Chapter 21
Chapter 21
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 21
Chapter Title: Doppelganger Overlap Anomaly (4)
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"The rules have changed... What does that mean?"
At my words, Kim Sera pulled out the map and pointed to our current position, biting her lip.
A red dot marked on the map.
"If the point where we first came down is... here."
The tip of her finger drew a straight line from there to one specific spot.
"Then right now, we should be in this section. But..."
Where Kim Sera's hand now stopped.
There was no marking there at all.
An 'empty space' that didn't exist on the map.
I let out a short, sharp breath.
"...Does that mean a path not on the map has appeared? Couldn't it just be that only this part has changed?"
She shook her head.
"Alpha, the rules aren't just simple guidelines. They're more like a contract that allows the anomaly to intervene in reality."
"A contract... So it's not just something we have to follow?"
"Exactly. The reason physical force doesn't work on anomalies is because it means nothing unless you neutralize them based on the established rules."
"...And the fact that the map has changed."
"Means the rules have changed. Which soon implies that the reliability of the entire map has completely collapsed."
A brief silence fell.
Kim Sera turned her flashlight backward and muttered lowly.
"It looks like... we need to report to headquarters first. Let's head back for now."
We retraced our steps along the sewer path we'd followed using the map.
It wasn't long before a faint light leaking from above far ahead came into view.
The moment we spotted that light, we nodded to each other without a word.
We immediately picked up our pace.
Our footsteps thudded repeatedly against the damp floor, and our vision grew brighter bit by bit.
We approached the exit.
Finally, the manhole we'd first descended from appeared right in front of us.
Light was spilling along the edge of the iron lid.
Investigator Kim Sera stepped onto the ladder first.
I followed right behind her, and Suppression Squad member Kang Su-ji brought up the rear.
With the order set, we began climbing up immediately.
With the flashlight gripped in my teeth, I shone it upward. As we climbed the ladder, the outside light filtering through the manhole gap grew clearer and clearer.
The open exit was so close I could almost touch it.
[Crazy Woman] : But, doesn't the light reflection look kinda off? lol
[Spectator No.1] : Now nitpicking the light too. Fuck off if you're wrong.
[Crazy Woman] : lmao dude, what class are you?
[Spectator No.1] : lmaoooo wrong guess. Asking my class. Higher than you.
[Not Human] : Aren't you class 120050? You've only got 3 juniors left, two dead and one not, and that one's been after you got eaten lolololololol
[Crazy Woman] : What timeline are you on! Same as me? You're screwed.
The chat window was once again bickering over something trivial.
...Anomaly gallery level.
I tore my gaze away, stepped on the final rung of the ladder, and climbed out through the open manhole.
"Kim Sera. The report...?"
The moment I emerged from the entrance, the sunlight I'd expected was nowhere to be found.
What stretched before my eyes was an endless, pitch-black landscape.
Not even a single light was visible.
There was no wind, no sound.
Just a writhing darkness, as if alive, seeping in from all directions and swallowing my vision.
Reflexively, I looked down at my feet.
In the place where there should have been concrete floor, black liquid stretched out.
In that instant, sensation vanished from my toes.
My soles melted away, my calves flowed down, and it crept past my knees and thighs up to my waist.
As my entire body slowly sank like into a swamp,
At the edge of my vision, I saw Kang Su-ji's head, still clinging precariously to the ladder.
"Come up—"
A frantic warning burst from my throat, but soon my face was swallowed by the darkness.
And right after, my vision completely cut off and vanished.
***
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Moving to the last save point.]
[Your most recent save point is AUTO SAVE 0.]
[Doppelganger Overlap Anomaly]
[Death Type]: Digestion.
[Tip]: The path upward is not always an open path.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
My darkened vision soon faded to white.
"Hah—"
After a brief blankness, when I opened my eyes again, a familiar sight was before me.
In the middle of the living room, an old sofa and a low table.
On the table sat a half-eaten cup ramen and a laptop screen glowing faintly, lid open.
A scene from an utterly ordinary home, completely unlike the suffocating darkness of moments ago.
Bzzz—
At that moment, my phone vibrated in my hand.
[Military Base Routine Training Notice][Routine training will be conducted at the military base. Please do not be startled by noise or vehicle movement during training, and take care for your safety.]
[Military Base Routine Training Notice][We ask for your understanding and cooperation from all citizens for smooth training and safety.]
A familiar message.
I'd returned to the beginning once again.
Unconsciously, I recalled the last line from the anomaly gallery just before.
My one and only clue right now.
[Crazy Woman] : But, doesn't the light reflection look kinda off? lol
A short sentence.
But to me now, those words weren't just a casual comment—they were the only clue I could speculate on.
If that crazy woman...
If what that user said was true, then the light I'd seen wasn't an exit but a trap.
I clung to the possibility those words implied.
This time too, I moved just like in the previous loop.
Contacted Kang Su-ji.
Arrived at the meeting spot.
Team introductions.
Everything flowed the same, the same scenes.
Except for one single variation.
After confirming the two had descended the ladder, I immediately climbed back up the ladder to the manhole above.
The rule she'd mentioned.
That I could exit the underground sewer through the manhole at any time.
I needed to check if that rule was still valid.
Simply, to confirm if the rule about escaping had indeed changed.
The result... no anomalies.
When I emerged from the manhole, the darkness from the previous loop wasn't there.
The personnel controlling the perimeter outside looked at me with baffled expressions.
Coming right back out after deployment.
Usually, it meant some problem had arisen.
In fact, seeing me go down and immediately come back up, the two with me shot me unkind looks.
...Very unkind ones.
"...It's fine anyway. It'll be nothing."
I repeated to myself in my mind.
This is a necessary process.
This is a necessary process.
This is a necessary process.
Muttering it like brainwashing, I erased their expressions from my memory.
For now, I checked the other rules right away too.
The rule that you couldn't re-enter immediately if you came out midway through the exit was still in effect.
The firmly shut manhole.
I went straight home and organized my findings.
These are the rules I compiled.
[Rulebook – Doppelganger Overlap Anomaly]
Rule 1. Map
1-1. The underground sewer map is based on the rules of this anomaly.
1-2. If a path appears that doesn't exist on the map, the rules have changed.
1-3. If the rules change, the reliability of the entire map collapses.
Rule 2. Exit (Manhole)
2-1. The manhole is a valid exit allowing departure from the underground sewer at any time.
2-2. However, light that looks like an exit may not actually be a real exit.
2-3. If the 'light reflection' looks off, it is a trap (?)
2-4. Heading to the trap causes the body to melt into black liquid and be digested (?)
Rule 3. Re-entry Restriction
3-1. If you exit midway through the manhole, you cannot re-enter immediately.
3-2. A closed manhole will not reopen until a certain time has passed.
Still full of question marks.
I still know more about what I don't know regarding the anomaly than what I do.
I jotted it down for now, but I couldn't be completely sure it's correct.
I looked out the window.
The black sun hanging in the sky.
The cityscape melting into that light.
And finally, meeting my end as that thing was born gorgeously within it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Moving to the last save point.]
[Your most recent save point is AUTO SAVE 2.]
[Doppelganger Overlap Anomaly]
[Death Type]: Evaporation.
[Tip]: Do not look directly at the black sun. Observe it only at the edge of your vision.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
And—
This was the third loop.
***
Three-way fork.
Right after we arrived at the spot where we'd first confirmed the irregularity in the rules.
Kim Sera, who had been briefly checking the map, shone her flashlight and stopped.
Her gaze fixed, a panicked voice soon emerged.
"...This is weird. It should be... a two-way fork here originally."
Hearing her panicked tone,
we followed her suggestion and returned to the original entrance we'd come through.
Up to here, there were no issues.
But this time was different.
Thanks to my experience from the previous loop, as I carefully scanned the surroundings, I immediately spotted the anomaly.
Around the floor where the manhole was located.
This was clearly the path we'd come through, yet there were no footprints at all.
The damp cement was smoothly empty, as if no one had passed.
It might have vanished due to environmental factors.
But it wouldn't hurt to check.
I grabbed Investigator Kim Sera's arm as she tried to climb up the ladder right away, stopping her.
And I called for Kang Su-ji.
She, who had been unusually quiet since entering the sewer, turned her head.
In times like this, a simple and brute-force method is needed.
"Yes?"
I steadied my breath and said firmly.
"Kang Su-ji. Does your range reach the manhole?"