When did it all start?
‘Tia! Let’s play!’
Was it the moment my friend, who used to play happily, suddenly felt awkward?
‘Tia, it’s time for dinner. What? What does that mean? Enough chatter, just eat.’
Or was it when my usually kind mom turned cold?
If not that…
‘Tia. What’s wrong?’
‘You’ve been acting strange lately, Tia. ‘We’ have always been like this.’
‘Tia. Tia…’
‘Tiaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!’
“AAAHHHH!!”
Ha… ha… ha…
I woke up from the dream.
The scenery I always see.
But this place is unbearably unfamiliar.
‘Our’ village.
“…I want to die.”
Tia wiped her tears and tidied her sweat-soaked bed.
Her trembling hands were still shaky, but she had to move quickly.
‘Before the fakes arrive.’
Everyone living here is no longer villagers.
Caring Dad and gentle Mom.
My only younger sister, Tira.
And my friend, the uncle next door, the chatty shop owner lady, the kind village chief. And…
“…Ha. How did it come to this?”
They all disappeared.
And fakes took their place.
It’s tormenting. Why is this happening to me?
Am I going to become a fake like them?
I hate it. I hate it so much I could die.
But dying is even worse.
I want to live and take revenge.
“…The sun is high.”
Despite the sun being at its peak, the village is empty.
The village fakes all gathered in a cave forbidden to outsiders.
They do it to enjoy the festival every day.
The residents, who always worked hard for the village’s prosperity, neglect farming and caring for the village to enjoy the festival. They don’t hunt, either.
Some fakes don’t even enter the village and live solely in the cave.
Because of that, the village is on the brink of dying, and now, Tia is the only one left.
Tia looked towards the cave with anxious eyes.
“…I need to prepare carefully.”
To take revenge on the fakes who took everything from her.
And…
■
Dozens of weapons pierced through the body.
‘I’ fell, and around me, some copycats still struck my corpse in a rage.
How much time has passed?
“T… this is.”
The copycat was startled.
Because what they struck wasn’t someone’s corpse but…
“I got you.”
WHAM!
It was a blue illusion.
Dozens of fakes.
Among them, one is real, but it’s not easy to notice.
A doppelganger with the same ability can split part of itself to create several copied beings, with the one having the highest share being the main body.
In other words, the main body isn’t fixed and changes each time.
I intentionally provoked a copycat to find the current main body.
Everyone reacted to the word “fake,” but one person reacted the most.
“I got you.”
I was able to discover the main body.
“Grrr….”
“Stay still.”
I tightened my grip around its neck and looked around.
Some of them stood there holding weapons, completely useless.
They were nearly mindless clones who followed the main body’s orders, so if the main body was caught, they couldn’t resist.
[What the hell]
[Correcting it lol]
[Thought it was real]
[Fakes fight fakes lol]
[What’s next, shadow clone jutsu? lol]
[No way~ lol]
[Who do you think you are]
The child hanging from my hand let out a startled sound.
“What’s going on…?”
“I’m fighting a fake with a fake.”
Illusion magic using fantasy.
It’s not my major nor a technique I often use, but it can be quite handy for deception like this.
Brrr!
The copycat, caught by the neck, screamed as if choking on evil.
“I’m not a fake!!!!!!!!”
“You are a fake.”
“You…!!!!”
The copycat puffed up a lot.
Many of its clones around it also swelled up.
‘Is it self-destructing?’
The angry copycat attempted to self-destruct.
“…?!”
[?]
[Huh?]
[Why didn’t it blow up?]
[???]
It deflated again.
Clang!
The blue mana flying from my hand drew a cage on the copycat’s forehead.
Since the main body couldn’t use its power, it’s obvious the clones couldn’t either.
The copycat’s eyes shook violently.
“The seal is done… Where’s the real one?”
“…I’m the real one!”
“If you’re real, you wouldn’t have a reason to self-destruct. You’re… a separate entity, aren’t you? With a self.”
Right?
“……”
Doppelgangers with a self have a stronger survival instinct than other races.
If you compare who survives longer in the battlefield of Celestial and Demon Races, doppelgangers have even more resilience than dragons.
But a copycat with those properties intends to ‘self-destruct’ when cornered?
“Honestly, the idea that the demon race does good deeds is more convincing.”
“…No.”
“Of course, there are exceptions. Like when a ‘fake’ created from the ‘real’ gets injected with a trigger.”
“I told you it’s not that!!!”
“The trigger is… ‘When the real identity is about to be exposed, it dies.’ Something like that?”
“Grrk.”
“?”
Grrk grrk grrk…
Even though the cage of the many-colored bird was hung, the copycat’s body was swelling up.
But it wasn’t a move to unleash the strength inside like before.
Especially not this copycat’s ability.
Then there’s only one possibility.
‘The real one.’
The real one is intervening.
Boom!!!
Blue particles exploded in every direction.
[?]
[What’s this fountain show? ;;]
[It must’ve been brutal without the filter.]
[For real, lol]
[Yeah~ Shield~]
[In the meantime, Lily is calmly roasting the situation, that’s hilarious ㅋㅋㅋ]
[Can’t say a word~]
[ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[It’s just a blue effect, but why does it look so disgusting?]
“Ah, aah… ugh!”
The child hanging onto my hand is retching.
‘Can this child see it without the filter?’
I covered the child’s eyes and poured mana into their body to calm them down.
After a rough breath, the child seemed to settle down a bit and carefully placed their feet down from my hands.
Splash.
“……”
Though the eyes are hidden, memories last forever.
“How could you do this…”
“Copycats really hate being caught from behind, you know.”
“…Who are you, miss?”
The child looks up at me with trembling eyes.
They’re grateful for being saved, but this child has lost everything to the copycat.
Even being saved, it wouldn’t be easy to trust.
I knelt down on one knee to meet the child’s gaze.
What did I say during times like this?
“I’m a hero.”
“A hero…?”
“Yes. A hero.”
Receiving tremendous power from a transcendent being to defeat evil, ultimately bringing goodness to the world.
‘If only I were really that kind of existence.’
If such a position had been given from the beginning,
If I had been granted the power to fight against them from the start,
I wouldn’t have had to lose so much.
[Lily really is a hero]
[Lily the Hero ㄷㄷ]
[For real, lol]
[Hero Lily]
[That kind of person helping a crab while making crab soup…]
[Whoa]
[Shh]
“Hero…”
After muttering a few more times, the child carefully raises their head again.
“…Did you come to save me?”
“Mutually beneficial.”
“Yes…?”
The child looks quite confused.
This is why I can’t stop joking around.
I smiled and gently patted their head.
“Just kidding.”
“……”
“Why were you here? No, when did this place become like this?”
I was hiding in a basket, but honestly, hiding was just plain ridiculous.
The basket was way too obvious, and this space was practically the copycat’s den; they must have known I was hiding long ago.
But why didn’t they touch me?
The child hesitated for a moment before slowly opening their mouth.
“…It all started when the Village Chief banned entry to the cave…”
With each passing day, one by one, children and parents vanished in a bizarre phenomenon.
To stop this phenomenon, the village closed off the cave, which was its origin.
They blocked the cave entrance with stones, tightly tying it up with wood and vines, completely sealing it off.
Once the cave was blocked, the bizarre occurrences stopped.
The villagers were grateful that the phenomenon ceased, and so life in the village continued without the cave.
And.
And…
And…
“And?”
“…I don’t know. It just kept changing. People, friends, family…”
Including the village elders, the Village Chief, beloved parents, close friends, younger brother…
Everything changed.
I don’t know when, but by the time I distinctly felt something was off, most of the village had already transformed into fakes.
Unable to endure the overwhelming sense of alienation and disconnection, I ultimately fled.
“Did you run into the cave?”
“Yeah… the forest was full of monsters, and I didn’t know any roads other than the village and the cave. There was a lot of food left by people in the cave.”
It was the beginning of this hell, yet paradoxically, it was also a refuge.
As I hid in the cave, wandering through its vastness, somehow managing to survive…
“…The festival venue was originally not here. But suddenly, everyone came rushing this way, so I quickly hid in a basket. Ugh.”
Tears flowed as if recalling that moment.
The next part of the story was predictable.
A child hiding alone among the grotesquely transformed people.
They must have had to stifle their breaths, waiting for the festival to end.
An agony that seemed never-ending.
And then I arrived, bringing an end to that pain.
“So, that’s how it is…”
[Hmmm]
[Something…]
[Something is something]
“I understand now. Ah, by the way, what’s your name?”
Name.
The name of this unfortunate child is…
“Tia.”
My name is Tia.
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