048: Their Respective Battlefields
Soon, the Beyonders from other regions who had been staying in Tingen began leaving one after another.
Don could sense the general location of his marionettes. The spirit body threads extended infinitely through the Spirit World, connecting to him across the void between the unreal and real.
"Father has already arrived in Backlund and has begun attracting firepower."
If high-sequence Beyonders were to perform divination, and if Father deliberately didn't set up interference defenses, then the divination results for the Theater With Curtains That Never Draw would most likely fall upon him.
Through the wraith marionette, Don had a general understanding of Father's surrounding situation.
The 'Bionic Marionette' module—theoretically, as long as he wasn't in a place completely isolated from the Spirit World, he could manipulate marionettes equipped with this module. Even if he didn't give direct commands and merely maintained the marionette's state, the marionette could act autonomously and make choices.
As long as he didn't act out of control and recognize the marionette as a real person, even without much performance, the Marionettist potion could be digested completely in a short time.
"When there are enough of these modules—no, as long as there are enough marionettes, I can also imitate Amon."
Openly place one marionette, then secretly have them all be his marionettes.
Stabbing one marionette would be equivalent to stabbing a whole nest of marionettes.
To be safe, after digestion is complete, he should also use a Faceless to create a marionette of himself.
After advancing to Sequence 4, if he needed to act, then with marionettes of himself everywhere, all putting on monocles at the same time—directly jumping into an Amon performance—the Bizarro Sorcerer potion digestion would probably take off immediately.
Hehe.
[Host, you're so devious...]
"Only fools would put all their cards on the table," Don sighed. "At least I haven't gone so insane as to turn everyone around me into marionettes."
[Aren't you afraid that doing this will attract Amon's attention...] the system muttered.
"I'm just mid-sequence, and I don't have the Gray Fog. Amon shouldn't look down on me."
Don was quite blunt. "The Error pathway still has an old grandfather attracting firepower. Amon hasn't obtained all the Sequence 1 potions, so he doesn't have the time to bother with a small fry like me who isn't even a demigod."
As for if he really encountered him... he'd deal with it when the time came.
As long as it wasn't the true body, using the Theater With Curtains That Never Draw and the system to escape would be easy.
As for if it was the true body... he'd save up knowledge fragments, and if it really was Amon's true body, he'd give him a big surprise. Even if he couldn't resist, he'd use 'Knowledge Persues Man' and the Theater With Curtains That Never Draw to escape immediately.
At that point, he could only leave it to fate.
Thinking of this, Don looked around. Mm, good—no one suddenly took out a monocle to put on, then said to him: "Is that really what you think?"
Tsk tsk, just imagining that scene made the hair on his back stand up.
In this world, aside from those high and mighty deities, Don least wanted to face Amon.
After all, he was the embodiment of deceit and mischief, and extremely malicious in his interests.
"By the way, system, can you detect parasites?"
The Sequence 4: Parasite of the Error pathway—whether shallow parasitism or deep parasitism—was very difficult to detect.
The Demigods of the three great families weren't simple at all. Don needed to clarify this issue.
[Through identification, abnormalities can be detected, but it's impossible to determine whether the source of the abnormality is a parasite.]
Just like when Don had previously identified the marionettes in the Theater With Curtains That Never Draw, interference would appear.
But whether this interference came from parasites—even with the current system, even after devouring a demigod's Beyonder characteristic, it couldn't be determined.
[Maybe... eat a few more Mystery Pryers?] We must have more!
The system spoke hesitantly, while Don remained expressionless.
"How about we go find the Hidden Sage? While we're at it, maybe kill the God of Craftsmanship as well—turn the Seven Gods into Six Gods to help you celebrate, then catch a few parasites for me to play with?"
[That's not impossible either.] The system was completely tone-deaf, oblivous to sarcasm. immediately becoming overjoyed. [I'll start tracking them right away. Then you can have as many parasites as you want!]
Come back, come back!
He couldn't handle it if the Hidden Sage came!
The completely tone-deaf system became even happier: [Locating immediately~]
Damn it system!
Sooner or later, I'll hang you up as a marionette!
---
After a few days, Owen also planned to leave.
Don likewise handed a mask to Owen, saying, "A mystical item made from a Faceless's Beyonder characteristic. The negative effects are minimal—just don't wear it for extended periods."
Owen patted Don's back, then mounted his horse and departed.
Everyone had their own battlefield.
Don returned to the castle together with Lady Boianca and 'Baron Lamud' who were standing not far away.
He also had his own battlefield.
[Side Mission: Establish/Join a Secret Organization.]
[With the fall of the deities of the Pale Disaster, the orthodox gods are gradually fading from people's sight; the descent of evil gods, the great will is about to awaken, and when the future comes, when the orthodox gods die, when the unknown erodes the world, perhaps in the next millennium, or perhaps in the millennium after that, the world will ultimately undergo incomparable changes. For this reason, perhaps you as an outsider should make some preparations in advance...]
[Mission accepted, task orientation selected!]
[Your chosen to: Establish a secret organization.]
[Note: This is a phased quest. You cannot proceed to the next stage without completing the previous task!]
[Mission information updated.]
[Side Mission: Establish a Secret Organization (Phase One).]
[Your final choice is to establish a new secret organization. Ah, of course, this doesn't mean your choice is wrong. Those more ancient secret organizations always have all sorts of strange rules, and joining them may not be a good choice... So first, before establishing a secret organization, you need some like-minded friends and a fixed place for communication to be considered a complete prototype of a secret organization, right?]
[Mission Reward: Surprise Package ×1]
"Surprise Package?" Don looked at the mission reward, somewhat surprised.
After all, the system had never shown him mission rewards in advance, and the mission rewards were mostly things like identification attempts.
"What is this thing?"
The system gave a very official answer: [A Surprise Package is, as the name suggests, a gift box full of surprises! As for what "surprise" means, we should first discuss the definition of the word—]
What kind of nonsense literature is this?
Don immediately swatted away the system that had started spouting nonsense in his head.
"Olsen has been gone for a while now. He should be back soon."
Father had attracted significant firepower. As long as he didn't cause any major disturbances, the churches' attention shouldn't linger in Tingen for too long—at most just routine stationing.
Which meant his "recruitment plan" could finally begin.
(End of Chapter)