Conquering OtherWorld Starts With a Game

The wooden carving of a newborn baby, no bigger than a palm, lay quietly in the small wooden box.

Dark, tainted, and insidious; murderous malice emanated from the wooden carving, pervading the entire house.

Yang Qiu and Inspector Lowell sat across from each other at the coffee table, both silently observing the wooden carving sculpture in the box.

They could feel the overwhelming murderous intent seeping out from the carving and were now hearing an increasingly dense chorus of infant laughter.

The laughter, persisting for over five minutes, grew more frantic, eventually turning into hysterical screams.

Inspector Lowell sighed softly, breaking the silence. "Such delicate and tender lines, indeed the style of Lady Marion. It's truly sad… The greatest sculptor of 800 to 900 years of the new calendar didn't find peace in death."

Wilhem J. Bancroft, the former Norsk owner of the carving, a young man who lived barely past 30, might not have any special sentiment toward Lady Marion, the creator of many of his pieces. After all, she had passed away more than two hundred years before his birth.

But for Lowell… Lady Marion was a contemporary. Two hundred years ago, when Lowell was in his prime, it was the twhen Lady Marion, the celebrated Norsk woodcarver, rose to fame.

When her obituary was published in the newspapers, Lowell had deeply mourned her passing, even though he had never met her before in person.

This strong sentiment was tied to Lowell's status as a member of the faith. Lady Marion had been invited by the Church of Prosperity to visit the Duchy of Shiga and had created a goddess bas-relief sculpture for the church, which was regarded as a miraculous piece.

Yang Qiu, unlike Lowell, didn't harbor such complex emotions. He nodded, then shook his head, commenting, "At least one mystery is solved. This brave lady did not die by a cowardly suicide."

Lowell nodded slowly in agreement.

One who committed suicide would have a strong tendency toward self-destruction, but the intense obsession left in this final piece by Lady Marion was filled with intense aggression.

"The Norsks desecrated Lady Marion," Lowell said unhappily. "They tarnished her reputation, and even after her death, saddled her with the stigma of suicide!"

In the moral views of this world, there was no concept of dying to prove one's integrity. All orthodox faiths considered suicide a grave sin.

"It's been two hundred years. Discussing this now is pointless." Yang Qiu raised his hand, palm facing downward toward the wooden box containing the carving. "I need this sealed. Please helpgrant this lady her peace."

"With pleasure." Lowell nodded solemnly and retrieved a withered wooden staff from his spatial ring, lightly tapping it on the ground.

Ripples emanated from the staff's tip, forming a semi-transparent, visually perceivable restraining barrier for sacred energy. It enveloped both men and most of the hall.

There were many reasons for the formation of a sealed artifact. A sealed artifact, like Lady Marion's final work, imbued with the creator's intense hatred and fragment of her soul, was one sort.

Sealed artifacts containing fragments of a deceased soul were, in a way, more potent. While a sealed artifact was an inanimate object that followed certain predetermined rules regardless of how sinister it was, fragments of a living being's soul introduced unpredictability and turned the malice more elusive and uncertain.

A dense, smooth, ink-like black energy flowed from Yang Qiu's hand, pouring into the wooden carving.

The distorted laughter, now thunderous, paused for a brief moment.

Then, a high-pitched, explosive roar erupted.

This psychic storm, capable of instantly making countless lose their minds, was confined within the living room of the house, trapped by the "Sacred Confinement" barrier raised by Inspector Lowell.

Yang Qiu withdrew his hand, his eyes widening.

The fragmented soul of Lady Marion, embedded in the carving, was slowly coalescing into its original image under the stimulus of the dark energy he provided…

Within seconds, above the coffee table, half of a… broken face appeared.

It resembled a cracked painted doll, where only half of the facial features could be barely discerned from the shattered fragments.

The fragmented soul, barely forming half a face, strained to open its fragmented mouth, emitting a frantic scream.

Lowell expressed his regret, "Too much thas passed. Lady Marion has little consciousness left."

Yang Qiu frowned at the fragmented soul.

Extracting a soul merged with an external object using dark energy to allow it to rest was a common method used by black mages to soothe spirits. Back when he was still an apprentice mage, Yang Qiu had seen Lady Marion's works in newspapers bought by his master. Her lifelike wooden carvings had once amazed him…

Now, he was rather reluctant to force this lady "to rest" in such a violent manner.

After sthought, Yang Qiu focused his mind and exerted his mental energy, attempting to place his mind imprint on the fragmented soul.

Lowell understood Yang Qiu's intent and raised an eyebrow. "Hey, Yang, are you serious?"

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing," Yang Qiu reassured.

"You—" Lowell started to dissuade Yang Qiu from his reckless act but then remembered that this man could even manipulate eldritch power and bring the essence of the void to this material plane, so he decided to stay silent.

Using eldritch power to suppress the fragmented soul's instinctual aggression and trying to communicate through the imprint matrix was also a viable approach.

What Lowell didn't know was that Yang Qiu actually didn't have to use eldritch power… Treating Lady Marion's fragmented soul as an "NPC unit" and dragging it into the imprint matrix to establish a connection posed no risk to him as the core of the matrix—otherwise, the mental corruption from the elder god's tentacle would have doomed Yang Qiu long ago.

Still, branding a mental imprint on an incomplete soul was a challenging task. Even with Lowell's "Sacred Confinement" aiding in the suppression, it still took Yang Qiu nearly 20 minutes to succeed.

After dragging the fragmented soul into the imprint matrix and establishing a mental link with Yang Qiu as the matrix's core, Lady Marion's fragmented soul ceased its frantic screaming and floated aimlessly in midair. Her strong pre-death obsession turned into fragmented emotional consciousness, flowing into Yang Qiu's mental domain.

The most prominent sensation Yang Qiu felt was hatred.

This hatred was intense, like a poison-tipped blade, so discomforting it made Yang Qiu frown involuntarily.

Spellcasters, known for their heightened perception, were especially sensitive to strong emotions from both the living and the dead. For Yang Qiu, with his three hundred years of experience as a spellcaster, this level of hatred was significant enough to rank in his top ten.

This starkly contrasted with Yang Qiu's impression of Lady Marion, who was the only woman from the Norsk Federation to gain finternationally in the past few centuries.

Most Norsk women lacked the opportunity or means to becwell-known, largely due to the extrmale chauvinism of the Storm Church, which denied women any status, let alone allowed them to stand out.

In contrast, the similarly male-dominated Radiant Sun Church, due to its centuries-long development of maritventures and maintaining armed forces for international competitiveness, indirectly provided women with opportunities to achieve social status through non-combat roles in agriculture and industry.

However, the Storm Church, despite its enthusiasm for overseas colonization, had not developed sufficient industry in the Norsk Federation. Women were still barred from accessing ships, the shipbuilding industry, owning personal property, or defying male family members—outdated and oppressive practices.

Capable of showcasing her talent and gaining repute in such a harsh environment meant that Lady Marion couldn't have been a woman filled with anger and hatred. If she had shown such traits, her reputation would have been severely tarnished.

After spondering, Yang Qiu asked Lowell, "Wasn't Lady Marion known as a refined and gentle lady?"

"Yes," Lowell confirmed with a nod. "Everyone who met her spoke highly of her character."

"That means sexternal force pushed her to the brink of complete loss of control, changing her nature drastically…"

Yang Qiu looked down at the small baby carving in the wooden box, reaching out to pick it up. Lady Marion excelled in portrait carvings, with her works being indistinguishably lifelike regardless of their size.

This carving… was of a baby girl.

Yang Qiu realized the tragic truth. "So that's why… What else but harm to her child could drive a mother to madness," he sighed.

Lowell was taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"I've been to Norsk," Yang Qiu said, gently placing the carving back into the box. "In Norsk, there's an unspeakable custom… If the firstborn is a girl, she must be cruelly killed to prevent the mother from failing to produce a male heir."

Lowell was dumbfounded.

"Lady Marion reportedly struggled to conceive for over a decade and finally becpregnant. Regardless of the child's gender, she must have been overjoyed." Yang Qiu lifted his gaze again to the twisted, fragmented face. "She must have been eager to hear the laughter of her long-awaited child."

"But that's Lady Marion!" Lowell exclaimed in disbelief. "Killing her child for such an absurd reason?! Causing her to go insane?!"

"Inspector, have you ever heard of a princess in any of the states of the Norsk Federation?" Yang Qiu posed him a question.

Lowell was on the verge of going insane himself…

Yang Qiu stood up, facing the drifting fragmented soul.

Communication through language was impossible with a soul that only existed in fragments. Thus, he attempted to convey his message through the imprint matrix link.

The fragmented soul's hollow eye seemed to respond, the darkness within seemed to shake.

The fragmented soul's face trembled violently, and tears of blood slowly trickled from its hollow eye socket.

Yang Qiu locked gaze with the single eye of the fragmented soul.

Lowell's mouth fell open.

He hadn't sensed a single trace of magical fluctuation from Yang, yet the presence of Lady Marion's highly potent soul just dissipated into ashes right before his eyes.

"What did you do?" he asked in astonishment.

"Ah… In a moment of impulse, I made a promise that must be fulfilled." Yang Qiu shrugged. "It's hard to control one's emotions when someone you used to admire is right before you."

Lowell: "??"

"What's with that reaction? I recognized this carving as Lady Marion's work at first glance. Is it strange that I admired her?" Yang Qiu said.

Lowell stared at him for a moment, then shrugged.

"Speaking of which, while we've been talking here, Rex is entertaining the young master from the Odysse family," Yang Qiu said as he put away the box with the carving and looked in the direction of the town hall. "This seems to be an opportunity, Lowell. What do you think about seizing Indahl with this chance?"

Lowell, still searching his memory for the familiar-sounding surn"Odysse," nearly fell off his high-backed chair upon hearing the latter part.

"Can't you be a bit more serious?!" he demanded indignantly, barely settling back into his chair.

"I'm being serious, of course, Inspector. It's necessary to be decisive about this matter." Yang Qiu pointed at Lowell. "At the Bartlis', you were Charlie Rex, which doesn't match the Rex that the young master of the Odysse family is meeting now. If this is exposed, it would be hard to explain things."

"—Wait a minute! So you intentionally draggedinto this?!" Lowell was at a loss. "Indahl isn't sremote town like Weisshem. The Church of Lady Golden Coin won't allow you to mess around."

"That's even less of a concern, dear inspector." Yang Qiu grinned. "The Church of Lady Golden Coin has already cooperated with(my undead) before."

Lowell: "??"