to skip the first and second floors.

These floors, open to students, often had disputes.

However, there was one fortunate aspect: I didn’t have to visit them daily.

The students meticulously managed the rooms they occupied.

If anything went wrong, they investigated the cause and informed me.

At that point, I’d simply adjust the magic circles.

I began by inspecting the fourth floor, where the workshop was located.

I sent a few puppets into empty rooms.

The puppets moved without any issues, and I entered one of the rooms myself.

The magic flow in the room was clean and orderly.

No issues.

This was the result of my consistent maintenance.

Next, it was time to check the third floor.

As I descended the stairs and entered the third floor, I felt at ease.

The library was pristine.

The scent of wood from the bookshelves calmed my mind, and the faint magic lingering in the air refreshed my spirit with every breath.

As I walked along the shelves, I took my time examining the surroundings.

Most shelves were still empty, but there were no signs of anomalies.

I had never seen an issue arise here, which was a relief.

I proceeded to the fifth floor, the most dangerous area.

Scanning the surroundings, I let out a wry smile.

The area I used as my living quarters was only a small portion of this expansive floor.

It was the safest room I’d found through numerous experiments, though even it occasionally had problems.

Still, it was better than the other rooms, which caused issues daily.

***

Two days ago, one room had begun expanding endlessly, tearing through space.

It took me an entire day to seal the grotesque magic spilling out.

Yesterday, a magical misalignment froze everything within another room in time.

Had I been inside instead of at the workshop, I wouldn’t have noticed anything before becoming a statue myself.

The professor once said that the magic here was already fixed and couldn’t be fully repaired.

“It’s just a matter of regular maintenance,” he had said.

Of course, it wasn’t his job—it was mine.

Remaining cautious, I began exploring the fifth floor, sending puppets ahead to scout the rooms.

Unexpectedly, the exploration ended quickly.

For the first time since I’d been in charge, nothing had gone wrong.

‘Why?’

The absence of the usual daily incidents felt unsettling.

I meticulously examined the magic circles that made up the fifth floor but found no abnormalities. Everything was perfectly balanced.

‘Well, it was a good thing, wasn’t it?’ Surely, there could be a day without problems.

I tried to convince myself to see it as a positive.

With so much time left, I decided to recharge the puppets before anyone arrived.

Puppets required my magic to function, so I needed to infuse them daily.

Returning to the workshop, I found the puppets neatly lined up as I’d left them.

With a light heart, I began recharging them.

With plenty of time, I worked leisurely.

As I continued, I noticed something alarming.

My magic consumption was unusually high.

In an instant, half my energy was drained.

‘This didn’t happen before,’ I thought.

When I first created the puppets, recharging them all required less than a tenth of my energy.

Now, even after spending half my magic, the puppets weren’t fully charged.

Only after pouring in the rest of my magic did I manage to complete the task.

My expression hardened.

‘How did I miss this?’

Despite being a daily routine, I had only noticed the problem today.

After a moment of thought, I understood why.

***

The fifth floor.

With no incidents to distract me, I had been able to observe the puppets more carefully.

Previously, I’d hurriedly infused them with magic, paying no attention to wastage.

Time had always been the priority, not efficiency.

Now, I carefully inspected the puppets.

They came in various forms—some humanoid, others shaped like beasts.

Each puppet not only differed in appearance but also housed unique functionalities.

Even the basic, unmodified puppets often had additional features.

These were the culprits.

Puppets burdened with countless inefficient functions had become monsters, devouring my magic.

Each function consumed energy just to exist.

And these features were only going to increase.

I had a mountain of commissions already lined up, enough to keep me busy for the next six months.

My face turned pale.

Even now, the puppets were consuming almost all of my magic.

‘What would happen in the future?’ The outcome was clear as day.

But canceling the commissions wasn’t an option either.

I had already accepted the points.

If I canceled unilaterally, I would have to return them, and I didn’t have enough points to do that.

As my thoughts spiraled, I realized the truth about my future.

***

Time passed.

And now, just as I had feared, I was overworked to the brink of collapse.

To recharge all the puppets, I had to expend my magic three times over.

Drain, refill, and drain again.

The entire process required a minimum of three hours of intense focus.

By the time I had exhausted my magic, the crushing fatigue left no room for anything else.

And yet, the commissions kept piling up.

Just like the one from Cassian moments ago.

Once I completed this batch, I would need to pour even more magic into them.

But I couldn’t stop taking commissions.

I was already deep in debt.

To pay it off, I needed points—a massive amount of points.

I sighed as I fiddled with Cassian’s bear-shaped puppet.

When I first started creating puppets, it was solely for my convenience.

I had poured all my points into it, and the result brought me a fleeting sense of freedom.

With that free time, I earned more points.

Simply tinkering with puppets duplicated points, and ‘how could I resist that?’ Back then, it had felt like bliss.

But as the work accumulated, I found myself in this predicament.

Far from resting, I now spent all my spare time on the puppets.

I was more exhausted than before I’d even started creating them.

This was a disaster of my own making.

My greed for points had led to this.

For the past year, I had desperately tried to resolve the situation.

I believed there were three possible solutions.

The most pressing issue was my lack of magic.

Modifying puppets and adding features weren’t the real problems.

The issue was the increasing magic consumption that came with each addition.

The more features I added, the more magic the puppets consumed.

So, I thought, ‘What if I increased my overall magic capacity?’ And the best way to do that was to advance my level.

My magical seedling had nearly reached its limit.

I was at the point where growth required a leap to a higher stage.

But that leap was incredibly difficult.

The barrier was both high and thick.

To overcome it, I even tried consuming several elixirs.

These elixirs were another way to increase magic capacity.

The elixirs worked to some extent.

They partially broke down the wall.

But the destination still felt distant.

Even after buying and consuming several elixirs on credit, the result was the same.

And I couldn’t continue relying on them.

Not only was I out of points, but forcing an advancement this way would also prevent any future growth.

In the end, my magic capacity had increased slightly, but advancing my level remained a distant dream.

Thus, the first solution failed.

Despite incurring significant debt, all I gained was a marginal increase in magic.

The second solution was to recall the puppets and remove their features.

But with the first solution failing, this too became impossible.

The modified puppets were no longer mine; they now belonged to their new owners.

To take back their features, I would need to return their points.

But those points were long gone—consumed in the form of elixirs.

This left only the final solution: cost reduction.

Maintaining the puppets’ features while reducing their upkeep costs.

To this end, I sought out other puppeteers in the city.

***

[On’s Puppet Workshop]

As I stepped through the door, Mauro came into view.

As always, he was tinkering with a puppet.

I often stopped by this place on my way to Professor Heisen’s tower.

There was always something new to learn from examining his puppets.

“How do you manage all these puppets, Mauro?” I asked.

Mauro was a mage at the same level as me, merely at the seedling stage.

Yet his workshop was filled with countless puppets, all infused with magic.

Even if his puppets were highly efficient, the sheer number of them would have overwhelmed me.

Mauro simply smiled.

When I pressed further, he finally spoke.

“Developing puppets is like practicing magic. To every puppeteer, their puppets are both their magic and their ultimate creations. So, any advice I give might harm rather than help you.”

Though he said much, his message was clear: figure it out on your own.

Disheartened, I returned to the tower after bidding him farewell.

***

Now here I was again.

A shadow that had been helping modify my puppets approached and patted my shoulder.

It was a surprisingly useful assistant.

While it had been among the weakest participants in Professor Heisen’s class, often the first to be overwhelmed by others’ shadows, it was an unparalleled helper when it came to puppet-making.

For two years, this shadow had observed and learned from my actions.

It had grown skilled enough to modify puppets in my stead.

Now that all my previous solutions had failed, this shadow was my last hope.

Not only did it hold my magic, but it also functioned as a semi-sentient being with its own magic.

It used that magic to help animate my puppets.

In a way, it had inherited a fragment of my talent.

The first time it moved a puppet was three months after I recognized the issue with my magic.

I had been collapsed on the floor, suffering the aftereffects of the elixirs, when a puppet carried me to my bed.

It hadn’t been my doing.

Alarmed, I inspected the puppet and discovered its connection to the shadow.

Seeing that, hope surged in my chest.

‘This is it.’

My shadow had copied me to the extent of inheriting some of my talent.

If that was possible, then perhaps the same could apply to the puppets.

‘What if the shadow could animate the puppets for me? What if it could grant them the ability to move independently using its magic?’ If that worked, the puppets wouldn’t rely solely on my magic to function.

With that idea in mind, I began my research.

But there was a significant issue.

This shadow was a special entity given by Professor Heisen, distributed to only thirty out of three hundred mages.

Other shadows didn’t function this way.

They lacked both intelligence and independence.

I had struggled to find a solution, but progress remained elusive.

Sighing, I stood up.

There was no time to dwell on my thoughts.

It was time to infuse magic into the puppets again.