Doppelgänger
Kang! Kang!
Two knights' swords clashed against my daggers. It was daytime right now, which meant the Black Tyranny was boosting my stats.
They're still stronger than me.
In a two-on-one, I couldn't win. Their base stats were higher than mine, and every second I dragged this out worked in their favor, not mine.
Even with my stats raised, they outclass me.
No wonder they were the prince's bodyguards. Compared to the common soldiers I'd seen on the battlefield, these two were in a different league entirely. But that was all they had.
"A fine swordsman for a mere assassin!"
"Hah, assassin or not, that's all you are!"
The two knights swung their swords with loud cries.
Kang! Kang! Kang!
I desperately parried with my daggers, blocking some strikes and deflecting others.
If I didn't have the experience, I'd be dead by now.
The only reason I was holding my ground was the experience I'd carried back from before my regression. Next to that, the knights' technique was pathetic. Half-learned skills were the same as no skills at all.
An opening.
And inexperience always left plenty of those.
Swish!
My dagger sliced across one guard's flank. He was wearing armor, but it shattered like cheap pottery. It had been made for show rather than function, so no surprise there.
"Pato!"
The other knight shouted his comrade's name and lunged at me.
"If you're going to fight, don't announce yourself first."
I caught his sword with a broken hilt, then used the Black Tyranny to carve into his side as well.
"Kghk!"
The knight clutched his flank and crumpled to the ground. With nothing but a slice to their sides, both knights were already out of the fight. They simply weren't used to pain.
They've only ever fought people weaker than themselves.
Skill only grows when you fight equals or betters. But these two had probably spent their whole careers beating down the helpless. They had never learned what pain felt like, and their experience showed it.
"H-how! Pato and Seoron, of all people!"
The fatty jabbed a finger at me, flustered. It didn't sit well with me, but I ignored him and turned to the prince.
"Your Highness. Are you retreating, or not?"
"You needn't dignify this assassin's words with an answer, Your Highness!"
The fatty butted in again. Irritating as it was, I stayed quiet. What I needed to see here was the prince's reaction.
"And if I were to withdraw from here, what would you do?"
"Your Highness!"
The fatty reacted to the prince's question with theatrical alarm.
"Nothing."
"So you're saying that if we retreat, you'll take no action at all?"
"That's right."
At my answer, the prince began to weigh his options. Having seen what I could do, he wouldn't act rashly. The fatty, of course, was another matter.
"Your Highness! You can't possibly believe that assassin?!"
"Silence!"
"Hik!"
In an instant, the prince's entire presence changed.
Oh.
Royal blood or not, the man radiated authority on a different level.
"Maektong, did you feel nothing at all watching that fight just now?"
"They were only two knights who fell!"
"Only two?"
Under the prince's roar, the fatty shrank back. The prince's hands were trembling.
"Sir Pato and Sir Seoron are the finest knights in the kingdom. And you call it only two?"
"Th-that is..."
The look in the prince's eyes as he regarded the fatty had changed. When the man had first entered the barracks, that gaze had held trust. Now it burned with fury and contempt.
He's digging his own grave.
Every word out of the fatty's mouth was dragging his standing down in the prince's eyes, and he seemed entirely oblivious to it.
"We shall withdraw the army."
"Then we have a deal."
As I spoke, a message bloomed before my eyes.
The enemy forces have retreated.
This is recognized as a victory.
The victory message. That was the quest cleared.
Quest Cleared.
Floor 8
1st — Originator of the Footwork (00:01:07:00)
2nd — None
3rd — None
◈ Tower Coins x5,000
The rank rewards were the same as before.
"Same as ever since Floor 6, huh?"
Every other floor had offered slightly different rewards, but from Floor 6 onward the ranking rewards had been fixed. Not that I was complaining. Tower Coins were the more the merrier.
Then another message arrived on its heels.
You have cleared the quest by an alternative method.
Your reward will be changed.
A changed reward?
The original reward was supposed to be the Command trait. The intended path was to rally the army and turn the situation around through leadership. Instead, I had stormed the enemy's head all by myself and wrung a retreat out of him.
Makes sense that it'd change.
I opened my status window to check the reward.
The status window I hadn't opened in a while was looking rather lavish. My skill list had grown, too.
"Negotiation, huh."
Negotiation was a good trait. It would serve me well living out in society from here on. The reward itself I quite liked.
Come to think of it, I never even checked the ring's effect.
Given that it had come out of the Tower of Trials' reward pool, it was bound to be decent.
Rare
Type: Ring, Relic
Description: A ring imbued with the extreme of the Taegeuk. Long left dormant, its power has faded.
Effects: Strength +5, Sealed, Sealed, Sealed, ......
"A relic, huh."
Relics had the lowest approval rating of any item type. Their effects were either genuinely excellent or absolutely terrible.
At least it doesn't look like a dud.
Items that raised raw stats were extremely rare. A rare-tier item granting five full stat points was no trash drop. But calling it a jackpot outright felt premature.
I'll wear it for now.
Maybe luck would be on my side and the seals could be broken one day.
That's enough checking for now.
The remaining floors of the Tower were nine and ten. Everything so far I had managed on the strength of prior experience, but from Floor 9 on, the caliber changed entirely.
Proceed to Floor 9?
From here up, one misstep meant death.
Gulp.
The sound of me swallowing my saliva rang out louder than it had any right to. Still, I couldn't stop here.
"I'm going up."
I threw myself into Floor 9.
An empty, pitch-black space. Floor 9 was barren.
I'll wait, for now.
In a space like this, holding still beat wandering around blindly. Moving before I even knew what the quest was would only get me killed.
After a short wait, the quest finally appeared.
Description: Win
Success Condition: Victory
Failure Condition: Defeat
Reward: The Copycat's Mirror
The moment the quest materialized, the darkness around me lifted. I stood within walls of gray stone.
Win at what, exactly?
In a space containing nothing, what was I supposed to beat?
Gllrk.
Then a strange sound reached me. I swept my surroundings searching for its source, but there was nothing to see.
What on earth is it?
Without knowing my enemy's identity, a fight couldn't even begin. Then I felt killing intent at my back.
Kang!
My dagger met the one the enemy had swung at me.
"You—?!"
My face twisted the moment I got a clear look at my opponent. The blade in the enemy's hand was black as night, the hilt black as well, with red accents worked into the design.
The Black Tyranny.
When the enemy's face finally came into view, it was one I knew intimately. It was my own—the face I had stared at my entire life.
"A doppelgänger..."
Fighting Spirit — Passive (A)
Fighters' Clash (C)
The doppelgänger was a monster whose information was nearly unknown. The only thing anyone had ever learned was that it mimicked appearances and equipment. No weakness had ever been identified, no strategy ever documented.
Of all things, a doppelgänger.
I was at a disadvantage. The thing could copy everything about me, which meant my greatest asset—my techniques—would be useless.
At that moment, the doppelgänger charged.
Kang!
Our daggers met again. The equipment looked identical in performance.
I can't even tell whether it's day or night in here.
With no day or night to speak of, no buff had come into effect.
Basic footwork. Paa—Break.
To disrupt the doppelgänger's attempt to open distance, I collapsed the ground beneath it. Losing its balance, the doppelgänger toppled backward.
Now.
I swung the Black Tyranny.
Kang!
My strike was blocked, and the doppelgänger's counterattack came in a continuous stream.
Kang!
I pulled the broken hilt free and parried. Having failed its ambush, the doppelgänger broke away to regain distance.
So it won't end easily after all.
The thing had copied every technique I owned, which meant it was reading my every move before I made it.
"Whew."
Rushing in here would get me caught in a counter instead. I studied the doppelgänger's movements slowly, carefully. But because it wasn't human, there were no tells to read at all.
If that's how it is, no choice.
I kicked off the ground and drove into the doppelgänger's guard. Inside its reach, I thrust a full-force fist. A sudden strike—the blow buried deep into the doppelgänger's stomach.
Attack power reduced by 50% due to the effect of Fighters' Clash (C).
"Tch."
I had ambushed it while a skill was still active, so the result was only natural. Knowing that didn't make it any less disappointing. I checked the system message and turned to where the doppelgänger had been sent flying.
"Huh?"
The spot where the doppelgänger should have been was empty—as if it had never been there at all.
No way.
I immediately activated Area Detection. Nothing registered.
Damn it.
Undetectable by my skill, every trace of its presence erased completely.
It can copy skills too, apparently.
Even so, I'd assumed copying extended only to techniques and equipment.
"Concealment."
I activated Concealment myself and suppressed my presence. When both my signal and the doppelgänger's vanished from the gray expanse, a dead silence settled over the space.
Swoosh.
In the end, it was the doppelgänger that revealed itself first. I closed in slowly along its flank.
Then I swung my dagger without hesitation.
Swish!
And I cut the doppelgänger down.