The Perfect One
Baengnae gnawed on the essence like candy. Crunch—crunch— Every time her teeth crushed the bead, the serpent ghost’s screams rang out. The ghost was being consumed for certain.
Once she had finished devouring the essence, Baengnae began to handle ghost energy.
“Ghost essences were originally created to train Ghost Shamans,” Patel explained.
That was good news. With that skill, even if the seahorses went extinct in the future, Ghost Shamans would remain. Of course, since the seahorses had already become my citizens, I had no intention of letting them die off, but still.
“Making Ghost Shamans turned out easier than I thought.”
Patel gave an awkward laugh. “To the master of the Equator, they may all seem like mere stray ghosts, but the serpent den is classified as an upper-grade ghost. Therefore, the essence you just consumed is also of the highest grade. With ordinary essences, one would need to consume a hundred to achieve awakening.”
According to Patel, ghosts were divided into upper, middle, and lower grades. Those that merely induced lethargy were lower. If they could exert physical force, they were middle. If they could perform bizarre acts like swapping places, they were upper. A shaman could wield even more sophisticated abilities, but an unskilled shaman who tried to control an upper-grade ghost risked being devoured instead. That was why only a tiny handful of seahorses, including the elders, could handle upper-grade ghosts.
‘Looks like we really do need to reorganize the grades.’
The serpent ghost was no weakling. A truckload of ordinary zombies would have wandered inside its illusion until they withered away. Yet the enemies I would face from now on would be at least that strong. Clearly distinguishing seahorse grades to prevent unnecessary sacrifices was important.
“Are there any grades above upper?”
“There are. Records state that during the incident a hundred years ago, roughly thirty special-grade ghosts were released.”
‘Special-grade… Is that what the forum post meant by “enemy”?’
“We’ll find out once we go in.”
We descended the stairs twice and arrived at the floor where the jar was supposed to be. A new bulletin board waited for us in the corridor.
[Rules Regarding Conduct Toward the God]
[1. Always be reverent. Those with impure hearts will suffer unpleasant experiences.]
[2. If you hear thunder, hold your breath and count to ten. If the sound repeats, count another ten seconds after the final peal.]
[3. If you find food, consume it gratefully and respectfully. Discarding or destroying food will bring certain misfortune.]
[4. Should you encounter the god’s statue, do not meet its eyes. Bow your head and pass with reverence.]
[5. The god is always watching you. Irreverent acts will incur its wrath.]
After reading the board, Patel muttered, “What is this…? There was no record of anything like this in the history books. The energy feels special-grade, but…”
It made sense. These ghosts had learned new behaviors because of my intervention.
“Still, there is no need to worry. Even if their form has changed slightly, once we identify their true nature, we can handle them.”
“So we have to go in after all.”
“There is no other way to reach the jar except through this corridor.”
We stepped past the board. Thunder began to rumble.
The deafening roar shook the corridor, sending unpleasant jolts through our nerves.
Rumble—boom—
“Everyone, hold your breath,” Patel signaled.
We stopped breathing. But a problem quickly arose.
Rumble—
The thunder showed no sign of stopping. It kept crashing as though determined to suffocate us. After roughly five minutes, I finally called out to Patel. Even as users, we couldn’t hold our breath forever.
“How much longer?”
She held up twenty fingers, then folded them one by one. “You may breathe now.”
Whoosh—
“Good. We’re almost there. It appears to have been a priest from the cathedral. One of the former elders, most likely.”
A Ghost Shaman who had become a ghost.
“There have been four elders in history who committed suicide in the cathedral. We need to determine which one it was, so please bear with us a little longer.”
At that, I raised my hand. If we kept following Patel’s method, I felt like I would die of frustration first.
“Patel, your method seems inefficient.”
“What do you mean? This is the standard procedure for ghost investigation…”
I understood it was the standard. But the closer we got, the more the ghost took interest in us. At this range, I had a better way.
I summoned Nareun-i. Without needing instructions, she looked around, smashed a statue, and began stabbing it repeatedly with her claws.
Thud—stab—crunch—
A moment later, a battered seahorse was dragged out—a Ghost Shaman ghost wearing elder robes. Nareun-i skewered its spine on her claw like a kebab and brought it over.
“Here it is, Master.”
“Well done.”
As expected, no dog beat Nareun-i when it came to solving problems. I patted her head, then pulled the seahorse off her claw and tossed it to Patel.
“This much damage won’t interfere with essence production, right?”
“Huh? Ahaha…”
I had seen enough Ghost Shamans. From now on, we would do things my way.
There was good news and bad news.
The good news was that after the elder ghost, using Nareun-i as the vanguard caused our essence supply rate to skyrocket. Baengnae’s arms were now filled with black candies. Once we located each ghost’s source and captured it, hunting became mere cleaning. We could clear an entire floor in half a day. Once the ghosts were reduced to simple cleaning targets, Park Seona regained her composure. The timid girl had become a cleaner. As she mastered ghost-hunting techniques, she even began leading her own hunts with the leopards. Patel, in turn, became an essence factory, sitting in place and repeatedly converting the ghosts we brought into essences. Thanks to that, her crafting proficiency rose without limit.
“Goodness… It took every Ghost Shaman in Al-Alsa-da two whole years to quell the rampage, yet we…”
We had shortened that time to one week. As a reward for Patel’s hard work at the factory, we captured a few special-grade ghosts without converting them and gave them to her as gifts.
The bad news was that the jar was nowhere to be found. We judged it lost during the rampage and searched every corner of the cathedral, but it never appeared even after the cleaning was finished. While Park Seona and Patel went to clean the final location—the cathedral’s backyard—I fell into thought again.
There were far too many strange points. And the very first, most fundamental question among them:
‘Why exactly did I lose my memories?’
Everything about the situation was far too favorable.
[5. The enemy is not yet aware of our entry.]
Who were “the enemy”? I had assumed they were ghosts, but even the special-grade ghosts couldn’t harm me. Was rule five simply contamination? I had no reason to possess “bad memories.” Was the difference created solely by the variable of a second playthrough? Even so, it was hard to accept that my past self had been defeated by special-grade ghosts. On top of that, there was another oddity.
‘Where did all the essences go?’
If the first playthrough hadn’t ended in failure right at the start, they should have gathered essences too. Yet there were no resources. Instead, only zombies had been lost. They had even obtained the jar and spread the bulletin board in the second playthrough, so how could there be no resources?
‘What exactly am I missing…’
Let’s reorganize the situation. There had to be something I overlooked. Something I had passed by without noticing.
I had entered the Cloned World. By then, this world had already perished. The location had been set as Al-Alsa-da’s cathedral because we entered through the Filth Jar.
‘The Filth Jar… was it?’
Thinking carefully, the keyword of this event had never been ghosts to begin with. The keyword was “memory.”
‘Memory…’
And approaching it through that keyword created a problem.
What should exist inside the Cloned World?
Clones.
I had been distracted by the word “ghost” and imagined a world of cloned ghosts. That was why Al-Alsa-da’s cathedral had appeared. A very natural progression. I had thought the Cloned World was a world where cloned ghosts had gone berserk. But what if the keyword wasn’t “ghost” but “memory”?
Recombining the keywords produced a different phrase.
Cloned memories.
I looked up at the sky. Come to think of it, I hadn’t heard the sponsors’ voices in a while. There were many sponsors in Success Myth, and they often spoke to me. They took turns observing me and couldn’t resist talking when their turn came. But those voices were gone. The growth that should have existed wasn’t there. The sponsors who should have been there weren’t there. And the clones that should have been there weren’t there.
“Haha… Don’t tell me.”
I turned to look at Baengnae eating essences. The small zombie smiled at me.
“Hi-hi.”
A fundamental question. What is a clone? An imitation of something. Something that perfectly resembles another, yet is different. Would a cloned being recognize itself as a clone? No. Only those outside the frame called it a clone. The cloned being itself would never perceive itself as such—until it came face to face with another version of itself.
“Baengnae…”
She turned at my call. I asked in a trembling voice. After all, this might just be a passing bad thought. A light misunderstanding.
“Could it be… that we’re clones?”
She set down her candy and approached. Baengnae’s eyes turned red. Crimson eyes. I had seen those before—when we faced something identical to me from the Contaminated Source. Baengnae had answered without hesitation. So speak. Are we clones? Are we imitations? Are we fakes?
“Idiot.”
Baengnae met my gaze and smiled. Not her usual childish grin, but a deep, languid smile with long, upturned eyes. Then she whispered clearly into my ear.
“You’re a fool.”
That answer was as good as an affirmation, and I couldn’t bring myself to speak. Was I false? And in the next moment, Baengnae stated the truth.
“The moment one became two, imitation ceased to exist. A perfect imitation is nothing more than an illusion that exists for an instant. The moment two timelines diverged, clones ceased to be.”
Words I had once spoken.
“Therefore, we are already the perfect one.”
It was an irrefutable truth.
***
I looked at the cloned version of myself on the other side of the world. Success at last. I had entered the Cloned World and achieved great growth. But a problem had arisen. The very growth that made it impossible to escape the event created an ironic situation. So I summoned the clones. Fortunately, the concepts existing here made it easy to create clones based on my memories. But the process wasn’t as simple as I had hoped.
The past versions of myself who had entered the Cloned World event were wary of me. They didn’t believe a word I said. Instead, they recognized me as an enemy or ghost existing here and unleashed attacks. I killed myself countless times that way. So I changed my method. I used the bulletin board to gently guide them in the direction I wanted. And finally, it succeeded.
‘Whether to laugh or cry.’
Regardless, this clone had succeeded in recognizing that it was a clone. Showing it my appearance shouldn’t be a problem.
“Whew… That really took a long time.”
I looked at Baengnae beside me. “By the way, that Baengnae speaks really well, doesn’t she?”
Baengnae whipped her head away. “Don’t know.”
“Of course you do.”
At last, the end of the Cloned World was drawing near.