Chapter 14
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Manticore (3)
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"I'm the real one!! I'm the real Hermann!!"
"Hey, none of you are buying this bastard's bullshit, right!? Hey, Manticore! Look with your own two eyes! These scars on my body—they're from that experiment we did together back when you were still human! You can't possibly not recognize them!?"
Not just Manticore.
Everyone present was at a complete loss.
"Ha... This fake bastard even copied my scars, the prick. Here, look at my body!!"
There were two Hermanns.
This meant they were identical down to the finest detail, impossible to distinguish.
Hermann, the hot-tempered mage of the Dark School.
His specialty was binding-type black magic, his favorite.
He had a habit of biting his lower lip when casting spells.
The two Hermanns desperately tried to prove they were the real one.
They strained, shouted, used mana and stocks, but both turned out to be Hermann.
In other words.
The magic they could wield, their habits, memories, and past actions.
The two were identical. No, perfectly the same.
"What in the world..."
"It's not magic. But if it's not magic, how is this even possible?"
Manticore pulled out every trick he knew to identify the fake Hermann.
He prided himself on his skills and believed he could see through even the trickiest spells.
But.
No method yielded any meaningful results.
'This is an unexplainable phenomenon.'
If there was something in this world that even magic couldn't achieve.
It had to be the scene unfolding before his eyes right now.
"We need to kill this fake bastard right now!"
"That's my line! What are you all doing? Kill this bastard!"
The group needed to resolve this bizarre incident immediately.
Otherwise, the fake could slaughter them all while they were caught off guard.
This was unmistakably Dreamland's trap.
On top of that, they were in dire straits.
They hadn't found an escape route, and who knew when another threat might strike.
The two Hermanns were consumed by fear and rage.
It was just like a criminal framing the victim in court.
If someone identical to you claimed to be the real one and called you fake, even the most rational person would falter, wouldn't they?
They needed to purge that sickening disgust.
If they couldn't prove they were real, they'd be the ones killed by their comrades!
There was one clear, simple solution.
Murder.
"What are you doing!? Help me!!"
"I'm the real Hermann!!"
Unlike the Hermanns now trying to kill each other, the rest of the group was frozen in place.
Who should they help? Who should they kill?
"What are you── you idiots doing!? I'm the real Hermann, so stop standing there and kill that fake bastard right nooow!!"
"This pisses me off, pisses me off, pisses me off, don't look at me with that face identical to mine!"
"Just die! Get lost and fuck off, you goddamn son of a bitch──!!"
Screams filled the maze.
No one could step into that horrific, grotesque bloodbath.
"Die die die die die!!"
"It hurts, hurts, huuuurts!!"
As everyone watched on.
One Hermann ended up fully dead.
"......"
The black mages faced each other.
They were probably all thinking the same thing.
Stab.
Thud.
Killing the mangled Hermann wasn't hard.
The black mages wiped the blood from their hands.
The blood from the two Hermanns turned the puddles red.
Lifeless, hollow shells glared at each other even in death.
It looked like they still harbored hatred.
"......"
Silence lingered unbroken for a while.
Dungeon exploration, day 7.
Hermann's death.
If it had been a simple death, it wouldn't have rattled them this much, but the shocking events prior had stirred primal fear.
The oldest and strongest fear was of the unknown.
It began the moment something defied understanding.
Goblin, troll, human—it was wired that way.
Fear aided survival.
It was a biological alarm to distinguish predators from prey.
"He's dead."
"......Yeah, he's really dead, not some fake death. What the hell was that? No magic, no curse—nothing explains that freakish thing..."
Everyone pushed aside further investigation.
At the rendezvous point, the black mages and Manticore vented their honest feelings about yesterday's bizarre event.
"Just checked—the corpses are still two."
"It's enough to make ghosts wail. Truly."
Many had stayed up all night, wide-eyed.
They needed to soothe this terror somehow, or they'd never rest easy.
"Should we just bail from this dungeon right now?"
"No escape scrolls—think that's possible...?"
"Fuck, these corridors creep me out enough, and now it's full of weird shit! Damn it... If I wasn't so desperate for cash, I never would've stepped into this eerie, gloomy hellhole!"
The human heart was fickle.
They'd jumped at the chance before, but now that things turned sour, the black mages shot Manticore dirty looks full of complaints.
"Hey, Manticore, what's the plan now?"
"This is your dungeon! Come up with a solution, quick!"
Honestly, it was absurd.
Everyone knew it was a newborn dungeon when they signed up—anyone would think he'd dragged them here by force.
But.
If he snapped now and picked a fight with the black mages... well.
It wouldn't end well.
"Our only option now is to grab the magic stones and get out."
Manticore held back his irritation.
He tried to speak as nicely as possible, and his effort paid off.
"Damn..."
"If we don't wanna die, we follow his lead and head out. Those goddamn puddles are multiplying—corridors might flood soon."
'Pushing through this dungeon with these idiots is the best play? Still pisses me off.'
It'd be nice if they could spot the anomaly without issue and beeline for the core room.
But the world rarely went as planned—the path ahead looked bleak.
"From now on, we move in two-man teams."
"Can't risk another freakout like yesterday."
"Yeah. One left over—I'll take him."
The black mages stood.
They moved without hiding their unease.
Deep down, they prayed fervently.
Please, no more doppelganger incidents like yesterday.
And that evening, two didn't return to the rendezvous.
The newly discovered corpses numbered three.
Dungeon exploration, day 8.
"These aren't just puddles anymore—the floor's flooding..."
"What the hell's going on here? This place is full of incomprehensible crap!"
Seven remained, including Manticore.
All sat at the rendezvous with grim faces.
Two had died yesterday.
Three corpses found.
The doppelgangers had shaken their composure.
"I wanna go home, wanna go home, wanna go hooome..."
"Fuck, you think you're the only one suffering!? Stop whining!"
"Already got enough headaches... Drag this out more, and... bad feeling about it."
The group dubbed the eerie phenomenon "doppelgangers."
The situation was dire.
The maze's secrets remained unsolved, movement grew harder with rising water, and doppelgangers had appeared the day before last and yesterday.
Probably today too.
'Survivors: Jeco, Beleeb, Dustin, Orgin, Berba, and me.'
Maze exploration at 22%.
Fewer people meant slower progress.
Everyone feared the doppelgangers.
Progress would slow even more ahead.
Above all, two-man teams weren't safe.
To secure stability, they needed larger groups, fewer teams.
This wouldn't cut it.
The maze was vast—two weeks wouldn't cover it all.
Without luck, they'd all drown.
"Gonna check the bodies quick."
"Yeah. Go ahead."
Manticore headed to the newly found corpses from yesterday.
Identical to the naked eye, truly indistinguishable.
Not just visually.
Everything matched.
Mana circuits, possessions, and even.
Memories and habits.
How to tell doppelganger from real?
Manticore crouched, deep in thought.
Even before becoming a monster, he'd strived for rational thinking.
There was always a way.
Despair after exhausting options, not before.
But.
No answer emerged.
Manticore let out a small sigh.
He stood and walked on.
Not giving up.
Ideas could strike later.
He decided to give his mind a break.
On the way back to the rendezvous.
Walking blankly on all fours, lost in thought, Manticore.
Suddenly halted.
A doppelganger was already at the rendezvous.
It, in Manticore's form, sensed him and rose.
"Ah."
It stared at Manticore in the passage.
That moment.
Manticore regretted his choices to his core for the first time.