Chapter 22: 22: Puppets

It was a room larger than the previous one. And, it consisted of humanoid puppets, mostly made of wood while some were made of iron. There were hundreds in the place. Upon seeing them standing prim and proper, swords and blades in hand, Compass Carburettor flinched once, afraid they would spring upon him at once.

The Queen, Ephemella smiled upon seeing his response, saying as she pointed at the wooden puppet at the front, "And, this is the second power that we use: Puppets. Unlike Armaments, we can freely control Puppets as we wish. And, it's like having disposable units under you to serve your every need. So, every Puppeteer is valuable because we can raise an army with them and win battles without suffering any loss in lives."

"Do they function using Darlac too?" Compass Carburettor asked, hesitantly touching a wooden puppet, feeling that the wood used was smooth, having a heavy feeling to it.

"Yes, you need Darlac to manipulate them. The greater the actions they take, the more your Darlac is consumed." The Queen said, "And, the farther they are away from you, the greater the Darlac you have to expend to control them."

"How far can an average Puppeteer reach?" Compass Carburettor asked.

"Around 30 metres," The Queen said, "Beyond that, the expenditure is too great to even sustain a normal sprint. So, most of them don't send their Puppets that far away."

She then thought for a moment before saying, "And, your expenditure depends on your affinity to the craft. With a lower affinity, you would need to expend a greater deal of energy simply to make the puppet execute basic commands. With higher affinity, you can move the puppet just like you can do your body, sometimes even better."

"How do I try it?" Compass Carburettor was raring to go, wondering how he would fare.

"Not yet," Ephemella shook her head, "I was just showing the Puppets to you today. You need to have at least 1 Darlac before you can attempt to even move one of its limbs. Otherwise, you won't even realise if you moved it because your Darlac would be completely pulled out, leaving you in an exhausted state. So, you won't be able to concentrate enough."

"Fair enough," Compass Carburettor nodded, asking as he looked around, "I can see that not all of them are wooden puppets. How are they made?"

"Well," Ephemella tapped her chin, thinking as she spoke, "The primary material for both an Armament and a Puppet is Darble. In an Armament, the percentage of Darble forming the Armament dictates the number of states it can hold. It can have one state at a Darble purity of 20 percent, increasing by one for every 20 percent increase in purity. And at a 100 percent purity, it can have five states."

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"As for a puppet, it's slightly different," Ephemella said, "In a puppet, there exists a core made from Darble, positioned around the same place as our hearts. And, nerves of Darble traverse through its limbs. So, when we maintain it, the Darlac from our bodies flows into the air like a river and gushes into the Puppet's core, powering it up. It then moves according to our wishes."

"The material can be anything," She said, "But, if the material used doesn't have much affinity to Darble itself, then the puppet wouldn't move as fast as we would like it to move. Thankfully, some materials have a high affinity to Darble. The delay in movements while using the puppets created from such materials is very little."

"Hworty Wood is the most common material used in the wooden puppets," She said, knocking the wooden puppet next to him, "There are some plantations in the kingdom that grow this wood. Hworty Wood Puppets weigh around 45-50 kilograms. So, they are strong."

Compass Carburettor thought, "So, the power they exhibit is based on their weight class."

The Queen's eyes widened as she looked at him, for a moment sweating internally, 'He quickly figured out the essence of this principle. Thankfully, such a figure is my ally. Just what kind of life had he led till now? Even though he's like a child in terms of fighting, it feels like he's not a human child, but a dragon child that is only waiting to mature.'

She instantly reoriented her emotions, appearing normal as she nodded, "Indeed, as they are puppets, we can move them as we wish. And, the heavier they are, the stronger their attacks become. Even though the Darlac expenditure also increases with an increase in the weight of the puppet, we usually have Puppets with different densities. Each of them has their respective function."

"Just like an Armament, there are divisions among Puppets too. And, we typically classify them into three: Wooden Puppets, Iron Puppets, and Darble Puppets." She pointed at the far end of the room where there were iron puppets, "Wooden Puppets are cheap to create. They are the cheapest of the lot. So, all the Puppeteers only use Wooden Puppets. As for Iron Puppets, the raw materials themselves are scarce. And, creating them requires tremendous investment, time, and labour."

"So," She sighed, "Creating Iron Puppets is difficult. Even the Royal Treasury only has 10 Iron Puppets in total, and five of them are for my personal use. This is precisely because the material we use to create an Iron Puppet, Stround Iron is hard to come by."

"A human-sized Iron Puppet created from Stround Iron weighs around 520-570 kilograms. And, they are ridiculously tough, so the power they can exhibit is unmatched. Most Armament swords barely manage to leave a scratch on them." She said.

"So, Puppeteers are the strongest here. If you have a hundred of such Puppets, you can even destroy a kingdom alone?" Compass Carburettor frowned, thinking that the power scale was kind of wonky. He felt like the Armaments were too weak in comparison to the Puppets, even though they were employing the same energy, Darlac.

"Most Puppeteers can only control a single Puppet," Ephemella smiled wryly, "General Artica, the strongest General of my Kingdom only controls three Iron Puppets. And as for me, I only control five Iron Puppets. No matter how strong an Iron Puppet is, it becomes useless the moment I have no Darlac to move it."

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