Surviving as an Academy Black Magician

I was momentarily speechless.

When asked to explain why they are late, answer honestly as it is. It was because I thought that even if I did, the doubts towards me would not disappear, but would be further amplified.

There is no way to explain why there is such a time difference in the first place.

It’s all about sharing a single word with ‘me’ reflected in the mirror.

It occurred to me that perhaps the flow of time had been artificially adjusted to cause this situation.

In the first place, this is a possible inference because it is a space that should not be bound by common sense.

“Why don’t you answer, Captain?”

“joy! See if you have nothing to say Are you suspicious of coming so late in the first place?”

Tiny eyes are examining my face.

Frey is also looking at me with a rather serious face. The situation was not good.

At this rate, I would be cornered as a doppelganger.

I said with a sigh.

“ha… .. Doppelganger said you can’t lie. If I were my doppelganger, everything I’m saying would be the truth. I just exchanged a word with myself in the mirror and headed straight there.”

Eden asked.

“You said you had a conversation with the leader in the mirror?”

Charlotte stood beside her.

“Look. am i right? The commoner and I have never had a conversation with ourselves in the mirror.”

I was slowly starting to get annoyed. I raised my hand for a moment, ran my hair back, and stared at Charlotte.

“okay. In the same situation as now, you can have doubts. That’s right. However, if you want to push your opponent like that, shouldn’t you do it with plausible grounds? charlotte. I know you have a grudge against me, but if you recklessly try to drive me into a doppelganger, I won’t stand still.”

Charlotte’s eyes twitched slightly. From my point of view, they were also doppelganger suspects.

“under? Seeing you so angry makes you even more suspicious? If you’re not a doppelganger, you just have to prove it, right? Is it not like you usually?”

“Everything that comes out of your mouth is not a word. If you make me your doppelganger and all of us fail the test, will you take the blame? What if I’m not your doppelganger?”

Eden said with a kind smile.

“captain. You seem to be too excited to answer. Calm down a little.”

However, Charlotte added more oil to the overheated atmosphere.

“responsibility? okay. I’ll hold you accountable. If you’re not a doppelganger, I’ll do any favor you say. I swear by the name of the Duke of Meiji.”

I couldn’t quite understand it.

Charlotte Mage, who values the honor and authority of nobility so much, is so convinced that I am her doppelganger to the point of even risking her family name? For what reason?

“What on earth do you believe that I am your doppelganger, Charlotte Mage?”

I wasn’t particularly conscious of it, but the voice that came out of my mouth was cool enough to embarrass even me, the person in charge.

“It’s a feeling.”

I was so stunned that I couldn’t speak. That he made such a choice based solely on intuition.

“persimmon… say? Saying that now… .”

That moment.

“stop! Stop both of you!”

Frey, who had never been annoyed before, shouted with a tremendous volume.

“Stop the pointless arguing. We don’t have much time left.”

It was as she said. The time given to us was until the sun went down.

Looking at the current situation, no matter how long I look at it, it seemed that there was less than 6 hours left.

“… I’m sorry. As Frey said, we don’t have much time, so we need to find the doppelganger as efficiently as possible. Fortunately, the forest gave us some hints.”

Eden interrupted and said.

“ah! shadow! They said doppelgangers don’t have shadows. Then, among the two, the one without a shadow… .”

Eden moved his gaze one by one.

“Sorry, but I don’t think that will work.”

The sun was shining very strongly in the sky. As if to show off its presence.

However, the forest surrounding us was so thick with trees that we could not identify individual shadows.

As if they were deliberately joking around.

Eden, who realized this belatedly, scratched his head in embarrassment.

“ah… . It must have been a piece of cake.”

said Frey.

“When I was little, I heard about doppelgangers from my father. The worst monster that replicates not only human appearance, but also experiences and memories. You said that due to its nature of duplicating the original, it is a disaster-like existence that takes the lives of countless humans by mixing in with large-scale punitive forces. However, they said that doppelgangers have some characteristics that set them apart from humans.”

I wondered and asked.

“also! Sir Halton would have experienced a doppelganger in real life.”

Frey nodded.

“That’s right. My father said that it is almost impossible to distinguish between a doppelganger and a human based on their external appearance. Having already copied the original once, they are said to be no different from ‘humans’. In fact, the doppelganger’s blood was said to be the same red color as ours.”

Eden trembled with a goosebumps face.

“Ugh, how could you do that to a mere monster? It’s scary.”

“The mammologists say they haven’t figured it out yet. Oh, exceptional beings who have reached a certain level are said to be able to copy their appearance and memories, but they cannot imitate all of their abilities. Scholars speculate that it is the limit of the species, but… . Anyway, going back to the main topic, it is said that the biggest feature of a doppelganger is its smell.”

“Smell?”

“yes. It is said that the body of the doppelganger smells like a rotting corpse. That’s why they say they work hard to hide their smell.”

“Ho! Then, shouldn’t we just find someone with a rotten smell among them?”

Charlotte looked at Eden with a pitiful face.

“Tsk. stupid commoner. Have you forgotten what we bet on?”

Eden, realizing that, smiled kindly.

“ah… ! Was it limiting our sense of smell? I had forgotten about it until now. I guess I’ve gotten used to a life where I can’t smell. ha ha ha!”

“Is this the time to have a good laugh? The information Frey gave me wasn’t bad, but it’s not applicable in our current situation.”

“… I’m sorry.”

When Frey looked like a dead puppy, a flustered Charlotte hurriedly said,

Charlotte acts high-handedly towards anyone, regardless of opponent, but she seemed to really value Frey.

“no! Frey! The information you gave me was really good. It’s just unlucky, it just didn’t fit our situation right now.”

The shadow, the smell, all of them are characteristics that can definitely identify the doppelganger, but unfortunately, in this situation, all of them could not be applied.

Even without ‘luck’.

Is all this really a coincidence? Can we dismiss all of these as coincidences? To say it was a coincidence, I felt an unknown sense of incongruity in this situation I was in.

Time is ticking by. Much faster than I expected. The sun, which was located right in the center, had disappeared into the distance.

‘Which one of these is the doppelganger?’

Charlotte insists on forced logic and keeps trying to drive me into a doppelganger.

Eden continues to doubt me even though he doesn’t come out directly.

Even Frey, who arrived here first.

To be honest, everyone was suspicious.

‘Are you aware that you are a doppelganger if you are a doppelganger who has copied all the memories and experiences of the original?’

If you’re not aware, that’s the worst thing you can imagine.

Because I am really acting as a human being.

Then the rule that you can’t lie may have no meaning.

I don’t know exactly what the standard of ‘true’ and ‘false’ is, but for example, if you ask a doppelganger who thinks you’re human, if you’re human, he’ll answer yes, and this forest might recognize it as ‘true’.

Rules like a pun.

I regretted it all over again. If I had put a little more sincerity, if I had put my heart and soul into each one, I wouldn’t have had such a hard time.

Despite being the author who built the framework of this world, all I can do now is to speculate based on the minimum amount of information.

I just grabbed the skeleton, but this world directly put flesh on it and made a new story by repeating evolution. It is alive and breathing.

the world I made

It was glorious, ecstatic, but I couldn’t help feeling helpless.

“… … page. captain?”

I woke up belatedly to the sound of calling me.

“Oh, did you call?”

“yes. What are you thinking so hard about? Did you find a breakthrough to overcome this situation!?”

I shook my head.

“Unfortunately, I haven’t come up with it yet.”

“is that so. Leader Do you remember the 4th phrase among the phrases written earlier?”

“… Are you referring to the phrase that doppelgangers grow out of perception?”

“yes. What do you think of that phrase, Captain?”

「It grows out of ‘awareness’.」 When I first saw the phrase, I thought of several possibilities, but none of them deserved attention.

“I do not know. It was too complicated.”

“Yes. So I thought a little simpler. Because writing hair is not my specialty. hahahaha.”

“Sometimes a simple idea is closer to the answer.”

For an instant, Eden’s eyes flashed terrifyingly.

“yes. ‘Growing from awareness’, I thought that might be the standard for the birth of a doppelganger.”

Charlotte, who had been listening to the story, asked with an interesting face.

“Birth standard?”

“yes. I think that the moment you ‘recognize’ something, a doppelganger might be born. What do we encounter in common? It is a mirror. What the mirror reflects is the person looking at it, that is, you. When Charlotte and I looked in the mirror, nothing happened. I’ve never had a conversation with ‘myself’ in the mirror. However, the leader clearly said that he had a conversation with ‘himself’ in the mirror.”

“… yes.”

Eden looked at Frey.

“Mr Frey. I will ask you one question.”

Frey nodded.

“yes. Do it.”

“Have you looked in the mirror, Frey-sama?”

“Yes, I saw.”

“Have you ever had a conversation with yourself in the mirror?”

“no… . When I looked in the mirror, there was no reaction, so I just walked past it.”

Hearing the answer, Eden smiled and then looked at me.

“It is. Among them, the leader was the only one who had a direct conversation with himself in the mirror. And the one who arrived last was the leader. We all entered the same period, but the only difference is the leader. I can fully imagine what happened in it.”

Charlotte also began to add strength to Eden’s opinion.

“yes. And the commoner gave an opinion about ‘recognition’. I think that makes sense. I’ve seen it countless times while learning the science that recognizing something triggers an action that causes an indefinable phenomenon to occur.”

It’s a trap. This is clearly a trap. The doppelganger mixed in here is intentionally driving me.

Eden continued to speak.

“My hypothesis is this. The captain ‘recognized’ himself or it as a doppelganger in the mirror, and as a result, the doppelganger who met the conditions was mimicked. Didn’t the leader know from the beginning that the theme of this test was the doppelganger?”

… I? Am I a doppelganger?

“… Do not be ridiculous. Are you kidding me? You guys really think I’m a doppelganger? It can’t be. I am a doppelganger and no one else!”

“In the current situation, the most suspicious thing is that the leader is right.”

I looked at Frey, ignoring his words.

“Frey! Do you think I’m a doppelganger too?”

“I am… … . I’m sorry. I think what Eden said is reasonable enough.”

said Charlotte.

“Well, I think I’ve decided enough at this point. Seeing you so excited, I have nothing else to think about. Are you sure. If we continue to live like this, we will all be eliminated in the end?”

“That’s right. I have no more choice.”

The words didn’t work. They were already convinced that I was their doppelganger.

“… I’m not a doppelganger You guys are being fooled right now. to the doppelganger. If you kill me here, we… … .”

hooked!

“—!”

Before he could finish speaking, his mouth fell shut.

I couldn’t tell what the hell was happening now.

I felt a lukewarm liquid running down the back of my neck. Instinctively, he grabbed the nape of his neck.

crimson liquid.

it was my blood

“Cool!”

The sound of the wind leaked weakly from the perforated nape of the neck.

I looked at Eden with a face of disbelief. In his hand was a dagger stained red.

“… Eden?”

“hahahaha, sorry. captain. Can’t you help it? If this continues, we will all be eliminated. I trust you will understand.”

whole body loses strength The limp body fell to the floor like a puppet whose thread had been cut.

Consciousness gradually fades. Frey’s voice was faintly audible through the receding consciousness.

“Either… . Jayle… silver doppel… Ganger… .”