"I can go on and on about the cons, but that's not the important thing here."
Martha spoke, her long legs rocking up and down. Her tone tinged with an air of indifference as she spoke.
"The important thing to note here is that I don't want someone constantly at their upper limits."
Silence blew in the wind, putting a certain weight to her words as she continued to empathize with her point. Raising her frosty hand to point at herself.
"A mortal body is like a car, when you first enter it the car may say that it can go up to 260 miles per hour, but the actual limit is 210 and it can actually be lower if certain criteria are met. Do you know why?"
She posed a question to her most trusted ally that hid his curiosity.
"I...Don't know.."
The figure shook their head, prompting Martha to explain further.
"It doesn't matter what kind of will, feelings or determination you have, your body has and will have an upper limit that should never be passed."
Martha stood up, the sight astonished those around, raising a sort of maternal in them, her body basked in the cold air and sun as she started circling around the chopped tree's stump.
"Tiju Ern has long since surpassed that limit due to his foolishness, in fact he's not even alive right now, the only reason his death is still not marked and official is because his doppelganger simply returned out of its own will to live instead of being shut down."
Nobody spoke after hearing her words, the only thing they thought about was just how knowledgeable their queen was.
With the exception of the figure still holding a stoic expression.
Martha's trusted ally didn't think that way and instead probed for more.
Knowledge was intellect in this world.
"How did Tiju die then? And how did his doppelganger even replace him here in Gardenia?"
It didn't make sense, when anyone in Gardenia died, they'd just die and their doppelganger would soon die along with them. But the doppelganger wouldn't replace someone in Gardenia, they didn't have that authority.
So why?
Martha twisted her head, her eyes under the blindfold seemed to peer right into Leon's soul. The others looking at Martha like a goddess glared and clicked their tongues when Leon spoke.
"From what I know. Tiju died of a heart attack after using his ability to surpass the upper limit, after that...."
He chewed on his words, letting them hang in the raging wind before finally, Martha decided to satisfy Leon's curiosities.
"The doppelganger simply 'ate' Tiju's soul and took over his body."
"...!"
Leon's scaly eyes widened in shock.
"...?!"
Around Martha, she could hear the mumbles and whispers explode when she dropped one hell of a nuke.
Even the ones hypnotized and brainwashed were startled, clearly they weren't really paying attention to the question Leon posed to their queen.
But now they did.
No one really trusted the doppelgangers, most just viewed them as necessary accessories they had to adjust to. Of course they were plenty useful to the students.
They always kept the status quo, not making the ones around them suspect a thing and most importantly, just filling in for them was enough to stamp in their importance.
But hearing a doppelganger take over someone's life entirely? That was a completely different case.
Hearing their confusion loud and clear. Martha soon clapped her hands for attention, and like penguins, they fell stiff into place. With the sole exception being Leon.
He was more relaxed than the others.
"Now now, what I mean by that is entirely different from what you guys are thinking in your little heads. So let's start with the basics little extras..." She clasped her hands together, tipping her head to her shoulder. "Everyone here knows where insight really comes from and how it's manifested right?"
Everyone nodded at first, wanting to express that they weren't that clueless, only realizing their rudeness at just nodding at the blind Martha did they all voice their rehearsed yes.
They knew plenty enough to familiarize themselves with the concept of the supernatural that was insight.
Insight was manifested through the trial of baptism, and through that trial a doppelganger is also born.
That doppelganger is a medium for one's insight, or the source of one's output of insight, without a doppelganger, there is no medium to safely use that power.
Insight was too dangerous to use plainly and daily.
But there is a price that still needs to get paid, the price being the soul.
Insight gnawed away at the soul and made one considerably tired and weak. It isn't that serious if one is careful with their usage.
"If you're not careful. Your overuse of insight could lead to a phony taking and devouring your place."
Her words lacerated through the necks of the ones already near their limits. Some took a step back, but some didn't seem to care and only cared of hearing Martha's voice soothing them.
Martha took a deep breath in. Letting it out after stretching her arms to the sides.
"Without a role model for the phony to lean on though....It just becomes a sad excuse and eventually, once it dies....Kuk."
Martha chuckled to herself. Looking around and seeing at just how many people will truly even leave a mark of their lives anywhere in this hell.
"The history of that person and doppelganger will be wiped from existen—!"
Martha stopped, mouth hanging open as she felt her heart stop.
"....?"
She couldn't quite place a finger on what she was feeling.
It was foreign, as if something were suddenly being plucked out of her mind.
Removing it with such surgical precision that not a single inconsistency could be detected.
"Huh?" Then she frowned.
Her brows knitted into her blindfold.
Her followers had stopped, their breaths bated at the slight panicked tone in their mistress's tone.
"My lady?" Leon inquired for her confusion, not realizing himself what had just happened.
"This...."
Martha turned to Leon. Her lips speaking her confusion.
"Leon."
Leon stood for attention.
"Yes?"
"Just now..."
Martha scratched her cheek.
"Who—
—Was I talking about?"
Her voice cracked with a hint of surprise cracking her porcelain face dyed with pink.
***
"Oh, so this is how you know the points transferred?"
In front of Cale, yellow particles, small as the ants he'd step on when bored, formed a number.
—That... Wow, even I must say that I'm stunned!
Even the chatter box was astonished by the sheer amount of points this one broken doppelganger had.
"Is it a lot?"
Cale slanted his head to his shoulder, clearly surprised by the jackpot-like tone infesting the chatter box.
—A lot is an understatement! This one broken instrument killed 500 students!
"...?"
'What?'
This time, Cale was utterly astonished by the words that left this senile old man.
500? And it was broken?
"Are you sure?"
There was no way that he killed 500 of Gardenia's students, the math just didn't make any sense.
—Yes? Why do you doubt my arithmetic skills?
"No... It's just, how could he kill that many students of Gardenia?"
There was no way he was that strong.
But.
If it were true that this did happen.
'My survival is basically guaranteed!'
With not that many students left. Cale thought that if he played his hand right, he'd be able to kill all the monsters and become the Top Student.
Happy. He was about to hum a tune of victory.
Yet.
—Huh? I never said about Gardenia did I?
"...."
Cale blinked, his victory dance shattering in its rhythm.
A certain bad feeling surged at the back of his throat.
"What...?"
His voice came low, discolored lips kept being enchanted with fear as the words kept humming in his mind.
—You heard me, the students that died to this doppelganger weren't Gardenia's students.
Thud!
Cale fell to his knees at the sudden realization.
'There's more?!!'
—You actually met them in that Storiem.
Cale's head snaps violently to the chatter box.
'Those people?'
The ones that were arguing and all that?
His face paled into a lighter shade of blue. Twitching and on the very edge of breaking.
'Ah, I hate this. Like really hate this.'
Cale sighed a long white cloud, eventually though.
He got up, legs creaking with pain as his gun fixed perfectly in his palm.
"Let's go then... I don't want to stick close to a place brewing with—"
Friend....?
The sound from his mouth was sucked away, plucked like a flower.
Before Cale knew it, mist covered his ankles.
In the mist.
Fr-Friend? Fr-Friend?Fr-Friend?Fr-Friend?Fr-Friend?Fr-Friend?Fr-Friend?Fr-Friend?
The same distorted sound repeated inside his eardrums.
And the world shifted.
A shift that'd take Cale.
An entire week to solve in real-time.