kscans

Chapter 236 - Doppelgänger Verification

The next day, Hayato and the others began preparing to conquer the thirtieth floor of the Necropolis.

First, Hayato needed to make a self-destruct item.

The self-destruct item was a magic bomb called a "Magic Bomb." Gathering the materials to make it was a hassle, but Ivan, Damian, and Ruth were handling the material gathering.

Ruth had heard about Mist from Damian. He was quite dejected when he heard, but then decided that he would be the one to help, so he joined in gathering materials and conquering the Necropolis.

As for the materials, they had to defeat powerful monsters, but since Ivan was there, Hayato figured it wouldn't be a problem and sent them off with potions and Demon Blood.

Meanwhile, Hayato, Maris, Gil, and the Maid Chief were investigating the Doppelgänger in the Necropolis.

This time, Hayato alone was scheduled to charge in to defeat the Doppelgänger, but they needed to check various things beforehand.

When Ivan's group fought the first time, only a number of Doppelgängers equal to the party size appeared. And the Hercules Beetle did not appear as an enemy.

They would verify whether the situation was that only five would appear, or if it was influenced by the party size, and whether pets would appear as Doppelgängers.

As for the self-destruct item, since it was an area-of-effect attack, it wouldn't be a problem if there were multiple Doppelgängers, but if they needed to get everyone within the effective range, a fair amount of practice would be necessary.

Hayato also didn't want to go in cold, so he went along to practice.

The portal of the transfer device in the Necropolis could transport everyone as long as someone in the party had been to the destination before. Hayato wasn't conquering from the first floor, but starting from the thirtieth, so there was no effort involved.

Perhaps because of that, Hayato was overwhelmed by his first sight of the Necropolis dungeon.

Necropolis, the city of the dead. Its thirtieth floor was a town in the dead of night.

Most of the houses in the town were destroyed, and some kind of indescribable black liquid, like slime, was scattered everywhere. The only sound was the wind blowing, making it eerie.

The setting was that a demon had swallowed the city, so it wasn't a natural or artificial dungeon. One theory was that the lowest floor was connected to the demon world, and the scenery was exactly like that.

"This is a pretty amazing place."

Maris reacted to Hayato's mutterings.

"It is, isn't it. It doesn't seem like there are any monsters I could turn into pets here. It's almost all spirits and demons... I thought a Hellhound might work, but it was no good."

"A Hellhound is that Doberman like dog that breathes fire, right? You tried to make that a pet?"

"It looked like a dog, so I thought it might work. But its monster category is apparently demon, so it was completely useless. I couldn't understand its words, and it ran away from me in disgust. I feel like I lost..."

(What kind of taming makes a demon feel disgusted? Normally you'd just get attacked...)

Hayato thought this but didn't say it out loud, and moved with everyone to the place where the Doppelgänger was.

The Doppelgänger was inside a church. Gil said they were assuming this was where the stairs leading down from the thirtieth floor were.

There were various things to verify, but at first, Hayato decided to go in alone. This was to confirm whether the Doppelgänger would appear by itself.

Hayato left the exploration party and entered the church alone.

It was a chapel with almost no light, but as Hayato advanced to the center of the room, the door he had entered closed, and the candles placed on the walls lit up in sequence, from the front to the back.

(It's like a horror movie production. Normally the candles would go out in reverse, but... I wonder if this is also a production Diite-chan came up with.)

When all the candles were lit, tears flowed from the statue of the goddess at the back of the chapel. They were probably tears of blood, but this was a virtual reality. To Hayato, who had seen plenty of horror movies, his only thought was not that it was scary, but that it was very detailed.

The tears formed a large pool of blood on the floor. The blood swelled up and took on a human form.

It was, by all appearances, Hayato. The theatrical blood all flowed down to the floor, revealing a completely colorless, pure white form of Hayato. That Hayato grinned and attacked with its bare hands.

When Hayato took the attack, his HP decreased by 1.

(Only one opponent. This will be easy. And since it's barehanded and has no attack power, it seems it only reduces my HP by the minimum guarantee of 1. I'll try attacking from my side. I don't think it'll work, but if my combat sense is better than its, I can win.)

He tried out the martial arts he had learned a little from Relic. In the fight with Diite, he had been able to do a low kick like attack, but it wasn't a proper kick, and it had only worked because Diite had been lost in her anger.

He wondered how far it would go against a Doppelgänger, a simple AI with no emotions. Hayato swayed his upper body and threw a right straight in a plausible manner.

But it cut through the air. Part of it was that Hayato was an amateur, but the Doppelgänger had dodged it. And Hayato was hit with a counter attack.

(As expected, it's no good. Its reactions are too good. Well, I knew that, but winning in a normal fight is impossible.)

Hayato attacked, thinking it was impossible, but none of his attacks landed.

A few minutes later, Hayato was defeated and resurrected at the base. He then sent a voice chat to Maris. Now all that was left was for Maris and the others to do their verification.

(The opponent's Doppelgänger is just one. Its movements aren't that fast. Considering the range of the Magic Bomb, it won't be able to escape inside the church. Defeating it will be easy. The problem is what comes after...)

Defeating the Doppelgänger didn't seem that difficult, but the problem was that after that, Hayato would have to search for the thirty-first floor's transfer device, the portal, by himself.

If Hayato couldn't reach that portal, the other members couldn't proceed.

Basically, portals are right after descending stairs, but sometimes they aren't. Since he didn't know what lay ahead, Hayato had to reach it no matter what.

(Since I can't fight at all, I have no choice but to move without being seen... I should prepare some items.)

He could act without being seen by monsters if he used sneak type skills like stealth, but of course Hayato didn't have that skill, so he had no choice but to use an item substitute.

What he could use there was the "Invisible" that Adrian and the Demon Summoning Research Association had used before. It was an item that made one's form completely disappear, but it came with the condition that it only worked as long as one didn't move from that spot.

Unlike the stealth skill, not being able to move from the spot was a minus, but being able to use it regardless of skill was a plus.

Hayato told Rose at the base that he had returned from death, then decided to start producing Invisible in his room.

When he logged in again at night after finishing his work at the cafe, Maris and the others had returned to the base. He received a report that their various verifications were complete.

It was discovered that the number of Doppelgängers that appeared was the same as the number of people who entered the church, and was not random.

And at least the Hercules Beetle did not appear as a Doppelgänger. However, Lancelot the Griffon and other pets with decent strength did appear.

Circumstantially, it seemed to be judging based on whether combat power was high or low, which meant that the other plan of Maris fighting alone with her pets was completely out.

(I don't know if passing through with the self-destruct and resurrection combo is the correct strategy, but it feels like an exploit. I think there's a more legitimate strategy. Surely it's not a matter of honing one's combat sense.)

If he asked Diite, she would probably tell him the intended method, but Hayato hadn't done that. However, if he couldn't handle it with this self-destruct and resurrection strategy, he intended to ask.

It didn't seem dangerous for now, but if something unexpected for Diite was happening, it meant that some kind of problem was occurring in this world. As long as that wasn't clear, Hayato wanted to hurry the conquest.

(There's a possibility that Mist-san is involved in something. But there's no hacking, and Hypnos shouldn't be able to move, but I have a bad feeling. I wish Diite-chan's investigation would end soon.)

Diite was investigating the reason Mist had fallen asleep. It seemed the situation was still unknown, but she had said it was highly likely that it had been set up that way from long ago.

Mist and Damian had participated in this virtual space on the grounds of putting their patients, Ruth and the others, into cryosleep.

However, since Mist, Ruth, and the others weren't in immediate danger, they had decided to enjoy the virtual reality for a while.

It would have been better for them to enter cryosleep as soon as possible, but Ruth and the others had been bedridden in the hospital, so the idea was that they also needed time to play.

Whether they had a knack for the game, or if their physical abilities were high to begin with, Mist and his group had managed to get to the top 8 in the Clan War.

As a reward for that, the wish they made to Diite, who was God, was "Please search for a cure while we are sleeping." At first, Mist and his group had no demands, but since they were leaving Earth, they made that request.

Diite consented. And she added the setting that they would enter a state called undying sleep when their disease progressed.

She received the research results from Mist and Damian so far, and was continuing the research for a cure by regularly investigating Ruth and the others' bodies. A cure had not yet been established, but progress was being made.

(I was surprised to hear that Infinity was doing the analysis, and that it could do something like that. But can it really do something like that... No point in thinking about it. I'll just focus on waking Mist-san.)

Hayato thought this, compiled the information from Maris and the others, and began to make the necessary items.