The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 87

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 87

“Gid, I couldn’t mention it earlier, but my secretary was wearing a ribbon tie today.”

Rita said this while pressing the gun barrel firmly against Lindsey’s forehead. There was nothing around the neck area of her subdued blouse.

Lillieta asked in a voice so calm it was hard to believe she was pointing a gun at someone close to her.

“What happened to the ribbon tie, Lindsey?”

“What? No, my lady, wait a moment, I didn’t even know my tie was missing. I must have dropped it somewhere while searching for you—”

Bang.

The gun barrel spat fire.

Lindsey Dyce’s face, struck by the bullet, crumbled and turned into transparent jelly. As it flowed down while harboring the bullet, trying to escape from Gid’s grasp, it suddenly flinched and began bubbling from within.

The explosive round Rita had fired detonated inside the monster’s transparent body. With a muffled explosion sound like being covered by a cotton blanket, the bubbling jelly mass liquefied and poured out like water.

Rita exhaled a long breath and lowered her gun barrel. Gid clicked his tongue and muttered.

“A Doppelganger.”

“Damn, I keep running into creatures I never want to meet again.”

“It must be intentional, if it’s Pascal’s doing.”

The identity of the suddenly appeared monster became clear.

One of the infamous named monsters. Not the monster that caused the most casualties, nor the strongest monster, but the most lethal to humanity.

A creature that might have brought down the Last Line of Defense if not for the Beacon Squad. The reason Command couldn’t say a word against Beacon.

The Doppelganger is a monster that can transform into humans, and its transformation isn’t just mimicking the shell like a Mimic.

It perfectly copies not only appearance but also speech patterns, presence, memories, personality, and abilities to hide among humans. And it thinks like a human while acting with malice.

During the ash era, a Doppelganger that infiltrated the Last Line of Defense took over Command in just one day.

If Beacon, who had come to report on subjugation activities, hadn’t noticed something was wrong, humanity could have ended with the Last Line of Defense collapsing due to a single named monster.

‘The terrifying thing is that Doppelgangers can create unlimited duplicates.’

The duplicates can’t transform as perfectly as the main body. Like how the duplicate that transformed into Lindsey Dyce just dropped the ribbon tie, there are usually one or two differences.

‘The accurate way to distinguish them is by injecting magic power.’

Magic power that touches a monster becomes contaminated. If contamination flows back through the injected magic power, it means it’s a monster, not human.

This was the method Rita used to distinguish the duplicate that had transformed into Lindsey.

The questioning was just buying time. Meanwhile, she processed Oaths into magic power through the touching gun barrel and injected it. Since there was a revolver in between, she could cut off the flow and shoot before the contamination flowing back could reach her body.

[Shock: What just spread through the gun barrel inhabited by the artificial spirit was magic contamination. Though the creator input this information, this is my first actual experience.]

[Activation: Activating contamination resistance circuit. Removing contamination that occupied approximately 1 percent of the gun barrel… Removal complete. I will repair the altered areas using the user’s Oaths.]

She heard Grace, who had been so quiet she didn’t know it was on, chattering. It seemed she hadn’t turned it off since Olivia told her to do a body check earlier.

‘But it’s good I left it on. It automatically removes contamination without me having to do anything, how convenient. As expected of Oli.’

[Pride: This artificial spirit born from the hands of a genius creator can provide perfect convenience to the user!]

[Recommendation: User, please activate this artificial spirit frequently. The more I learn the user’s patterns, the more capable this artificial spirit becomes.]

‘Yes, yes, I’ll turn you on often from now on.’

While Rita conversed with Grace in her mind, Gid was examining the puddle created by the liquefied Doppelganger duplicate.

“Still weak to heat. It’s completely stopped moving.”

“That’s only temporary though. We need to hurry and find the main body.”

Doppelganger duplicates don’t die until the main body dies. Even if you slash them with a sword, they just split and multiply, and even if you crush or smash them into submission, they recover quickly like slime. They’re practically immune to physical attacks.

At least applying heat to turn them liquid stops their activity for a long time, but even this revives over time. Moreover, Doppelgangers can keep producing such duplicates as long as they have food.

‘The duplicates generally have a screw loose somewhere… but it’s hard to distinguish that during combat, which makes it tricky.’

The highly intelligent and vicious Doppelganger would mix the original humans it copied among the duplicates, making you play spot-the-difference in the midst of fierce battle.

She vividly remembered being horrified when she burned everything thinking they were all duplicates, only to have captured people among them burn to death too.

‘After that, it took twice as long because I had to distinguish and catch them one by one.’

She ground her teeth. Gid looked back at her and said.

“Don’t worry, Rita. Doppelgangers don’t immediately devour captured humans. Since they need the target alive to copy them, your secretary should still be alive.”

“I know. But the coachman is probably dead.”

Gid smiled bitterly at Rita’s answer.

The possibility that the Doppelganger kept the coachman, a civilian with no abilities worth copying, alive was extremely low. The strong patchouli scent that had filled the carriage was probably the digestive fragrance left behind when the Doppelganger devoured the coachman.

She pushed the disturbed feeling to a corner of her mind. Getting shaken by each civilian casualty would make continuing combat impossible.

‘Maybe he’s lucky and still alive. Doppelgangers are monsters with slow digestion.’

Therefore, all mourning comes after the situation ends. For now, she forgets.

Rita loaded explosive rounds into the cylinder and asked Gid.

“Where do you think the main body might be?”

“It has a habit of making nests, so it’s probably somewhere reasonably cozy. The problem is there are too many such places here.”

It was called a flower shop but was essentially a giant botanical garden. Rita, rubbing her brow in frustration, suddenly voiced a thought that occurred to her.

“Gid, Doppelgangers are intelligent. Unlike typical named monsters, they have intelligence almost close to human level.”

“That’s right.”

“If the monsters are Pascal’s scheme or experiment, and Pascal’s research facility is in the Adickl Duchy basement… don’t you sense intention in the fact that the first named monster to appear attacked the Imperial Vessel during a boat trip, and that it happened to be a Kraken?”

“Right, that’s why I speculated Pascal’s purpose was to eliminate us, fellow returnees. Among us, he’d target me first since I’m Adicl’s enemy.”

“The fact that you’re attending the Garden Salon today, and that the location is Beacon Garden, would already be widely known.”

“Everyone in the Empire’s social circles knows. So there’s Pascal’s intention in the Doppelganger appearing here, hmm.”

“Kraken can only smash things, but Doppelgangers have intelligence capable of following orders. Therefore, it will target us, especially you.”

“You want to use me as bait?”

“Doppelgangers use duplicates for quantity attacks while the main body tries to hide until the end. You can’t draw out the main body with bait. But…”

Rita gestured toward the duplicate that had become a puddle.

“The duplicate that witnessed us will go report to the main body, right? To catch us, it would need to gather as many duplicates as possible to attack.”

“Aha.”

Gid smiled broadly and stroked his chin.

“Right, Doppelgangers don’t have the ability to communicate remotely with duplicates. Even if they can send instinctive signals like ‘return because the main body is in danger’… So we let them discover us and follow the duplicate going to report. Good thinking, Rita.”

“Since they’re as cunning as humans, obviously intentional methods won’t work. We need to show them naturally and naturally let a reporting duplicate slip away.”

Rita, who had spoken carefully, suddenly sighed.

“It would have been easier if Ethan were here.”

“Can’t help it, it’ll take a while for him to return from the Blen Viscount’s Residence.”

“What about Senior Is?”

“I suspect he’s probably busy cleaning up the lounge drinking party and doesn’t know what’s happening down here.”

At Gid’s words, Rita looked around the vast garden that Isaiah would have carefully tended, then directed her gaze to the ceiling.

“…Should I start a fire?”

“What?”

“With this scale, they would have naturally installed fire detection magic circles. If we start a big fire, that would activate and Senior Is would notice the situation, and duplicates would swarm in droves. If we make the gathered duplicates think they can catch us by overwhelming us with numbers, one of them will definitely go request reinforcements from the main body, right?”

“Ha.”

Gid let out a hollow laugh, then looked down at her with a sweet expression.

“Rita, I really can’t live without you.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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