Chapter 28

Doppelganger.

It is the name of a demon that steals a person’s life.

That person’s appearance.

Their voice.

Their memories.

A cuckoo-like being that ultimately takes the whole life and makes it its own.

“That is a doppelganger.”

At Hamel’s explanation, the miners stared at him with dazed expressions.

A brief silence passed, and a man named Tom stammered a question.

“Th-then now. Are Aaron and his family doppelgangers?”

“I don’t know.”

Hamel shook his head.

“All demons emit Demonic Energy. That’s called the lingering trace of Demonic Energy. But doppelgangers that perfectly mimic humans can hide that lingering trace.”

Hamel had only sensed a faint lingering trace left in this space.

He could not feel Demonic Energy emanating from any specific person.

“Then there’s no evidence they’re doppelgangers, is there?”

Tom asked, looking bewildered.

Exactly as he said.

If there’s no way to tell a doppelganger from a human, you can’t distinguish them until you try killing it, can you?

However.

“But Dain here seems certain. He says there’s a doppelganger among you.”

“…”

Dain kept his mouth tightly shut.

He knew something.

That’s why he was certain Aaron and his family were doppelgangers.

“You must speak.”

Hamel pressed him.

There was a way to tell.

But unless he spoke, Hamel couldn’t persuade the miners.

They were still wary of Hamel and Dain and had surrounded Aaron’s family.

How much time had passed?

“…Damn it.”

Dain muttered, breaking the silence.

He mussed the hair that covered his scar and leaned his back against the mine wall.

But his gaze, steady and unwavering, turned to Aaron and his family as he began to speak.

“It was long ago. I was about ten years old.”

The village chief’s son, Dain, was the village troublemaker.

He was always causing various incidents, and that day he caused one as usual.

He sneaked into the mine’s forbidden area, a village taboo.

Dain, who used to come and go through the shaft like a living room, found it effortless to enter the forbidden area without the adults noticing.

“What, there’s nothing special.”

Dain clicked his tongue and muttered.

Contrary to rumors, the tunnel was ordinary.

No monster with a thousand teeth that devour children.

No matter how you ran, hundreds of eyes stalking you.

No shadows that swallowed light.

There were only rocks and some unusually black salt.

Dain kicked a stone rolling in the shaft and was about to turn away.

─Boing

The stone he kicked bounced off something squishy.

“…What is this?”

Dain quickly thrust out the stick he had brought and approached it.

A round black shape.

The spot hit by the stone rippled like a wave.

─Wriggle

Then it moved toward Dain.

“Wah!”

It was the moment the startled Dain tried to run.

Instead, the creature seemed frightened by his scream and darted quickly in the opposite direction.

“What is that…?”

Dain watched it and mumbled to himself in a daze.

The next day.

Unable to curb his curiosity, Dain returned to the shaft.

The black creature was still there.

“…What are you?”

Dain poked at it and spoke to it, but each time it got scared and ran away.

Over time he realized it wasn’t a particularly dangerous creature.

Then one day, the creature didn’t flee when it saw Dain.

“Do you recognize me?”

Dain found that curious.

From that day on, Dain began visiting the creature every day.

He petted it and played with it.

After a while.

“…What are these ones?”

It introduced its friends.

There were three of them, each with a different personality.

One was timid, another lively.

How much time passed like that?

Dain was growing bored of playing with them.

He stroked the creature he first met and said,

“I won’t come here from tomorrow. Take care.”

At that moment.

─Wriggle

“Ouch.”

Something sharp cut Dain’s forehead.

Dain quickly pulled his hand away and got up.

Red blood dripped onto the ground.

Then the three of them swarmed and licked the blood.

They had no mouths or tongues, but Dain felt as if they did.

“…What are you?”

As Dain clutched the wound on his head and mumbled in a daze, it happened.

They writhed and took on a shape.

The black surface rippled and, as if carved, human face shapes rose over the orbs.

And those faces…

“Nooo… you must… not… come.”

“Suf… ficient.”

“Play… w-with me? …More.”

They unmistakably resembled Dain’s own face.

A chill ran over his whole body.

Since when could they speak?

How could they mimic him?

The thought didn’t last long.

“You… you all… from the beginning…”

They had been deceiving him.

Pretending to be harmless.

They deceived humans and devoured the leftovers.

Hair.

Loose pieces of skin.

Spat droplets while speaking.

They greedily consumed everything.

And day by day they drew closer to Dain.

Realizing the truth, Dain turned and fled from them in a panic.

They did not chase after him.

As if they knew they were not yet capable of pursuing Dain.

As Dain ran from the shaft, only their murmurs echoed in his ears.

“…Ahh… it’s easy. It’s… almost… done.”

Dain felt a fear as if his blood had dried up.

But he couldn’t confess his mistake to the villagers.

He only trembled in fear for days after arriving home.

So much so that even his parents and the villagers worried.

But a week passed, then a month, then a year, and nothing happened in the village.

Only then could Dain calm down.

Then he thought.

He must atone for his wrongdoing.

So Dain resolved to become strong.

Defying his father the village chief, he sought out the lord and begged to be made a soldier.

And Dennis Gilmore, who was the head of the House Gilmore at the time, seemed to favor Dain and gave him a chance to be tested.

It wasn’t easy, but Dain ultimately passed the House Gilmore’s knight’s test.

Thus he became a squire of the Haidern territory’s knights.

Many years passed after that.

Trained in swordsmanship in the territory, Dain left the peaceful countryside and fought on various battlefields, earning merit.

Later he returned to the Haidern territory and earned the title of knight.

He lacked talent to awaken aura, but he had become unmatched among the paladins.

Dain felt the time had come.

He had gained enough strength and completed his investigation into those creatures.

The monsters he had seen as a child were creatures called doppelgangers.

They weren’t particularly dangerous if confronted head-on.

So he gave up his title and returned to the village.

To atone for his sin.

However.

“…Where did they go?”

No matter how he searched, the creatures were not in the shaft.

Had they left the shaft?

Or perhaps they were dead.

They’re still living beings; if unable to eat or drink, they’d die.

It was hollow, but he was relieved.

The village remained peaceful and his stained sin seemed gone.

Yet, out of lingering unease, Dain settled in the village.

With a contrite heart he served the village, and the people respected him for his demeanor and great strength.

Before long he had become the village chief.

Five years passed.

Strange disappearances occurred in the village.

“Dave is gone?”

A miner disappeared, and even his family was missing.

Had they fled with their family in the night?

Rumors about the Gilmore family were indeed rampant, and the Haidern territory was in decline.

Miners tied to the territory couldn’t leave without the lord’s permission, so night escapes happened occasionally.

But after that and some time later.

When the same thing happened again, Dain suddenly felt fear.

And when the third incident occurred and he heard his father’s words, he realized.

“I… I saw the missing Aaron last night. He headed to the mine with his family.”

It was them.

He had that instinct.

They had devoured the workers in the mine, mimicked them, and slipped into the village.

Then they’d lure more families to the mine and repeat the cannibalism.

The idea wouldn’t leave his head and eventually turned into certainty.

Dain gathered the miners and headed back to the forbidden area of the mine.

And there he found it.

Aaron and his family, and the bodies of other villagers already gruesomely eaten.

‘Three.’

Only Aaron and his family were still alive.

There was no need to hesitate further.

Dain drew his sword.

“…”

It was quite a long story, but no one interrupted Dain.

Even the staunch Tom closed his mouth, unsure what to say.

The miners who had been standing protectively around Aaron’s family had moved away from them.

Once suspicion bloomed, it spread among the miners like a plague.

“No… I’m really innocent…”

Aaron shook his head, crying.

His wife sobbed weakly, and the child did the same.

Dain walked slowly toward them.

─Sreuk

The miners no longer stopped Dain.

“Dain… please spare my child. If you kill that child, you’ll truly regret it.”

“Still pretending to be a human to the very end, huh.”

Dain gritted his teeth.

Had they been particularly close normally?

Veins burst at the corners of Dain’s eyes, reddening them with blood.

“I won’t be fooled anymore.”

Recalling his childhood mistake, Dain raised his sword high.

“That’s enough.”

Hamel stopped Dain’s action.

Startled by the unexpected interference, Dain widened his eyes.

“Did you not hear my story?”

“I heard it. But that doesn’t mean you can kill someone without evidence.”

“I am the witness and evidence. What more proof do you need?”

Hamel watched Dain, who spoke harshly, with calm composure.

Then, with a hardened expression, he spoke.

“You do not know.”

“…?”

“How cruel and vile demons can be.”

Hamel quietly removed the robe he had been wearing.

Silver hair was revealed, and the monastic habit he wore beneath the robe appeared.

Then he drew his sword.

An item that only a select few among priests are recognized to carry.

“Talisman…!”

Dain recognized it at a glance and widened his eyes.

Hamel nodded and answered.

“My name is Hamel Saint Gilmore. I am an Exorcist priest.”