CH808

“Alright, guess it’s finally my turn,” Ben said as Jake was carried back to his cell. “Want me to bust you out first so Thera and Vasta can try to treat you?”

“Ugh, no, I want them to keep focusing on Amy,” Jake groaned as he laid on the ground, feeling every one of his injuries. “Good luck though, hope you have an easier time than us.”

“We’ll see.”

He’d already broken down the barrier containing him when he went to help Amy and it hadn’t reappeared so Ben simply walked over once he saw his starting point being marked, taking a step into the light as he tried to anticipate what sort of attack he was going to face.

With materialization being the only real option, or at least however the trial might replicate it if it couldn’t make a duplicate that was truly capable of the spell. He was working on the assumption that every copy was just a complex mana construct that had been made to replicate them in mind, body, and skill, which would mean it wouldn’t actually have anything it could enchant on and with nothing else around to use material manipulation on, it was going to have to create whatever else it would fight with; unless of course, the trial’s ability to replicate him was going to be to a higher level than he expected.

He supposed it might be hypothetically possible that a copy made based off of his mind and skills would be able to actualize, adding another dimension to what attacks might be possible, but in the end, there was no way to know until the fight began and Ben had no intention of letting it get to that point in the first place. He knew based on the previous matches how many milliseconds it took after standing in place for his duplicate to appear and he both created and fired a bullet to get the timing so it would immediately go through the other’s head before they’d have a chance to react, only missing because of the position his copy appeared in. Not standing like the rest, it was sitting down, already looking defeated.

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” It muttered in a way Ben genuinely didn’t know how to react to. All of the other duplicates had said something to get in the minds of their real selves but his seemed more like it was confronting an inevitable loss than anything else.

It could have been a trap, something to distract him for when the real attack came but as it slowly came to its feet, Ben couldn’t help but feel his curiosity get the better of him.

“Uh, you okay?”

“As I can be, getting sent out to a losing fight,” It sighed. “But whatever. I don’t have a choice in this but to try and kill you and you don’t have a choice but to stop me so shall we get this over with already?”

“Uh, yeah, sure… No. Sorry, what’s going on?”

The small back and forth had already completely thrown off his expectations of the fight in a way he was struggling to make sense of compared to what the others had dealt with but it was enough to make him see the other as more than just a thing to be killed, same as he’d found in the very first trial he’d challenged. Perhaps that was a part of its plan and he did his best to be prepared for any surprises that might come from it but it hadn’t acted on them yet if that was what it was doing, instead sighing once more.

“Look, I’m not exactly in a hurry but I am being compelled so we can talk while we fight, alright?” It said, finally acting as an arrow was materialized and shot in one go, being instantly neutralized as Ben himself materialized a plate to deflect it, causing its path to change as it harmlessly flew past him while a barrage of attacks finally began, with Ben choosing to go on the defensive for all of them as they came.

He couldn’t help it though, he was curious, extremely so, to the point that he was fine with delaying things a bit for whatever answers he could get.

“So, like, shouldn’t you be picking out all of my psychological weaknesses by now?” He asked, getting a hollow laugh in exchange.

“What would be the point, you’d just compartmentalize it away,” The false Ben told him, creating a number of shots at all angles to fire in on and getting them all blocked. “What am I supposed to say? You’ll never see your family again? You’ll never save the world? The fact that you think you even have a shot is a genuinely shocking level of narcissism or that the idea you might be able to kill you-know-who is so dumb that it feels like it should have come from someone with single digits in their intelligence? Did any of that strike a nerve?”

“Eh, not really,” He shrugged, immediately seeing the other’s point. All were things he’d gone over enough himself and the other was right, he could just mentally push it to the side. So what if his goals were ridiculous, narcissistic and more likely than not a little impossible, he still had to try them. That was just a fact, not some deep-rooted insecurity to be exploited. “But then what are you? The others weren’t so talkative.”

“What, are you the last fighter for this floor?”

“Yeah.”

“Out of curiosity, what floor are we even on?”

“What, you don’t know?”

“Why would I? Doesn’t seem like this lines up with what the front door had implied for the first section but beyond that, there’s no way to tell. Since you, and therefore I, don’t have access to any affinitied magics I can’t even use that as a clue to tell me if this is the first or second half of this either.”

“So that means that you as a replica of me were made the second I entered the first floor then instead of right before this one? Interesting,” Ben muttered. “Which means… Ah, you lucky jerk.”

“I don’t think it’s fair for the real one to tell the person who knows they’re nothing more than a fake that they’re lucky. You do know that even if I beat you and win, there’s nothing for me beyond this, right?”

“…Okay, fair, it’s just you missed some bullshit I had to deal with on the first floor.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, the gods absolutely sucked at level design. The second I walked in there was already an attack so close to my chest that it wasn’t even in my field of view and long story short I got my heart destroyed.”

It took a beat for the other to process it but once he did the false Ben couldn’t help but laugh as he continued on his attacks. “Wow, Nare really fucked up that one, huh?”

“Yeah, not thrilled. If I get out of this then he’s getting an earful later. Which is going to depend on if I beat you or not though because to answer your original question, this is the fifth floor.”

“No kidding? I guess there’s something a little flattering about being the final challenge, even if that’s still going to be the end of me.”

“Okay, but on that note, why are you so talkative compared to the other copies? Did my minds and sacrilege affect whatever process made you in some way?”

“Eh, maybe, I never met the others they faced so I can’t say but if I had to guess, they all probably thought they had a chance of winning and were left more focused on their goal. I have no such illusions. Even if I have to try and kill you, the knowledge that it’s impossible is surprisingly freeing.”

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“What? Why’s it impossible?”

“Sorry, that would be telling. I can’t exactly be giving away anything that would give you an advantage, can I? I’m sure you’ll notice on your own eventually when you stop stalling and try to fight me for real.”

“Hmm, well, just a little then. I really would like to chat longer so I can’t have you dying on me quite yet,” Ben said as he began launching his own attacks, watching as his replica continued to fire his own while now managing his defense on top of it while Ben’s number of shots grew until it reached a point where he was seeing the other do something he himself didn’t. He could see the copy begin to struggle.

“Interesting,” He muttered. “You’re a lot worse than you should be.”

“Gee, thanks for that.”