The Demon Hunting Method of the Regressed Inquisitor

Pinocchio (2)

The current Geppetto was the finest craftsman in Nidavellir, but in the past, he was just one of many craftsmen who struggled to make ends meet.

Back then, Nidavellir was much noisier with the sound of hammering metal.

Everyone honed their metallurgy skills and crafted cold weapons like spears and swords.

For Geppetto, who stood in the midst of such fierce competition, it was hard to overcome his formidable rivals.

In essence, he had given up. He mass-produced unremarkable items just to barely scrape by.

But it was enough.

It was enough to live with his family.

But…

“I’m sorry, dear. I shouldn’t be the one to go first.”

Whenever he felt lacking, it was always when he desperately wished for something.

“Please… take care of our child.”

And so, he lost his wife.

Geppetto spent some time in despair. But only for a while.

He still had something left. So he picked up his hammer once more.

‘I have to raise Pinocchio.’

For the child who lost his mother at such a young age, he had to try even harder.

He sent him to a good school, showed him good things, and fed him good food.

He lowered the price of the mass-produced swords he delivered in batches of 100 and increased it to 200.

He traded effort for money.

But…

“Pinocchio…?”

He lost his child in an unexpected accident.

It wasn’t a matter of having more or less money. Misfortune comes suddenly like a gust of wind, destroying precious things and then disappearing.

It was just a simple cold.

The child who had just a slight fever went to school as usual.

But as if to pay the price for that slight fever, Geppetto’s child returned as a cold corpse.

The cause of death was drowning.

It was said that the child, intoxicated by the slight fever, staggered around and fell off the bridge into the river.

How absurd this is.

A human life can disappear so lightly.

“Ha ha ha ha ha!”

Geppetto laughed. Despite pouring everything into it, all became meaningless in a moment of neglect.

The clothes prepared for the child.

The toys prepared for the child.

The countless gifts that were to be given one by one according to the child’s age.

But so simply.

How could it be so simple!

The meaning of life disappeared. Geppetto extinguished the forge’s flames.

Every night, he returned home drunk.

It didn’t matter. There was plenty of money saved for the child.

Every night, he crawled on the floor drunk, calling out the names of his dead wife and dead child.

‘This can’t go on.’

Geppetto knew it too.

Nothing would change if he continued like this. If he was going to waste his time like this, why was he alive?

“He didn’t die.”

The child died. But Geppetto’s heart was not dead yet.

He couldn’t resolve to die, as if this much was not enough.

“Pinocchio didn’t die!”

Geppetto remembered. Pinocchio’s smiling face, his crying face.

All the things that made him suffer, feel lonely, happy, and joyful.

Then let’s create. Let’s recreate the child who lost his body.

So that he would never be forgotten. So that he could remain forever without dying.

“Hm hm hm♫”

Geppetto revived the extinguished flames of the forge.

Just like when his family was alive, he worked tirelessly every night.

He made dolls out of metal.

He made dolls out of wood.

He made dolls out of ore.

He sewed cloth and patched leather to make dolls.

In a world of trance, Geppetto made dolls every night.

Anything he could get his hands on was good. On days when he ran out of materials, he sculpted the child’s figure out of clay.

He made dolls as if recording every expression of the child. To capture all the warmth and mischief, he invested all his wealth and used every material.

And then one day.

“Dad! Are you still busy? When will you play with me?”

A doll spoke to him.

At first, he thought it was a hallucination. So he ignored it.

“Don’t ignore me!”

But the doll whined and clung to Geppetto.

The feel of the hard wooden piece.

He couldn’t even remember what kind of wood he had carved it from.

“Dad, what’s my name?”

“Pinocchio…”

He could never forget.

The doll looked at him with the same expression as the child in his memory.

Geppetto’s heart, which had been burning with anger towards the world, finally calmed its flames.

“Pinocchio…”

Geppetto hugged Pinocchio.

It was the feel of hard wood, but it couldn’t have been warmer.

Pinocchio laughed and acted like a child. So Geppetto believed that the child had come back to life.

He thought surely God had given him a chance for his diligence.

The old life returned.

Geppetto earned money for Pinocchio, and Pinocchio lived as Geppetto wished.

But Geppetto soon had to realize.

“Pinocchio! How, how could this be.”

“I fell into the water on the way! It took me a long time to come back, you know?”

It is not human.

That much could not be denied.

And it is different from a child. It did not show any reactions beyond the doll that Geppetto remembered and created.

Geppetto still remembers.

He remembers all the expressions of the child.

But Pinocchio could not make any expressions other than those Geppetto had created as a doll.

Mostly, it was the look of complaining and being sad.

Geppetto unconsciously avoided making dolls with such expressions because he wanted to remember only the bright ones.

Pinocchio is not his child. He is just a puppet that imitates.

“Should have been careful.”

But it didn’t matter.

Pinocchio was already like a son to Geppetto.

How could he be afraid of a child who laughs and chatters for him?

But that was only true for Geppetto. As the fact that the child was special began to spread, pests began to gather.

They pressured Geppetto to find out about the miracle of creating life.

They threatened with force and tempted with money. But he did not yield.

How could he hand over his son as a test subject? It was impossible.

But the group trying to persuade and threaten Geppetto grew larger. Despite Geppetto’s determination to make his son live happily, they had to become fugitives.

They wandered the world with only the sense of duty to protect.

But in the end, they failed.

Helpless Geppetto lost Pinocchio to the bad king.

Of course, he did not intend to give up. For the first time in his life, Geppetto made the best weapon that an individual could make, not a mass-produced one.

To save the child, he decided to become the best craftsman.

If he couldn’t borrow anyone’s hand, he had to save him himself. Then he had to make a powerful weapon that even his weak self could use.

But…

“I’m back!”

“……”

Despite Geppetto’s determination, Pinocchio came back home on his own. With a bright smile as usual.

But…

The whole body was covered in blood.

There is no way that Pinocchio, made of wood, could bleed.

It was someone else’s blood.

Then whose blood was it? No, it was obvious whose blood it was.

“How could this…”

Pinocchio had slaughtered everyone in the royal castle, including the king.

There was no other way. How many people had he killed to get here, breaking through that strict guard?

It was only then that Geppetto realized.

Pinocchio was not a being created by his own wish.

He was not born from the heart of a father thinking of his son, but from everything Geppetto had created.

Pinocchio was covered in blades all over his body, like a hedgehog.

That appearance was familiar.

It was the shape of the swords he had mass-produced and supplied.

Broken swords protruded from Pinocchio’s body as if they were reversing, falling to the ground, and new swords sprouted from within as if new flesh was growing.

“You were not a human.”

“What do you mean, Dad?”

“What I created was not my son, but a weapon…”

“…?”

Pinocchio tilted his head.

As if he didn’t understand what it meant, as if he didn’t know what he had done. He just acted as Geppetto had wished.

Knowing that Geppetto was trying to reunite with him, he broke the iron bars and destroyed everything that stood in his way to find him.

“I don’t understand.”

“Pinocchio.”

Pinocchio was not the son created by his wish, but merely a weapon.

But that didn’t mean Pinocchio was not his son.

Then he had to scold him.

That was his role as a parent.

But he couldn’t bring himself to speak. He felt fear at the sight of the burning village behind Pinocchio.

“Wasn’t this the right thing to do? Then what should I do?”

“Stop it.”

“What should I stop doing?”

“You are too different from us…”

“Am I?”

“…”

The words that barely escaped his lips were just a paragraph.

Geppetto had to admit it. He was being careful not to upset Pinocchio.

“Today…”

“Yes?”

“Today, I’m tired. Let’s talk tomorrow.”

“Yes!”

Geppetto stayed awake all night. That’s why he knew.

He knew but didn’t stop him.

Pinocchio sneaking out of the house.

The moment he closed his eyes to the mistake, he realized that he didn’t see Pinocchio as his son.

Children are much more sensitive to emotions than adults think.

Yes, Pinocchio must have known too. After all, they were family.

Family is supposed to notice even the smallest changes.

That’s why Pinocchio left Geppetto’s side. Geppetto knew it but didn’t hold him back.

Regret always comes too late. Geppetto regretted closing his eyes that day.

He should have gotten angry properly.

He should have welcomed him properly.

Because he couldn’t do that, Geppetto lives here like a ghost.

“I am a coward. I couldn’t muster the courage to even knock on the door, just standing there blankly for decades.”

Hoping that Pinocchio would come to him first.

“Help me.”

But now he knew. Geppetto wasn’t the only one lacking courage.

Pinocchio, who must have been anxiously looking at Geppetto from outside the window, was the same.

He finally realized that.

“This time, I want to end it as a parent.”

If both of them are cowards.

At least as a parent, it is only natural to muster the courage.

*     *      *

The story has ended.

While listening to the story, I threw the fifth cigarette I was smoking into the brazier and crossed myself with my eyes closed.

It will surely be a difficult task.

There may be no benefit at all.

I am about to undertake such a task. I need to steel my resolve.

‘I am about to walk a difficult path.’

If I turn away, if I just pretend not to know, nothing will happen.

Geppetto will continue to wait for the child who will return someday, and I will go to solve the erosion that is eating away at my body and at the same time prevent the empire from heading towards direct destruction.

‘It will be a tough task. Even just following behind will surely be overwhelming. I can’t guarantee a good outcome.’

It might be like stirring up a hornet’s nest.

Leaving it alone might produce a better result.

Anyway, if I leave Nidavellir and enter the city waiting for the sun, ‘Rubia’, and solve the problem of the ＜Eroding One＞, we will not have to face each other.

Then there will be no confrontation and no catastrophe.

‘But I intend to do it. I intend to prove it in this way.’

The second chance given to me was not given without any cost.

It is a chance created by the sacrifice of someone who lived a life more brilliant than anyone else.

Then I must repay the favor.

In the way that someone I respected the most in my life, whom no one else can remember, personally practiced.

‘So, our Lord who left traces in the pantheon, please bless this lamb to lead the flock and walk the rough path.’

With a short prayer, I open my eyes.

I am an inquisitor.

I am someone who does things that are not honorable.

But this time, I am walking a different path from the one I usually take.

“Then let’s go and correct the regrets in any way possible.”

Yes, now solely.

I intend to walk the path of a shepherd who leads and cares for the suffering people.

I have made my decision.

I forcibly swallow the blood that has risen up my throat due to the erosion.

I don’t have much time left.

Nevertheless, I decided to do it.

Even if it’s tough, let’s reconnect this clumsy father and son.

Just like my sky reached out to me when I had nothing.