＜ 4. Worst choice (4) ＞
‘Doppelganger. A harbinger of bad luck to copy someone’s appearance the same way. According to an old superstition, anyone who comes into contact with this creature will die. …with a 50% chance.’
In the game, a doppelganger is a monster whose death rate is close to 50% when encountered. If it was the 25th stage of the trial, the probability of dying was not that high, but it was the same at all other stages, so it was not easy to see it as a monster.
Doppelgangers appear on all floors of the dungeon. What’s interesting is that, unlike other monsters, the chance to win decreases the more equipment and cards you meet in the second half.
All conditions will be the same, so you may ask whether the difficulty is doggingaegin in the first half or the second half. However, the doppelganger did not actually copy ‘all conditions’ equally.
Doppelgangers have different proficiency depending on the layer they met. The deeper the layer, the higher the doppelganger’s proficiency.
Proficiency is how well the AI uses its possessions. It was only natural that he would be helpless if he met a doppelganger who handled his cards and weapons better than he did.
But you can also think of that fact backwards. What if you met your doppelganger on the lower floor?
That meant that the doppelganger was a hukou with poor cards and poor equipment, and even low proficiency.
If you are on a lower floor, even if you meet normally, doppelgangers are the most easygoing elite monsters. But now, it was more than enough, to the point where I thought it was a little excessive. The doppelganger was born with Andrea’s weak body and all injuries intact.
“Quaaagh!”
It was not unreasonable to scream desperately as soon as he came out.
Andrea let out a silly laugh. Doppelganger was a monster that was quite hated by many people due to its characteristic of copying all of the player’s cards and equipment. Seeing them writhe in pain like that made me feel like I was avenging the players’ grudges instead.
Well, in other words, that meant that Andrea was in as serious a condition as I was.
‘Anyway, neither he nor I can do anything with this body. The important thing is to summon Marco. Until then, there is no need to use any cards.’
In addition, there was a restriction that the doppelganger could only follow the card written by the cloned subject. Players who did not know this were often killed by being reversed while playing the revelry card.
The doppelganger in front of her now had only one thing she could do since Andrea didn’t play any cards.
“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!”
The doppelganger screamed and rolled across the floor. After that, when his energy ran out, he stretched out.
Jung-hyeon had hardly looked in the mirror since he came to this world. So it looked like a real game character, Andrea, rolling on the floor, not a copy of herself.
The impression was simple. It was substantial, ugly, and ugly.
Originally, the doppelganger also draws after a turn, but the doppelganger in front of Andrea didn’t seem to have the energy to do that. To be honest, even if I did a draw, there were no cards written by Andrea, so it was meaningless.
Andrea was also on the verge of reaching her limit. It was the ‘indomitable will’ held in his hand that held his spirit. Whenever Andrea fainted, she gave strength to the hand holding the ‘Indomitable Will’.
Andrea sees Draw as time passes. There was no Marco summons. Again time passes and draws. It wasn’t there this time either. again… and again…
Andrea was plainly unlucky in this moment of crisis. Expectations and disappointments repeated, and the condition began to deteriorate rapidly.
Time passed like an eternity, and it was the 8th turn. Now that there are only 2 cards left in the deck, I was able to draw Marco Summon with certainty.
Andrea summoned Marco with a pitiful trembling hand.
A soldier with leather armor and long spear appeared again.
As soon as Marco came out, he faced Andrea who was about to pass out of breath. Her complexion was turning dark beyond purple, and her limbs were already turning cold. If it weren’t for the faintly audible breathing, he would have believed it to be a corpse.
But there was another living corpse that looked the same over there.
Marco is confused.
“What is this? Why are you… there are two of you? Who is real?”
Andrea, who was nearby, pursed her lips. Marco listened.
“That… gun mons… ter. To check it out… you just have to ask me what the food was… from the galley… to me… The other side… replied that it was white porridge… I couldn’t.”
The doppelganger even copied all the memories of the cloned subject. However, it was only limited to what happened within the dungeon. It was a fact that the Crusader character found out in an event that distinguished the doppelganger of another character.
Marco stood Andrea under the lantern, sat her down, and asked questions as she had been told. Indeed, that Andrea gave the wrong answer.
“Beef jerky?”
Marco slammed the spear into the doppelganger’s back without hesitation.
The doppelganger turned into something like dough and slowly melted away. Just before disappearing, the doppelganger’s gaze was fixed on Andrea.
“You too… are in the same situation as me…”
Andrea couldn’t hear her doppelganger’s will because her voice was not too loud. If you had heard of it, you would have wondered why I said such an obvious thing. Marco scratched his head, wondering what his doppelganger had said.
Anyway, I didn’t have time for this. Marco jumped up. Saving the real Andrea was the most important thing.
“Don’t die, come to your senses!”
Carrying Andrea, Marco sprinted. I never knew what was to come. I just felt like I couldn’t stay still, so I headed to the next floor to find a way.
Through the room, through the passage, and in an instant up the stairs.
But as I was about to go down the stairs, Andrea, who was dying, whispered to Marco in a very low voice.
“··· reward···.”
Marco looked to the side. There was a treasure chest. Marco hit his forehead with the palm of his hand.
“In the meantime, let’s get a reward? You really are out of your mind.”
“There may be an antidote…”
Marco finally understood what he meant and quickly searched the treasure chest.
But inside there was only gold and a strange red seal. Marco roughly packed the things inside, put Andrea on his back, and ran out.
Every time I passed through the aisle, the torch was lit by itself. Marco wondered if he had ever run this fast in his life. I was out of breath and sweat broke out on my forehead.
Andrea’s mind was like a broken filament in a light bulb. Every time I jumped on Marco’s back, my mind went off and on again.
A door on the seventh floor appeared in the distance. Andrea looked at the door and somehow had a feeling that everything was wrong. This vicious dungeon was very good at torturing hope.
Since I met elite monsters twice in a row, I’m sure there’ll be a place to rest next time.
It wasn’t once or twice that I met a monster again and got a game over. Andrea emptied her mind.
I did my best, and now I think I can’t help it even if I die.
At some point, I reached the door. Marco opened the door. If it was a room with monsters, Marco’s summoning would be canceled and Andrea would be thrown away.
Andrea prayed a final prayer to whom she did not know. He passed out without even looking around the room.
*
Dungeons are fickle. If you think it’s worth it, you give it a hard trial until you die, and when you give up on life in terrible hardships, you give a rope of salvation.
Of course, there were many cases where the rope of salvation was a rotten rope. However, the rope that Andrea was holding onto this time was definitely a strong rope of salvation.
Andrea came to her senses.
“…that’s really unusual. Did this challenger turn you, an ordinary human, into a card?”
“…Strictly speaking, this guy only proposed, and the goat-headed devil did the conversion into cards.”
“You mean Arpan? Oh, what an unlucky child. My wish is to cut off his antlers and decorate the room.”
Andrea woke up and the first thing she saw was Marco chatting casually with someone. A man in a black hood saw Andrea stand up and said to Marco,
“Oh, is your friend awake?”
“Andrea! Are you feeling better?”
Andrea looked at her side. Not only did all the swelling go away, but the wound had turned into a small scar. The wounds below the collarbone were all healed, and all five fingers on his left hand were intact.
‘If it’s enough to regenerate a finger… I must have used quite a lot of medicine.’
For Andrea, everything she had experienced on the previous floor felt like a nightmare between John and John.
Marco shouted in an excited voice.
“God of the sun bless you, I was able to save you thanks to this self-medication!”
“Ah, you don’t have to thank me. People’s lives are the most important thing in the world, so isn’t that what we should do?”
The man in the black hood had a friendly smile on his face. Andrea’s expression hardened.
“Marco, come this way. This man is neither a good man nor a philanthropist.”
“what?”
“Come over here.”
Hearing the firm tone, Marco hesitantly came to Andrea’s side. Andrea held on tight.
‘Fortunately, that’s right. If this was a floor with monsters instead of a shop, I would have died without any hope. But you don’t have to express your gratitude to him. Because that guy…’
The man took off his hood. A mark in the shape of a skeleton hand was engraved on his forehead. The good-natured smile disappeared as if it had been washed away, and instead only a mean-looking sneer remained.
‘Because I’m not just a merchant, but a black trader.’
The dark merchant stared at Andrea with a cold gaze.
“It’s so heartbreaking to have saved a dying guy. There has never been such a shameless challenger before.”
“Put saliva on your mouth and speak. If I didn’t have cards or equipment that could make money, I wouldn’t have cared if I died.”
The dark merchant raised one eyebrow. Like how did you know that?
“You have a knack for making words really annoying, don’t you? Have you ever met any other black traders besides me?”
“It seems I have no obligation to answer that. Tell me how much gold you will charge.”
“…Ah, that’s right. Because that’s what I love most.”
Black merchants were fundamentally different from ordinary merchants. It has a human-like appearance, but this is nothing more than a shell covered, and in reality it is a monstrous creature that looks like a collection of black flames.
Many things, such as the name of the race or the intention of the NPC, were unclear, but one thing was certain. They did not cover the means and methods to obtain money and goods.
Rip-off the things you need most, drive you into debt at ridiculously high interest rates, sell trash at exorbitant prices, and so on. What they did was not very different from the conscienceless merchants in reality.
In particular, if a challenger was in danger, it was the best prey for the black merchants. You will have no choice but to buy it at any price.
It was even possible to make them spend and overcharge them, as they do now.
“Each medicine is 300 gold, but since I used 4, it’s 1200 gold, plus a 500 gold antidote, so 1700 gold is enough.”
Andrea’s head was pounding. When purchased from a general merchant, the regular price of the medicine and antidote were 50 and 100 gold, respectively. It was an absurd overcharge that was several times the list price.
I rummaged through all the gold in my pockets. A total of 305 gold came out. Possession was absurdly insufficient.
“If you don’t have enough gold, are there other payment methods?”
A blacksmith with a greedy smile. His eyes were on Andrea’s deck.
＜ 4. Worst Choice (4) ＞ End
What we are, estate business, just take your 300 gold and dissapear.