328. A Battle Against Myself
328. A Battle Against Myself
***
Coming face-to-face with an existence perfectly identical to yourself. It gave her a feeling beyond words.
It was the kind of thing an ordinary person would never experience, never even expect to experience—a peculiar event that might happen once in a lifetime, if ever.
Who ever went through life thinking they'd meet another existence exactly like themselves? It felt like facing a doppelganger, something she'd only encountered once even in Black Ark.
Clang!
Watching the woman with flowing snow-white hair fiercely clash swords with her, Serin felt strange.
Looking at "me," I finally got a real sense of how I appeared to others.
'Is that how I normally look?'
It wasn't as if I'd never seen myself in stream VODs or RinTube videos. But seeing my phantom self trading blows with me right now felt completely different.
Swish! Clang!
As the blood-red blade sliced sharply at her leg, she stepped back and raised her sword to block. The perfectly identical blood-red energy canceled out violently, fiercely repelling each other.
"Seeing as you're still lost in thought, you seem to have plenty of room to spare."
The phantom spoke flatly, as if perfectly expressing my own personality, and withdrew its sword. Right after, it frowned faintly while looking at me, and my lips twisted before I knew it.
"So do you."
Even while clashing, they both kept the others in their peripheral vision.
Acting as if looking into a mirror—it was astonishing even while witnessing it directly.
Because this wasn't something like a doppelganger.
Honestly, she couldn't believe this was what an AI implemented in a game looked like.
Rumble!!
As the other me raised her sword and erupted with a massive blood-red aura, I likewise gripped my sword and drew up my own energy.
Swish!
As the blood-red aura surged fiercely and blurred my vision, the other me—snow-white hair scattering, expression cold—began to take a distinctive stance.
Feet shoulder-width apart, both hands regripping the sword's hilt, the crimson blade angled diagonally and slowly drawing back.
Taking all of that in, Serin flinched without meaning to.
'Dragon Slayer...'
The name of a technique surfaced, and she couldn't help but be shocked.
That stance was a technique that didn't exist in Another World—a stance that should only exist in my memories.
It was the killing stance used by a knight she'd met in Black Ark.
"You'll have to take this seriously."
At the other "me" speaking as if in warning, I naturally fell into the same stance.
As if it had noticed I wasn't fully committing to the duel. It was fascinating to see my phantom self act that way.
If I weren't paying attention to the stream, I probably would've said something like that while facing my opponent too.
"...?"
Then I saw the phantom's gaze momentarily leave me and turn toward the surroundings in the distance.
Following its gaze,
there she saw Sua and Yujeong, each facing their own selves.
Two golden rapiers clashed endlessly, generating brilliant bursts of light, while Yujeong and her phantom were both wrapped in dense dark auras, ferociously continuing their attacks on each other.
"..."
When even the phantom's behavior seemed to overlap with my own image... it truly felt like staring into a real mirror.
'This is Another World...'
No matter how much it was called a game ahead of its time, showcasing unbelievable technology, the "phantom" I now faced felt like something that far surpassed all of it.
She could accept that an AI's personality itself could be crafted somehow.
But replicating a user exactly and making it exist before her like this was something else entirely. It seemed closer to a kind of "magic."
Even amid all those thoughts,
she gripped Durandal tightly, its energy surging powerfully. Then they both stepped toward each other.
Rustle. Rustle.
As if breathing in sync, they stepped forward identically, the tips of their blades turning further behind them.
Just moments ago, Yujeong's whisper—the whisper she'd sent had created all of this.
-Each of us faces our own self.
-No one asks anyone else for help.
Yujeong's whispered words were spoken as if meant for the phantoms to hear, and they were already agreed upon.
The phantoms, which copied everything about the users who entered to an unbelievable degree and even mimicked their personalities, apparently heard everything from the moment of entry.
Any knowledge they had, the phantoms also knew. Even conversations exchanged inside, the phantoms were aware of all of it.
So since a melee would make it hard to distinguish the phantoms, they'd agreed to end Phase 1: Hall of Illusions by each facing their own "self."
"..."
"..."
In the tense standoff, calmly holding their stances and never taking their eyes off each other, the swords surging with blood-red energy were threatening even without using any technique.
Then the phantom Serin's lips moved.
"You know the counter."
Serin let out a wordless laugh and stepped forward.
Rustle. Rustle.
The phantom stepped forward as well, as if approaching her. The two of them kicked off the ground hard, closing the distance.
Serin immediately watched her opponent's sword path while moving her body calmly.
Watching the opponent's sword path, she held a thought intense enough to burn.
'There's no way I lose.'
It was thorough confidence in herself—an unshakable belief.
Slash! Slash!
The blood-red blade thrust from the front drew an eerie trajectory—down, up, and the moment it surged upward, it rapidly traced downward again.
She clashed against the blood-red trajectory swung by "herself," and she too would have been drawing the same sword path.
Facing a doppelganger, I'd once agonized over its weaknesses and how to win.
Because a fight against yourself typically offered no visible answer.
But the answer was surprisingly simple, and I knew it.
...
The two women, kicking off the ground hard with silver hair flying, drew a single line of sword path with blood-red blades that looked identical, as if reflected in a mirror.
The hand swinging the sword, the cold gaze watching the opponent, the tightly shut lips, even the movement of legs moving with breath held.
Rumble!
And at the end, the two women clashed swords as if cutting through each other and passed by without a sound.
As if perfectly synchronized, their swords met countless times in an instant, and the blood-red energy on their blades split exactly in half, signaling the cancellation of force.
Swish.
Watching blood seep from the large gash on her right shoulder, Serin slowly turned her body.
There, a woman lay collapsed.
Disheveled silver hair sprawled across the ground, and the fallen silver-haired woman's expression was faintly furrowed.
Her entire body stained red, covered in blood—it was unmistakably "her."
As I gazed calmly, I saw "myself" glance back at me.
"I... lost."
The eyes that spoke those flat words were gradually losing their light.
Blood stained the corners of her mouth red, and though the details were obscured by the blood welling up over her light armor, hiding the full extent of the carnage, it drew Serin's gaze irresistibly.
The final moments of the "me" before my eyes now were... unbelievably identical to when I'd defeated the doppelganger in Black Ark.
'Can this... really be called a game?'
Even setting aside the parts that were similar to the point of being identical, the phantom shouldn't have been able to be implemented.
Even if someone had experienced a doppelganger, how to create and implement one was an entirely separate matter—and the very fact that this had been implemented made no sense to begin with.
The doubts that had always been deep now transformed into even greater certainty.
That the game called Another World was absolutely not ordinary. That there was something there.
"..."
Amid all these thoughts, she watched "herself" slowly stop breathing and let out a soft sigh.
Turning her head, she saw the other two fiercely locked in combat, gradually gaining the upper hand. It looked like it would end soon.
The method for dealing with Another World phantoms—essentially the method for dealing with doppelgangers—was relatively well known in this world.
Since all actions and even thoughts seemed identical, they could be considered formidable opponents.
But thinking in reverse, a doppelganger was ultimately "you," so it could be beaten.
Because I knew what I would do and how I would respond afterward, I could predict it. If I thought one step further and acted accordingly, I could win.
That was why the Dragon Slayer the phantom and I had just displayed had gone the way it did.
At first, they'd drawn the same sword paths and clashed endlessly, but the ending had been different.
The phantom had given me a kind of "hint" beforehand.
With the word "counter."
"...Fascinating."
Her true feelings slipped out without her meaning them to.
Because even that was exactly what a doppelganger would do.
A doppelganger instinctively wanted to die the moment it faced the "real" one.
A fake created in someone's image. Unbelievably similar to the real thing, but ironically, every doppelganger had that trait.
They showed behavior hinting at their own death, then continued with that behavior.
Someone facing a doppelganger could kill it by acting accordingly, and if not, the doppelganger would keep giving only hints and repeatedly engage in duels.
Actually, I'd thought I could change the Dragon Slayer's sword path while facing the phantom, but when there was no sign of that at all, I'd been able to kill the phantom far too easily.
Thud. Swish.
As time passed, when the two women who appeared to be Sua's and Yujeong's phantoms collapsed, I slowly approached them.
"Seriously, Serin... every time I see you, I don't know whether to call you amazing or what."
"Even knowing the counter, it wasn't as easy as it sounds... Rin, you're really something else."
The two of them, covered in wounds all over, looked at me as I approached and shook their heads, and I couldn't help but laugh.
"Can't you see how badly I'm hurt right now?"
She tapped her deeply gashed shoulder to show them, and the two burst out laughing.
"Hurt? Please. Serin, you ended it the moment it started."
"Someone who takes down a phantom that fast... Rin, you're definitely the first."
As they exchanged words, the fog filling the space began to slowly lift.
Ding!
*
————
[Phase 1: Hall of Illusions Cleared!!]
Hall of Illusions clear reward has been generated!
Continue to the next phase?
[Y / N]
————
*
Then a message decorated all three of their visions simultaneously.