The bottom of the moat, where I dropped with great resolve.
Just as I was grinning at the delightful landing created by my veil, which exceeded my wildest imagination, a sharp scream echoed from afar.
“Ahhh! Help! Is anyone there?!”
It was the voice of a woman being chased by a gigantic Gear Golem.
She didn’t seem to be shouting at us, as she was running in the completely wrong direction. The Gear Golem was thudding behind her.
The ground was so soft it was almost a bog, leaving big footprints all over.
“Yahhh! Please! Please don’t come! Help!!!”
A panicked tone characteristic of someone feeling threatened for their life. But somehow… it didn’t sound as urgent as it should.
I can’t just weigh human lives on a scale based on a mere feeling, but something about it made me uneasy.
For now, I decided to hide behind the large, scattered doll bodies around and observe the situation.
Though she didn’t seem to be entirely out of options yet, she still had some time to run.
As I was hiding and gulping down a mana potion, Lydia and Benny fell from the sky near me shortly after.
Unlike me, who landed lightly thanks to the power of the air-jump veil, they were equipped with various gear and had their Shadows unfurling like parachutes.
Suddenly, the woman adventurer, who had been running around in a panic, spotted us and started running over.
“Help me! I’ll do anything in return! We’re both adventurers, right?!”
Of course, the building-sized Gear Golem began to charge towards us as well.
It’s a strict rule in the guild to not bring monsters to others while asking for help.
If you shift monsters onto someone else, it could lead to larger incidents, and you might exploit the situation to kill other adventurers and loot them without getting your hands dirty.
Though such rules might seem trivial to someone on the brink of death…
That was only her problem. The monster looked like the strongest one around by a long shot.
Normally, it would be wise to keep my distance instead of helping. If I were to help, I should do so only after securing a proper escape route.
However, our situation was a bit different. Lydia and Benny were high-ranking adventurers that could slice through monsters on the third floor with ease.
So if we decided to help, we could do so as much as we wanted.
Lydia, gripping her greatsword with her usual calm expression, asked me, “Jonah, what should we do?”
“…Well, that’s a good question.”
But for some reason, the closer that adventurer got, the stronger the strange unease became.
There wasn’t much time to ponder. With the distance closing, I decided to make the most conservative choice.
In other words, I chose to follow my instincts to avoid any potential losses.
“Let’s create some distance, Lydia. It’s hard to explain, but there’s something off here, and I don’t want to get too entangled.”
“…Okay.”
After saying that, I immediately regretted it.
While it was one thing for Benny and me, Lydia was fundamentally a righteous person.
So suggesting we leave behind an adventurer asking for help, even if they were a bit odd, was quite the slap in the face for her sense of justice.
Though it was hard to tell with her brief response and restrained emotions, Lydia might be angry with me by now. She could be disappointed in me.
Swallowing that anxiety, I cautiously turned around to find…
With a hint of pride, Lydia smiled faintly at me.
Before I could even say anything, Lydia lightly ruffled my hair.
“Jonah, you sensed something odd, didn’t you?”
“Uh? Yeah.”
“Keep that sensation in mind. It’ll be really useful on the third floor.”
With that, Lydia dashed out, wielding her greatsword.
“Eh?!”
Wait, did she seriously go to rescue the adventurer alone? It would be fine if it’s Lydia, but I couldn’t shake off the worry about her earlier expression and words.
Rather than scolding me, it felt like she was actually praising me…
While I pondered in confusion, Benny, having returned his Shadow to its original form, stood beside me.
“Watch closely, Jonah. I can tell you have a rough idea about the monsters on the third floor, but you don’t seem to understand them entirely.”
“Okay…”
As I tilted my head, Lydia’s greatsword was drawn.
The greatsword engulfed in a fiery aura swung down with a momentum that seemed to crush anything in its path… and it was aimed at the adventurer who had been screaming for help.
Boom!
“Eh.”
The adventurer was buried in dust, unable to let out a scream. The soft ground buckled and settled again.
And then, only after a moment did my shocked voice escape my lips.
“Lydia?!”
No, I said to quietly slip away—not to kill anyone! Why was Benny just letting this happen?
As my gaze swung around in confusion, Benny poked me on the shoulder.
“Focus. You’re supposed to watch until the end.”
“Until the end? What more is there to see here… huh?”
I stopped mid-sentence, my eyes widening unexpectedly. The result before me was completely unforeseen.
The Gear Golem, which had been chasing the adventurer with killing intent, was now wrapping itself around her to protect her.
In the end, it couldn’t withstand Lydia’s strike, losing an arm and tearing its side open. But beyond that, the adventurer who had just been begging for help lay dead.
It looked as if Lydia had struck her right in the head with her greatsword.
As the greatsword slowly pulled out, I saw her limp head briefly lift before falling, exposing a gruesome cross-section.
“Eh?”
There was no red blood or sticky brain matter flowing out.
Instead, a mix of small, intricate gears and blackened lubricant tumbled out.
Stunned in disbelief, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the sight as Benny’s finger poked me insistently.
“Go on. You need to take a closer look.”
“What? Y-yeah… I guess I should.”
Nodding, I approached somewhat dazed. It had been a while since I was this startled in the labyrinth.
As the gigantic Gear Golem collapsed and what I thought was an adventurer fell apart, Lydia welcomed me near the standing figure of the knight.
“What do you think, Jonah? Surprised?”
“…Yeah. I’m not just surprised; I felt like I was hallucinating or something.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, it’s just so unusual for you to harm an innocent person, Lydia.”
“Ah-ha?”
Only then did Lydia seem to comprehend why I was surprised, and she took a half-step back with a pleased expression.
“It’s a monster that doesn’t have a penny’s worth outside of the heart-shaped mana stone. Feel free to look around a bit.”
“Does this monster have a name too?”
“Yep. Gear Doppelganger. That’s its name.”
“Doppelganger?”
“To be precise, it’s different from the usual doppelganger. Instead of transforming into another person, it wears the corpses of the deceased. If I had to compare it to something, it’s more like a hermit crab.”
“There are all sorts of monsters, aren’t there?”
No matter how much I might try, I can’t craft a backstory for every monster. So there are definitely monsters whose traits I don’t understand well… and the Gear Doppelganger is probably one of them.
Nevertheless, moving in closer to inspect it roughly gave me some idea of its nature.
The shell I saw, like its appearance or voice, must have belonged to an adventurer who died in this land long ago.
Though its head had been split open, the hair was soft, and its cheeks were plump. In this regard, it looked quite human.
However, its eyes were completely vacant, lacking focus, and its complexion was exceedingly pale.
A unique point to note was that, unlike the latest fashionable gear I had seen fluttering in and out of the Cradle Association recently, this thing was wearing outdated designs.
In this spot, it looked like a genuine corpse…
But from the cross-section of its split head, black goo writhed as if reaching out, and the gears embedded all over were spinning aimlessly.
It was a scene that invoked an instinctive sense of disgust. Shaking my head, I asked Benny.
“You know about Gear Doppelgangers too, right? Do you know how they mimic others?”
“Don’t overthink it. You saw the Human Golem on your way here. To shed flesh and blood for a mechanical body was a sort of blessing by the God of Mechanical Devices. This can’t be done without understanding both sides.”
“That’s true.”
After all, one can’t modify something they don’t comprehend.
“So while I might not know the detailed mechanics, using things like these gears to reanimate corpses isn’t too difficult for the God of Mechanical Devices.”
“What’s important isn’t whether such monsters can exist, but why these kinds of monsters exist.”
“Exactly. To put it bluntly, the God of Mechanical Devices never created such beings. The name Gear Doppelganger was originally something entirely different.”
“Oh?”
Benny, spreading his flat chest towards me, continued his explanation.
“At the end of the Godslayer War, when overwhelming powers went berserk due to unforeseen issues, we referred to that as a calamity. Also, the Labyrinth is a place to seal such calamities.”
“Could it be…?”
“Your guess is spot on. The Gear Doppelganger is a calamity that ran wild in a different world before becoming mutated in the domain of the God of Mechanical Devices after being integrated into the Labyrinth.”
“…I see.”
I nodded, but the information didn’t entirely make sense to me.
That makes sense, as I had firmly established the idea that all calamities are strictly sealed away in places separate from normal fields.
Thus, there are three possibilities.
Either my settings have failed for the first time, the research on the Labyrinth is still incomplete, or…
Someone with a certain agenda has deceived everyone.
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