Chapter 22
Chapter 22
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 22
Chapter Title: Doppelganger Overlap Anomaly (5)
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Her face filled with confusion at my question.
“It does touch… but why?”
“Please attack the manhole with all your strength.”
“…The manhole?”
Her eyes shook violently. She was clearly flustered by the unexpected order.
After hesitating for a moment, she finally drew her pistol from her bosom since I didn’t look away.
“…You’re not saying the manhole is some kind of secret code or anything, right? It won’t cause problems later, will it?”
“I’ll take responsibility. It’s fine. Shoot without worry.”
Kang Su-ji bit her lip hard and took aim.
A brief silence passed, then the trigger was pulled.
Bang—!
The gunshot echoed through the sewer.
But no metal fragments flew out.
Instead, the manhole surface rippled, and ink-like black liquid spread across it.
The substance crept along the floor, rippling like waves…
No one would mistake it for an ordinary manhole.
…Then it burst in an instant.
Kang Su-ji gasped in shock.
In that moment, a name flashed through my mind.
—Doppelganger
“…So that’s it.”
Then, the exit I saw earlier…
It meant it was a false entrance created by the Doppelganger.
***
Before I could explain—
Crunch, crunch—
Footsteps approached from deep within the sewer.
Tension crossed Kang Su-ji’s face.
Their faces weren’t visible in the darkness, but the silhouettes showed three figures.
Two men and one woman.
“…What’s this? Oh, it’s you, Kang Su-ji.”
“I thought it was a rescue team from the gunshot. But if it’s you, Su-ji, shouldn’t we be rescuing you?”
“Su-ji, where’d you sell your sword to start shooting guns? I told you not to use that. Women should wield swords gracefully. Tsk!”
Familiar voices pierced the darkness.
Soon, their faces fully emerged from beyond the sewer wall, and the tension melted from Kang Su-ji’s expression.
In its place came a bright smile.
That explained why she’d been so quiet since entering.
She must have been worried about her teammates.
“You’re all safe! Jin-seok! Seung-tae oppa! Seung-ah unni!”
She started to step forward in joy, but I reached out to stop her.
She glared at me, annoyed at being blocked during their reunion.
But I didn’t look at Kang Su-ji.
My gaze was fixed solely on the three before us.
“…Stop.”
“Huh? What do you…”
Kang Su-ji looked at me in surprise.
She glanced back and forth between me and the three, hurriedly explaining as if to clear things up.
“Alpha! These people! They’re my teammates! While you and I were sorting emails, they went on the exploration team in my place! I can vouch for them!”
The three approached casually from afar.
In that instant, I snatched the pistol from Kang Su-ji’s hand and aimed it forward.
“If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize sincerely afterward. …But first, one question.”
A short silence fell.
I spoke lowly.
“…It’s been over a week since the previous exploration team was deployed. In here, the anomaly’s rules make it hard to last three days without water or food. So why… are you all completely fine?”
“What are you talking about… Su-ji, clear up this misunderstanding. First, don’t get excited, let’s talk it out—”
A flicker of bewilderment crossed their faces.
Ordinary faces showing no threat or hostility.
They say a face reveals the life lived.
None of them looked like they’d hold grudges or commit crimes.
They seemed kind.
Even with a gun pointed at them, they showed no hostility.
Click—
I moved my finger.
The metallic, twisted sound of chambering echoed through the sewer.
I narrowed my eyes and said.
“…Answer the question.”
An oppressive silence crushed the sewer.
Not even breath could be heard.
Then it happened.
Their lips twisted, and laughter burst out simultaneously.
“…Hehehehehehehehehehehehe”
“Hehehehehehehehehehehehe…”
“Heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee—”
Laughter like broken dolls.
Their lips stretched endlessly as if gripped by something, cheeks twitching unnaturally.
In an instant, their bodies twisted at grotesque angles.
Then, they were sucked into the sewer’s darkness, vanishing from our sight.
“…What… what the hell…”
Kang Su-ji’s voice trembled.
I caught my breath and spoke the fact I hadn’t yet shared.
“From what we just saw… it’s clear the Doppelganger is involved in the changes to this underground sewer.”
I steadied my breath and looked at the two.
“Let’s summarize what we’ve uncovered so far.”
I shifted my gaze back to the manhole.
Now, no trace remained there.
Only the empty ceiling and dark void looked down on us.
“If we passed through a path ourselves, there should naturally be footprints or traces. But this place…”
At my words, their eyes turned to the floor.
“There are footprints leading from the sewer to here, but none from our initial entry from the sewer.”
I exhaled lowly and continued.
“…In other words, in sections where the Doppelganger intervenes, human traces are erased. Another possibility… we think we came correctly, but we may have been led through an already altered passage to somewhere entirely different.”
I stopped speaking.
The three who had conversed so naturally with Kang Su-ji moments ago came to mind.
They were no different from ordinary humans.
Showing emotions, continuing thoughts, speaking lines fitting their actions.
Perfectly enough that even Kang Su-ji, who’d spent a long time with them, detected no oddity.
“And it seems right to assume Doppelgangers copy not just appearances, but memories and thoughts. They make us mistake them for those we know, so we never even suspect.”
As my words ended, the silence in the sewer thickened.
Rule 4. Mimicry
4-1. Doppelgangers can imitate the form and voice of living people.
4-2. Beyond simple human mimicry, they replicate locations, memories, and conversation patterns.
4-3. In sections involving Doppelgangers, human traces (footprints, marks left behind) disappear.(?)
4-4. If there are no traces on a passed path, that section is corrupted by the anomaly.(?)
4-5. Or, the place thought passed may actually be an already wrong location we’ve flowed into.(?)
***
After that, we continued the exploration in silence for a while.
Soon after, we encountered three corpses sprawled on the damp floor.
People who didn’t seem long dead.
Two men, one woman.
The real exploration team lay before us, not fakes.
“…”
Kang Su-ji stood motionless before them for a long time.
The man in his thirties clutched a half-broken flare gun.
Blood- and dirt-stained handprints showed he’d fought to pull the trigger until the end.
A young man who looked about nineteen.
The best-preserved of the three.
His face was still boyish, etched with both fear and resolve.
An unopened hardtack packet was crumpled in his chest pocket, lips parched.
But unlike the other two, his body seemed to retain some vitality.
As if his two comrades had given him their shares of food, fighting to keep him alive until the end.
That trace remained fully on his face.
And in the hand of the woman, who looked a bit older than Kang Su-ji, lay an old notebook opened.
Amid ink-smeared, hard-to-read letters, two sentences stood clear.
‘Home… let’s… go.’
‘Kang Su-ji… don’t… feel guilty.’
The ink was smudged like tears, but clearly written with their last strength.
Kang Su-ji’s pupils shook violently.
As if her breath had stopped, a long silence followed.
She stared at those words for a long time.
Her fingertips began to tremble faintly.
“…Seung-tae oppa… Jin-seok… Seung-ah unni…”
We silently watched as she knelt to carefully retrieve the ID tags from the exploration team’s necks.
As if waiting for her private funeral to end.
Moments later, she rose clutching the tags.
Then she flashed her usual bright smile.
“Sorry. You waited a long time because of me? …I’m okay now, let’s go!”
But her voice in that moment was unmistakably laced with tremor and wetness she couldn’t hide.
I nodded briefly.
Kim Se-ra beside me quietly gazed at the tags, then added her firm response.
“…Yes. Let’s go.”
Whew—
I couldn’t meet Kang Su-ji’s eyes.
An inexplicable tightness gripped my chest.
Another fork ahead.
Left and right.