“I’m not a fan of long explanations,” Henrick said. He continued, “So I’ll summarize the whole thing.”

He coughed once to clear his throat and explained, “There was a man named ‘Rick’ among my ancestors, and he developed two Body Crafting Kits while going on a serial killing spree. Afterward, he decided to resurrect his victims, but he left one Body Crafting Kit as a family heirloom and hid the other one in his workshop that only he knew about.”

“His workshop?” Shaneth asked.

“It’s called a workshop, but it’s actually an extremely large ruin. Ha! I wonder how a madman like him ended up with such a fortune,” Henrick grumbled. He then continued his story. “Anyway, nobody was able to find the Body Crafting Kit he hid in the ruin. It’s said he hid it somewhere for his successor to find, according to my great-grandfather.”

“Then are you saying that the man from a while ago who was controlling the puppets could be Rick’s successor?” Shaneth asked.

“Yes, because he has the Body Crafting Kit,” Henrick responded with a nod. He continued, “Well, I don’t really care if he has it or not, but it’s not that simple.”

Shaneth gulped before muttering, “Don’t tell me…?”

“The Body Crafting Kit can also be used to turn a corpse into a doll, and it seems that that bastard used it to create his corpse dolls,” Henrick said.

“Creating a doll out of a corpse… Is that even possible?” Shaneth asked.

“It’s possible if you submerge it in antiseptic so the flesh won’t rot, then cover it with mana. A doll made out of a corpse is far more powerful than those made out of wood, because the skills and abilities the owner of the corpse had in life can be used by the corpse doll,” Henrick explained.

Henrick stabbed his sculpting knife into the ground a few times in annoyance, grumbling, “But turning a corpse into a doll is something only a bastard would do, no matter how I look at it. I think that guy doesn’t have an ounce of humanity in him.”

Although he was usually laid back and relaxed, Henrick was visibly angry for the first time ever as he said, “Above anything else, the successor to Madman Rick is given one special item.”

Kang Yoon-Soo suddenly finished for Henrick, “The Final Masterpiece.”

“I’m already tired of asking ‘how did you know that?’,” Henrick said with a sigh of resignation.

Iris asked, “What is the Final Masterpiece?”

“It’s the best doll Rick ever made. It’s said to be far more beautiful and stronger than any other doll in this world,” Henrick said.

Kang Yoon-Soo nodded and said, “Let’s steal it.”

The party was silent for a moment. Henrick was the first to break the silence, asking, “…Are you serious?”

“Yeah,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied nonchalantly.

Looking back on his previous lives, Kang Yoon-Soo knew the Final Masterpiece was an absolute necessity for their journey. He would not have bothered to go to the Shy Doll Ruin in the first place if not to steal the Final Masterpiece.

‘It’s a lot faster than my original plan,’ he thought.

He had originally planned to take on the ruin after gathering enough party members because it was crawling with hundreds, no, thousands of combat dolls. Many preparations were necessary to challenge the ruin.

‘But I don’t have time to waste from now on,’ he thought, having decided to start conquering all the obstacles as quickly as he could from now on. The Demon Lord was going to appear much earlier than before, and what he needed was to move as efficiently as possible in preparation to face the Demon Lord.

‘It’s reckless to face him head-on,’ he thought. David was crazy, but his ruin was well prepared, with traps meticulously placed all over it. However, Kang Yoon-Soo had no plans to use Yuriel this time.

“Do we have to fight against those human-looking dolls again?” Shaneth asked, sounding disgusted.

“We don’t have to,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied.

“How so?” Henrick asked.

Kang Yoon-Soo took out the horse bone riddled with purple spots and said, “We’ll use this.”

***

David rolled onto the floor as soon as he was teleported to his ruin. He staggered across the floor and chose a left hand from his pile of body parts. The hands he had cut off the Travelers all had wrist devices attached to them.

‘It was the right choice to preserve these in antiseptic so the flesh wouldn’t rot,’ he thought as he took out the Body Crafting Kit with his right hand. He then started to precisely sew a left hand onto his left arm. It had only lasted for a short moment, but he had definitely been in danger.

‘I can still use my skills even without the wrist device,’ he thought in relief. The only thing that would await him if he failed to activate his Recall to Ruin skill was certain death.

He finished attaching the left hand to his left arm, then checked his new left hand for any problems by opening and closing it a few times. Then, he checked his new wrist device to see if it worked as well. Fortunately, both his new left hand and his new wrist device seemed to work perfectly without any problems.

‘It’s safe now.’

He was the owner of the Shy Doll Ruin, and he was confident that nobody would be able to beat him as long as he stayed in the heart of the ruin.

‘I’m confident I can fight against a five-thousand-strong army as long as it’s within my ruin.’

IT was not just David's baseless confidence. The ruin had all sorts of traps installed in it along with the thousands of combat dolls, and it was also designed like a maze such that anyone who dared to invade his ruin was bound to either die or get lost within it. It was not only that, however.

‘My abilities and stats are greatly enhanced as long as I’m within the heart of the ruin.’

Another unique characteristic of his ‘Ruin Master’ class raised all of his abilities and stats as long as he was at the heart of the ruin, and it also increased his life force the more enemies he faced while he was there. David was the worst boss monster anyone could face as long as he remained in that place.

‘It’s a shame I couldn’t turn that guy into my doll,’ he thought. The expressionless young man had amazing swordsmanship, even though he had only seen it for a short while. ‘He could have been a combat doll far stronger than any knight on the continent if I had used him as a material.’

It was a shame, but it was already in the past. David thought he would let bygones be bygones as he lay down on his dusty bed and closed his eyes in preparation for what the next day had to offer.

***

Morning came, and sunlight penetrated into the ruin through a broken window.

However, David woke up right before noon. He thought with a yawn, ‘I’m tired.’

The very first thing he did every morning was to check on his ‘treasure’ before anything else. David went to the heart of the ruin and opened a chest that sat atop an altar.

‘It’s safe in here.’

The Final Masterpiece had been left behind by Rick, and could be considered the only masterpiece doll ever created. A single glance would be enough to make anyone stare for a minute, becoming immersed in its sheer beauty.

‘It’s already this mesmerizing for a murderer like me. I wonder how mesmerized an artisan would be…?’ David thought as he rubbed his chin.

The Final Masterpiece was not only beautiful, but also strong as well. However, it would only be possible for someone who had mastered both puppeteering and artisanship to be able to use it.

‘I can always just increase the level of my puppeteering, but I have no idea why this bothersome artisanship is also required,’ David complained inwardly. Unfortunately, he could not use the Final Masterpiece, as his skills were still lacking.

David rummaged through the belongings of the Travelers he had murdered and took out some food for breakfast. He was not a fan of food, nor was he a gourmet, so stale bread and some water were more than enough to satiate his hunger.

‘I have to inspect my dolls.’

David always inspected his dolls at least once a day. He always checked if there were any damaged or broken parts on his dolls. The corpse dolls were an important part of his ruin’s defense mechanism, and he could not afford to be lazy when it came to maintaining them.

‘I can control these dolls even without mana threads, but it’s absolutely important that I maintain them.’

That was one of the characteristics of the Shy Doll Ruin. The Shy Doll Ruin gave the Ruin Owner the privilege of controlling their dolls even without having any mana threads attached, as long as they were inside the dungeon.

‘I can control all the dolls in the ruin.’

Leadership was an absolute necessity when it came to large-scale combat, as there were bound to be a few troops that would run away if morale fell. However, there was no need to worry about morale or desertion when it came to combat dolls.

‘There’s nothing special today, as always.’

David lined up all of the corpse dolls in single file and started to inspect them one by one. The corpse dolls had eyes void of any emotion, but they all had huge grins on their faces. However, there was no special reason for David to have made the dolls smile like that.

‘It’s just good to smile, right?’ David thought, snickering. He continued, ‘You adorable things! Hehe!’ He had a lot of affection and love for his dolls.

“I like you guys a lot. Do you like me as well?” David asked. The dolls did not respond, but he seemed happy, as if he had heard them respond back to him.

It was at that moment that he found something out of the ordinary.

‘Hmm?’

It was the corpse doll that had gone out to scout in the forest earlier that day. The doll had been made from the corpse of a female Ranger, and it was wearing a skimpy, revealing outfit. A purple spot of some sort was visible on her shoulder.

‘What’s this?’ David thought, scratching the purple spot with his nails. It was not an ordinary spot on the surface of the doll’s skin; rather, it seemed to be something that spread beneath the skin.

‘Did she get bitten by a bug in the forest or something…?’ David thought, deciding to quarantine the corpse doll for a while. He sent the corpse doll with the purple spot to a dirty corner of the ruin.

The Shy Doll Ruin was very dirty, as David had never bothered to clean it even once, thinking, ‘What’s the use of cleaning it if it’ll just get dirty again?’

David had had no sense of hygiene back in the real world. That had been especially true when he was locked up, serving prison time. Hygiene was unimportant to David because he thought it was a bother and he was alone anyway. Besides, the corpse dolls were all fully sterilized and covered with mana, so he had no fear of them rotting or decaying.

‘It’s another boring day.’

David took a walk around the ruin, then went out for a stroll before returning to the heart of the ruin. There was an old, worn-out bed there, and David proceeded to lie down on it.

‘I hope something exciting happens tomorrow.’

Living in the ruin had been fun at the start. He had killed countless intruders, and it had also been exciting to watch his doll army grow in numbers. However, he was already sick and tired of it all.

‘This place is starting to feel like a prison,’ he thought as he slowly closed his eyes.

***

The morning came again, David woke up just before noon once again, and he checked the Final Masterpiece as he always did. The beautiful doll was still curled up in the box, as usual.

‘I’ll definitely use you once my skill reaches the pinnacle.’ It was the same thing David told himself over and over again every morning.

He went up the stairs to the first floor of the ruin. He had stationed numerous corpse dolls all over the ruin on every floor.

‘…What the hell?’ he thought, blinking a few times.

Seven corpse dolls were covered in purple spots all over their bodies, and it looked as if they had been poisoned after ingesting poisonous mushrooms or something of that sort.

‘How did this happen?’

Two of the seven dolls had never stepped out of the ruin. David closely inspected the dolls once again; he found that it was not a simple matter of the dolls having spots all over them, but that their flesh was starting to rot and fall away as well.

‘How could this be? I sanitized them and even covered them with mana.’

He quickly walked toward the corpse doll he had quarantined the previous day. A vile odor invaded his nose when he got closer to the area where he had placed the doll. The first corpse doll to have manifested the purple spots was already severely decomposed, and had flies buzzing around it.

“It’s such a waste, but I guess I have to burn these,” David said to himself.

He decided to burn the corpse dolls within the ruin, since it would only attract the beasts of the forest if he burned them outside. He lit a fire and burned the corpse dolls that were infected with the purple spots in a corner of the ruin.

A question suddenly popped into his head. ‘Why did these guys suddenly start to rot?’

The antiseptic and mana he had applied to the corpse dolls should have naturally prevented the decay of the corpses, but the flesh had still rotted regardless, and that could only mean one thing. Something else had infected the corpse dolls.

David’s heart suddenly sank when he realized, ‘Don’t tell me… A virus?’

It was highly possible that one of his corpse dolls had contracted an infectious virus from the wild. They were only called dolls, but that did not mean they could not be infected; they were corpses after all. Additionally, it could not be helped that they were much more prone to getting infected than usual; they were more vulnerable and had weaker immune systems than wild animals.

‘Damn it! I never thought the corpse dolls would have such a weakness!’ David cursed inwardly.

He took out all of the antiseptics Rick had left behind, and he poured bottle after bottle over all of the places he frequented in the ruin. He wanted to ventilate the ruin fully, but he could not do so because the ruin was enclosed from all sides.

‘Should I leave the ruin for a bit?’ he pondered.

However, he soon shook his head and decided that it was impossible. ‘The Ruin Owner class will lose their rights to the ruin if they leave the ruin for more than two days.’

It was the ruin he had nurtured ever since the day he was summoned to the continent; he could not simply give up such a precious ruin no matter how dire the situation was.

‘It’ll be alright since I sterilized the whole place with antiseptics,’ David consoled himself as he slowly fell asleep.

***

When morning came, David rushed to the first floor and called all of his corpse dolls. He found that twenty-eight of his dolls had purple spots all over their body.

“Damn it! This can’t be happening!” David screamed, pulling his hair and gritting his teeth.

Did infections usually spread this fast? He had no way to find out how to combat the disease, as he did not even know its name. There was no one to ask, since the ruin was in a secluded forest and this was also a primitive world with not much medical knowledge compared to the real world; it did not have any proper medical facilities.

“Damn it!” David cursed as he scratched his left hand, which had been itching since that morning.

‘What the hell? Why is it so itchy? Did a mosquito bite me or something?’ he thought as he scratched the left hand that was irritating him.

He looked at his left hand, and he saw that a large purple spot had bloomed on it.