Chapter 14
But it had happened so quickly that no one seemed to have seen it clearly.
Sian, who had been wandering nearby, looked up with a puzzled expression.
“Didn’t the mirror just flicker and shake?”
“Did it?”
The reflection had already returned to normal. Yeniel tilted her head in confusion.
Ah, this isn’t the time to be distracted by the mirror.
If my memory was correct, the mid-boss would be appearing soon.
We needed to move the story along.
“Oh! Something’s sparkling up there!”
I pointed into the mirror as if I had only just noticed it.
A key hung inside, just high enough that someone could reach it by standing on tiptoe.
“Inside the mirror...? You’re right. There’s a key in there.”
Yeniel finally noticed the glittering object and widened her eyes in surprise.
At that moment, the mirror twisted grotesquely.
The doppelgängers revealed their true forms.
The five reflections of us warped into monstrous, evil-looking versions of ourselves. Grinning wickedly, they stared back from inside the mirror.
“Aaaah!”
Max met their gaze and immediately stumbled backward with a scream.
The five figures in the mirror simultaneously drew knives.
Then, slowly...
Very slowly...
They began walking toward us.
Clink.
The key suddenly popped out of the mirror and landed on the floor in front of it, rolling across the ground with a clear metallic sound.
You want me to pick up a key sitting right in front of the mirror? Are you insane?
I cursed internally while reaching toward it with the most innocent expression I could manage.
Because if anyone else picked up that key, I already knew exactly what would happen.
Whoosh!
The sharp sound of something cutting through the air echoed.
The Crown Prince shouted.
“Lady April! Watch out!”
A razor-sharp blade sliced through the space above my head.
Exactly where I had expected it to.
Pretending not to notice, I kept my eyes fixed on the key.
I focused with every ounce of concentration.
Another blade came flying.
Quickly, I calculated its range and trajectory in my head.
Then I ducked beneath it.
As though it were pure coincidence.
I made sure to keep acting distracted by the key.
Finally, I picked it up and straightened with an innocent, confused expression.
“Hm?”
Unlike in the game, the attack pattern was faster and more irregular.
No one else would have been able to dodge it.
“Why? What about April?”
“There’s no time to explain! Get away from the mirror!”
Sian shouted.
“Away from it?”
I tilted my head as if bewildered and slowly backed away.
Yeniel grabbed my sleeve and forcefully pulled me farther from the mirror.
The versions of ourselves holding knives began climbing out.
The mirror’s surface trembled violently.
Soon, blades emerged beyond the glass.
The room’s lights flickered and turned blood-red.
The creatures’ grotesque mouths stretched into eerie smiles, silently promising they would reach us soon.
Too bad. You’re not making it this far.
As terrifying as they looked, those things weren’t the mid-boss.
Why?
Because the real mid-boss was about to appear.
I waited for the next event to trigger.
Just as the doppelgänger monsters were halfway out of the mirror—
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Heavy impacts echoed from within.
From somewhere deep inside the mirror world, a gigantic greatsword came hurtling forward.
The beautifully forged blade tore through the doppelgängers in an instant before embedding itself into the mirror’s surface.
Watching it felt strangely unsettling.
As if the versions of me inside the mirror had just been slaughtered.
Could the rumor about a demon worshipper and a demon on the second floor be...
Until now, I had never assumed the dungeon’s mid-boss was the supposed demon worshipper.
Mainly because of its appearance.
When people think of demon worshippers, they imagine gaunt, pale figures dressed in black, lurking in shadows.
But the monster before us shattered every stereotype.
It stood over three meters tall.
Its head belonged to an animal.
A goat.
The very creature most commonly associated with demons.
Its massive body was packed with thick muscles, and embedded in its chest was a glaring crimson eye.
The monster slowly retrieved the greatsword it had used to butcher the doppelgängers.
No, seriously. That’s not a demon worshipper.
That’s just a demon.
Look at it.
It practically screamed, I’m a demon.
What happened next was even more horrifying.
The creature calmly reached up—
And tore off its own head.
“What the...?!”
Even Sian couldn’t hide his shock.
Black blood dripped from the severed neck.
Drip.
Drip.
The headless monster stretched out both hands.
Then it grabbed one of the doppelgängers’ heads, twisted it free, and attached it to its own body.
“M-My head!”
Max shrieked as if he were about to faint.
Even if it had been his doppelgänger’s head, there was nothing funny about it.
The face was completely blank.
Smooth and featureless, like an egg.
At the sight of it, Max screamed again.
The monster picked up several heads one after another, examining them before smashing everything around it with its greatsword.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
Then it found us.
The faceless head was turned backward, leaving the crimson eye in its chest as the only way it could see.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
The demon worshipper began hammering the mirror with its sword.
“Run! Everyone!”
At Yeniel’s cry, we bolted.
The instinctive certainty hit all of us at once.
If that thing caught us—
We would die.
The moment we burst out of the room—
KRAAAASH!
Something collided behind us.
The mirror shattered completely, exploding into countless fragments.
Perhaps the monster had thrown its sword.
“Lady April! Show me the key!”
The moment I held it out, Yeniel checked the number engraved on it and shouted.
“Number Three! Room 203! Go!”
The demon worshipper came charging after us.
Outside the mirror, its body looked even stranger.
Its flesh appeared stitched together from separate pieces.
Inside the mirror it had looked whole.
Now it resembled shattered fragments awkwardly fused into a single body.
Perhaps breaking through the glass had affected it.
The moment we reached Room 203, I shoved the key into the lock.
At the rear of the group, Sian protected the Crown Prince while commanding his spirits.
“Lady April, let me. Like this—”
Click. Click.
Yeniel hurriedly took over and twisted the key.
But the lock refused to open.
The stiff grinding of metal was nearly drowned out by the thunderous footsteps approaching behind us.
The more desperate you became, the harder things seemed to work.
I gently placed my hand over Yeniel’s soft one.
“Miss Yeniel. It’s okay.”
I smiled.
Her gaze flickered toward our joined hands.
Together, we turned the key.
Clack.
A deep, satisfying sound rang out.
Room 203 opened.
[Yeniel’s suspicion has increased. Suspicion Level has risen.]
A cold metallic notification echoed through my mind.
[Total Suspicion: 12%]
What...?
I blinked in disbelief.
Until now, it had only ever risen by five percent.
Ten percent at most.
Whenever the system explained increases in suspicion, it always said “people are becoming suspicious.”
That meant the percentages came from multiple individuals combined.
And yet—
This time it had jumped by fifteen percent all at once.
From a single person.
Yeniel alone.
I had no idea why she was suddenly suspicious of me.
What on earth did I do wrong?