A short while later, Emma, Luna, Leila, and I gathered in the street. I would have asked Lola too, but despite her superhuman strength, she didn’t enjoy fighting, and her lack of experience made me nervous. I felt bad about getting the others out of bed so early in the morning, but that couldn’t be helped. I gave them a quick summary of what was going on while the rest of the town carried on as normal around us.
“Are the four of us really strong enough to beat her?” Emma asked.
She’d already encountered the fake Olivia, so she understood what we were up against. We could potentially have gone to the guild for more help, but most of the higher-level adventurers were away earning money on expeditions. And I didn’t want to put anyone else at risk.
“We have to try,” I said. “I’ll do most of the fighting if you back me up. If she’s too strong for us, we’ll go to the guild master.”
“I will fight with you, Sir Noir,” said Luna.
“You’ve already done so much for me,” Leila said. “I want to repay you.”
Luna held out her gun, and Leila put her fist on top of it. They were all so beautiful and brave. Finally, Emma placed the flat of her dagger against Leila’s hand.
“I’ll do what I can. We can do this!”
I added my sword. “We’ll take her down. No matter what.”
After all, I had my friends with me. What more could anybody want?
Now that we were all decided, I checked on Fake Olivia’s location with the Great Sage, and the four of us hurried to find her. She’d already crossed half the town from where I’d encountered her earlier. Eventually, we found her on a bridge over the river that flowed through town. She was sitting on the railing, eating an apple.
“Ooh, you brought friends this time? Think you’ll be enough now?”
“What are you doing here?” I asked her. “What do you want with this town?”
“Olivia’s job is to give intruders hope, then eliminate them. But I thought about it, and I didn’t fancy that.”
She must have been talking about her role on the fifteenth floor. I guess we were supposed to defeat her before we could progress to the next level, but she had a copy of my master’s personality as well as her body and skills. In the end, she was too mercurial for the life of a dungeon obstacle. Even now, she didn’t seem that inclined to fight us.
“How do we free my master?” I asked. “The real Olivia.”
The double shook her head. “There’s no chance. You’ll kill her if you try. And besides, why do you want to save her so badly?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do. She’s spent two hundred years trapped in that tiny room. It’s awful!”
“Oh, but she’s not just trapped,” said the double. “She’s also in terrible pain! But I bet you’d already figured that out, hadn’t you?”
My blood went cold. “I knew it…”
“And you wanna save her?” she asked. “How adorable! Do you really think you can take me down?”
“I’m sure gonna try!”
I fired off a Stone Bullet, but she jumped onto the handrail and launched herself into the air, landing a fair way back, in the middle of the bridge. It wasn’t the worst place for a fight. At least there was no one around at this time of the morning. Time to get things started.
I sacrificed my three basic movement skills and closed the distance between us in an instant. Our swords clashed together. This time, I held my ground.
“Oh, my, you’ve suddenly gotten stronger!” she said.
I was on more level ground with her, but Sacrifice would only last for five minutes. After that, I’d be hopelessly outmatched again. I’d have to make this quick.
The double muttered to herself as she dodged and defended, still clearly unconcerned by my attacks. Maybe she was using Discerning Eye? She seemed confused about why I was so much stronger when my skills hadn’t changed.
“Aww, poor sweet Olivia’s gonna lose!” she cried.
I smacked her sword away and she recoiled from the impact. This was my chance!
“Noir!” Emma shouted. “It’s a trap! Her sword!!”
Her voice knocked some sense into me. The double’s blade crackled with electricity. That had to be its Thunder Blade ability. I tried to retreat, but I’d burned my Improved Back Step skill, so I couldn’t get away fast enough. I felt a sharp pain in my stomach, then numbness spread out over my body. I couldn’t move! I had C-Grade Paralysis Immunity, but whatever she had was stronger. If I couldn’t get out of the way, I was dead meat.
“I win!” Her sword came straight for my neck.
“Aaarrgghh?!”
I braced for the end, but Emma jumped between us—blocking the crackling blade with her daggers. She was protecting me, even though she didn’t have any resistance to thunder or paralysis…
“Aaahhhh!”
As soon as I got free, I lunged for the double’s defenseless flank. She got away, but at least I’d forced her to release Emma from the electric shock. Luna and Leila jumped into the fray, giving me the chance to catch Emma as she fell.
“N-Noir…are you okay?”
“You should be more worried about yourself,” I said gently. “Don’t worry, Luna is coming to help you.”
“Th-thank you. Be careful…please?”
“I will,” I promised. “Just look after yourself, okay? You saved my life.”
And now she was suffering because of it. If only I’d been stronger.
Emma passed out in my arms, but her breathing and pulse were steady. Fortunately, her injuries didn’t seem to be life-threatening.
Out on the bridge, Leila was struggling to keep her distance from the lightning-covered sword. I needed to do something, but it would cost too much LP to give everyone elemental resistance. It would be easier to break the skill on the sword.
I looked into it with Editor. Breaking the Thunder Blade skill would only cost 400 LP. That suggested that the sword was already on its last legs, which made sense if it was just a normal blade she’d stolen from some mercenary. It wasn’t made to withstand all these special skills. It would probably break on its own soon, but I couldn’t take any chances. I got rid of the skill and still had 6,000 LP to play with.
“What?!” the double cried.
“You should know better than to drop your guard,” said Leila.
As the electricity dissipated from the fake Olivia’s blade, Leila went on the offensive. Leila seemed to realize that the double would dodge any attack she threw, so instead she used Demon Fist to smash the sword to pieces. It was time to get in there and back her up.
“Luna, please take Emma somewhere safe and heal her!”
“Got it!”
As Luna got Emma out of the way, the fake Olivia watched them go. Before she got any ideas, I stepped in to block her view.
“She means a lot to you, doesn’t she?” said the double. “I’m so jealous!”
“Eat this!” I said.
Leila coordinated her attack with me. “It’s over.”
But somehow…both of us missed. Despite our confidence, the fake Olivia flitted like a butterfly. We couldn’t lay a hand on her. The double leaped straight up into the sky, easily avoiding our attacks.
“My, my, aren’t you two fiery? How about a little heat to match you!”
That Fire Dragon Strike again?! Sure enough, that awful dragon formed beside her and streaked toward us. At least this time we had more room to maneuver. Given that we could hardly face it head-on, we made good use of the bridge to kite it around while the fake Olivia deftly moved the dragon after us. And she wasn’t making it easy—constantly watching for the right opportunity to shift targets, keeping us both on our toes and protecting herself from any possible incoming attack. Destroying the skill would cost too much LP, but examining it with Editor did yield something useful: The skill had a time limit, and the longer the dragon was summoned, the weaker it became. If we could just keep running, then…