The Greatest Enemy Is Yourself
When facing a doppelganger, what should you guard against most?
Some say it is the power to copy someone stronger.
Others say it is a tenacious vitality that refuses to die.
But both were wrong.
The greatest danger of a doppelganger is 'yourself.'
Is the person you're facing really the original? What if I'm the one who's mistaken? A trivial question becomes a doubt, and at the very moment that doubt hardens into certainty—
you are devoured whole, and become the fake.
The eyes of the Tia in Lily's hand trembled.
That figure over there was unmistakably herself. Tia. Then why was she standing over there, wearing that wicked visage?
Don't tell me...
"Did I make a fake too?"
"You're the fake! You demon!"
Tia, standing at the heart of the ritual circle, screamed. The crimson array blazed even brighter, and the Tia within it looked for all the world like a demon incarnate. The Tia lowered down from Lily's hand frowned at the sight of her.
"Look who's calling who a demon..."
"What?"
"The way you look right now. Anyone can see you're the demon."
Bloodshot eyes, a face twisted with malice—and on top of that, the red light coiling around a body riddled with wounds. To any observer, the Tia inside the ritual circle looked like the counterfeit.
Red Tia clenched her teeth. "Don't make me laugh. You think fooling me with cheap tricks will make you the real one?"
"Real...? Ah. So that's why you kept me alive."
Because you believed you were the real one.
Because you believed 'Tia, the baker's daughter' was yourself.
"That's why you didn't kill me when I ran—you let me live."
Tia looked at Red Tia and let out a hollow laugh.
"What's so funny...?"
"It never added up. Until the Hero arrived, I was wandering around outside, never going home. But the fakes all kept saying, 'Tia is with her family.'"
At first she had doubted. What if a fake had already been made of her too? What if, while she wandered like this, avoiding her family, her home, her village, a fake had already slipped into her place?
But there had been no way to know. She doubted she could have lasted even a single second in that place.
So she drifted, and eventually crawled into a cave to sleep in a cramped corner, and there she asked herself: What am I, really?
Was this the right way to live? Was this life truly Tia's?
No—what had Tia even been, to begin with?
The girl called Tia. An ordinary baker's daughter, looks a cut above average, dressed in clothes rather well-off for the Small Village. Two friends, maybe three. One of them a friend closer than close, and...
"........"
In the end, Tia abandoned the thought. She was afraid that if she kept thinking, she would lose herself entirely.
'Ngh...'
Tears came.
"...If the Hero hadn't come when she did, I might really have gone mad."
Yes, maybe...
"Maybe I'd have ended up thinking the same thing you do—that I might be the fake."
"...Don't you dare say that."
"I'm so glad. Any later, and I'd have lost myself."
"Don't you dare say that!!!!"
Hwaruk.
The ritual was beginning. Truth separates itself from falsehood.
Red Tia's hands caught fire.
"What would you know!!! I lost my family, I lost my friends, I lost everything, and you—!"
"......"
"Must've been nice, running away whenever you pleased! You think crouching in a hole somewhere changes anything?! While you were doing that, I...! I..."
Ah, ahahahaha...
It's breaking apart.
The thing that imitated Tia—no, the thing that might truly be Tia—is breaking apart.
The Copycat, who had once only known hunger, met a friend. The friend was wonderful, and the cake was wonderful too. So it ate the cake. The Copycat was happy. It sank back into the darkness, satisfied.
And then the Copycat saw.
'Hahahaha~'
A house overflowing with plenty, still glowing bright even in the deepest hours of the night—and living there, the only friend it had ever known.
It was envious.
"You..."
"I'm sorry."
"...?"
"For running off and leaving you behind."
Tia walked forward, step by slow step. Tears spilled from the half-burning eyes of Red Tia.
"I was scared. Of everything disappearing, and a fake filling the space it left."
It had been repulsive. It had been terrifying.
So she ran.
'Leaving my oldest friend behind. Without even the thought of going to look for her.'
Back then, no one had even died yet.
"Tell me. You were that friend, weren't you?"
"...I..."
"Answer me."
Two more steps and she would be face to face with Red Tia.
Red Tia shook her head. "...I'm Tia. I... I'm Tia. Not that thing."
"You..."
"I..."
A stumble.
"I AM TIA!!!!!!"
"Kyaaaaak!!!"
The burning hand lunged for Tia—or rather, a spear came flying just before it could seize her, and cut the hand clean off.
Having escaped death by a paper's breadth, Tia crawled across the ground, shaking.
"Why...?"
"Because a face can change and a personality can change, but a nature doesn't."
The Copycat that had tried to take everything Tia was. As the original, it had faithfully copied every habit, every trait, every feature Tia possessed—but at its core, it was still a Copycat.
With things having come this far, there was no way it would concede that it was the 'fake' and accept its own 'death.'
Red Tia—no, the Copycat—glared at me with feral eyes.
"You were never an angel..."
"That's right. I'm not an angel."
Damn straight I'm no angel.
Perhaps because of the ritual's influence, the Copycat's body had burst into full flame. The hand of the Copycat, now looking like the very avatar of malice, moved.
Hwaruruk.
Fire swept across the front in a wide arc. I casually cleaved through the flames with my spear, scooped up Tia, and set her down far away in a safe spot.
She was still too stunned to gather herself, stammering incoherently.
"Stay hidden."
"Ah... y-you've got this!"
Tia hastily clenched her fists in a show of courage. I gave her a small smile and returned to the battlefield.
The blazing Copycat loosed a second gout of fire—flames surging in from both flanks. The spear twisted in my grip, and a fierce rotation began.
Spear's Roar punched straight through the fire and struck home.
"Grrrrghk!!!"
The Copycat hastily transformed into a massive hunk of rock. Since it couldn't copy inanimate matter, I supposed this was some manner of golem. The golem's fist smashed down at the earth.
Ddenggang.
The stone arm sheared away in one clean stroke.
The Copycat, writhing in agony, shifted again—this time into the hulking body of an ogre. Utterly pointless.
"That won't be enough."
Unless it could borrow the flesh of a forgotten Ancient Dragon-class existence, no number of powerful races would matter. Celestials and demons? It wouldn't find those, let alone borrow them.
The Copycat, having thrown race after race at me, stood panting, utterly spent.
If there's nothing left to show—
"Looks like this is your limit, 'fake.'"
Ppudeuk.
"I'm not a fake..."
"Then what should I call you? Your entire reason for existing is imitating others. So you're a fake. That's all you are."
"......"
"Well then."
The spear flew.
The Copycat stood there, having given up on dodging—
and the spear that had come screaming in rebounded away, empty-handed.
The smoke that had flooded the battlefield began to settle.
And as it cleared, the silhouette of a woman who had swatted that spear aside with almost insulting ease came into view.
Even by my own judgment, a beauty and bearing impossible to look away from. A spear steeped in vast, distant mana—and the body to wield it with consummate skill.
'Lily Elbrit.'
Those blue eyes flashed, cold as frost.
"Now it's getting interesting."
The dungeon's difficulty is shifting drastically!
The boss, Hungry Mimic's level is being recalibrated.
[Would you like to enter the Copycat's House?]
I'd been turning it over in my mind ever since I first laid eyes on those words—Copycat.
'This just might work.'
Pulling off the Mock Siege Battle would require reclaiming my 3rd Advancement and my divinity. But no matter how frantically I ran the schedule, hunting fifteen bosses of level 40 or higher was looking impossible.
The only remaining path was taking down a 'World Boss.'
That was why I'd strained every nerve to capture the Shadow Spirit at the Blue Forest Plateau—but the kill never registered. It was getting harder to find them at all, and even if I did, in my current state I couldn't be certain of capturing one intact without my divinity.
So I decided to use 'me.'
Provoke the Copycat. Provoke it and provoke it again, force its true identity into the open, then drive it into a corner and push even harder.
'Until it copies a "stronger individual" to survive.'
"Sheer terror, really."
We'd only stood face to face, and yet my hand was white-knuckled around the spear haft and every inch of my skin prickled.
It had been a long, long time since I'd felt this. The first time since coming to Deoen.
'Exhilarating.'
I split the spear.
Seventeen blades of sharpened light.
'Lily' was never an opponent to be taken lightly.
I charged in, seventeen spears trailing behind me—
KWAAAAAANG—!!!!
"Kgh...!"
A massive blunt weapon appeared out of nowhere and smashed into my body. I went flying, crashing into the corner of some collapsed house.
Drdrdr...
"...Yeah. That's Lily for you."
Lily fights with a hammer. Of course she does.
DANGER! A World Boss-class entity (Lower) is revealing itself.
Should this dungeon fail to be cleared, the World Boss 'Lily Elbrit' will manifest within the world!