How to get on the protagonist’s flower path

The tiger-eared guy let me go. And true to his word, he returned my weapon.

I considered shooting him right away, but given that I had no idea how strong he was, I decided to hold off on any hasty combat.

Besides, he clearly looked like a close-combat type, so engaging in a fight at this close range would be entirely disadvantageous for me.

Instead, I focused on the door in front of me and clicked my tongue lightly.

“What the hell is this?”

The door was covered in characters that were similar to those I had seen in the Beast’s Temple, but I couldn’t read them.

The tiger-eared guy replied nonchalantly to my grumbling, “It says, ‘Only those who have overcome the trial to the left may witness the miracle to the right.’”

“You can read it?”

“Just about. And…”

His gaze shifted to a few words below the larger characters.

“A dungeon based on ‘guilt’…”

“What?”

“Never mind, it’s nothing.”

I glared at the tiger-eared guy with cold eyes and then roughly pushed the door open.

As the doors swung wide, the thick mist lurking on either side enveloped us as if it had been waiting for us.

“Kill! It’s a doppelgänger!”

“No! I’m—!”

And the barbed wire, the dying people,

an unforgettable scene surrounded me.

“Nahyun!”

Damn!

I swallowed the rising bile.

I felt a hand supporting my staggering form. Damn that tiger-eared guy.

He better not act like he’s worried. It’s annoying.

I clenched my teeth. I couldn’t show a pathetic side in front of him.

“Hey, tiger. You said ‘guilt’ earlier, right?”

“That’s right.”

“I think I have a rough idea of what it means.”

When I was young, I repeatedly dreamed of my powerless self during the doppelgänger incident, unable to do anything. That dream still haunted me from time to time.

I looked at the gun in my hand. That very tool had been used by soldiers to indiscriminately kill people without distinguishing between doppelgängers and humans.

But I wasn’t going to use this tool to kill people.

“Save as many people as you can.”

That was exactly what I desired in this moment.

“That’s probably the clear condition.”

“Nahyun!”

I saw the repeating moment. My mother collapses once again.

I spotted my younger self around the corner. It was me crying.

I deliberately walked up to my younger self and, to show off, loaded a magic stone into the gun.

“I’m going. Start by knocking out the soldiers up there.”

You see, the gun you handle can become a weapon to save people.

The faint feelings that had barely sprouted in the fortress finally bore fruit here.

I opened the meta-point shop right away.

[Doppelgänger Lens – 300 Points] – Can detect doppelgängers. Even if it’s just in a fantasy, even if it’s merely reflecting on the past story,

“Purchase!”

I definitely wanted to do this back then.

Lightning sparked from the tiger guy’s hand. He used the lightning to knock out the soldiers.

With the lens on my eyes, I scanned the people. There were seven doppelgängers.

Just seven.

Bang—!

As one doppelgänger was shot, it instantly reverted to its true, grotesque form.

At the sight, people screamed and moved away from the corpse.

Was this trial a perfect reproduction of that time’s situation?

Bang—!

I fired at a person with a mild appearance who was pretending to flee like the others. It was another doppelgänger. Chaos erupted again among the crowd.

“There really is a doppelgänger!”

“Run away!”

So, were there only seven doppelgängers back then?

…Were so many people killed because of those seven?

Bang—!

“Who are you?!”

Some people still wanted to live and were climbing the barbed wire.

However, as if realizing that someone was accurately taking out the doppelgängers, the soldiers who hadn’t been subdued began to hesitate in firing their guns.

The people remained in shock. Yet, some were gradually regaining their senses.

“Wait, it looks like a hunter is capturing the doppelgängers!”

Bang—!

Someone began to take charge of the crowd.

I shot at a doppelgänger that was trying to attack the leader from behind.

At that, the person seemed to gain confidence and started persuading the others. The madness of the crowd began to subside.

So no more people would die.

Bang—!

People were now tangled together, but they maintained a semblance of order as they looked at us with eyes filled with expectation and hope.

Among them, I felt my mother’s gaze on me.

Perhaps because of that hope, I could see the deceased gradually moving and coming back to life.

Bang—!

The soldiers I had knocked out were waking up. They relaxed their shoulders as if relieved.

People were alive, breathing, and smiling.

This proved that the illusion was a lie.

Bang—!

Yet, despite that, despite everything…

“Hello, Mom.”

The last doppelgänger fell.

The illusion shattered.

Where the illusion had disappeared, there was a vast room made of stone.

The tiger guy came to stand next to me. He cautiously reached out his hand and asked in a worried tone, “Are you okay?”

I rubbed my now damp eyes vigorously.

“…What’s not okay? Let’s go.”

I had shown a pathetic side of myself. Now that it had come to this, he would have to see my pathetic side too!

I grit my teeth and started walking with determination. The tiger guy hesitated for a moment, then began to follow me.

After a while, we arrived at a door that looked the same as the one before. The same characters were engraved on it.

“Is this going to be your memory this time?”

When I said that, the tiger guy replied, “There’s a high possibility of that.”

“Do you have any idea what it might be?”

When I asked, he stared at me for a long time in silence before finally speaking heavily.

“I’m glad you came to this dungeon with me.”

“What?”

“Because it will strengthen the persuasiveness of my argument. At least to you.”

What kind of nonsensical statement was that?

Seeing my incredulous expression, he turned his head back and placed his hand on the door.

“Go ahead.”

“…Alright.”

I shook off the uncomfortable feeling and waited for the door to open.

After a moment, the door opened.

“Graaah—!”

I heard the cry of a monster.

Before me was a creature with a form made of various intertwined animals, with several human faces embedded within it.

Every time the monster killed a person, another face became embedded in its grotesque body.

It was a horrific and bizarre sight.

Monsters that should not exist in everyday life were flying, crawling, and running throughout the city, hunting people.

“Help me!”

“No!”

I heard the cries of people.

I could see them desperately trying to escape. Those who couldn’t run crawled on the ground, trying to distance themselves from the monster.

What kind of experience has this guy been through?

In a daze, as I witnessed this hellscape, Tornito whispered to me.

“Look at the tower.”

At his words, I slowly turned my head to see a shattered tower.

The smooth, black tower that pierced the sky and seemed endless was cut as if someone had slashed it haphazardly in the middle.

Near the tower were structures that appeared to be remnants of the tower, standing at a similar height.

“What is this…?”

I recalled what he had said.

He mentioned that this was a dungeon that turned memories filled with guilt into trials.

So, did this tiger guy witness the scene of the tower collapsing?

“Graaah—!”

The monster charged at me. I fired my gun at it.

“What are you? Aren’t you brainwashed? Did they implant a false memory or something?”

“This dungeon only takes trials from events that actually happened. If you’re really suspicious, it might be good to ask the ‘Player.’”

The tiger guy said this while zapping another monster with electricity. A person who had been rescued barely managed to escape.

“That’s absurd.”

At that moment, a memory flickered in my mind. It was something Gemini had said when I was brainwashed by the Wild Hunters.

“You caught the eye of the one who has returned.”

Since I entered this world, that tower had stood firmly without a single collapse.

Thus, this memory must be of something that would happen in the future.

If someone remembers something that will happen in the future…

“…‘the one who has returned?’”

A regressioner?

At my words, the tiger guy replied indifferently, “I don’t know where you heard that, but yes.”

This is insane. Now all sorts of things are popping up.