“Fine.” Stanley sighed to himself while he contemplated his next words.

They needed to be informed about the situation. There was no reason to fight and kill doppelgangers. They were intelligent beings similar to other people.

“Well? Get on with it.” The formally dressed man leading the group prodded attempting to get him to speak faster.

“First, let’s introduce ourselves. I’m Stanley.” Stanley introduced himself to test the group’s attitude toward him.

“Roman.” The leader expressionlessly stated, unimpressed with Stanley wasting his time. Judging from the ridiculing facial expressions of the people behind him, the name he’d given was undoubtedly fake.

Lightly shaking his head, Stanley inquired, “What exactly do you know about doppelgangers?”

‘Roman’ frowned while playing with the coin in his hand. “Get to the point.”

Stanley’s anger built up and he bit the inside of his cheek to avoid accidentally provoking them. “Those ‘monsters’ you’re insistent on killing are no different than ordinary people.”

The expressions of several people behind Roman changed slightly. One whispered to another, overall they seemed less confident in their actions than they’d previous been.

Stanley wasn’t the only person to notice this subtle difference. Their leader also realized this subtle change and realized if he didn’t do something, he might lose the hearts of several of his people.

“So what? That’s enough for you to betray your own race? Merely because you believe they aren’t monsters?” Roman barked out his voice projecting anger, pointing a cane that appeared seemingly out of nowhere at Stanley. “Do you want everyone to be trapped here forever?”

His outrage calmed the group behind him and reinforced their belief.

Surprised at his outrage, Stanley realized had changed from a peaceful talk to an ideological debate. Even if Roman agreed with Stanley’s points, he needed to argue against Stanley’s position or the trust and support of the people behind him would decline.

Acting calm in response would only weaken his argument. Thus, Stanley decided to release the anger he’d been holding back. “You’d kill innocent people when there are other options?”

“What other options do we have? Let them kill us? Be trapped here for eternity? Don’t be naïve.” Roman rebutted, clearly unimpressed with Stanley’s argument. “Even if you’re telling the truth, it’s too late. Do you think they’ll let us go peacefully after people have slaughtered so many of them?”

“That…” Stanley’s anger froze over. Instead he felt unprecedentedly calm and his mind quickly grasped the root of the problem.

Revenge is a powerful motivator and people have already killed too many doppelgangers. If doppelganger society is even slightly similar to humans, which he’d seen several indications that indicate it is, most of them will have lost friends or family to this incident.

Even if he managed to convince this side to stop fighting, doppelgangers would certainly retaliate against them in a cycle of hatred. It was already too late to live together in peace.

Stanley realized he needed to say something otherwise he would be silently admitting his loss.

Stanley protested, saying the first argument that popped into his head, “That doesn’t mean you have to kill innocents. You can leave through the teleportation beacon and there would no reason to kill them.”

Roman sneered, “Moron, why do you think we are still here? Those ‘monsters’ never planned on letting us leave. They have long since set up a fortified position around the teleportation beacon.”

"So have people negotiate with them. Convince them to let people leave." Stanley argued, refusing to listen to his ridiculousness argument.

Roman laughed at Stanley's statement, "Sure, let's all gathered our leaders together in place where they can be easily slaughter them. That will certainly stop the war in its tracks."

The emotions of the people in his group stabilized and they began leaking killing intent. Stanley sighed knowing that he’d lost this debate and that saying anything further would be pointless.

[Stanley retreated having successfully aroused the resentment of the people around him. Unfortunately, Stanley had failed to convince anyone that peace was the best option.]

“Clearly you’ve all made up your mind.” Stanley abruptly stated and he began to back up with a scowl on his face. “There’s no point in continuing this conversation.”

Before Stanley could retreat far, Roman shot a ring of fire toward him called after him, “Where do you think you’re going? We still have several questions for you.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Surrounded by the ring of fire, Stanley bit the tip of his tongue and summoned his clone.

Delay Roman and his group from attacking anyone for the next 24 hours; reciprocate any attacks with equal force.

Summoning a clone with this much freedom was a massive risk. Especially giving it the opportunity to respond to lethal force in kind. However, his last clone likely died because they abused its incapability to retaliate with lethal force.

“So that’s what happened… You can summon copies of yourself.” Roman said with a hint of realization.

Stanley immediately poured cold water on his moment of insight, “Except this one is authorized to utilize lethal force. It’ll will delay you from following me or attacking anyone else until it dissipates naturally in twenty-four hours. I recommend against testing it, I don’t want to be responsible for any deaths if I don’t have to be.”

Twenty-four hours should be enough time to head over toward the teleportation beacon and figure out the situation. If I can reach an agreement that will let people leave through the teleportation beacon, I should have the capital to prevent further fighting.

The time-limit was an arbitrary limitation to prevent them from realizing he could keep his clone active indefinitely.

If they thought his clone was permanent, they were far more likely to commit an all-out offensive against it instead of simply waiting the time-limit for it to dissipate. Considering his goal was delay for time to figure out the situation instead of killing them, this was the best option.

“Hahaha!” Roman bust out laughing. Clearly, Roman was far more enthusiastic than earlier. “You refuse to give up. You’re delaying in an attempt to find another method for peace.”

Stanley kept quiet. From this brief debate, he already realized how naïve his thoughts were.

Peace? After people had killed so many doppelgangers, how could they possibly be willing to accept peace? How could they possibly agree to let killers leave peaceful?

He might be able to negotiate to let people who weren’t involving in killing doppelgangers leave, but even so… they wouldn’t be willing to let those involved go.

Thus, Stanley knew his own thoughts were naïve but he refused to give up. He didn’t want either side to die. For that naïve hope, he would try to prevent any fighting and hope for a miracle to happen.

Even if he failed, he would’ve failed at doing the right thing. That's infinitely better to having succeeded at committing genocide.

“Fine, we’ll give you twenty-four hours.” Roman laughed discharging the ring of fire around Stanley and signaling with his hand for the people around him to stand down, “When your clone dissipates, the war will begin. If you try and summon another copy to delay us longer afterward, we’ll be forced to go all-out to kill you.”

Stanley continued to observe quietly as they entered the palace once again. They’d soon left his range of vision and Stanley planned out his next course of action.

He only had two choices… Elisabeth or Schrödinger.

Frowning, Stanley grimaced to himself. He didn’t like either choice.

Stanley was confident that he could convince Schrödinger to intervene, the cat indicated he was more than willing to help him on more than one occasion.

However, that would be setting a very dangerous precedent. The holographic cat didn’t seem to be a particularly stable Artificial Intelligence and there was no telling what his intervention could involve.

… and considering Stanley knew of no method that could stop him. Once he went out of control, Schrödinger’s intervention could cause more damage than a full-war with doppelgangers.

Meanwhile, Elisabeth was a complete wildcard. Stanley had no idea what she was thinking.

Elisabeth seemed to be in a position of power among the doppelgangers. If he managed to get her help, she might be able to forcefully quell any dissatisfaction her people might have.

The problem is she might help him… or she might attempt to drug him and tie him up in the basement. Judging from her reaction last time, the later option seemed far more likely.

Still, he didn’t exactly have many options and she was the better choice.

Sighing to himself, Stanley began moving back toward her residence.

Narrator, I’m counting on you to protect me from any of her shenanigans. Don’t let me down.

Through the use of the map, it barely took any time for Stanley to reach the mansion.

The guards at the gate pointed toward him spotted his approach. They didn’t say anything though.

Eventually, Stanley stood quietly within fifteen feet of the gate. The guards had clearly noticed him earlier, but seemed to be pretending otherwise. They seemed to be acting as though ignore Stanley would make him disappear.

“Ahem…” Clearing his throat loudly, Stanley attempting to get their attention, “Can one of you bring Elisabeth, I would like to speak with her.”

None of the nearby guards responded. They seemed to have a tact understanding to collectively ignore Stanley’s presence. The entire situation was disturbing and Stanley wasn’t sure what to make of the situation.

“Excuse me?” Stanley shouted up toward one of the guards on the wall, “I’d like to talk with Elisabeth?”

However, the guard gave no response. Treating Stanley like thin air and merely continue onward with patrolling the wall.

“Hello?! Can you hear me?” Stanley yelled waving his hands side-to-side to catch their attention to no avail.

Even if the guards had driven him off, Stanley would’ve felt less confused than he currently was.

What is going on? Why are they ignoring me?

Approaching the gate, Stanley rattled it. The gate didn’t seem particularly sturdy. Pressing on one of the metal bars running through it left an imprint of his hand in the metal.

“Oi! If you keep ignoring me, I’m going to break down your gate.” Stanley backed up and shouted toward the guard above on the wall.

The guard gritted his teeth in response, and finally acknowledged Stanley presence. “The misses ordered for you to be let in, if should you return. Please await her in the tea room.”

Stanley narrowed his eyes toward the guards on the wall while the gate opened.

They’d already been tactfully ignoring him, hoping he would leave. In other words, the guards didn’t dare openly disregard Elizabeth’s orders, but were more than willing to pretend they hadn’t seen him. By ignoring him they were able to plausibly deny the accusation of disregarding her orders.

If Stanley had broken down the gate, they instead would’ve been accused of negligence or openly disregarding her orders. They weren’t willing to deal with the consequences of either situation, thus the guards were forced to finally acknowledge his presence.

Stanley decided against pointing out their scheme and simple gestured forward, “Fine, lead the way.”