Kwah Kwang!!
As Liv’s sword strike filled with energy swept past, one side of the elevator’s wall was destroyed with a tremendous noise.
Smoke began to rush out rapidly through the air that entered from the destroyed wall.
“Good job, Liv.”
“……”
After delivering the final blow, Liv looked visibly exhausted.
It was understandable, as she had done so much during that time.
Now it was time for Liv to take a rest.
Luke spoke to Liv, whose trembling hand held the sword.
“Liv, enter the dimensional space.”
And taking advantage of the thinning mist that interfered with magic, Luke pulled out a key that he had stored in his necklace and cut the air.
A small portal was formed, just big enough for a tiny doll to enter.
Liv, who had exhausted her magic, could not recharge properly without the magic mixed with Arinseia’s divine power.
The magic pattern that suited her core best was, after all, the Arinseia, which had existed for 5000 years.
Liv knew that as well.
However, this was not a portal that led directly to Arinseia.
It was also a precaution against any disasters that might cause Arinseia to leak, but significantly, it was because there were no nearby coordinates adjacent to Arinseia.
Since Luke was still at Circle 5, he didn’t have direct permission to correct the coordinates.
Still, as long as there was a high-performance supercomputer assembled in Arinseia, merging the coordinates of dimensional spaces was not impossible, so it could be retrieved later.
But the problem was, once she entered this space, Liv could not be summoned back here again.
Liv looked at Luke with a worried expression.
Luke, smiling, lightly tapped his chest with his fist and said, “Now I will act on my own, so don’t worry and go in. After all, isn’t it going to be difficult for you to wield a sword anymore?”
“……”
That was correct.
The elevator’s strength had been sturdier than expected, consuming quite a bit of magic, and at this rate, she would run out of power just slashing through a few lowly creatures.
If that happened, it would only end up being a hindrance to her master.
And that was something she, as a golem, should never do.
-Nod, Nod.
Ultimately, having reached that conclusion, Liv nodded her head. She handed Luke her knife with the intention of using it in case of emergencies and then threw herself into the portal.
After receiving Liv’s knife, Luke gently stroked her head and, with a small smile, said, “Just wait inside for a moment,” before closing the dimensional space.
And at that moment.
-Wobble-!
At the same time, the elevator began to sway violently.
“……!”
Luke started to think about the cause.
Could it be that the last sword strike had broken the safety device?
It was an order he had given, so he did not intend to blame Liv, but it certainly had been quite noisy.
“Haah. Just when I thought it would be a smooth ride up.”
Resigned, Luke grumbled and decided to prepare for the upcoming impact.
——
-Kakakakak–!!
-Kuung–!!
A huge crashing sound accompanied by countless fragments scattering and a large amount of dust flying about.
It was truly the end of a word that suited the term ‘fall.’
However, among the completely destroyed wreckage, where it seemed no living being could survive, a figure stood up without a care.
Dusting off his clothes with a look of annoyance was none other than Luke Irushi.
He emerged from the elevator, completely unscathed, as if it were a given.
“Huuh….”
After shaking off all the dust and looking around, it appeared he had returned to the basement where that iron cage was located.
This was troublesome.
He would have to use the stairs without a choice now.
“Hmm. Here again….”
Just then, as Luke mumbled.
“Oh dear, oh dear. It seems our little lady has lost her way. As the manager of this place, I can’t overlook this.”
Another figure appeared through the smoke, approaching slowly with a nonchalant remark.
“Guiding a lost child is the duty of a facility manager, after all.”
“……”
Luke slowly turned his head toward him.
“Are you the manager of this place?”
“Yes, as I said.”
Though he wore a robe that concealed his face like other dark mages, everything about him was terribly familiar to Luke.
His actions, gestures, voice, and manner of speaking, and……
‘Hmm, as expected.’
Gaining confidence from him, Luke slowly relaxed his arms and asked.
“I have a question I want to ask you.”
“Hmm, a curious little lady, aren’t you? What is it?”
“In order for a replica that is exactly the same as the original to become the original, what exactly must be done?”
It was quite an unexpected question.
However, he chuckled as if he had been struck by something and replied.
“You, that’s quite a sharp question. Hmm. Are you suggesting that the replica becomes the original when the original disappears?”
He continued with a smile.
“Interesting… But, have we met before?”
“Well, strictly speaking, yes, we have.”
Since Luke had initiated this riddle, it was also his role to conclude it.
“No….”
Luke corrected his previous statement.
“I am referring to your replica, Seyeo.”
“Heh….”
At Luke’s words, he covered his face with a laugh and then slightly pulled back his robe, revealing himself.
“Ahh-, I see. We must have met before, Puppeteer.”
Seyeo, or rather, his doppelgänger revealed his face.
—–
Doppelgänger.
A creature discovered in the Demon Realm, it is a monstrosity that replicates the form of a living being, taking on an identical appearance.
In its normal state, it is amorphous, resembling a slime, but it gains a form by selecting a being to replicate.
For that reason, doppelgängers are very feared monsters.
Doppelgängers could literally become anything they choose.
From humans, birds, and wolves to animals, and even a single blade of grass.
The sin represented by the doppelgänger is ‘distrust.’
They can mimic every single cell of a living being as long as they are alive, making them indistinguishable in appearance.
Thus, any creature could potentially be a doppelgänger, and the only way to confirm it was to kill the suspected entity and examine the corpse afterward.
In the Demon Realm, where the touch of the divine could not reach, aside from Renie, resurrection was impossible, making this monstrosity even more problematic for humanity’s entry into the Demon Realm.
With just the existence of this creature, humans could not trust one another, which acted as a shackle preventing them from deploying large-scale forces like an army.
However, there was one flaw in their replication: ‘a replica cannot surpass the original.’
Thus, the easiest way to deal with a doppelgänger was for the original being to confront them.
But the problem arose when the original died.
If the original disappears, the replica becomes the original.
Without an original, the replica can no longer be treated as a replica.
Thus, the newly created original, having become a replica, no longer faces any limitations from the world and its laws.
…And, necromancers paid close attention to that very characteristic.
“So, what happens if you replicate something that is already dead?”
—–
“But originally, doppelgängers shouldn’t have been able to emerge from the Demon Realm….”
However, fortunately, doppelgängers were extremely vulnerable to environmental changes.
Among them, the magic of the material plane was particularly lethal, making it so that doppelgängers often appeared in dungeons but could not venture outside the dungeons and crossing the gate was impossible.
Therefore, in the material plane, there was no need to worry about infiltrating doppelgängers in daily life.
At least, up until now.
Luke looked at the fog surrounding him and pondered.
A half-magic field that creates an identical environment to the Demon Realm.
Iron bars and materials paired exactly.
An obsessive design for blocking magic to a fastidious degree.
Experiments on human bodies that he had no memory of undergoing, and……
Yes, everything could be explained if it was all to create a doppelgänger.
“Oh dear, oh dear. Such a perceptive little one you are. Ah, have I perhaps said something like this before?”
He giggled and continued.
“As you said, here we created a doppelgänger. And we improved it. For quite a long time. To allow them to adapt to the material plane. You know, slime works quite well as a material to stabilize their structure. Interestingly, doppelgängers and slimes share a lot of similarities.”
As Seyeo boasted about releasing the most deadly monstrosities into the world, Luke frowned.
“Seyeo.”
Luke raised his magic and asked him.
“What exactly have you done here?”
There were many dark mages who foolishly claimed to study ways to achieve immortality using doppelgängers.
They would take themselves as a doppelgänger, transfer their memories and circle, and then kill their original selves.
In doing so, the doppelgänger would become the original, and they would become the same being as their original, escaping the influence of divine and law to enjoy immortality.
However, the issue was that doppelgängers were vulnerable to the magic of the material plane, and they could not be sure whether their ‘true self’ was indeed the one that became the original.
Additionally, dark mages, especially those who held the highest value, cherished their own lives, and most likely did not have the guts to figure it out themselves.
“Well, I suppose I have no reason to answer that.”
“If you don’t say it…….”
“Then? What will you do?”
But Seyeo.
This one was different.
Previously, he had acted as if he were not afraid of death at all.
At that time, he thought it was merely because he was a lich and had extra lives, but it seemed that assumption was mistaken.
“Hahaha, calm down for a moment. Your bodyguard puppet has disappeared now, right? It’s going to be difficult for you to manage magic here, just as you think.”
Indeed, his words were correct.
Liv was no longer usable, and in this fallen place, it seemed the unpleasant mist from before had already been prepared for him to encounter.
Moreover, this mist was a gas that emphasized sealing magic rather than containing anesthetic properties.
Perhaps, it was to avoid using anesthetics because it would also affect him now, who held a human body as a doppelgänger.
If the effects of the anesthetic wore off before Luke, he would foolishly be defeated.
So, he must have only taken measures to seal his own magic amount while being cautious.
“Even so, I have enough strength to deal with you.”
Luke steadied his posture.
“You cannot use magic just as I cannot.”
Fundamentally, this mist was designed to interfere with the release of magic.
Thus, it would not affect magical spells that circulate inside the body.
Of course, there would be sensory disturbances due to the mist, but the level of interference with magic that needed to be handled externally was on a different level altogether.
He noticed that Liv’s knife, which had fallen to the ground from the impact, lay there, but according to Yerna’s promise of “not to kill anyone,” he had no intention of using it, so he quickly averted his gaze.
‘Ah, and since Yerna told me not to dirty my hands…’
Then, should he use his feet?
Of course, this was just a joke.
“Hahahaha!”
At that moment, Seyeo suddenly burst into laughter.
“Wait a moment, have you forgotten that you’ve just provided a ton of corpses for the necromancer?”
“……?”
Corpses? Well, no corpses were visible to Luke at all.
And if the emptiness of the forces was due to the corpses not arriving yet, the only entrance for those corpses would currently be the cramped circular stairs.
Thus, they would certainly not have enough time to rescue Seyeo.
But at that moment.
Luke felt a strange sensation from behind him amid the wreckage of the elevator.
A feeling as if something was wriggling in the mist.
And the identity of that was…….
‘Abomination!’
—-!!!!
A horrific monstrosity, composed of all kinds of corpses, cried out.
