Chapter 62: 62. Willing to Take the Bait
Looking at the small puppet in front of her, Audrey recalled her childhood.
That was ten years ago, when she first went on stage and soon after developed social fear, which was also the darkest period of her life. During those days, she hid at home, refusing to meet or communicate with anyone except her two mothers and her older sister.
It was also during that time that Second Aunt Noe Rose happened to visit her home and showed her the possibilities of puppet dolls.
Audrey clearly remembered it was a sunny day, with bright sunlight outside, but she had all the doors and windows shut, curtains drawn, and was trembling alone in her dark room.
Even when she was alone at that time, she still felt the illusion of being watched by countless eyes. She always felt as if eyes were opening in the corners around her, under the bed, and in various crevices. They were all staring at her with greedy eyes, as if she would be consumed if she relaxed for even a moment by these monsters.
Being young at the time, she couldn't do anything. The only thing she could do was curl up in her beloved little blanket, fantasizing that the angelic down blanket was an invincible defensive barrier that could block out those annoying gazes.
Unfortunately, the blanket's invincibility was just a fantasy. This psychological barrier was eventually broken. When she realized something had crawled into her blanket, little Audrey screamed and jumped out of bed. With tens of thousands of mana already, she directly erupted, and the violently surging mana directly overturned the entire room, exposing the foreign object that had invaded her bed.
It was a small spider-lady puppet.
Well, it was a monster with the upper body of a beautiful woman and the lower body of a hideous spider.
"Oh, I'm sorry I scared you. I just wanted to play a joke on you. Let me introduce myself, I am your paternal mother's cousin, Noe Rose. You can call me Second Aunt."
The small puppet was slapped against the wall by the mana, then slid down the wall to the ground before shakily getting up and introducing herself to Audrey.
This was her first meeting with Second Aunt.
The root of Audrey's social fear was the overly greedy gazes of the audience looking at her, gazes filled with naked desire.
If it were someone less sensitive to emotions, they might not have found it strange, but Audrey had inherited some of a succubus's abilities, and there's no need to elaborate on how keen demons are at perceiving desire.
Perhaps the desire contained in those gazes was merely a fantasy in the audience's minds. People say fantasy is harmless; as long as one doesn't act on it, merely thinking about it isn't a mistake.
You see a beautiful woman on the street, and from the moment you first see her, you've already thought of names for your future children, but in the end, you're too cowardly to even strike up a conversation with her. Then your previous mental fantasies actually mean nothing, and the beautiful woman you fantasized about will never know that she just got married and had children with someone in another timeline.
Normally, this is true, but for Audrey, it was not so.
The core talent of a succubus is called Desire Source (SSR), which is the ability to perceive and understand all desire directed towards oneself.
Relying on this ability, in the eyes of a succubus, the prey's XP is crystal clear. She can instantly discern whether the prey in front of her prefers older women or lolis, big breasts or flat chests, black stockings or white stockings, and so on. Finally, based on this information, she adjusts her hunting posture accordingly.
Therefore, this is why there are legends that succubi always appear in the form people most desire.
Audrey didn't know whether it was lucky or unlucky to inherit this talent from her paternal mother. Therefore, the desire contained in the audience's gazes was, to her perception, a series of incredibly clear short films starring herself. As for how terrible the content of these films was, there's no need to say more.
A true succubus might disdain those filthy desires, instead happily seeing it as a manifestation of her charm, but Audrey was just a Witch; she didn't have the licentious nature of a succubus.
As a Calamity Race evolved from humans, Witches might be countless versions ahead of humans in terms of power and talent, but in the realm of the mind, they truly haven't progressed much.
Naturally, Audrey, who had witnessed the ugliness of the world at such a young age, ultimately couldn't cope, and her social fear and introversion developed at that time.
However, what Audrey feared was only the dirty desire that humans, or more precisely, fellow Witches, had for her. After all, she couldn't just turn on people because of their mental fantasies, could she?
The Immortals of the East once had an ancient saying: "Judge by deeds, not by heart; if by heart, no one is a saint."
Even ordinary individuals in a powerful race like Witches cannot fully control their own hearts. She couldn't possibly pull out her magic wand and duel someone just because of a little fantasy, could she? That would make her seem like the crazy one instead.
And how could a Witch whose goal is to pursue art duel her audience every day?
It was precisely because she clearly understood this point that Audreyfelt so powerless. Since she couldn't control other people's thoughts, she could only hide away and avoid seeing what she didn't want to see.
But if she hid, what would happen to her dream of pursuing art?
This was the reason for little Audrey's pain and confusion at the time.
However, that day, amidst the ruins where the roof had been torn off by the raging mana, looking at the vivid spider-lady puppet in front of her, Audrey's gloomy heart, like the room whose roof had been ripped off and was now illuminated by sunlight, dispelling the darkness, saw the light again.
Perhaps in the eyes of others, this spider-lady puppet, which actually looked a bit terrifying, was quite scary and prone to triggering the uncanny valley effect. Many people are actually quite afraid of these overly realistic dolls.
But as a Witch, Audrey naturally wouldn't be scared by this, and perhaps because there was a layer of puppet in between, her talent had no effect on this puppet, as this soulless puppet wouldn't have any desire for her.
So, if I can't go on stage myself, then I can just hide behind the scenes and let my puppets perform, can't I?
Although as the medium of her power, she could still feel others' desire for her puppets, watching short films starring puppets was much easier to accept than watching short films starring herself. Moreover, most normal people probably wouldn't idly develop strange desires for puppets.
And this also solved her problem of finding companions who could cooperate with her, as both dancing and singing rarely involve solo acts; there always needs to be backup dancers or accompaniment. Given Audrey's situation, she could at most only cooperate with her two mothers.
However, with the fame of the two mothers, it would be hard to say who the protagonist and who the supporting role would be once they stepped onto the stage. Although the mothers believed that Audrey's future achievements would surely surpass theirs, Audrey knew very well that, as she was currently, she would probably only be a green leaf to set off her two mothers.
After all, dancers and singers were never just about having a pretty face. Even if Audrey was beautiful, in her professional field, she was far too inferior to her two mothers right now.
However, if they were all puppets, then this problem could be solved. As long as she could control enough puppets, Audrey herself would be an entire song and dance troupe.
It was with this idea in mind that she embarked on the path of creating a puppet theater from then on.
It was just a pity that this path was much harder than she had initially imagined.
Stiff puppets had their limits; some dance moves that witches could perform could not be replicated by puppets at all. The artistry displayed by living things and dead things were completely different concepts. In addition, puppet shows were originally a niche genre, with most of the audience being children, and so on.
In any case, the difficulties and setbacks Audrey encountered over the years were far more numerous than she had imagined. If she hadn't developed social phobia, according to her mothers' original plans, the 16-year-old her should have already been standing on the grand stage of the Venus Theater, the artistic center of the Witch World and the holy land in the hearts of witch actors, enjoying the attention and praise of the entire world.
However, the reality was that after all her efforts and countless hours of dedication, the puppet theater she created couldn't even get on the lowest-level official stage. She could only be a small online celebrity streamer on the Magic Net, with only a few hundred thousand followers.
And after realizing the difficulty of her path, Audrey was not prepared to give up, so she came to the Witch Academy to continue learning puppetry from her Second Aunt. She wanted to create perfect puppets that could carry her artistic dreams.
But reality has now slapped her hard again.
Her once proud talent and knowledge were now completely trampled by a bewildering classmate, and even her trustworthy relative, Second Aunt, suddenly had a new favorite. It was as if she had been abandoned by the entire world.
A person's breakdown often happens in an instant. Now, the little fox's mental state was already on the verge of collapse. She began to wonder if she was living like a clown.
Hmm, perhaps she shouldn't have organized a song and dance troupe; the Circus was her true home. She could definitely play the role of a clown authentically.
Before, Audrey was just socially anxious; now, she was almost autistic.
I'm tired, really tired. Anyway, I'm not a genius, my talent isn't good, and my mindset is so bad. What's the point of working so hard? I might as well lie down and wait for death.
She thought to herself.
However, just as this despairing darkness was about to envelop her again, just like ten years ago, another small puppet stood before her.
And she wondered if it was a hallucination caused by her exhaustion, but Audrey always felt that this puppet was exceptionally exquisite, as if it were the perfect puppet she had been desperately searching for, one that could carry her artistic dreams.
This small puppet now stood before her; it was so lifelike and vivid. Though it was an inanimate object, it exuded the vitality of life.
"Hey, have you come to your senses, Miss Audrey?"
This small blonde, blue-eyed witch puppet waved at her, then cupped its hands around its mouth like a megaphone and shouted.
This time, its voice was not even a dry, metallic synthetic sound, but a crisp and lovely little girl's voice.
"Hmm."
Because she was facing a puppet, Audrey wasn't too scared. She subconsciously nodded, even making a slight sound.
And the little puppet, having received a response, immediately brightened up with joy.
Audrey rubbed her eyes, confirming that she hadn't misread. She actually saw an expression on the puppet's face, and this expression was so natural.
My goodness, can puppets be this detailed?
The little fox was shocked.
"Then, Miss Audrey, do you know where in the academy one can undergo a faction assessment? My master wants to go."
The small puppet walked forward, grabbed Audrey's pant leg, and gently shook it, acting spoiled.
At this moment, the little fox felt as if she wasn't facing a cold puppet, but a lively and adorable little sister.
However, when she finally couldn't resist reaching out and directly grabbing the small puppet, the hard, cold touch brought her back to reality.
At the same time, another hand swiftly reached out and snatched the small puppet back.
"Hey, just look, don't touch randomly."
Dorothy retrieved the small puppet modeled after her sister, Alice, and then said indifferently. In her hand, the little puppet Alice also secretly hid behind her hand, sticking out her tongue at Audrey.
After saying this, Dorothy ignored her junior sister's reaction and continued walking on her own.
Well, from her many years of experience with social phobia, to communicate with another person with social phobia, one must start with their interests and hobbies as an entry point.
She had noticed earlier that this junior sister seemed very interested in puppets, so this was a good entry point.
And from the other party's reaction just now, where she couldn't help but want to grab the puppet, Dorothy knew that the bait she had cast had worked.
Hmm, so today's goal is accomplished. Being too enthusiastic with someone who has social phobia will make them uncomfortable, so now is the time to retreat to advance.
Sure enough, Dorothy hadn't walked many steps when she keenly noticed a small tail following behind her.
So, she stopped again and turned to look at her anxious junior sister.
"Miss Audrey, do you still need something from my master?"
On her shoulder, the little Alice puppet also stopped teasing the cat, turned, and asked Audrey.
"..."
The little fox tried hard to open her mouth again, but still couldn't speak. She paced anxiously again, but finally, unable to bear it any longer, she shook out one of her own Q-version puppets from her tail.
"I, I know where the faction assessment is."
This fox puppet, which was clearly much cruder than Dorothy's Alicepuppet, spoke in a cold, metallic synthetic voice.
After speaking, Audrey looked at the senior sister she had been unwilling to acknowledge just a few minutes ago with her alluring fox eyes, awaiting her reply.
In response, Dorothy's lips curled slightly.
Hehe, the fish has taken the bait.
Tsk, it feels a bit guilty to bully an honest child like this. It always feels like I'm abducting a little girl.
The scumbag witch felt uneasy.
4200 words, combined into one, so you won't say I'm dragging it out again. That's it, going to write a fairy tale tonight.