Chapter 98

Aslan and the man examined each other with “Who is this?” expressions. But no matter how much they scrutinized one another, the fact remained that they were total strangers.

“Who are you?”

Eventually, the man who looked like Theo tossed out a blunt question. He didn’t forget to brush off the hand resting on his shoulder with a look of displeasure. Aslan retreated a couple of steps, cradling the hand that had been abruptly swatted away.

“Ah, sorry… I thought you were someone I knew.”

The man’s eyebrows twitched at Aslan’s words. He gave Aslan a head-to-toe once-over before spinning around and walking away. Left alone, Aslan stood there with a dazed face, muttering at the retreating figure.

“His back view is a total doppelgänger…”

He was already on his way to the Father and the Guest Guild anyway, so he figured he should tell Theo about this doppelgänger when he saw him. Aslan started walking again, but it didn’t take long before he faced a rather awkward situation.

The Theo doppelgänger’s path overlapped with his own, making it look as though he were persistently stalking the man. He tried slowing down his pace because he was becoming self-conscious, but it didn’t change the fact that he appeared to be following. He even started to worry that he might be misunderstood.

As he walked slowly to avoid giving the man the wrong idea, his destination came into view. It was the guild house of the Father and the Guest Guild. Aslan looked back and forth between the guild house and the doppelgänger’s back, lost in thought for a moment. Should he just dash past and enter the guild house first, or should he stop and wait for the man to pass the building and disappear?

Overtaking him might lead to an even bigger misunderstanding. Deciding that he had plenty of time and his destination was right there, Aslan stepped to the edge of the road to think it over, as he couldn’t just block the middle of the street.

While he waited for the man to move further away behind the swaying leaves of the trees, the man moved in an entirely unexpected direction.

“?”

He had walked straight into the guild house of the Father and the Guest Guild. Flustered by the unforeseen turn of events, Aslan rubbed his eyes and checked again to see if the place the man entered was truly the guild house.

But no matter how many times he checked, it was indeed the Father and the Guest Guild’s house. But why on earth was a Theo doppelgänger going in there? Was it actually Theo after all? He thought about it again, but that man definitely wasn’t Theo.

As if possessed, Aslan walked up to the front of the guild house. He stood there, staring blankly at the entrance.

“What are you doing?”

That was until a familiar voice called out from behind him.

Startled by the voice that made his spine tingle, he hurriedly turned around to find the real Theo. The real ‘Theo,’ with Blaine firmly attached to him as always.

Aslan blinked a couple of times at Theo, looked between the guild house and Theo several times, and then pointed toward the interior of the house, speaking frantically.

“Hey, I just saw someone really weird.”

“Huh?”

“No, I mean a doppelgänger! A doppelgänger went in here!”

“What are you even talking about?”

Theo gave the rambling Aslan a pathetic look and entered the guild house. Blaine looked between the two of them in confusion, gave Aslan a short bow, and followed after Theo.

Miffed by Theo’s cold dismissal, Aslan shouted, “Hey, hey! Just listen to me!” and followed them into the guild house.

After passing the entrance and heading up to the central hall, Theo tilted his head at the somewhat noisy interior. It was always loud, but this was a different kind of noise. Rather than ‘noisy,’ it might be more accurate to say the room was ‘buzzing.’

Blaine and Aslan, following behind Theo into the hall, also sensed the unusual atmosphere and began to look around. Then, they spotted Mastar.

Normally, he would have welcomed them the moment they walked in, but he was just staring blankly at something as if he were possessed. Following his gaze, the three of them were able to find the source of the commotion.

The culprit was surrounded by several guild members, chatting away with a bright expression as if he were completely oblivious to the mood of the room. When he spotted Theo and Blaine, he waved cheerfully.

“Oh? You’re here? You’re a bit late today.”

It was Daize. Wearing tight black techwear with soft honey-blonde hair and standing about 177cm tall—from a distance, he looked like a carbon copy of Theo.

Theo and Blaine were speechless. Aslan, making a scene, whispered frantically to the two of them.

“That’s him! That’s the weird doppelgänger I was talking about!”

The two glanced at Aslan with their mouths hanging open before looking back at Daize. He definitely hadn’t looked like this just yesterday. Back then, he only had the honey-blonde hair and a few subtle facial features that mimicked Theo, but now even his outfit, physique, and height were identical.

Aslan’s voice, constantly shouting “doppelgänger” next to him, felt like it was being hammered into Theo’s head. He hadn’t seen the guy for barely half a day—from last night until this morning—and yet, what kind of radical transformation was this?

Walking out like a protagonist amidst everyone’s stares and attention, Daize pointedly made eye contact with a stunned Theo before acknowledging Blaine.

“Were you not home yesterday? I called out to you so many times but you didn’t come out. I was a little hurt.”

Seeing Daize approach with a friendly demeanor while looking exactly like Theo triggered an intense sense of discomfort and revulsion in Blaine. Theo’s face overlapped with Daize’s smiling one, distorting like a broken TV screen. At the same time, a wave of nausea surged within him.

As Blaine stumbled while covering his mouth, a startled Theo reached out and asked if he was okay. Leaning on Theo’s shoulder for support, Blaine turned his head away and muttered.

“How disgusting…”

His murmur was quiet enough that only Theo and Aslan could hear it. However, Daize was also within a distance where he could catch the remark.

Perhaps shocked by Blaine’s words, Daize froze for a moment before his eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at Theo. Sensing the gaze, Theo looked back at Daize, and a strange psychological war began to flow between them.

The others hadn’t heard the remark, leaving a silence and an atmosphere shared only by the four of them—and within that, a tension that only Daize and Theo could truly feel. Just as the tension reached a peak, like a string pulled taut, Aslan’s sharp voice sliced the mood in half.

“Seriously, what is up with him?”

Aslan pointed at Daize with a displeased look, and Theo replied with a face that suggested he wanted to ask the same thing.

“Our new recruit.”

“The rookie?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s the deal? Why does he look exactly like you? Did you guys scout him? Finding someone that identical is a talent in itself.”

Theo couldn’t find an answer to Aslan’s rambling. The other guild members felt the same. They hadn’t scouted him to be like this, and since he hadn’t looked this way from the start, they didn’t know how to explain it.

Still, they couldn’t just leave this behavior unchecked. If Father or Holanghee had been there, they would have stepped in before Theo even arrived, but unfortunately, neither was present. In the end, it was up to Theo himself to take action.

Theo rubbed his temples as if he had a headache and spoke calmly.

“I tried to be understanding about the hair color, but don’t you think what you’re doing right now is a bit much?”

“Pardon?”

Daize asked back with an innocent face, as if wondering what he had done wrong. Whether he was feigning ignorance or truly didn’t know remained a mystery. Though Theo was a hundred percent sure it was the former, his headache only grew worse.

“Your current appearance… it’s exactly like mine.”

At Theo’s remark, Daize blinked silently. He looked down at himself for a moment, then placed his hands on his hips with an offended expression, shifting his weight to one leg as he raised his voice.

“This hair color, this outfit, this height—did you take out a patent on them?”

“…What?”

“I mean, there’s such a thing as freedom of expression. Isn’t it arrogant to tell other people they can’t do something just because you did it first? If someone sees something they like, they might want to copy it.”

Theo’s expression hardened at the man’s sheer audacity.

“You’ve taken it too far.”

Honestly, arguing over customization or outfits felt childish. Just as he said, there was no patent on it, and no law forbade copying others.

Still, there was such a thing as basic etiquette.

“What’s this? Why are there two Theos?”

At that moment, a familiar voice echoed from behind Theo. Everyone, including Theo, turned toward the source and spotted Father, who had just stepped into the central hall.

Father looked back and forth between Theo and Daize with a look of disbelief before knitting her brows at Daize. Simultaneously, Holanghee and Noquia came up the stairs one after another. They tilted their heads at the sight of the guild members gathered in the hall, but their faces quickly soured upon seeing the decalcun-like resemblance between Theo and Daize.

“What’s with this copycat?”

“What’s with this knock-off?”

Holanghee and Noquia spoke in succession, staring at Daize as if demanding an explanation. Why on earth do you look exactly like Theo?

Emboldened by the arrival of these reliable allies, the other guild members—who had only been whispering and gauging the mood until now—began to voice their dissatisfaction.

“Seriously, this is too much.”

“Does he think the rest of us don’t copy him because we don’t know how?”

“He’s not just anyone; he’s a fellow guild member. What is he thinking?”

“Satan himself would probably click his tongue at this.”

“He should know when to quit…”

“Why is he so obsessed with copying something that doesn’t even suit him?”

A torrent of complaints poured over Daize. However, instead of appearing intimidated or dejected, Daize looked at Father and asked boldly.

“Does this guild police even individual customization and outfits?”