Chapter 26

1.

"Haa, hngh…"

My breathing was ragged. Using so much mana that I thought I might run out wasn’t a pleasant experience. It felt like exercising just to push my whole body to its limits.

Even so, I kept drawing up more mana to maintain the passage. It made me think of Atlas from Greek mythology.

No wonder I was exhausted—I was holding up the sky.

That was the thought that crossed my mind.

"Are you okay, Lapis?"

Ribel came over and wiped the sweat from my face with a handkerchief. I was afraid I might instinctively close my eyes if the sweat got into them, so I was relieved.

Dojin was too busy fending off the Leviathans attacking the passage I’d created to notice—and he wasn’t the most attentive person to begin with.

Still, it would’ve been even better if Dojin had wiped it away.

"I’m still okay."

"Esper, how much farther do we have to go?"

"…About five more kilometers."

We’d come down a long way.

Even as he answered, Dojin used telekinesis to rip in half a Leviathan charging at us from outside the passage. I watched him do it with my mana sight.

I realized that even Dojin was getting tired. He’d always seemed to be overflowing with mana, but now his reserves looked like they’d dropped quite a bit.

My own mana was almost at its limit, too. Honestly, I’d even considered turning back, but the Leviathans were attacking the passage more fiercely than I’d expected. I could probably manage a one-way trip there, and that was all.

The hand gripping my staff was trembling. Still, the passage had held because I had this staff. Without it, I thought it would’ve collapsed about ten minutes ago when the Leviathans fired their water cannons all at once.

"Lapis, over there."

Dojin suddenly pointed in another direction. Ribel threw a flare first.

The moment it left the passage, the flare was crushed, but somehow its light still leaked out, illuminating the direction Dojin had indicated.

"I see it."

And I could see it in that direction, too.

It was an underwater cave.

I changed the passage’s direction to lead toward the cave entrance and had the bubble follow behind it.

For some reason, there was no water inside the cave. Only traces of where it had been remained.

Since there was no water in the cave, I dispelled both the bubble and the passage, then leaned on my staff to stand.

I was so tired that, honestly, I wanted to collapse right there. But seeing the moss-like stuff on the floor, bits of what looked like fish flesh, and scraps of seaweed scattered everywhere made that urge vanish.

"Gross…"

Ribel seemed to feel the same way. She reactivated the blue Nano Suit she’d taken off. We’d entered the cave containing the nest that had produced the Leviathans, so of course she was preparing for battle.

To light up the dark cave, she made several wing components again and suspended them in the air.

"Can you keep going?"

"Of course… I can."

Dojin turned to ask me first. Even if I couldn’t, I’d have to keep going. I didn’t want to be left here alone, and I also wanted to help Dojin, even a little.

"Follow me carefully."

"Thank you for worrying about me."

I appreciated Dojin’s concern, but I also thought he was being overprotective. Ribel seemed to feel the same way, because she pressed herself right against me. She’d made the wing components and set them floating in the air, but was now naked again.

"Esper’s kind of overprotective, too."

"I can’t deny it."

But as a woman, I didn’t exactly dislike it. It felt nice to know my man was paying this much attention to me. It was a little excessive, but it was still affection.

It felt a little masochistic, but being restrained gave me a sense of psychological satisfaction. Of course, I’d never told anyone that.

"It’s coming."

A rumble seemed to shake the seafloor cave itself.

"It’s coming."

And then I heard Dojin’s voice again…?

"A doppelganger?"

"A doppelganger?"

The black liquid that had been wriggling and writhing took shape as Dojin. More of the sticky black liquid dripped from the ceiling.

"Tch!"

Dojin attacked the sticky black liquid dripping down with telekinesis first, but the doppelganger that had turned into Dojin blocked the attack with telekinesis of its own. It seemed capable of copying abilities to some extent, too.

The writhing liquid stole my appearance and Ribel’s.

"…!"

"I… I… I…"

The doppelganger that had copied my appearance opened and closed its mouth like a fish, then creakily turned its neck.

"Oh, why. Women…"

"What…"

What is that thing saying? That monster!

"I… you…"

"Die!"

Dozens of spears made of water. These weren’t just spears with piercing power added, like the ones I’d made before. Now that I’d learned about composite structures, I could attach extra components behind them to give them propulsion, accelerating them with the force of a jet.

I saw the version of me pierced all over by the spears.

Thank goodness. It shouldn’t have opened its mouth.

Something like that shouldn’t open its mouth.

To dig into someone’s secrets and expose them…

"Lapis!"

At Dojin’s call, confusion flashed through me, and at the same time…

Black mist enveloped me.

2.

Lapis, enveloped in mist, appeared again almost immediately—but to Dojin, the Lapis who had appeared wasn’t the real one.

"Ah, hah~♡"

Only one thing had changed about her appearance.

Her eyes were as black as the abyss, without even a glimmer of light.

Her hair still seemed to shine with a deep blue luster, and her body was still full and voluptuous. She smiled sweetly at Dojin… No, was that a sensual smile?

In any case, her whole aura was completely different. She no longer had Lapis’s slightly goofy, indecisive air. Instead, she had an erotic aura that stirred up lust.

"Die!"

Ribel, who’d been standing right beside them, unable to do anything, finally snapped out of it. She used her nanomachines to create a gun and fired at Lapis.

She didn’t know the details, but she knew that the monster, the doppelganger, had stolen Lapis’s appearance.

"Aww~ You tried to seduce me into sleeping with you, but you’re being so mean."

A bubbling orb of water engulfed the gun before it could fire. Alarm spread across Ribel’s face. The twitching of her finger showed that she couldn’t pull the trigger properly.

"Huh…? Aaaah!"

"You’re cute when you’re flustered."

As Lapis twitched a finger, the puddle beneath Ribel’s feet formed a tentacle, grabbed her ankle, and dragged her away. The ground she was dragged across was uneven and sharp, but her Nano Suit automatically deployed to keep her from being hurt.

When the tentacle shot up to the ceiling, Ribel was left dangling upside down.

"A p-possession-type doppelganger?"

A possession-type doppelganger was an evolved form of doppelganger, a monster that didn’t just copy its appearance, but overlaid itself onto its target. The most troublesome part was that it took over its host’s body.

Apparently, the ones that had first stolen the appearances of Dojin, Lapis, and Ribel had been minions of this possession-type doppelganger.

"Hehe, what a cute face. That flustered expression is just…"

Lapis—the doppelganger—licked Ribel’s cheek. Ribel’s body shuddered.

Even when she was intimate with someone, she was usually the one in control, not the type to be led by another person. She was so bewildered that she couldn’t even react.

"Get out of that body right now."

With a whoosh of wind, the cave wall rumbled and began to split apart.

Behind Dojin, the doppelganger that had stolen his appearance was smashed to bits, reduced to a lump of flesh as it melted away into black liquid.

Seeing that, the doppelganger ripped the inverted-triangle-shaped piece off Ribel’s chest and faced Dojin.

"Mine!"

"Hehe. Don’t look at me like that, Dojin."

"Don’t assimilate…!"

The process of a doppelganger growing closer to its original was called assimilation. The higher its assimilation rate, the more closely it resembled the original.

Possession-type doppelgangers were especially notorious for rapidly increasing their assimilation rate and becoming identical to the original in an instant.

When a doppelganger finished assimilating, it meant it had absorbed everything about its target.

Possession-type doppelgangers were especially vicious even among their kind. They stole the very existence of their victims.

"Kids, keep Dojin busy for me… I’ll see you at the nest, okay?"

As soon as the doppelganger spoke, the one that had turned into Ribel squirmed and devoured the doppelgangers that had turned into Lapis and Dojin.

It had been about thirty centimeters across at first, but after eating the other two, it grew to over a meter in an instant, despite being an amorphous black liquid.

"Stop!"

"That joke’s so old~♡"

The doppelganger wearing Lapis’s appearance giggled, turned into black mist, and disappeared along with Ribel.

Dojin clenched his teeth and stared at the writhing black liquid—the doppelganger.

The doppelganger had already copied Dojin’s appearance completely, but its mana level was completely different from before.

The doppelganger formed from three merged entities had an enormous amount of mana.

"I’ll… take you on."

"Don’t mutter so stupidly."

Dojin’s telekinesis slammed into the side of the doppelganger’s head. The doppelganger had put up a telekinetic barrier just like Dojin, so the impact was about as bad as getting slapped.

"Ugh…"

Dojin attacked the doppelganger again with even greater telekinetic force. But this time, too, the doppelganger didn’t simply take the blow.

The doppelganger gathered its telekinetic power to fight back. It sharpened the force into spikes and sent dozens of telekinetic needles flying at Dojin.

Dojin scattered all the needles with a swirl of telekinetic force.

"Sloppy."

A huge fist—or rather, a hammer-shaped mass of telekinetic force—came crashing down on the doppelganger. Even as it was being crushed, the doppelganger counterattacked with a slash.

But the slashes seemed to slide past Dojin and smashed into the cave wall instead.

The cave rumbled again.

"D-die…!"

"You idiot!"

The doppelganger staggered to its feet and fired a massive shockwave, just as Dojin had.

Dojin ducked and sprang to the side, dodging the shockwave. In an instant, he closed in on the doppelganger and punched it in the face.

It wasn’t normally his fighting style, but his fist, reinforced with mana and wrapped in telekinetic force, could hit as hard as that of most physical enhancement ability users.

"I told you to talk!"

He caught the doppelganger with telekinesis as it fell backward and dragged it upright again,

"I told you to talk!"

Then he spun his whole body and slammed another punch into the doppelganger’s face.

As the doppelganger, struck in the face, started to fall backward again, Dojin dragged it over with telekinesis and forced it upright,

"You piece of trash!"

This time, he drove a powerful kick into its abdomen.

"Ghk!"

"Don’t open your mouth!"

Dojin was so disgusted by the doppelganger wearing his face that he stomped on it with his own body instead of using telekinesis.

The doppelganger was too dazed by the pain to think straight, but tried to counterattack with telekinesis anyway.

Dojin saw it and reacted. But his telekinesis was faster and stronger, so the doppelganger couldn’t do anything and was trampled beneath him.

"Hah. Haa…"

How long had it been? Maybe ten minutes.

Dojin looked at the lump of flesh beneath him, writhing and giving off black smoke.

He’d pummeled it with punches more powerful than those of a physical enhancement ability user, and even the doppelganger’s monstrous durability couldn’t withstand them.

Dojin paused to catch his breath and gathered his telekinetic power.

As if wringing out a rag, he squeezed the lump of flesh.

A sound like water flowing, like a scream, rang out.