Kang Yoon-Soo walked at the forefront, jumping lightly over fallen trees and bushes. However, his head was filled with other thoughts.
‘Your 1,000th life is the final one. There will be no more regressions.’
He contemplated whether those words were telling the truth, but he decided there was no reason to be suspicious of them. Several doppelgangers had suddenly appeared in the mountains when they were not supposed to, and the doppelganger of the princess knew about his regression as well. However, what was the ’calamity’ the whisper had kept bringing up?
In any case, only one thing was certain now: Something new had happened in his endlessly repeating life.
A storm of complicated thoughts brewed in his head. He had given it his all across his hundreds of regressions. He had fought until the point when he could no longer feel the pain in his hands, he had turned himself into a combat doll to not feel pain at all, and he had even learned the strange languages of the beasts. That was how he had become a supernatural being who had lived for more than 20,000 years.
He had reached the pinnacle of every class, and tried his best to kill the Demon Lord to stop the endlessly repetitive cycle—to save his loved ones and the world. But, he could not deny that he had been complacent from time to time, thinking that there would still be another life if he failed in this one.
‘The Demon Lord got weaker as I regressed, and that made me complacent.’
However, there were no more regressions, and his only sanctuary was gone.
‘This is really my last life…’
“Excuse me? Are you alright?” Shaneth asked from behind him.
That was when Kang Yoon-Soo realized that they were miles off course; they had passed the intended destinations hours ago while he was lost in thought.
The place they had entered was filled with freshly-bloomed purple flowers, and he looked around before saying, “Let’s rest.”
“You should’ve said so earlier,” Henrick complained, collapsing onto the ground. It was natural for him to be exhausted, as they had been walking nonstop since the previous night. Even Shaneth was sitting on the ground massaging her tired legs.
Kang Yoon-Soo walked toward the doppelganger and said, “Let’s talk.”
The doppelganger of the princess slowly nodded and followed him. Shaneth looked at the two with suspicion, but she did not say anything and simply watched silently.
Once they walked far enough away that the others would not be able to hear them, Kang Yoon-Soo asked, “The thing inside you, the White Shadow, was it? For how long has it been inside you?”
“The White Shadow entered my body after I was born,” the doppelganger answered.
“Do you know what it is?” Kang Yoon-Soo asked.
“I am unsure; the White Shadow is relatively silent…” the doppelganger replied.
Kang Yoon-Soo continued asking, “The White Shadow inside of you, when and how often does it whisper?”
“It is usually quiet. It sits alone in a corner of my mind by itself, and it does not respond to anything I say,” the doppelganger answered.
“Why do you call that thing the ‘White Shadow’?” Kang Yoon-Soo inquired.
“Because it felt like something that should not exist in this world,” the doppelganger replied. Kang Yoon-Soo could not understand her words.
The doppelganger looked at Kang Yoon-Soo inquisitively as she said, “But it was different when it saw you. It spoke to me of its own volition for the first time, even though I did not talk to it. The White Shadow seems to be very interested in you.”
“How about now?” Kang Yoon-Soo asked.
“It is quiet,” the doppelganger replied.
“How can I believe that I can no longer regress?” Kang Yoon-Soo pushed on with his questions.
“The White Shadow said that it knows you very well. It knew the lives you lived as a mass murderer that murdered thousands, your life as a Grand Alchemist, your life as the King of the Monsters, and your other lives as well,” the doppelganger answered.
A being Kang Yoon-Soo had never met during his repetitive regression knew about him very well, and that gave credibility to its warning that he would not regress anymore.
He had not planned to get involved with the doppelganger in this life, but it was the White Shadow that resided within the doppelganger that had brought about a change in his repetitive life; that was one absolute reason she needed to travel with him.
Kang Yoon-Soo made his decision. “You will be traveling with me from now on. However, you must tell me immediately if the White Shadow tells you anything,” he told the doppelganger.
“What is the reason?” the doppelganger asked.
“What reason?” Kang Yoon-Soo replied.
“The reason that I have to travel with you,” the doppelganger clarified.
Kang Yoon-Soo recalled receiving the same question from the doppelganger in the past, and he remembered answering her a certain way. As such, he said, “If you travel with me, I will give you a name.”
The doppelganger tilted her head in confusion and answered, “A name? I am a doppelganger; I do not need one.”
“You will have your own identity. You will no longer be just a doppelganger of the princess,” Kang Yoon-Soo said.
The doppelganger stared at Kang Yoon-Soo in confusion and said, “I am a nameless monster. Are you saying that you will give me a name?”
“Yes,” Kang Yoon-Soo answered with a nod.
The doppelganger asked, “If you were to give me a name, what would it be?”
Kang Yoon-Soo looked around before pointing at a purple flower and saying, “Iris.”
Iris was the English name of that purple flower, and it symbolized…
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‘Good news,’ Kang Yoon-Soo thought to himself.
But was it really…?
***
“What a sight, giving names to doppelgangers and all. Did you say you wanted to take her along? Do you plan to get killed by the imperial knights?” Henrick asked, frowning.
However, Kang Yoon-Soo shook his head and answered, “We’ll definitely need her help to complete the legendary quest.”
In truth, they would be able to complete the legendary quest even without her help. It was a quest he had finished countless times until he got sick of it, after all. However, he needed an excuse to travel with Iris.
Shaneth suddenly glared at him inquisitively and asked, “Aren’t you just making this up to have an excuse to travel with her?”
“No,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied.
Shaneth was surprisingly agitated today. She asked, “Why is the doppelganger of the princess even in a place like this?”
“The purpose of my existence is the assassination of the princess,” Iris answered.
The words that came out of her mouth were shocking. Henrick and Shaneth were stunned into silence; it was unbelievable to think that someone would attempt to assassinate the princess of the Reorkan Empire.
Iris plucked a flower out of the muddy ground and licked its stamen. Henrick looked dazedly at her strangely seductive-looking action before he came back to his senses and asked, “Assassination of the princess? What do you mean by that?”
Iris explained, “There are people in the royal palace that are plotting to assassinate the princess, and they captured doppelgangers to carry out experiments. Hundreds of doppelgangers were sacrificed in their experiments, but one variant was born. A variant that was similar to the princess in every way possible, and a doppelganger who could not morph into anything other than the princess—I am that variant.”
Henrick’s expression was filled with disbelief. Shaneth could not help but ask in surprise, “Why did they go to that extent just to make a doppelganger of the princess?”
“It was to kill the princess and replace her with another one. So that no one would notice the death of the princess,” Iris replied, swallowing the petals of the flower she was licking.
Henrick was filled with disbelief at the shocking news and could not maintain his composure. Shaneth was the one who asked in his stead, “Then how did that doppelganger, who was so important to their plans, end up here?”
“I learned many things. The movements and mannerisms of the princess were things I had to be aware of in order to not get caught, but I was frustrated. I wanted to know more about myself. That was why I escaped from the place I was locked up in. I used my powers, which even they were not aware of,” Iris explained while she plucked more flowers out of the muddy ground. She threw away the petals this time, licking the flower stamen like a lollipop. She then added, “I escaped, but they gave chase with men wielding swords, and they even destroyed the large road.”
“Large road? You mean the Sinirant Trade Route?” Shaneth asked.
Iris nodded in response. “The people who were after me did not wish for me to mingle with other people,” she explained.
Shaneth and Henrick looked at each other, their eyes wide with shock. The reason the trade route was in shambles was that the soldiers had wanted to catch one doppelganger?
Henrick scratched his head angrily and said, “This is driving me nuts. This… We got involved in a secret of the royal family. This is really dangerous… I’m definitely sure that there are greater powers involved in this, if they were able to secretly capture doppelgangers to run tests on them…” He hesitated for a moment, then asked Iris, “Do you know who did that to you?”
“I don’t. They always covered my eyes when they ran those tests,” Iris answered.
“How did we get caught up in a secret of the royal family that turned this into such a dangerous journey…” Shaneth grumbled with a gloomy expression.
Henrick suddenly complained angrily, shouting, “Damn it! First it was an undead castle, and now it’s the secret of the royal family. I don’t think anything else can surprise me at this point!”
“Bears will ambush us,” Kang Yoon-Soo said as he drew his sword.
“What did you say, punk?” Henrick growled at him.
The location had changed, but Kang Yoon-Soo was sure that a bear was going to charge at them around this time based on his previous experience. He reiterated, “I said, bears will ambush us.”
Shaneth and Henrick followed Kang Yoon-Soo’s gaze toward a certain location, and they saw the shadows of several beasts fall over the bushes.
The black bears of Hatar Mountains had front paws more vicious-looking than those of other wild beasts, and their thick hides made them quite intimidating. To think that the place they were standing in just then was inhabited by those same black bears.
The black bears looked toward them and growled viciously. “Gruuuuuuo!”
The largest black bear violently charged toward them, but Kang Yoon-Soo simultaneously charged toward it as he swung his sword. His head was filled with other thoughts even as he entered combat. If this life was the last one… If it really was the last one…
“Abyssal Sword,” Kang Yoon-Soo muttered. The tip of his blade was enveloped in a bluish glow as the skill activated. He swung his blade at the black bear with great strength.
Sukeok!
“Gruuuuo!”
The terrifying swordsmanship of the undead devoured the black bear’s life force. A fountain of blood spurted out whenever a critical strike hit it, and the overflowing blood gushed toward Kang Yoon-Soo as if it were going to swallow him.
‘I have to change everything. I have to use every single scrap of knowledge I have to change things,’ he thought to himself.
‘I have to throw away my complacency. I have to grow stronger even if it means getting hurt or risking my life.’ His conviction in this life changed, and his indifference toward life started to crack bit by bit.
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Thick blood vessels bulged out of his hand as he swung his sword toward another black bear.
‘Intensely, more intensely than ever before, I have to kill the Demon Lord this time around.’
Kang Yoon-Soo’s lifeless and expressionless eyes slowly started to fill with some sort of will to live.
Their plans were going to change from now on.
Starting from tonight.