Chapter 158: Not A Person (5)

The bottom of the moat I bravely jumped into.

I made a satisfactory landing using the Crest, and the scenery that exceeded my imagination made me smirk.

From afar, I heard a sharp scream.

“Kyaaa! Help me! Is anyone here?!”

It was the voice of a woman being chased by a giant geared golem.

It seemed she didn’t spot me as she ran in the wrong direction. The geared golem thudded after her.

The ground was so soft it was almost like sludge, leaving large footprints behind.

“Haaa! Please! Please don’t come! Save me!!!”

A voice urgent with the unique fear of someone whose life is in danger. But, how should I put it? It’s just a feeling, but…

The voice pleading for help doesn’t sound all that urgent. It’s not right to weigh a person’s life on a mere hunch, but there’s a deeper unease rising.

For now, I decided to hide behind the large body of a sprawled-out doll nearby and observe the situation.

Even if she can’t completely shake it off, it seems like there’s still some room to keep running.

While hiding and sipping on a mana potion for a moment, Lydia and Benny soon land from the sky near me.

Unlike me, who landed lightly with the power of the Crest of Aerial Leap after free-falling, they came with various gear and spread Shadow like a parachute.

The female adventurer, who had been running around aimlessly, spotted us and started running in our direction.

“Help me! I’ll do anything as a reward! We’re fellow adventurers, aren’t we?”

Of course, the building-sized geared golem also began to charge at us.

Bringing monsters while asking for help is one of the acts strictly forbidden by the Guild.

If you pass on monsters like that, it could lead to a bigger accident, and it could be exploited to kill other adventurers without dirtying your own hands and loot them.

Of course, to someone facing death, such regulations would be trivial…

But that’s just her situation. At a glance, isn’t it the strongest-looking monster in the area?

Originally, the right choice would be to distance ourselves without helping. Even if we do help, it should be after securing a proper retreat.

However, our situation is a bit different. Lydia and Benny are high-ranking adventurers who are beyond the reach of 3rd-Floor monsters.

So, if they want to help, they can help as much as they want.

Lydia, gripping her greatsword, asked me with her usual calm expression.

“Jonah. What should we do?”

“…Well.”

But how should I say it? The closer that adventurer got, the stronger this strange unease grew.

There wasn’t much time to think. With the distance closing in, I decided to make the most conservative choice.

In other words, I decided to follow my instincts’ warning to avoid any loss.

“Let’s keep our distance, Miss Lydia. It’s hard to explain, but something feels off, and I don’t want to get involved rashly.”

“…Okay.”

As soon as I said it, I regretted it.

While Benny and I might be okay with it, Lydia is fundamentally a righteous person.

Telling such a Lydia to leave an adventurer who still has some leeway but is asking for help…

It might be hard to tell from the short answer and suppressed emotions just now, but Lydia might be angry now. She might be disappointed in me.

Swallowing that unease, I cautiously turned around and there was…

Lydia with a faint smile, as if she was proud.

I found myself with my mouth agape. Before I could say anything, Lydia tousled my hair lightly.

Swish swish.

“Jonah. You said something felt off, right?”

“Yes? Ah, yes.”

“That feeling just now. Don’t forget and remember it. It’ll be really useful on the 3rd Floor.”

With that, Lydia grabbed a greatsword and dashed out.

“What?!”

Could she have gone to rescue her alone? Lydia wouldn’t have any problems, but her expression and words just now are concerning.

Instead of scolding me, it seemed like she was praising me…

While I was tilting my head in confusion, Benny had already reverted Shadow to its original form and stood beside me.

“Watch closely, Jonah. You seem to have some idea of what kind of monsters are on the 3rd Floor, but it seems you haven’t fully understood.”

“Huh?”

As I tilted my head, Lydia’s greatsword was drawn.

The greatsword, wrapped in a fiery aura, swung with such force that it seemed it would shatter and cleave through anything in its path…and it was aimed at the adventurer who had been screaming for help since earlier.

Boom!

“Uh.”

The adventurer was buried in the dust without even a chance to scream. The soft ground overturned once and then settled.

And a beat later, an exclamation of shock escaped my mouth.

“Miss Lydia?!”

No, I said to quietly leave the place, not to kill. Why didn’t Benny stop her?

While my gaze wandered around aimlessly. Benny poked my shoulder.

“Get a grip. Watch until the very end.”

“The end? What more is there to see…huh?”

Mid-sentence, my eyes widened involuntarily. The outcome before me was that unexpected.

Just moments ago, the golem that seemed to chase the adventurer to death was now shielding her.

Ultimately, unable to withstand Lydia’s blow, its arm was torn off, and its side was ripped open.

Beyond that, the adventurer who was pleading for us to save them was now dead.

It seemed her head was accurately struck by Lydia’s greatsword.

As the greatsword was slowly drawn out, the limp head seemed to be momentarily lifted, then it fell, revealing the cut surface.

“Huh?”

There was no red blood or sticky brain matter flowing out.

Only small, delicate gears and something tangled with blackened lubricant tumbled out.

Staring at this in disbelief, Benny’s fingers prodded me, urging.

“Go. You have to take a closer look.”

“What? Yes…right. I should.”

Nodding, I approached, still in a bit of a daze. It’s been a while since I’ve been this surprised in the Labyrinth.

Thus, as the giant geared golem collapsed and the doll, thought to be an adventurer, crumbled, I approached the knight standing stiffly upright. Lydia greeted me.

“How about it, Jonah? Surprised?”

“…Yeah. It was beyond surprising, I thought I was hallucinating.”

“To that extent?”

“Yes, to that extent. Miss Lydia harming innocent people…”

“Ah-ha?”

Only then did Lydia, understanding why I was surprised, take a step back with a slightly pleased expression.

“It’s a monster that doesn’t have anything valuable except the Magic Stone in its heart. You can poke around a bit and take a look.”

“Does the monster have a name?”

“Yeah. Gear Doppelganger. That’s its name.”

“Doppelganger?”

“Strictly speaking, it’s different from that doppelganger. Instead of transforming into someone else, it wears the corpse of a dead person. If anything, it’s more like a hermit crab.”

“There truly are all sorts of monsters.”

No matter how skilled I am, I don’t set up every monster’s background. That’s why there are quite a few monsters I don’t really know about… The Gear Doppelganger might be one of them.

Still, after observing it closely from various angles, I got a rough idea of what it’s like.

The shell I saw. In other words, the appearance and voice are probably those of an adventurer who once died on this land.

Even though the head was split, the hair was soft, and the cheeks were tender. In this aspect, it seemed almost like a real person.

However, the pupils were unfocused, and the complexion was excessively pale.

If there’s one peculiar point, it’s that the equipment it wore was far different in design from the latest trends I’ve seen recently at the Cradle Trading Company.

Just from this, it really looked like a person who had died, but…

Black viscous liquid writhed as if reaching out from the split head, and the embedded gears kept spinning meaninglessly.

A scene that instinctively arouses disgust. Shaking my head, I asked Benny.

“Benny, you know about Gear Doppelgangers, right? Do you know how they mimic?”

“There’s no need to think hard. You saw the Human Golem on the way, didn’t you, Jonah? Originally, shedding a body of flesh and blood to become a machine is a kind of blessing from the God of Machinery. This is impossible without understanding both sides.”

“That’s true.”

One cannot modify what they do not know.

“So, even if we don’t know the detailed principles, making a corpse move again using something like these gears isn’t too difficult for the God of Machinery.”

“The important thing isn’t how such a monster can exist, but why such a form of monster exists, right?”

“Exactly. To get straight to the point, the God of Machinery never created such an entity. The name ‘Gear Doppelganger’ was originally something entirely different.”

“Huh?”

Benny continued the explanation, spreading her flat chest wide towards me as I tilted my head.

“At the end of the War of the Fallen Gods, when immense powers caused unforeseen problems, we called it a disaster. And the Labyrinth is a place to seal such disasters.”

“No way?”

“That expectation is correct. The Gear Doppelganger was originally a disaster rampaging elsewhere, but it was incorporated into the Labyrinth and transformed in the domain of the God of Machinery.”

“…I see.”

I nodded, but it was something I simply couldn’t comprehend.

The reason being… All disasters were firmly set to be sealed in places distinct from the general field.

So it must be one of three things.

Either my setting was wrong for the first time, and the Labyrinth had not been fully researched leading to a misunderstanding…

or someone deceived everyone with a certain purpose in mind.

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