Chapter 19: Acceptance

What Lon is currently feeling is not an ordinary cold that came from the shadows of the world.

'Calm down fucker, she's just a soul, a ghost'

Lighting fast currents that punctured the skin with ten thousand needles, and bones that will break apart from the gravity.

It evoked a feeling of dread he felt years ago. The same one he has encountered and overcome from the time he was a child. A challenge he had already conquered.

It's the same one in front of him. The only similar thing about the horrendous past and this mysterious present is his enemy.

They are both children.

Raising the gun, he took a step to get closer along with the puppet. Physical attacks do not work on her as observed earlier. But if all he did was to stand there, fleeing from the problem, or total abandonment, it will cause drastic repercussions he wouldn't like to see.

Especially his Jirhen which is still inside the room. Everyone got only one chance at getting their own Jirhen and if it was lost, it is their fault one way or another for not taking care of it.

Before his business could bloom, his capital was destroyed. It is a loss he will not accept even if he has to face a large heavily armed force.

He carefully inched closer, his heartbeat dropped every second, and the palpations in his back proved it. He is reckless about things he could interact with but that didn't include the beautiful entity that appeared before him.

Retaliation against something, not even pure-energy bullets can harm is suicide. The advance weaponry of this era is apparently useless against this foe.

To the best of his knowledge, they are just souls, incorporeal things with no physical body. But that doesn't mean they can't influence the physical realm.

Why are there always uncanny and disturbing deaths with no logical explanation no matter the era?

The masses all believed it was the workings of the deceased people that came back to life to avenge their unjust deaths or other things that need closure.

Lon knew better as they are just souls that have the ability to indirectly cause you to die and to a certain extent kill a person.

A foot landed on the door sill when the outflow of electricity zapped his body that prompted him to back off. It wasn't enough to kill a living adult man but plenty to temporarily paralyze his system functions.

"Owww!"

'The heck?'

That was a weird experience to have in this kind of situation. But he didn't think too much about is as he strode forward.

After recovering, Lon almost got a heart attack for what he had seen when he tried to peek with one eye.

There was no change in the room. Turned on lights, the messy worktable, and the materials neatly piled on one side. Nothing is out of the place.

If not including the special red iris with a touch of curious innocence, he would have not freaked out.

It wasn't the little girl that was staring at him but the naked body chained on a metal chair.

Moreover, three chains were broken and her right hand is suspended in the air, trying to break free from the rest of tangled cuffs.

The different eyes glanced at each other. Frozen in spot, the two only stared for a short moment.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

Time himself returned and resumed for these two. The muscles on his right arm aligned to the head of the blond-haired. His fingers pressed the trigger twice, spewing two light rays.

His eye wasn't mistaken as the woman dodged her head sideways. It is so forceful that she managed to dodge the two bullets.

Strands of blonde hair flew in the air. That was an incredulous moment but there is no time for rest. The girl struggled to break free, twisting her flesh, and dislocating her bones just to get out.

A giant then came in front of her and hugged her in place. Amazingly, she possesses amazing strength that rivals a mass greater than her.

Tak! Tak!

Some chains couldn't handle the stress and broke apart. A pair of slim hands slowly but surely pushed away two buff arms that prisoned her. The red eyes of hers revealed a trace of surprise as she advanced.

It was a tinge of ridiculousness and pride that can be only seen among privileged people.

Zing!

She dodged again to the left with ease. That hit didn't connect. Instead, it burned the skin of his own corpse puppet.

They may be invulnerable to virtually anything but once they possess an object, especially a foreign human body, it poses a danger factor to their life.

It might be in vain but at least he must try out and the Jirhen wasn't mistaken because she dodged.

In any situation, every second counts. Even procrastinators wouldn't waste a minute to not waste their given amount of time. And that action gained him a few seconds to sprint back and forth once.

His hand reached the drawer, pulled it out, and his left grabbed it. The left foot stopped his momentum and propelled him back to return beside her.

This time, to guarantee that it won't dodge effortlessly, he zoomed close to her at point-blank range. Seeing him ran like a qualifier for the main stage of 100m sprint, she also began to violently struggle with the corpse puppet and free her body.

It will surely have a hard time evading because she's got a mortal dead body. A puppeteer's hand isn't faster than the biological nerves the body naturally has.

Half of the metal restrictions were already destroyed or unlocked the moment he arrived. One muzzle was pointed at the center of his stomach and the other one is directed to the left side of her neck. This position is to avoid her from moving sideways, back and forth, and upwards and downwards direction. Any movement she makes, it is ascertained that the shot will strike the intended mark.

The weapons have just risen, ready to unleash their load, almost pulling the trigger mechanism when a hoarse cry of fear came from her.

"Wiat, wait, don' shhhoot!", her voice box is a combined force of explosive leaking gas and a silver fork dragged across a chalkboard.

It was a big surprise for him because of how irritating and grating it is to hear.

"Plesh, I wils stop!", additionally her tongue has experienced unimaginable disaster because of the incoherent words she uttered.

Zing!

Another shot was fired, a bundle of the blonde hair has fallen, and scrapping a small portion of her smooth face skin. The arrogance present in her eyes before is now gone as she realized her situation.

"Three seconds. Explain to me why are you here?"

"One."

The face of the corpse puppet twitched as for the first time like a normal person would unconsciously do when ticked.

"Two.", his voice sounded like the synthetic voice of an AI.

"You have a deal with my parents! You ought to take care of me since you accepted papa's money!"

This was not the voice of an adult but that of a child. It rung in his ears and it came from the pinned woman despite her mouth not opening even the slightest gap.

In her panic, she could only blurt out what was really happening. This puzzled Lon as he repositioned his right hand to her cheek.

"Hey, when did I said I agreed? I compromised!", he was angry for the fact that he met these unreasonable things. He didn't even state the decision that he will accept the job.

Dealing against monsters is a lot easier than talking with these mischievous ghosts that brought nothing but a potential headache for him.

"Hmpphh, don't you dare abandon me, or else I will hunt you for eternity!", she yelled aggressively at him with a childish cadence.

Lon could smell the nauseating problem heading straight to him. This is a burden he does not want to accept as of now. He was already busy with his projects and experiments, and now something like this came passing on his door.

His eyes darted around the place for an explanation and solution to his predicament. The black eyes that reflect the moon saw the three briefcases in the dining table and a scary conclusion grew in his mind.

"You mean, those things left there is the payment of our deal?"

"What else is there?" She paused then continued after catching her breath which is confusing for Lon because a puppet is a puppet. How the heck a ghost could breathe in a corpse?

"Don't you dare abandon me because I will really hurt you!"

The response to her claim is a black muzzle of recoil recoilless energy handgun that aligned in her forehead.

"Don't fuss about it. Now, why the heck are you attacking me?", this is the point that he wanted to know and have clarification.

If they are a happy family of three then why would the father be afraid of his own kin? The mother leaving without a word the moment her daughter is distracted with a stranger. That's the serious point that he needed understanding.

"It thought it will be fun to scare my new butler.", a 180-degree turn of attitude as she said sadly.

"Also, they will leave me regardless if I didn't make a move or not after I woke up."

"You mean my place? That doesn't justify why I shall honor that lousy deal that has unclear terms like taking care of you.", he didn't budge and asked.

That voice of sadness can charm people to have sympathy and pity for her but he wasn't moved a single nanometer at all.

"No, this place.", the freed right hand pointed to the upper left side of her chest. "Taking care of me should be easy because you only need to do what I request."

Instead of asking what she will need or how long he has to take care of her, he remembered that they told him she took a liking to his second corpse puppet, and that placed him in a bad mood.

The effort on creating and placing this one on that specific place all by himself is not a joking matter. But a wonderful question appeared on his head.

Which is more expensive, a corpse puppet that cost an average 2000 Nins, where almost all materials came from the junkyard and the streets, or three briefcases, one having 5 million Nins?

If he calculated correctly, it was pretty obvious at that point for him that such a deal isn't that bad one. It was more than the sum of money he could rob from the people of the northern section of the north sector.

That's not including the risk of getting man hunted by those local forces for such notorious activities.

She's a ghost that possesses a body of another human, so what could a soul possibly need?.

....