The Demon Hunting thod Of The Regressed Inquisitor 28
Pinocchio (2)
The current Geppetto was the finest craftsman in Nidavellir, but in the past, he was just one of many craftsn who struggled to make ends et.
Back then, Nidavellir was much noisier with the sound of hamring tal.
Everyone honed their tallurgy skills and crafted cold weapons like spears and swords.
For Geppetto, who stood in the midst of such fierce competition, it was hard to overco 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 sothing.
“Please… take care of our child.”
And so, he lost his wife.
Geppetto spent so ti in despair. But only for a while.
He still had sothing left. So he picked up his hamr 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 cos 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 beca aningless in a mont 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 aning of life disappeared. Geppetto extinguished the forge’s flas.
Every night, he returned ho 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 nas 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 ti 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 rembered. 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 flas of the forge.
Just like when his family was alive, he worked tirelessly every night.
He made dolls out of tal.
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 ?”
A doll spoke to him.
At first, he thought it was a hallucination. So he ignored it.
“Don’t ignore !”
But the doll whined and clung to Geppetto.
The feel of the hard wooden piece.
He couldn’t even rember what kind of wood he had carved it from.
“Dad, what’s my na?”
“Pinocchio…”
He could never forget.
The doll looked at him with the sa expression as the child in his mory.
Geppetto’s heart, which had been burning with anger towards the world, finally cald its flas.
“Pinocchio…”
Geppetto hugged Pinocchio.
It was the feel of hard wood, but it couldn’t have been warr.
Pinocchio laughed and acted like a child. So Geppetto believed that the child had co 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 a long ti to co 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 rembered and created.
Geppetto still rembers.
He rembers 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 rember 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.
From noble mtl dot com
But the group trying to persuade and threaten Geppetto grew larger. Despite Geppetto’s determination to make his son live happily, they had to beco 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 ti 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 beco 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 ca back ho 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 soone 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 an, Dad?”
“What I created was not my son, but a weapon…”
“…?”
Pinocchio tilted his head.
As if he didn’t understand what it ant, 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 rely a weapon.
But that didn’t an 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 mont 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 cos too late. Geppetto regretted closing his eyes that day.
He should have gotten angry properly.
He should have welcod 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 co to him first.
“Help .”
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 sa.
He finally realized that.
“This ti, 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 soday, and I will go to solve the erosion that is eating away at my body and at the sa ti 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 outco.’
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 was not given without any cost.
It is a chance created by the sacrifice of soone who lived a life more brilliant than anyone else.
Then I must repay the favor.
In the way that soone I respected the most in my life, whom no one else can rember, 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 soone who does things that are not honorable.
But this ti, 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 ti 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 when I had nothing.
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