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[Translator - Peptobismol]
[Proofreader - Max]
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Chapter 28: The Taboo of the Salt Mine (2)
Doppelganger.
It was the name of a demon that stole a person's life.
Their appearance.
Their voices.
Their memories.
A cuckoo-like being that ultimately snatched away their entire life and made it its own.
"That is a Doppelganger."
The miners stared at Hamel with blank expressions at his explanation.
After a brief silence, Tom stammered,
"Th-then, are you saying that Aaron and his family are Doppelgangers?"
"I don't know."
Hamel shook his head.
"All demons emit demonic energy. It's called the vestige of demonic energy. But Doppelgangers, who perfectly mimic humans, can hide this vestige."
Hamel could only sense the faint remnants of demonic energy in this space.
He couldn't sense it from any specific person.
"Then there's no proof that they are Doppelgangers, is there?"
Tom asked, bewildered.
He was right.
If there was no way to distinguish a Doppelganger from a human, wouldn't they only be able to tell after killing them?
However,
"Dane here seems certain. That there's a Doppelganger among them."
"..."
Dane remained silent.
He knew something.
That must be why he was so sure that Aaron and his family were Doppelgangers.
"You have to tell us."
Hamel pressed him.
There was a way to distinguish them.
But unless Dane spoke up, Hamel couldn't convince the miners.
They were still wary of Hamel and Dane, surrounding Aaron's family.
How much time had passed?
"...Damn it."
Dane broke the silence with a mutter.
He ruffled his hair, which was hiding his scar, and leaned against the tunnel wall.
But his gaze remained fixed on Aaron and his family as he spoke.
"It was a long time ago. I was about ten years old."
***
Dane, the village headman's son, was the village troublemaker.
He was always causing trouble, and that day was no different.
He had sneaked into the forbidden area, a taboo place in the village.
Since Dane frequented the mine tunnels like his own home, it was no problem for him to enter the forbidden area without the adults noticing.
"What, there's nothing here."
Dane muttered, clicking his tongue.
Contrary to the rumors, the inside of the tunnel was ordinary.
There was no monster with a thousand teeth that ate children.
No hundreds of eyes chasing him no matter how far he ran.
No shadows that swallowed light.
There was nothing but stones and some strange black salt.
Dane kicked a stone rolling around in the tunnel and was about to turn around when,
Thud!
The stone he kicked bounced off something soft.
"...What's this?"
Dane quickly approached it with the stick he had brought.
A round, black shape.
The spot where the stone had hit rippled like waves.
Wiggle!
Then it moved towards Dane.
Whoa!
Just as the startled Dane was about to run away,
The creature, seemingly more surprised by Dane's scream, quickly fled in the opposite direction.
"What is that...?"
Dane muttered to himself, staring blankly at it.
The next day,
Dane, unable to contain his curiosity, went back to the tunnel.
The black creature was still there.
"...What are you?"
Dane poked it with his stick and tried talking to it, but it only cowered and ran away.
As time passed, he realized that it wasn't a particularly dangerous creature.
Then, one day, the creature didn't run away even after seeing Dane.
"Do you recognize me?"
Dane was amazed.
From that day on, Dane started visiting the creature every day.
He touched it and played with it.
After a while,
"...Who are these?"
The creature introduced its friends.
There were three of them, each with a different personality.
One was timid, and another was lively.
How much time had passed?
Just as he was getting tired of playing with them,
Dane said to the creature he had met first,
"I'm not coming here from tomorrow. Take care."
At that moment,
Wiggle!
"Ouch."
Something sharp cut Dane's forehead.
Dane quickly pulled his hand away from the creature and got up.
Drops of red blood fell to the ground.
The three creatures gathered and licked the blood.
Even though they didn't have mouths or tongues, Dane felt that way.
"...What are you?"
Just as Dane, clutching his head wound, muttered in a daze,
The creatures wriggled and took on a different form.
Human faces emerged on the surface of the spheres, as if carved from the wriggling black surface.
And those faces...
"D-don't... come... here..."
"N-not... enough..."
"P-play...? M-more..."
They clearly resembled Dane's own face.
Goosebumps erupted all over his body.
Since when could they speak?
How could they imitate him?
His contemplation didn't last long.
"Y-you... you guys... from the beginning..."
He had been deceived.
They pretended to be harmless.
They deceived humans and craved their byproducts.
Hair.
Fallen skin flakes.
Droplets of saliva that splattered when he spoke.
They devoured everything greedily.
And day by day, they became closer to Dane.
Realizing the truth, Dane hurriedly turned and ran away from them.
They didn't chase after him.
As if they knew they weren't yet ready to mimic him perfectly.
Only their murmurs reached Dane's ears as he fled from the tunnel.
"...S-so... easy. A-almost... there..."
Dane felt a chilling fear.
But he couldn't confess his mistake to the villagers.
He just trembled in fear for days after returning to the village.
So much so that his parents and the villagers were worried.
However, a week passed, a month passed, a year passed, and nothing happened in the village.
Dane was finally able to calm down.
And he thought,
He had to atone for his mistake.
So Dane decided to become stronger.
Despite his father, the village headman's opposition, he went to the lord and begged to be made a soldier.
And Dennis Gilmore, the lord at the time, seemed to take a liking to Dane and gave him a chance to prove himself.
It wasn't easy, but Dane eventually passed the Gilmore clan knight's test.
He became a squire of the Heidern territory knights.
Much time passed.
Dane honed his swordsmanship in the territory, then left the peaceful countryside and traveled to various battlefields, achieving great feats.
Later, he returned to the Heidern territory and even earned the title of knight.
Although he lacked the talent to awaken his aura, he became unmatched among ordinary knights.
Dane thought the time had come.
He had gained sufficient strength and had also finished his research on those creatures.
The monsters he had seen as a child were called Doppelgangers.
They weren't particularly dangerous if faced head-on.
So he relinquished his knighthood and returned to the village.
To atone for his past mistakes.
But.
"...Where did they go?"
No matter how hard he looked, the creatures were nowhere to be found in the tunnel.
Had they left this tunnel?
No, perhaps they were dead.
Even those creatures would die if they didn't eat or drink.
He was relieved, even though it felt anticlimactic.
The village was still peaceful, and his past mistake seemed to have disappeared.
But just in case, Dane settled in the village, haunted by a lingering sense of unease.
He devoted himself to serving the village to atone for his sin, and the villagers followed him, impressed by his strength and dedication.
Before he knew it, he had become the village headman.
Five years passed.
Then, a strange disappearance occurred in the village.
"Dave is missing."
A miner had disappeared, and his family's whereabouts were unknown.
Had they run away from home?
Indeed, the Gilmore clan had a bad reputation, and the Heidern territory was in decline.
The miners belonging to the territory couldn't leave without the lord's permission, so running away was a common occurrence.
But then, a while later,
The same thing happened again, and Dane felt a sudden fear.
And when the third incident occurred and he heard his father's words, he realized.
"I... saw Aaron last night. He was heading towards the mine with his family."
It was them.
He had a hunch.
They had been preying on the miners in the mine, mimicking them, and hiding in the village.
Then they must have lured their families into the mine and repeated their cannibalism.
The assumption, once it arose, wouldn't leave his mind and soon turned into conviction.
Dane gathered the miners and headed to the forbidden area once again.
And there, he found them.
Aaron and his family, and the corpses of other villagers, already gruesomely devoured.
'Three.'
Only Aaron and his family were alive.
There was no need for further deliberation.
Dane drew his sword.
***
"..."
No one interrupted Dane's rather long story.
Even Tom, who had been adamant, remained silent with a bewildered expression.
The miners, who had been protectively surrounding Aaron's family, moved away from them.
The seed of doubt, once planted, spread like a plague among the miners.
"No... I'm truly innocent..."
Aaron shook his head, tears streaming down his face.
His wife and child were also crying.
Dane slowly walked towards them.
Slide!
The miners no longer blocked his path.
"Dane... please spare my child at least. You'll regret it if you kill him."
"Still pretending to be human?"
Dane gritted his teeth.
Perhaps they had been close.
Dane's eyes were bloodshot.
"I won't be fooled again."
Recalling his childhood mistake, Dane raised his sword high.
"That's enough."
Hamel stopped Dane.
Dane's eyes widened at the unexpected interruption.
"Didn't you hear my story?"
"I did. But that doesn't mean you can kill someone without evidence."
"I am the witness and the evidence. What more proof do you need?"
Hamel calmly watched Dane as he spat out his words.
Then, with a stern expression, he spoke,
"You don't know."
"...?"
"How cruel and vile demons are."
Hamel quietly took off his robe.
His silver hair was revealed, and the cassock he wore underneath came into view.
Then he drew his sword.
An object that only a select few among priests could possess.
"A talisman...!"
Dane's eyes widened as he recognized it.
Hamel nodded in response.
"My name is Hamel Saint Gilmore. I am an exorcist priest."
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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Peptobismol]
[Proofreader - Max]
Join our Discord for release updates!
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