[Normal Difficulty – Fake Capital; Year 2, Day 118… Approximately 80 days earlier.]

[When we’d last met our protagonist, Stanley, he was being chased by a crowd of people that mistook him for his clone.]

[The problem began with the fact that the clone does not have the ability to distinguish doppelgangers from regular humans, which has resulted in it attacking anyone who fights throughout the city. This caused a vicious cycle, as more people learned of the clone they would attack it on sight. Until the situation expanded far beyond any containable point.]

[Thus, it was relatively simple for Stanley to escape from the crowd of pursing people. Dealing with everyone above ground without killing them would be extremely difficult. Luckily enough, a highly localized earthquake had caused the chasing crowd all to trip and fall, which prevented further pursuit and opened a path into the tunnels beneath the city for Stanley to escape.]

Hold up… Narrator, what is with that timestamp and recap? Why did you say approximately eighty days earlier? What’s exactly is happening in eighty days?

[The entrance collapsed behind him shortly after entering and Stanley managed to get lost in the tunnel’s beneath the city. This is the situation Stanley had been dealing with the last couple days, meandering through tunnels with little clue as to his actual location, despite having a map available to him at any time.]

[Stanley’s intelligence quotient was clearly no higher than the rats that skulked after him in the darkness.]

… and we are back to insults. Why do you always act like a spoiled brat? Can’t you just provide a straight answer? For that matter, when do you plan on guiding me out of here?

Stanley sighed to himself and pulled back up the map… There was one thing the narrator wasn’t wrong about, he was utterly lost.

The system’s map provided little assistance on his quest to navigate the tunnels beneath the city. Despite showing the tunnels underneath the city on the holographic map, it didn’t remove the surface layer. That meant that, in order to see the tunnels inside the city, Stanley had to physical look through map for the tunnels to show up, which vastly increased the difficult of finding his way to the surface.

Stanley couldn’t help but wonder why the doppelganger’s that created this city had built these tunnels… and why they hadn’t created more exits.

Little did Stanley know that these tunnels had been specifically created be as confusing as possible.

When designing them, doppelgangers took advantage of a bug in the mapping system that considered basements to be part of the building above them. That along with several other loopholes, allowed them to ultimately confuse the map system and consider the tunnels to be part of the city above them.

Under normal circumstances, the map would’ve adjusted to the underground tunnels and provided a clear navigable path to the exits. However, with the unique design of these tunnels, someone finding their way around inside was near impossible.

Of course, almost impossible and completely impossible are two entirely different concepts. Especially to Stanley, any chance of escape is compounded infinitely, until an event with only a one billionth of a percent chance of happening turns into a near certain event.

[While randomly exploring the tunnels, Stanley soon ran into the female thief named Tanya who had stolen from him earlier.]

Hearing the narrator’s words, Stanley ramped up his search of the surrounding area.

While he had initially been comfortably exploring the tunnels over the last couple days, Stanley was beginning to run out supplies. Stanley hadn’t been carrying much food or water in the first place, it was a miracle that they had lasted this long.

Under the strange mechanisms of his ability, Stanley soon found Tanya wandering about the tunnels.

“Tanya?” Stanley said with relief noticeable in his voice. Meeting a familiar face after several days of traveling through seemingly endless tunnels in the dark was a massive weight off his shoulders.

The young thief girl backed away in fear before realizing she was already familiar with the man in-front of her, “… Stanley? You’re still alive?”

“Yep, I got trapped under here after an earthquake. Although I’m completely lost.” Stanley nodded and immediately asked the most pertinent question, “You don’t happen to know a way back into the city?”

Tanya timidly bobbed her head, but soon realized what he meant afterward and rapidly shook her head afterward, “It’s not safe in the city.”

“How bad is it?” Stanley inquired, fearing a full-scale war had already begun.

“Terrifyingly bad.” She whispered, keeping a certain distance from Stanley, “Previously, it was organized anarchy and everyone at least worked together for a common goal. When the doppelgangers escaped into fortified locations, nobody could agree on a course of action and it descended into a bloodbath.”

Stanley sighed in partially relieved over hearing that a full-scale war hadn’t start, while another part of him felt depressed from hearing about the infighting.

The worst case scenario would’ve been if a full-scale war had begun. An internal conflicted seemed trivial in comparison.

However, Stanley immediately felt regretful that his first reaction to the news of a bloodbath was relief. He had no idea how many people had already been killed.

It’s true that infighting, when compared to an ethnical genocide, is nothing… but innocent people have probably lost their lives through this infighting.

While Stanley was busy berating himself, Tanya hesitantly glanced between him and the opposite tunnel before finally speaking, “I… I know of a path through these tunnels and out of the city. It’s the safest way out of the city with this craziness happening above.”

[Stanley had arrived at a crossroad. He could insist on his foolish quest to save everyone or escape with Tanya. Utilizing his rather slow, but useful, organ that people tend to call a brain, he accepted Tanya’s offer to leave the city.]

Stanley thought it through but eventually apologized and denied her offer, “Sorry... I appreciate the offer, but I need to at least try to prevent further deaths.”

While the safest path would’ve been to leave the city, who knows how many people would die if he choose to do that?

“That…” Tanya hesitated, she wanted to stop him but also didn’t want to get too involved.

[This wasn’t the right choice and Stanley knew it perfectly well. Perhaps he had simply decided to play a joke on her and truly planned on accepting her offer.]

“Can you show me the route to the surface?” Stanley inquired, completely ignoring the narrator, and prayed Tanya would be willing to accommodate him.

Tanya staring back into the tunnel she had arrived from; before she imperceptivity nodded and finally responded, “It’s not far.”

“Thank you.” Stanley acknowledged, relieved to finally be able to escape these tunnels.

Tanya led Stanley to a particular portion of the tunnel and pressed on the wall causing a portion of the wall to pop out and revealed a passageway.

“This passageway leads into the basement of a building near the palace. It’s not a pretty sight.” Tanya explained, holding the secret door.

“Thank you again, Tanya.” Stanley stepped through the secret door and waved her goodbye, “Good luck escaping through the tunnels.”

Tanya stood in the doorway as Stanley walked away. Her face portrayed hesitation and indecisiveness. “Be careful, Stanley.” Tanya shouted toward him before she took a deep breath and walked back into the tunnels.

Stanley turned around and waved goodbye as she disappearing into the tunnels. His own passageway led to a wooden wall. A switch along the wall acted as a release mechanism, allow the wooden wall to swing open.

It didn’t take Stanley long to find and press on that mechanism.

Click… The secret door opened revealing an empty wine cellar. Although this basement seemed to be a wine cellar with various wooden shelves to store wine, the cellar lacked any semblance of wine. Whether there had been any wine stored here in the past was anybody’s guess.

[Despite knowing this was clearly a bad idea, Stanley insisted on confronting the people on the surface. Whether this insistence was sheer stupidity or unparalleled bravery only time would tell.]

Closing the entrance to the secret passage behind him, Stanley moved up the stairs toward the ground floor of the building.

Hearing people talking outside, Stanley crouched and tried to move stealthily toward a nearby window. Despite the fact that Stanley’s movements were less stealthy than an elephant in a classical music concert, sheer luck allowed him to avoid notice.

“Man, everything went to hell fairly quickly around here.” Goon number one complained.

“Yeah… people around here are monsters.” Goon number two answered.

“Who cares?” Goon number one grumbled, “What I want to know is how we went from fighting to the death for leadership to competing in a god damn poker tournament. It literally makes no sense.”

“You’re only complaining because you lost first.” Goon two dismissed his grievances.

Goon one protested, “He cheated! He clearly cheated. I’ll eat my shoe if he didn’t cheat to get three royal straight flushes in one game.”

“That was the entire point. You were supposed to cheat. If you weren’t caught in the act, the cheating was valid.” Goon two blandly stated and the conversation dissolved into an opinionated argument.

While the conversation continued onward, our protagonist stopped listening. Stanley instead began wondering what exactly had happened the few days he’d been trapped in the tunnels.

This… it's troublesome that these people have grouped up. No, it's fine. An organized group with a specific leader making decisions could make it easier to explain the situation.

Having decided on a course of action, Stanley stood up and prepared for combat.

Stanley activated gambler’s defense and plainly exited through the building’s front door.

Stanley learning the hard way that gambler’s defense used his stamina or something similar. When he’d kept gambler’s defense active for longer than five-hours, Stanley ended up in a constant state of exhaustion…

After stepping out, Stanley immediately felt like vomiting. Corpses covered the ground outside and glistening pools of blood could be seen reflecting the sunlight.

Previously, Stanley hadn’t observed the situation outside from the window in fear that the goons would notice him. This blood and corpses that existed showed the story of a slaughter far worse than his initial expectation.

Swallowing down his disgust, a burning anger slowly filled his thoughts. Over one hundred corpses filled this tiny section of the city alone. Hearing about people dying and seeing their corpses for yourself are completely different concepts.

The goons standing patrolling the palace noticed Stanley exit the building and immediately they began stepped backward in fear.

“My god, he’s still alive?” Goon one shouted out in astonishment after seeing Stanley. “That last explosion didn’t kill him?”

Goon two tugged on the other goon’s shirt, “Leave him, we need to inform the leader.”

Stanley was too preoccupied staring at the corpses at his feet to notice their exchange. After the two goons spoke, they sprinted off toward the palace.

Holding a moment of silence for the dead, Stanley finally mumbled to himself. “What the hell has happened over these past few days?”

[Stanley once again stood at a crossroad. Stanley could choose to foolishly follow after the two goons or he could literally do anything else.]

Staring at the cadaver near his feet, Stanley gazed toward the palace’s open gate and began walking toward it.

I need to find out who is behind this bloodbath.

[Stanley thought long and hard about his decision. Sadly, his brain’s inflexibility and stupidity preventing him from making a single intelligent decision. Thus, after follow the goons for a short while, Stanley ran into the current leader followed by a group of people.]

When Stanley had barely entered the palace, the group of people had already arrived.

Stanley ignored the ten people following behind the leader and instead took a moment to stare at the well-dressed man in-front of him. The narrator called the him their leader.

He wore a stylized formal suit and tie along with a top-hat. He took a relatively large amount of time to care for his appearance.

“Seriously, you really are still alive? Are you some kind of a cartoon villain?” The formally dressed man exclaimed before sighed to himself. Seemingly exhausted from simply looking at Stanley.

Stanley realized that it was almost certain that his clone had been killed and it didn’t take long to confirm that fact by activating the talent. The exact circumstances behind his clone’s dead were unclear, but it seemed extremely likely that these people were involved based on their reaction.

“Ahem…” Stanley cleared his throat and attempted to probe the situation, “Do you know how the people outside this palace died?”

Whispered ensued, none loud enough for Stanley to understand.

The man in the top-hat took out and flipped a coin before catching it. Staring down at the coin in his hand, the formally dressed leader spoke, “Strange… He is definitely dead. You wouldn’t happen to be dead would you?”

Stanley clarified after spending several moments thinking over the best outcome, “I am fairly certain that I’m alive.”

The formally dressed man flipped the coin again and before asking,“… and you wouldn’t happen to have an identical twin?”

“None of your business. Answer my question.” Stanley retaliated, refusing to answer further questions with getting an answer of his own.

“They killed each other. Plain and simple. Nothing complicated about it.” He enunciated clearly while his mind pondered other topics.

Stanley simply couldn’t believe that answer. How could around one hundred people kill each other at random? People don’t randomly kill each other for no reason.

Despite Stanley’s disbelief, he moved onto the main topic, “Are you planning on attacking the fortified locations within the city?”

The group behind him became twitchy and grabbed at their weapons.

“You plan on stopping us?” The leader asked, holding up his hand to stop his people from attacking.

“There’s information you aren’t aware of.” Stanley probed without revealing anything important, “I’d like to chat with you privately.”

The leader disagreed, “Anything you want to say can be said in-front of everyone.”

[Thus, Stanley was left with a choice. Stanley could reveal everything he knew and hope the situation changed for the better or keep silent to try and prevent the situation from becoming worse.]