What Happened in the Tent Village 4
The origin of the incident, as Ambrose explained it with barely contained fury, was much the same as what we had gone through.
A band of adventurer-bandits had been reckless enough to ambush a group of stonemasons right along a Temple knight patrol route. They hadn't simply robbed them and sent them on their way — they had butchered the laborers with the skill of Intermediate-grade adventurers, as if determined to leave no survivors.
When the Temple knights arrived late and began subduing them, they discovered the existence of the doppelgangers. One of the female bandits — a woman stupid enough to charge even after seeing the knights' pure white armor — looked identical to a waitress who sold soup at a makeshift inn in the tent village.
"So I wasn't seeing things after all."
"It seems Sir Roland's party also noticed something suspicious in the meantime."
After calling for reinforcements and capturing every last bandit, the Temple knights had discussed the matter among themselves. One of the female bandits looked exactly like an inn waitress — wasn't the tent village in danger? Apparently the Temple had no records of doppelgangers, so they assumed it was simply a bandit gang that had infiltrated the tent village disguised as civilians.
If a murderous bandit crew that had slaughtered stonemasons wholesale was already hiding in the tent village under false faces, then the relatively fragile laborers — stonemasons, carpenters, and the like — were in serious danger.
So they had rushed back with the captured female bandit as a witness, intending to purge the tent village market street… only to find the identical woman busily preparing a huge pot of soup for the next morning's business.
"When the female knights examined them, it wasn't just the faces. The placement of moles, even the minor scars on their skin — everything was a perfect match."
"So it wasn't makeup or some magical disguise?"
"No. With assistance from our brothers at the Magic Tower, we confirmed it was not a magical alteration of appearance either."
One girl in leather armor, sword in hand, who had butchered stonemasons; the other an inn girl whose only experience with a blade was chopping soup ingredients. Their faces — and every physical feature — were completely identical as they stood staring at each other. How chaotic must that have been?
To make matters worse, the doppelgangers only copied people perfectly without being undead, so they remained completely unharmed by baptisms of Holy Power, which only deepened the confusion. Quite a lot had happened overnight, it seemed. While I'd been snickering at some dog expert online going chihuahua-wah-wah-wah, all of this had been unfolding…
"So that's why the Temple knights have been out in force since early morning…"
"Yes. Given the gravity of the situation… Monsters that wear human faces and speak human language. If creatures like these were to leave the Tower the way orcs do, the cities would fall into chaos."
He had a point. Murderous bandits wearing the faces of priests, nuns, Temple knights, saints, and saintesses, massacring civilians without mercy — the cleanup alone would be a nightmare, and the political fallout would be enormous.
If they were unlucky, a citizen who recognized a face might start to doubt the Temple itself. Or, conversely, if a female doppelganger wearing a nun's or saintess's body were captured in a place like the slums, that would be an equally massive headache.
A murderous bandit with a saint's face. A prostitute with a saintess's face.
No matter how much convenience the game had built in for players, this was still a medieval fantasy world with a fully intact class system. In a world like that, if some slum-dwelling commoner defiled the body of a woman who had received the Goddess's oracle, endured hardship, and been exalted as a saintess…
Wiping them all out for the honor of the Temple and the Goddess would be considered a perfectly justified response by this world's standards.
"Hey, I know your imaginations go to some nasty places the second you see a doppelganger or a Ditto, but keep that out of the chat. I have zero interest in your weird fetishes. …And the six-star grandpa just said Holy Power doesn't work on them, so why do you keep asking that over and over."
Han Se-ah, whose head wasn't stuffed full of class hierarchy, bantered freely with her viewers — but the rest of the party, especially our northern duke's daughter Katie, were frowning deeply as all sorts of implications occurred to them. She had clearly realized how much of a headache it would be if the faces of important people got copied.
Perhaps the most terrifying thing about these doppelgangers wasn't the combat threat, but the filthy political theater that could unfold instead of a clean Tower climb. All in all, they were a thoroughly troublesome breed of monster.
"Ugh, isn't the Saintess still inside the Temple? Are these things the Demon King's creations, randomly mimicking people who entered the Tower…? Then there must be ones that copied us too, right?"
"Yes, that is correct. In fact, brothers who urgently surveyed the other floors overnight have already discovered a Demon King's creation wearing Sir Roland's appearance."
Apparently, without a word for "doppelganger," they were calling them the Demon King's creations. The news that one copying me had already appeared sent a brief chill down my spine — but thankfully, it seemed they hadn't copied stats as well.
Well, of course. Ambrose was currently holding up a head identical to his own and another that was a copy of the Saintess. If natural 5-star and 6-star characters started spawning as field trash mobs, the game would become unplayable.
Even in mobile games, stages with doppelgangers just copied the appearance — they never showed up with the fully whale-funded player specs and turned into a wall of pure despair, right?
Dozens of Temple knights in pure white armor had gathered to inspect adventurers, backed by hundreds of priests and nuns in support. On top of that, Ambrose was bounding across the tent village in leaps of several dozen meters, as if showing off that he was a 6-star monk.
Rumors spread from Temple personnel to adventurers, and from there to the civilians on the tent village market street, in the blink of an eye.
"Hey, you hear about that?"
"This morning, get this…"
"No wonder it was so noisy last night."
Nonsense like "the monsters are gone, but actually a monster showed up and the Temple rushed to purge it" or "a vicious criminal snuck into the tent village" was also spreading fast.
Still, it was fortunate that word of the doppelgangers was getting out quickly and people were starting to be careful. Apparently more than a few adventurers had witnessed two identical young women staring blankly at each other in one of the tent village's temporary inns.
There was no particular reason to hide the doppelgangers, and with a saint and saintess having been insulted, the Temple — already furious enough to be on the verge of declaring a Holy Crusade — had issued another proclamation to the adventurers.
"All who have entered the Tower must receive a Holy Brand! Temple knights will renew it before every gate and passage. Anyone without a brand will be deemed a creation of the Demon King and executed on the spot! Remember this! No matter how perfectly a Demon King's creation mimics you, it cannot replicate Holy Power!"
They were angry enough that the booming voice skipped the usual "Brother" and "Sister" and issued the order with pure intimidation. An immediate measure: carve a mark into the forearm with Holy Power, and anyone without one was a fake.
A few adventurers who couldn't read the room grumbled that exploration took a long time and they shouldn't have to renew it constantly — but the moment they muttered behind people's backs, without even openly defying anyone, a hammer-wielding Temple knight glared them down and dragged them off, and everyone's complaints vanished.
The dragged-off adventurer probably hadn't expected the Temple knights to react this sensitively. Apparently the Saintess, half-secluded inside the miniature Temple, had a better reputation than expected.
"The brothers really shouldn't lose their composure to anger…"
"They're ridiculously vicious over the Saintess being insulted."
Temple knights who had treated the massive tree on the 35th floor as merely "a great evil that must be eliminated" were now raging that the doppelgangers who had copied the Saintess's body and face were "vile, wicked bastards who must be torn apart in agony."
Even gentle-hearted Irene, after muttering once about it, wasn't worried about the adventurer who'd been hauled off like a dog on the hottest day of summer — she was worried about the Temple knights. That said everything.
"Sir Roland and Miss Irene need not receive the brand. However, since your companions cannot use Holy Power…"
"Yes, I'll take it. Do I just hold out my wrist?"
"Your cooperation is appreciated, Sister Hanna. May the Goddess's grace go with you as you advance through the Tower. …And I earnestly hope you will discover these bastards who deserve to be chewed to death."
They were dragging people off to the Temple for interrogation and a beating over nothing more than muttering to themselves behind someone's back — not even open complaints. Unless you intended to force-feed your viewers sweet potatoes until they choked to death, there was no reason to pick a fight with the Temple.
Right in front of the passage leading to the 36th floor, Han Se-ah immediately held out her right hand. A Temple knight made the sign of the cross in a solemn voice and poured out Holy Power. Katie and Grace followed, receiving Holy Brands on their forearms before heading toward the 36th floor.
"Is this the symbol of the Goddess's faith? Looking at it like this, it's actually pretty nice."
"…Yeah, I think so too? I don't have any real proof, it's just my theory, but that giant tree on the 35th floor was spawning tentacles left and right. Maybe this floor was supposed to go in the direction of a corrupted tree mass-producing undead. Tentacles drop from the tree, troll bombs drop from the tree, doppelgangers drop from the tree? Or maybe not."
"What kind of penalty~ If I just king-god it right here, that's ten thousand won down the hatch, right? …But hey — does that look like an adventurer heading down to the 35th floor, or a wandering doppelganger?"
The moment Han Se-ah, who had been thrusting her forearm toward the camera, cast her gaze in one direction, Grace nocked an arrow. Last time there had been a troll at the door — this time, a doppelganger party. Don't tell me these doppelgangers were another quantity-over-quality type, like those ash-white tentacles?