The Impostor
I looked across the road at the now-deserted alley. Most of the shops had shut down. Only four remained open. 'The last specialty store is the honey one.' Not because the situation was sweet, but because it literally sold real, sweet honey. Beekeepers—dwarves wearing nets over their heads—were walking out, followed by fist-sized bees. Getting stung by those would probably hurt quite a bit. 'The beekeepers are small, but the bees are huge.' It was funny to apply common sense at this point, but if a beekeeper got stung, they'd probably die anyway. Did they have some special training method?
The moment I thought that, a dwarf with a bee sting in his head dropped dead. '…?' It was just my own narrow-minded assumption playing tricks on me. The bees were carrying the dead dwarf toward a honey jar. So the real employees of the store were the bees. The dwarves were just raw materials they raised.
'Come to think of it, there are carnivorous bees too, right?' Next to the beekeeping supplies, I spotted dwarves from the pizza, candy, and steak shops. Ordinary, run-of-the-mill stores. They didn't look threatening anymore. 'Whoa… so how much material is piled up here?' I hadn't thought about it while running away, but the amount of high-grade ingredients stacked up was enormous. Baengnae clapped her hands and laughed.
“Hehe. Tasty tasty.”
She must have been happy thinking about taking high-grade supplements and doing unlimited workouts. I hoped that was the case. The enemies were starting to approach in earnest. I set the delusions aside for now. Happiness could wait until after work.
I scanned the area to see if there were any particularly troublesome ones. The pizza oven's heated spatula was a pass. Strictly speaking, the bee swarm was just dwarves holding skewers—nothing more than a mild prick to zombies. 'The candy shop guys… sticky sprayers?' Most community info was written based on empty city shops, so there wasn't much on actual combat. They didn't seem particularly dangerous, so I moved on. Finally, the steak shop. The sign showed a simple picture of a fork crossed over a juicy piece of meat. The dwarves only wore masks and gloves. 'Food factory work clothes? Is it not actually steak?'
I could see machinery running inside the store. Meat was being sucked into the maw of a massive machine, with scraps ejecting from the side. Whirrr— It looked like a store that ground meat. The menu didn't really matter. What mattered was that if a zombie went into that machine, it would lose its shape completely.
“Baengnae. See the ones wearing gloves? You handle them.”
“Awight.”
I didn't see any other variables at the moment. If something came up, we'd deal with it then.
“Everyone, charge!”
Kyaaa— Kyeeeek— The zombies rushed into enemy lines. The dwarves began getting mercilessly swept away by the zombies. 'Easy.' That was the advantage of being a Zombie Summoner. While other users' forces depleted with prolonged combat, mine only grew or got stronger. The dwarves quickly turned into corpses. The only miscalculation was the buff. The pizza shop's buff wasn't “Strength Increase” but the mid-tier buff “Rampage.” They sliced through the zombies' limbs with ease.
'It was about time one showed up.' According to what I knew, the chance of a mid-tier buff was 7%. Not getting hit by a high-tier buff that only had a 1% chance could already be considered lucky. In the end, about twenty zombies lost their limbs due to Rampage. There were no other variables. I checked the [Receive Reward] that popped up on my phone and declared the battle over.
“It was very different from 3-1, but…”
The rewards were very different too. I grinned at the mountain of ingredients piled up in the stores. I was going to turn all of this into supplements. But there was something I had to do first.
I looked around for Baengnae and found her loitering near one of the stores. The honey shop. “Hey, what are you doing?”
Baengnae flinched and turned around. Shinnip answered for her. “She said we need to check if the honey has poison in it.”
'…Would it?' I decided to just allow it. The intention was obvious, but Baengnae was going to have a lot of work from now on anyway.
“Eat just one and then clean up. You know what you have to do, right?”
Baengnae's expression brightened instantly. “Hehe. Awight!”
Treating the wounded, securing weapons, organizing materials, and so on. I dumped all the work on Baengnae. 'Whew… Shall we go then?' As expected, there was one more assignment. Something to take care of before the boss round. I headed to the store where I had first opened my eyes to resolve it.
The worn tiles on the floor. They looked especially rough and dirty today. 'As expected…' I sat on a chair and stared at the picture of the slime pufferfish. There was no smell. Events appeared with corruption and disappeared with their conclusion. And the final event of Stage 3: [Contaminated Source].
I had been consciously searching for signs of its corruption. During battle, while moving. In the end, it wasn't much different from a spot-the-difference game, so remembering the original scenery was important. But I hadn't found anything. Then, suddenly, a thought occurred to me. [Special Meal] was a special dish prepared for the slime pufferfish. [Chatty Ingredients] were materials for the plant monster. The target the event referred to was the user. So wouldn't [Contaminated Source] be the same?
Did you know? In this city that closely resembled 21st-century civilization, there were no bathrooms. But no one found it strange. We didn't bother searching for something unless we felt the need for it. In a world where nutrients were provided, bathrooms were worthless facilities. If you needed to wash your hands, there was the kitchen. As a result, there was one thing I hadn't seen for a very long time. A mirror. And likewise, my own reflection.
But it didn't have to be a mirror, did it? If there was no mirror, I could just check my appearance through something else that reflected me. However… In the café from earlier, in the dwarves' shops, in this kitchen where I was now—nowhere was there anything that could reflect me. It was as if everything had been corrupted on purpose to hide the phenomenon of reflection. Things that should have been there weren't in their places.
“This boring game of tag. Let's end it already.”
I raised my phone and switched to selfie mode. I could see myself. My face, which I hadn't seen in so long. The me on the screen made various expressions following the ones I made. I grinned.
“Whoa, kid, you're good at acting.”
This wasn't in the realm of mere speculation. While reading an expert's post, there had been a story about him fixing his hair after seeing the café's glass window. It was the same café where we had taken down the rampaging dwarves. But no matter how hard I tried to remember, there had been no glass window there. This cunning bastard. It had stuck right next to me and waited for the boss round. I spoke to the me on the screen.
“You've been caught, you bastard. Come out already.”
Unlike the still-smiling me, the expression on the face in the screen disappeared. It stared at me with a hardened face. And then a single word came through.
“You figured it out?”
My phone vibrated like crazy. Bzzt— Bzzt—
“Kihihi! What the hell is this guy? He didn't even go into a space where reflection has to exist… He found it through deduction? This guy's really interesting.”
The phone screen bulged forward. I set the phone down on the table and backed away. Whoosh— A head emerged from the screen. A head that looked exactly like mine. 'I was wondering if maybe… so my clone is the enemy?' But did I really need to wait until it came all the way out? I immediately ran forward and swung my fist. Thud— My fist was blocked by its hand.
“Huh? Aren't you supposed to wait until the transformation and entrance are completely finished? You're playing like a total jerk.”
“Shut the hell up.”
I swung my other hand too, but it was blocked again. Our physical abilities were completely identical. Voice, speech patterns, movements. It felt like an exact copy of me.
“You wanna make this dirty, huh?”
The thing that had fully emerged from the phone grappled with me and shouted loudly. “Everyone! Get into the store!” It knew that the two of us alone couldn't decide the outcome. 'Then a narrow space is dangerous.' I grabbed it and rolled outside with all my strength. The store door shattered as we were thrown onto the road where the zombies had gathered. Crash— Numerous zombies faced the two summoners. The masters, hands locked together in a struggle. The zombies backed away in confusion. Eventually, a large circle formed around us.
My voice came from right in front of me. It spoke quietly so the zombies couldn't hear. “You seem pretty smart… Shall we see which one of us is the better master? Kihihi.”
Woof woof woof— The dogs had come running at the sudden commotion. But they too looked confused upon seeing their master had become two. They couldn't decide which one to attack.
“This guy is the fake! While I'm holding him, bite this guy! Hurry…!”
“Don't talk nonsense! This guy is the fake!”
“Ha… This way, there's no end to it.”
“That's what I was going to say.”
This was a very troublesome situation. If things went wrong, the zombies could split into two factions and cause a civil war. A solution was needed. While we were holding each other back, Shinnip arrived at the chaotic scene. A small zombie was riding on his shoulder.
“Baengnae!”
Baengnae looked down at us silently. She was holding a large honey jar in her arms. Baengnae dipped her finger in the honey and sucked on it. “Slurp slurp.Nom nom.”
The moment we were about to say something to her, Baengnae put her finger to her lips. “Shh. Baengnae will do it.”
She got down to the ground and had Shinnip hold the honey jar. Then she drew the needle sword from her waist. Whoosh— She approached us with light steps. The tip of the sword wavered between us as if deciding who to stab. We tightened our grip on each other even more. A way to prove that I was me. Something it couldn't do, but I could…
“Baengnae…! Huh?”
Thud— Without any warning, question, or eye contact. Baengnae's sword pierced through one of our chests. The thin, long iron rod like a needle tore through a human heart, and blood flowed down the blade.
“Kuh…?”
We both looked at Baengnae at the same time. Her eyes had turned bright red. Baengnae smiled brightly. “You're the fake.”
The one whose chest was pierced coughed up blood. “Baengnae, this is… nonsen—”
Crack— Grind— Baengnae twisted the sword and tore out the surrounding flesh and muscle entirely. Without a shred of doubt.
“Fake. Annoying.”
Then she approached it and spoke clearly into its ear, her pronunciation perfectly distinct. “You don't have it.”
Shunk— With the tip of the withdrawn needle sword, [Contaminated Source]'s heart was neatly extracted. Baengnae bit into the heart. Chew chew— Ptui! “Trash.”
[Contaminated Source] has concluded.