Chapter 318

'Is this what they call identical twins?'

Someone unfamiliar with magical studies might have arrived at no other conclusion. But as an alien who collected information on artifacts whenever possible, I had no particular difficulty accepting the sight of a mimic wearing Brooklyn's face.

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playwild

New Item Information=

[2]

Item Name: Doppelgänger's Jealousy

Acquisition Location: Doppelgänger (A)

Description: Must be attached near the posterior cervical muscle to activate. Confirmed to enable long-term transformation into a specific individual, limited to those who meet certain conditions. Further research required to determine method of effect cancellation other than unequipping.

Note: As of XX.08.06, possession of this item is prohibited under international law.

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This was exactly why magic was called magic.

In the realm of sorcery, miracles that would be nearly impossible to achieve through ordinary means could often be brought into existence with surprisingly little technical effort—sometimes merely by making the right wish.

'Come to think of it, back on Earth before the Dungeon Shock, even changing your height by five centimeters required major surgery.'

Considering that sorcerer's original build, the transformation before me was truly astonishing.

The unusually rapid casting speed.

The lightning magic used to subdue prey.

And several other details.

I quietly pieced together the fake Beast's identity in my head based on the Awakening attribute they had displayed and the internal characteristics of their magic.

You're not answering?

But at that moment, the Beast standing before me with a dead person's face suddenly revealed open hostility.

'This is it!'

BZZZZZT—!

Just how impatient could someone be to attack before even giving me time to answer?

Although they wore Brooklyn's face, their Awakened ability had nothing to do with spatial manipulation. In the end, they once again activated their primary elemental skill.

The lightning they unleashed shot across my abdomen like an arrow.

A chilling electrical hum, like the sound of a severed high-voltage cable, lingered along the path the spell had traced.

Do you not know me?

I seized control of my body with magic just as the electric shock threatened to paralyze it.

"Wa..."

I'd been momentarily distracted by the whole process of her revealing her face, but thinking about it again, this was undeniably a crisis.

So before I ended up like a chicken roasted by electricity, I moved my mouth as quickly as I could.

"Wait a second! I'll talk. Y-yes, we have. We've met face to face before!"

For the record, I usually had no problem making excuses or lying, especially when dealing with primitive sorcerers.

But this fake had singled out one person in the middle of a chaotic battlefield and pursued him relentlessly like prey.

"I know you—Brooklyn Morgan—and I've seen that face before. Damn it. I don't even know if this is translating properly..."

The opponent probably already had at least some idea of what had happened between me and that split-personality lunatic.

Having reached that conclusion, and with my life clearly in danger, I confessed the truth without hesitation.

Don't worry. It's working perfectly. Pixy Corp's advances were so impressive that even highly paid interpreters were brought to tears.

But that raised a much larger question.

Back when the incident involving the real Beast occurred, there had definitely been no third parties nearby.

Brooklyn Morgan had clearly died on the spot.

The dungeon reset had completed without any problems.

Above all, the whole incident had been quietly buried—until now.

And yet, something that had remained hidden for so long had suddenly resurfaced in the most unexpected way possible.

'How the hell did they find out I met the real one? Could Jung Haseong have betrayed me? No, damn it. There's no way!'

I couldn't figure out how information about what had happened in [Mimic City] had leaked to anyone else.

Without additional information, that was as far as my reasoning could go for now.

Then, since the interpretation is working properly, let's get to the main point before the business partners start complaining.

Like most predators, the impostor before me remained completely focused on their objective even at a time like this.

"--"

No.

More precisely, they had been about to.

"--"

But after a brief pause, the opponent—who had dragged me all the way into this remote cave supposedly to talk—suddenly shifted their attention elsewhere.

Without the bone mask, they looked far more human than before.

They stood there with their head tilted in curiosity, fiddled with something around their arm, then abruptly pointed the twelve o'clock position of a wristwatch—previously hidden beneath their thick clothing—toward me.

'Could it be an analyzer?'

If it was a tool designed to identify useful resources inside a dungeon, then yes, there were certainly Earth-made devices shaped like wristwatches.

But pointing an analyzer's sensor at a person normally wouldn't produce any meaningful information.

It was the difference between weighing a motionless sewing kit and trying to measure the weight of a squirming young animal.

The two situations were fundamentally different.

There was an enormous gap between the inanimate and the living.

More importantly, a naturally born living organism generated countless variables simply by breathing.

That was why Hunters always had to go through so much trouble—measuring breathing, drawing blood, and so on—just to properly assess someone's mana.

So what exactly was that lightning mage trying to do by fiddling with a machine from a distance?

"What are you--."

The Earthling of unknown age, wearing the face of a dead person, opened their mouth.

What is this?

Much like me, they now seemed visibly flustered by the situation.

I chose you because you looked like the strongest one among the Koreans.

There was a strange interruption in the sound for a moment, but that wasn't important right now, so I ignored it.

I assumed you'd be the most dangerous of all the suspects who might've seen 'this face' in [Mimic City], especially since your abilities still haven't been revealed...

At the very least, as long as we belonged to the same species, the Awakener before me possessed an appearance that would probably be considered attractive regardless of skin color.

They grabbed a handful of their golden hair.

Hmm?

As the figure lifted an arm to run a hand through their hair, the sharp eyesight of this possessed corpse caught the numbers displayed on the wrist device.

Whatever the opponent had just attempted to measure, the result was still clearly visible.

And because the number had been recorded to two decimal places, even the tiny unit notation beside it gradually became legible.

'Why does that number look exactly like the one I saw during a recent experiment?'

Why had the fake, who had charged straight toward a single target with complete confidence from the very beginning, suddenly become confused?

Strange.

There was only one way to understand it.

I had to connect the number shown on the opponent's wristwatch to a certain recurring subject.

You...

Judging by the atmosphere, it seemed the opponent was searching for the culprit behind Brooklyn Morgan's disappearance.

[23.41 Aw]

Just like that, the prey they had dragged away in their jaws had revealed a shockingly low level of internal energy.

Didn't you just answer as though you knew who Brooklyn Morgan really was?

Oh no.

This was another completely unexpected crisis.

No, more importantly, with an Awakening level like this, how did you not get crushed when you smashed through that wall just now?

Just as I'd suspected, the wristwatch-shaped device used by the fake Beast was a non-contact instrument for measuring Awakening levels.

According to the value it displayed, I would be classified as roughly an E-rank superhuman by international standards.

No matter how durable my body was.

No matter how suspicious I looked dressed entirely in black.

There was one even more fundamental reason people on Earth had been so easy to fool.

That included everything from the [Inevitable Malice] strategy battle to all the achievements I'd accumulated as a Hunter.

'Ah—if technology this convenient existed, they should've shared it sooner instead of making me waste money on chemical-analysis samples.'

This was bad.

The resurrected ghost standing before me had used some kind of machine to measure the magical power inside my actual dermal layer.

It wasn't measuring mana leaking from my skin, so suppressing my presence had done nothing.

The truth that Korea's fourth S-rank Hunter was actually as weak as a pitiful little rabbit had now been exposed through objective numerical data.

And it had happened at precisely the worst possible moment.

***

While one international con artist stood on the verge of being exposed, what had the Hunters who entered together been doing all this time?

WHOOOOSH!

At some point, the roar of surging fire began to echo.

Like a tsunami, it had been quiet while still far away.

Only when the wave of flames finally crashed down did it consume everything in its path with a thunderous roar.

CRACKLE, CRACKLE.

The trees that had existed only moments ago were reduced to ash in the blink of an eye, and even the enemies couldn't help but recoil.

Massive plants more than five meters tall crumbled into dust in a single instant.

Could those eerie blue flames truly fail to burn even human bones?

Ack! Hot, hot!

There was a reason cremation existed on Earth.

The two superhumans still wearing their bone masks were forced to retreat in haste before the relentless wave of flames unleashed by their enemy.

For a brief moment, the two Awakened criminals exchanged glances.

The reason they had occupied a Korean dungeon had nothing to do with any personal motive.

They were simply acting on a commission from someone above them.

That meant most of what was about to unfold inside this dungeon had actually been meticulously planned from the very beginning, back at the mission procurement stage.

Haa. Just that.

It was unexpected that they were having this much trouble against S-class opponents.

Seo Esther was one thing.

She was quick-witted and agile, had immediately recognized the difference in power even after losing one eye, and had escaped.

But even so, the criminals had been unable to properly close in on any of the Koreans and had instead been forced to scatter and retreat in disarray.

Even taking into account that Seo Esther's skill had been steadily wearing down their condition, this was still something the fake Beasts couldn't understand.

Just as I was told beforehand, they're really going to make us work for it.

If I'd known this would happen, I should've caught at least one of them the moment they first entered instead of letting them go as bait.

Well, still.

It's not as though killing them is mandatory anyway.

I could've simply turned their lower bodies into minced meat and quietly waited out the ritual period.