Case 03: The Scylla Who Kept Score (or, The Day Off)
Case 03:
The Scylla Who Kept Score
(or, The Day Off)
Glenn Litbeit let out a sigh. He wondered how it had come to this.
As a doctor for monsters, Glenn had examined and treated many of them. However, he was only seventeen years old, and he was becoming keenly aware of the limits of his capabilities.
For example, just now.
The nearby nurse was giggling. Being laughed at didn’t help him in the least.
Perhaps it was arrogance. He could work longer hours because he was young. He was capable. He tried remaining modest, but he had overestimated his own abilities somewhere along the line. All living things die at some point, but everyone, deep down, believed that they would never die. This was the same thing. Glenn had informed many monsters that they were ill, but he’d never anticipated falling ill himself.
“Well, you don’t have a fever. Hehe. It looks like you passed out from overworking yourself.” The nurse took the thermometer out from under Glenn’s arm with a malicious smile on her face. She was part of the slime species, and even her smile was flabby.
“I’m not overworked. I was just a little sleep-deprived, so I was taking a nap. But then Sapphee said I was working too hard and made me admit myself to the hospital.”
“But Dr. Cthulhy also diagnosed you as being overworked, right?”
“Everyone is making a big deal out of nothing.”
“Well! You’re supposed to be a doctor! Are you going to mock the diagnosis of another doctor?”
“Er…” Glenn didn’t have a comeback for that.
The slime nurse laughed foolishly.
There was a large slime population in Lindworm. They were living beings made up entirely of a semi-transparent, gel-like substance, which they used to mimic human shapes. Glenn had known the slime nurse since his time at the academy, and, like Sapphee, she had entered before him. Her slimy personality hadn’t changed.
“Right now, you are a patient. You will rest, understand?”
“Yes…”
Glenn had been taken to the Central Hospital that morning. Sapphee had determined that he’d passed out from overworking himself, and she had him admitted. Cthulhy examined him right away and came to the same conclusion as Sapphee. Her orders were for him to rest for three days—in other words, no work, only sleep.
It was true, he had been busy lately. He had been performing examination after examination without eating properly. He knew he couldn’t keep it up forever…
But three days was far too long.
“Glenn, were you really working that much?”
“No, not that much. There’s just been such a fuss about doppelgängers lately. There were a many people who said they felt ill after seeing a doppelgänger. But that’s all.”
“So, you had more patients than usual?”
“Setting aside the question of whether or not doppelgängers are real, most of the patients were simply upset because they believed that they saw one. That’s not an illness, so it doesn’t count as work.”
This time, it was the slime nurse who sighed, loudly.
Perhaps it was because she was a shapeless monster who was only mimicking the human form, but every move she made was exaggerated. Her gel-like arm jiggled as she put on a disgusted act.
“This creates a problem for Dr. Cthulhy as well. You better stay in bed. If you get up and start examining other patients, then things won’t go well for you.”
“So that’s why you have me in an isolated room…”
“Exactly! Direct orders of Dr. Cthulhy.”
In other words, they didn’t trust him.
Glenn was certain he wouldn’t be able to relax here. The patients at Lindworm Central Hospital were all monsters. He was just itching to get to work helping them.
“But…for some reason, I get the feeling that the hospital is bustling.”
“Oh, you noticed?”
The only person who came in and out of Glenn’s private room was the slime nurse. He hadn’t seen any other employees, but he could hear people rushing around outside his room. He couldn’t be sure, but there seemed to be a strange air about the hospital.
“It’s the perfect opportunity, so I would like to at least say hello to the senior doctors.”
“No, everyone is busy.”
“You’re hiding something, aren’t you?”
“No, nothing of the sort.”
Glenn watched her, silent.
“Ah, well, I suppose I could tell you.” The slime nurse oozed her way closer to him. She put her face right up close next to Glenn’s so she could tell him the secret. Slimes didn’t have actual eyes but formed unique eyeballs that resemble obsidian. She used these to look into Glenn’s eyes. She smelled faintly of citrus.
“Actually…as you know, Skadi had heart surgery the other day.”
“Yes.” Not only did he know, he’d attended it as a surgeon. Even though Cthulhy was helping him, Glenn was the one who’d actually removed Skadi’s heart.
“Well, the heart that was removed was being saved as a specimen…but now it’s lost.”
“What? Lost?”
“Yes! At some point, the preservation bottle was emptied!”
“That can’t be true…” It was supposed to be an extremely important specimen for the Central Hospital.
What had happened to its storage and management? Even when Glenn was at the academy, Cthulhy had given him thorough instructions on how to manage research materials. The employees at the Central Hospital had all been her pupils. It was hard to believe they would make such a rookie mistake.
“Well, that’s what all the commotion is about in the hospital. It’s a mess. To be honest, I’ve no time to be taking care of your overworked body! You need to sleep for three days, you got it? Don’t make my job harder.”
“Yes…I understand.” He had been warned. No one trusted him.
***
Later, Glenn sat on his hospital bed, poring over a medical book he had brought from home. He’d been told to rest, but he wasn’t sleepy. All he could do was read.
At first, no one came to his private room, but before long he started getting visitors, one after another. Most were his pupils—or he’d been their pupil—at the academy, who heard he had passed out from overwork. Some of them came just to tease him. The rest were his seniors. He had no choice but to give a half-hearted smile through conversations about his days at the academy. Glenn read his book and endured the teasing. He was waiting to talk to Cthulhy.
“Well now. You’re still tired.” That was Cthulhy’s conclusion when she finally came to his room.
She said it as soon as she saw his face, laying into him. Glenn had rested for an entire day, and he had recovered his strength, so he couldn’t have looked that tired. He felt well enough to return to the clinic and get back to work.
Cthulhy Squele was Glenn’s teacher and the medical director of the Central Hospital. She was such an amazing doctor that, in the dragon surgery the other day, she’d sacrificed her own tentacle to save the patient. That tentacle had grown back by now, and she was spending her days as she always did, making rounds to check on the hospitalized patients.
“No, I feel much better. I slept all day, so I’ll need to get back to the clinic soon.”
“You will stay in bed for three days. Didn’t Lime tell you?”
Lime was the slime nurse that was charged with caring for Glenn. She got the nickname because of the faint lime smell she emitted.
“Three days is overdoing it.”
“Wrong answer. Why don’t you think about why Sapphee called the Central Hospital? That’s how exhausted you were.”
“No, I’m a doctor, too. I know my own body.”
If he had passed out from overworking, then bedrest was a sensible treatment. He would have prescribed at least three days, maybe even weeks, depending on the situation. But Glenn didn’t feel exhausted. He was ready to admit to neglecting his health by not getting enough food or sleep, but one day of rest was enough. He couldn’t leave Sapphee alone in the clinic for that long.
“If you’re really that bored, why don’t you do some brain exercises?”
“I would rather just be discharged.”
“If you can answer this problem correctly, I will deem you cured and approve your discharge.”
“Uh…”
Cthulhy cackled. As a doctor, she would never risk making such a bet with a patient who was truly critical. Which meant that Glenn was well enough to be discharged at any time. If that were the case, then he didn’t want to bother with questions. He wished she would just let him go.
It reminded him of back when he was at the academy, and Cthulhy would test his knowledge and skills at every chance she got. Some things never changed, even now that he had opened a clinic of his own.
“I actually heard this from Skadi. She said that everyone has been talking about doppelgängers lately and told me to get to the bottom of it.”
“Oh…” Just the other day, Glenn had heard a rumor about Sapphee’s doppelgänger.
“Doppelgängers are nothing but an imaginary phenomenon. It’s when you think you see someone you know in a place they would never be. There is no doppelgänger species among monsters.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“So, if that’s the case, then who is causing this phenomenon? It doesn’t seem like something a human could pull off easily, so perhaps it’s a monster with the ability to mimic other forms?”
“And Skadi told you to find out what’s really going on, because you’re a monster expert?”
“Yes. She tends to pass off the cumbersome tasks to me,” Dr. Cthulhy said, ignoring the fact that she was now doing the same thing to Glenn.
Glenn thought for a moment. Monsters that could freely change form did exist, so did that mean that one of those races was causing the doppelgänger phenomenon?
“Could it be some sort of disguise? No, that doesn’t make sense.”
“Right. If it was just changing a face and some features, then humans could pull it off using the same techniques as secret agents. But it’s not as easy to mimic the bodies of monsters. Sometimes they appear as a lamia, sometimes a centaur. That’s pretty far past the capabilities of a costume.”
“So, it must be a special ability of a monster race.” There were several races that had advanced transformation capabilities. “For example, illusions created by spiritual races such as ghosts or phantoms.”
“I appreciate how quickly you hypothesize. Yes, it would be possible for spirits to use their illusions to make it seem as if something is there that doesn’t really exist. But such conjurations are outside of our expertise as medical practitioners.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
Glenn’s specialties only included scientifically based medical treatment. He knew that other skills existed, such as sorcery, magic, and conjuration; there were also professions and research facilities that worked in those specialties. However, the objectivity and reproducibility of those skills were extremely low. The basic principal of the science that Glenn studied was, “If the process is the same, then the same results will be obtained no matter who executes that process.” That wasn’t the case in magic and conjuring. He had heard that Skadi dabbled in magic, but even if he and Cthulhy were to learn from her, there was no guarantee they would be able to wield it in the same way. Magic was an uncertain skill.
If the true identity of the doppelgängers involved conjuring, an expert would have to be called in to solve the problem.
“What are the other possibilities?”
“The slime species.” Glenn answered his mentor’s question right away. He was thinking about the nurse that had been taking care of him since the day before. “Shapeless beings, like slime, would be able to mimic other forms.”
“That’s right. As far as I know, the most basic species that can mimic forms are the slimes. Their bodies have a high viscosity with an undefined shape, and they mimic other races by changing form. However, their mimicry isn’t perfect.” It sounded like Cthulhy had already considered this possibility.
Glenn wondered how this could be considered a brain exercise. So far, he had done nothing but retrace the ideas Cthulhy had already come up with. The real test was about to begin. How close could he get to an actual doppelgänger? One wrong step and he could easily fail. Just like the tests at the academy.
“Perfect mimicry? That would mean…”
“Before that, let’s look at some materials. These are witness accounts of the doppelgängers collected by the City Council. It will be faster to use these documents to simply determine whether the true form of the doppelgängers is a slime or not.” Cthulhy brought out a stack of papers as she spoke.
The fact that she had prepared these in advance meant she had planned to present this question to Glenn from the start. He wasn’t completely convinced, but he waited for her to continue with a straight face.
“I’ll read them to you in order then.”
“All right.”
“Witness account number one. ‘I-I saw a mermaid I knew in town, so I gathered up the courage to talk to her, but she r-ran away! I’m such a scary sight that even people I know run away after one look at me. I suck…’ It’s long, so I’ll skip the rest. This was the testimony of an apprentice at the Kuklo Workshop.”
“Doctor, your impressions are impeccable.” The information was anonymous, but he could easily figure out whose testimony was whose. It was probably the timid cyclops he knew.
“I’ll go on. The second account is from an alraune girl. ‘I saw the City Council representative on the plantation. I thought maybe the representative had come out to check on things herself. This was a rare occurrence, so I went to greet her, but she rushed off without even giving a proper reply. When I thought about it later, it seemed like it could have been someone else entirely.’”
“This was Aluloona?”
Aluloona was influential on the council. Glenn had never met her in person, but if the sighting was on a plantation, then there was no mistake. And it seemed that, somehow, the doppelgänger could mimic the shape of a dragon.
“Yes, yes. That’s enough of your inquisition. This is anonymous information.” So Cthulhy said, but her impressions were spot-on, so the anonymity was pretty much pointless.
“Aluloona’s plantation is outside the city, right? Doppelgängers are even showing up way out there?”
“Yes, it seems so.”
“Hmm…”
“And the last one. ‘I spotted my friend near the Waterways, so I invited her out for a drink, but she ran away. Normally, she loves to drink… I thought it was strange, so I followed her, but once we got into the Waterways, I lost sight of her.’”
This seemed to be a statement from an arachne that Glenn knew personally. He remained impressed with Cthulhy’s voice impressions. They said some octopi could mimic sea serpents or sea anemones, so maybe that had something to do with it. The scylla species may be good at mimicry…
“Impressions, huh?”
There were three eyewitness accounts. What was strange was that they all thought they’d seen a friend. The first was probably Lulala. The second would be Skadi. In the third case, they thought they saw Sapphee. In each case, the witness believed they spotted a friend and tried to talk to them, but the friend ran away.
In each case, the doppelgänger had gone well beyond mere impressions or disguises.
“Hmm.”
Perhaps it should be expressed as mimicry. Glenn remembered the incident at the arena the other day. He was sure that the form Lorna noticed was a doppelgänger. Lorna was closer to Tisalia than anyone. If she said it looked like the lady, then it must be quite detailed.
“This type of monster…”
“Have you found the answer, Glenn?”
“No. I don’t know for sure yet. But I want to ask you one thing…”
“What is it?”
“If I’m able to get the correct answer to this test question, does that mean that you have already figured it out?”
“Heh…” Cthulhy adjusted her glasses as she laughed deeply.
Examiners never gave tests they don’t know the answers to. At times like this, Cthulhy’s eyes turned a suspicious color. You couldn’t tell what she was planning. The scylla species were known as the philosophers of the deep sea, and there was no way to figure out how much they knew.
“Well, I guess you’ll find out soon enough.”
Glenn was silent again.
“Now, let’s discuss the ‘perfect mimicry’ issue. I have something to do before that. You don’t mind, do you?”
This was how Cthulhy replied to Glenn when he couldn’t give her a clear answer. But she was still giving him hints.
Glenn thought.
Cthulhy was giving him problems to solve to buy some time while she kept him in bed. Even if the problem had been something simple, Glenn would still have been stuck in bed while he figured it out. If he wanted to be discharged, his only option was to hurry and solve the problem, giving Cthulhy an answer that would earn him full points.
“Let’s take a short break then.”
Was this a test or a lecture? Glenn let out a deep sigh, remembering what it was like to be a student. When he thought about it, his time at the academy had been continuous hardship. That was only natural. He was aiming to become an independent doctor for monsters and absorb all the knowledge he could from Cthulhy. After overcoming his parents’ opposition and enrolling in the academy, becoming a doctor had taken over his whole existence.
He’d never dreamed that the young girl who inspired him to become a doctor—Saphentite—would be enrolled in the academy as well. But, completely absorbed in his studies, Glenn hadn’t had anyone he could call a friend in school. Of course, there were times when he spoke to Sapphee or when they were involved in research together. Come to think of it, I rarely spoke to upperclassmen… It hadn’t been Glenn’s intention to avoid anyone. But, as the youngest and the most promising student, plenty of Glenn’s seniors were probably jealous of him.
Glenn was just fourteen years old when he was at the academy. Cthulhy explicitly took him under her wing and made sure he received a thorough education. To Glenn, being at the academy meant accepting Cthulhy’s unreasonable behavior and overcoming it in tandem with Sapphee. That was just the sort of place it was. Maybe I should have made more friends…
For example, the slime nurse right in front of him. He should have spoken to her. Lime was also an upperclassman to him, but Glenn knew nothing about her.
Once Cthulhy announced their break, she left the hospital room and came back with Lime.
The slime species excelled at mimicking the form of other races. While they were naturally amoeba-like beings, there were individuals who preferred taking on a human-like form, like Lime. They were known to be highly intelligent and have a high capacity for learning. They were certainly one of the stronger candidates for the identity of the doppelgängers.
“What is it? Why are you staring at me like that? Stop!”
“There just happened to be a test subject outside, so I brought her with me.”
“A test subject? What are you going to do to me? I’m not getting a raise?”
“The way you neglect your duties, you have some nerve saying that. And you were the one in charge of managing that specimen… Don’t you think you’re lucky you’re not getting a pay cut?”
“But?!” Lime screamed.
If you looked closely at her light-green tissue, you could see right through. She had the silhouette of a human, but since she didn’t have any bones, both her arms and legs were curved. Slimes were a peculiar type of monster whose entire bodies were made up of an amorphous, gel-like substance. She smelled faintly of lime, which was her favorite food. She probably ate them quite often. In fact, there was a piece of lime still being digested inside her, somewhere around her neck.
She could at least digest it someplace out of sight…
Lime still didn’t seem to know why she had been brought to Glenn’s room.
“I wanted to give him a course on the slime race. You are our textbook.”
“Agh, you’re going to examine every inch of me? That’s too embarrassing!”
Lime was wriggling around. That wasn’t just a figure of speech—her entire body was moving dynamically, and she was getting excited.
“Right, so… Where were we?”
“We had just read the eyewitness statements. The doppelgängers mimicked people the witnesses were close to so well that all the witnesses were fooled. Then, we were contemplating if there were any monsters that could pull that off.”
“That’s right. And we all know that slimes are mimics.”
Glenn looked at Lime again.
She looked like she had been poured into a human mold. Only her outline was a perfect human shape. But her flesh was still a semi-transparent, gel-like substance.
“As you can see, slimes can mimic an outline, but they can’t transform enough to trick someone. They are only adjusting their pliable bodies.”
Glenn nodded. He already understood all that. “Lime, I’m sorry, but would you please try to mimic Sapphee?”
“What? Glenn, are you into that sort of play?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t really know, but sure.”
She wriggled and twisted and turned her entire body. For a moment, she looked like an indeterminate amoeba-like form. The nurse’s uniform she had been wearing, and even the partially digested lime, drifted together inside her semi-transparent, green flesh. She didn’t have any eyes or a nose or a mouth. She didn’t look like something that could communicate with other beings, but this amoeba form was talking like normal.
Then…
“Transformation…complete! What do you think?”
Sapphee appeared.
No, more precisely, a slime that appeared to be an outline of Sapphee appeared. The nursing uniform she was wearing was Lime’s, so she gave off a different impression than Sapphee. However, there was no question that the silhouette was Sapphee’s. She had replicated the characteristic long torso of a lamia perfectly.
But…
“You wouldn’t ever mistake this for Sapphee, would you?”
“Well of course not.”
The slime laughed with Sapphee’s face.
Her flesh was still semi-transparent slime that jiggled when touched. She had replicated something that resembled Sapphee’s long hair as well, but there were no strands to speak of. Perhaps it wasn’t possible to make pointy things with that type of tissue, because the ends of her hair had a roundish shape. If Glenn were to see her on the street, it would be clear that she was a transformed slime. It was as if someone had poured green gelatin into a mold of Sapphee for a jiggly treat.
“Well then, Dr. Glenn. Shall we spend some time together?”
The Lime/Sapphee tried acting flirtatious. Unfortunately, the voice was still Lime’s, and she would never pass as a mimic of Sapphee. Cthulhy was far better at mimicking voices.
“As you see here, slimes can mimic the shape of other people. But not so much that you would mistake them for your friends or family. Even if slimes change their shape, they can’t do anything about their semi-transparent flesh.”
“Well, I can at least make vocal bands in my throat and talk.”
“That’s still incomplete. Your mainland common tongue sounds strange.”
In their original form, slimes were unstructured beings and didn’t have mouths or ears. They took in sustenance with their entire body and digested it directly in the body. They were only able to converse by reproducing the shape of vocal chords and ear drums when in human form.
“So, what conclusion can we draw from this?”
“The doppelgängers are not the work of slimes.”
“So that means?”
“There is still a possibility it’s a conjuring trick. But if that’s not the case…” Glenn hesitated, not sure if he should say it, but he finally did. “There is a possibility that some unknown species has come to the town.”
Lime let out an unrestrained scream.
The truth was that monsters were not monolithic. Each species kept to their own kind, built villages, conducted business, lived as nomads, and sometimes even operated as mercenaries. The humans living in the human realm were ruled by the eastern aristocrats, but on the continent west of Lindworm, the monsters had no single ruling authority that they recognized. The various factions had teamed up in the most recent war to keep the humans from invading, but as soon as the war was over, those alliances disbanded.
To put it another way, it wouldn’t be surprising if an unknown species was living in seclusion somewhere in the realm of monsters.
“Okay, not bad… Seventy points.”
“Hmph.” Glenn moaned.
He wasn’t discouraged by the score Cthulhy gave him. He realized that his reasoning had holes in it. It wasn’t enough to say that an unknown species was in town. Even with the meager information he had, he should have been able to extrapolate much more about the species itself. If he didn’t somehow come up with the same conclusion as Cthulhy, he couldn’t get a full score.
“An unknown species?! How exciting!” Lime figured she had been in the form of Sapphee for long enough and returned to her original form.
“Er…”
It wasn’t a slime. It had the ability to transform, appeared everywhere in town, and showed itself in the mimicked form, but disappeared without really doing anything.
What did Cthulhy want from him? What was she telling him to figure out? The doppelgängers’ race? Their purpose? Their true form? Or…
Glenn thought some more. When was it that the doppelgängers first became a topic of talk in town? He began hearing about them last month. That’s right, precisely during the period that Skadi had reached the first stage of recovery after her surgery.
Her surgery…
“Lime?”
“Yes?”
“Will you please give us a moment?”
“Oh no! Glenn, are you refusing me again?! I made myself look just like Sapphee for you!”
Her gel-like body jiggled as she protested.
“Lime, I’ll start taking it out of your pay.” Cthulhy’s words were unforgiving.
“I was just leaving!” The slime nurse moved quickly and zipped out of the room.
It wasn’t Lime’s fault, but the conclusion Glenn had reached wasn’t something he wanted spread to many people. Cthulhy must have sensed that and sent Lime away.
“Did you figure it out? Go ahead.” She stroked Glenn’s cheek with a slimy tentacle. “It’s time for your score.”
“I’m going to review the characteristics of a doppelgänger.”
Cthulhy listened to Glenn speak with a smirk on her face.
“First, the ability to transform and mimic. According to witnesses, the likeness is so accurate that even people close to the individual being mimicked can’t tell the difference. This astonishing ability is what sets it apart from the slime race, who are famous for transforming. This is what made me think that an unknown monster has found its way to Lindworm.”
“Go on.”
“Next, the doppelgängers are not taking any actions except for transforming. Their purpose is unclear. All the witnesses have a common claim: that they saw a doppelgänger, and when they approached, it ran away. It seems the doppelgängers are neither trying to be friendly nor cause harm to the townsfolk. At least at this point.”
“Wow, you’ve already made it this far,” Cthulhy chuckled. She always thoroughly enjoyed the progress of her pupils. That was why she tested them. It was like a hobby for her to watch them pass tests she gave them.
“They mimic, but they aren’t doing anything else. That is a unique characteristic of doppelgängers. Which means I—no, we—already met this being.”
“What could that be?”
“The heart.”
Skadi’s heart surgery had been a month ago. They’d succeeded in removing the heart-like growth. But Glenn hadn’t been completely satisfied with the result. He couldn’t figure out what the heart that had nested inside the dragon really was. Cardiac disease was the symptom, but what was the fake heart in the first place?
“That heart… Was it a shape-shifting monster itself?”
“Based on what evidence?”
“The heart inside Skadi looked exactly like a normal heart. But a tumor could never naturally take on the exact form of a heart. It makes more sense to consider that something with a will was mimicking her heart. That means it would be the same as the doppelgänger.”
He’d begun feeling like something wasn’t right partway through the surgery. That heart was too much like a heart. The illness that had been eating away at Skadi’s body was the same as Skadi’s heart in every way. But it existed in a place that didn’t make sense—outside the rib cage. The heart that shouldn’t exist had been in a place it would never be.
It was undoubtedly a doppelgänger phenomenon.
“Furthermore, I heard from Lime that the heart we removed has disappeared.”
“Ahh… You heard that. That’s unfortunate. It was a huge hint. I wanted you to come to that conclusion without hearing that. But that’s fine. Let’s just say you were lucky. Amazing, Glenn Litbeit. One hundred points.” Cthulhy smiled as she praised her best pupil.
The heart they had removed from Skadi could move consciously and was causing the doppelgänger phenomenon in Lindworm. This was the conclusion that Cthulhy had reached, and it was what she wanted Glenn to figure out. She hadn’t given him many hints, but he’d figured it out anyway.
“So, what are we going to do? Now that we know it’s Skadi’s heart, we have to do something.”
“Hmm? We’re not going to do anything.” Cthulhy was calm. “I’m just going to tell Skadi this hypothesis. Then I will fill out a report about losing the heart specimen and submit it to the council. They can take care of it after that. If they want me to continue working on the issue, then I’m sure Skadi will say something.” Cthulhy laughed, clearly not worried about a thing.
Yes, it was true that letting the heart get away was their fault, but then, the removed heart wasn’t really a heart. If it had been an unknown monster, then it would have been impossible to foresee it running away. And the doppelgänger uproar was beyond the capabilities of the hospital.
All of that was true, but Cthulhy’s attitude was still confusing. She wasn’t the heartless or irresponsible type. This reflected poorly on her, too, which made Glenn want to say something.
“I don’t think that’s the right approach, Doctor.”
“Oh?” Cthulhy gave him a surprised look. Or perhaps it was an expression of being able to read him after knowing him for so long. “Are you giving me your opinion? What exactly do you find wrong with my approach?”
“Skadi is asking about the true identity of the doppelgänger, but that’s not all. She wants the doppelgänger uproar to be brought under control.”
“And that is the job of the City Council representative. That’s not the job of doctors.”
“Well…that’s true. Perhaps this uproar has nothing to do with us. But the number of patient complaints of feeling ill due to seeing a doppelgänger is increasing.”
Cthulhy groaned.
This was also the cause of Glenn’s overworking himself. Most of the complaints were probably just in the patients’ heads, or nothing but an illusion, but as the topic of the mysterious doppelgängers spread, the complaints would continue to increase as well.
“An increase in patients is definitely a problem…”
Lindworm Central Hospital was always busy. If a patient truly was ill, then they did everything in their power to treat them, but Cthulhy wanted to avoid the claims of people misled by doppelgänger rumors.
“In that case, what do you propose? Do you even have a clue as to how to get the situation under control?”
“I do.”
“You what?” Cthulhy was stunned. She hadn’t expected that answer.
“We have no more information as to what this doppelgänger is. I’m sure Skadi wants to apprehend it if possible, but…”
In Lindworm, only the patrol team, under direct orders of the City Council, had the authority to make arrests. If the doppelgänger was a monster, then the ordinances of the town would apply, and if it was putting the town in an uproar on purpose, then it could easily be arrested for disturbing the peace. However, Glenn didn’t know what Skadi thought of the situation, and she was the one in control of the patrol team.
The bigger problem was whether the doppelgänger could even be apprehended.
“Putting the arrest aside, is Skadi interested in trying to have a conversation or even reason with it?”
“Well, first of all, we need to find out where the doppelgänger is.”
“If Skadi could do that, then she wouldn’t be in such a bind.”
Right.
He didn’t know if Skadi hadn’t realized this, or if she had but wasn’t ready to accept the truth. Considering the fact that the doppelgänger hadn’t been found yet, it was likely the former.
“My clue is water.”
“Water?”
“The witness accounts you read were all related to water. The witness who saw the mermaid and the sighting in the Waterways.”
“Wait a minute. What about on the plantation?” Cthulhy had a point. “What did that have to do with…?” But her voice rose as she figured it out mid-sentence.
“The irrigation…”
“That’s right. The plantation has an irrigation system for the crops. So, the doppelgänger’s relationship with water—”
“No, I disagree. You don’t get any points for that conjecture,” Cthulhy shook her head. “Skadi collected all the witness testimony in the city. I didn’t hear anything about sightings only near water, and there must have been reports from places that had nothing to do with water. If there were such a trend in the sightings, then Skadi would have noticed. So, I’m sorry, Glenn, that presumption is—”
“Doctor, I never said that there were only appearances near water.”
“Huh?”
So, Skadi hadn’t noticed. Glenn had been wondering: Why did the doppelgänger appear in unexpected places at unexpected moments? Even though it was mimicking people of the town, the patrol team would have already apprehended anyone lurking suspiciously where they weren’t supposed to be, even if they had to put up a net.
So why hadn’t the doppelgänger been picked up?
“I think the doppelgänger is using the Waterways and rivers to move.”
“How did you come to that conclusion?”
“The proof is that even with all of this sighting information, the patrol team hasn’t caught it yet. There aren’t many aquatic beings on the patrol team, right? When they’re searching for the doppelgänger, the water is a blind spot for them. It’s slipping through the cracks of their surveillance.”
“Glenn, wait a second. According to that logic…”
“Yes. The doppelgänger is clearly and consciously running away from the patrol team.”
Cthulhy was silent.
It wasn’t just a being that was mimicking people without a purpose. The doppelgänger was staying off the patrol team’s radar, only moving through the Waterways. It understood that the patrol team wasn’t effectively patrolling the water.
“Actually, the other day we sighted a doppelgänger at the arena. The day that Tisalia was promoted.”
“Ah, yes. The day Skadi made such a grand entrance… But you mean the doppelgänger infiltrated the arena? Isn’t the security tight there?”
“Yes, it is. The only conclusion is that it timed its entrance to when the security was changing guards, or it understands which paths are blind spots. Either it is escaping the security or outsmarting them.”
It was behaving like a secret agent or military operative: absolutely no wasted moves. The doppelgänger had intelligence that couldn’t be underestimated. If it could evade the security at the arena, then it was possible it could also evade the Lindworm patrol team.
“It knows where the patrol team personnel are stationed, when they change shifts, and where they patrol. So, it’s using the Waterways to outsmart them.”
“Yes, well, there is still the question of how they attained that information. Even though Lindworm isn’t a canal city, there are plenty of places in the town they can reach using the Waterways. That is why the doppelgänger appears in unexpected places at unexpected moments.”
“We should probably tell Skadi.”
Was this really just the work of one monster?
It knows and analyzes the movements of the patrol, who are supposedly posted all over the town. Is that even possible? It sounds impossible without a group of people, like a covert spy unit.
“At this point, there still haven’t been reports of anyone being harmed by the doppelgänger… But if it’s eluding the attention of the patrol team, then it would be better to secure it before something happens.”
“No, Glenn, that’s too passive. It has already caused harm.”
“Huh?” Was there any mention of that in the eyewitness accounts?
“Did you forget that it was living as a parasite inside of Skadi? We might not know if it was causing harm intentionally, but it certainly got up and walked out of the hospital on its own accord. As Skadi’s primary physician, I can’t just let that go. And I can’t let anyone become infected with the same illness as Skadi.”
Glenn felt reassured.
Cthulhy wasn’t irresponsible. Even after the major surgery was complete, she was concerned for Skadi’s welfare. She was also deeply concerned that the doppelgänger might create more patients in the same way. Cthulhy still had her pride as a doctor. But if that were the case, then she should have said so from the beginning instead of acting indifferent. It was things like that that made people mistake her for a lazy doctor.
“Narrowing down the doppelgänger’s behavior is a huge step. Skadi will be pleased.”
“Well, I hope we can find it.”
“If Skadi asks you to do something, make sure you help her out. Okay, Glenn?”
“I’ll do my best.” Glenn nodded. That was something he didn’t need to be told. If this was the cause of Skadi’s illness, then the issue couldn’t be ignored. “That’s another reason then… Doctor, I need to be discharged as soon as possible.”
“Oh, right. About that, Glenn…” Cthulhy stretched out her eight tentacles toward Glenn.
Alarms went off in his head as he remembered his experiences during his time at the academy.
“Not only did you answer exactly what I was thinking, you realized the detail about the Waterways, which I hadn’t even considered. You’ve really come a long way, Glenn. Or perhaps I’m getting old.”
“N-no, we just had different perspectives.”
“But Glenn. You need a break. Get some good rest.”
“B-but you promised!”
“Yes, yes. I’m a liar and I don’t keep my promises. I’m a bad girl,” Cthulhy said coolly.
Glenn jumped out of bed and ran, trying to escape Cthulhy’s evil powers. But his poor physical capabilities were no match for her expandable tentacles.
“Uh-ugh.”
“If you’d like, I’ll lay down with you. As the hospital director, of course.”
Her tentacles, covered with a sticky substance, grabbed Glenn by the leg. Just when his feet were taken out from under him and he thought he was going to topple over, she held up his torso with another tentacle and wrapped the rest around him. This made him feel more nostalgia than pain.
He wasn’t proud of it, but Glenn had a great amount experience being wrapped up like this in his line of work. For example, Sapphee’s snake body, Arahnia’s spider web, etc. But the reality of it was that no one had wrapped him up more than Cthulhy. Her tentacles, with the suction cups that pulled at him so hard it hurt, were familiar from his academy days.
“So, you never intended to keep your promise then?”
“That’s right. The doppelgänger problem was so difficult that I hoped you would puzzle over it, and that it would keep you resting in bed. But then you answered it so quickly! That was unexpected. You get 120 points, Glenn.”
So, she hadn’t thought he’d be able to solve it in just one day.
Cthulhy’s tentacles pulled Glenn back into bed. He tried resisting, but the more he fought back, the stronger their grip became. Scylla tentacles were solid muscle and couldn’t be shaken off easily. Glenn wished Cthulhy wouldn’t touch him so much. Her tentacles were making his hospital gown sticky.
“No, no, no.” Cthulhy laughed at Glenn’s attempts to escape, as if he were a child. “Maybe the bad little boy would like a lullaby?” She made a squishy sound as she moved her face close to Glenn’s.
The expandable tentacles also carried her own body. She embraced Glenn with both arms, in addition to her tentacles, as if she were holding him in a full nelson from the front. She pushed him down onto the bed. Her tentacles were no longer holding his arms, but her entire body was now on top of him, making his scrawny arms useless.
“D-doctor… You’re heavy.”
“How rude.”
“No—but…”
“I’ve focused too much on teaching you medical jargon and forgotten to teach you how to treat a lady. This is the perfect opportunity, so I’ll teach you now.”
Just under Cthulhy’s skirt, between the tentacles, there was a web-like membrane. She placed this membrane over Glenn, as if she were covering him with a blanket or a tent. It was nice and cold. He thought he could get used to that feeling.
“You’re not a boy anymore, but I still love you.” She moved her face closer and whispered in his ear as if they were lovers.
“D-doctor… This isn’t the way you treat patients, is it?”
She had scolded Sapphee time and again for intimacies in the clinic, and now she was doing the same thing in a hospital room while her subordinates weren’t looking.
“Hmph. How rude. Even when I like one of them, I keep my hands to myself…usually…”
Glenn was getting more and more annoyed. His mentor was selfish. She did whatever she wanted without reflecting on her behavior. She’d broken her promise and pushed him down onto the bed even though she was in the middle of work. She was ordering him to recuperate while at the same time tying him up in her tentacles. He’d put up with her abuse this long only because she was his mentor.
But right then, he’d made a decision. This time, he would make her think about her behavior.
Yoink. Glenn plucked Cthulhy’s glasses from her face. Luckily, both his arms were still free. But everything below his belly button was held to the bed by Cthulhy’s tentacles.
“Hey! What are you doing, Glenn? Did you think you could run away if you took my glasses? I may be near-sighted, but so long as I have my tentacles, I can still find you, even with my eyes closed.”
“Yes, I’m sure you can.” It wasn’t his intention to impair her vision. He just didn’t want her glasses to get in the way of his imminent attack. “Doctor, I’m sorry.”
“What?”
Glenn went for it. He touched her right on her unprotected forehead.
“Aaggghhhh! Glenn—what—you!” Cthulhy’s voice echoed in the tiny room.
Glenn had never heard her use such a high-pitched tone before. If anyone saw this scene, they would surely be confused as to what was going on.
“Mmmaaaaah!”
Each time Glenn touched Cthulhy between her eyes, she trembled and gave a little jump. He was poking her gently, but her entire body shivered, as if the effect were extreme stimulation. Her tentacles trembled and stretched before going limp. Glenn’s expression remained steady, as if he were using magic.
Poke, poke.
“Mmm! Ahhh!”
Poke, poke, poke, poke, poke, poke.
“Hicc! Hee! Mmm! Mmaaaah!”
Cthulhy couldn’t stop trembling. Her entire body was stuck in a cycle of tensing and relaxing, and she had lost the strength to hold Glenn down any longer. He pushed her body off him, freeing himself. Cthulhy’s relaxed body sprawled across the bed.
“Haaa… Hey! G-Glenn… You know what’ll happen to you if you leave me like this, right?”
“Yes. You’ll be scary later, so I’d better do a bit more right now.”
“Hey, wait… Noo—mmmmmm!” Cthulhy let out a sound that Glenn had never heard before. She was completely powerless.
How had it turned into this? Why did Cthulhy’s body keep trembling over and over, just from being poked in the forehead?
The answer was that scylla had a highly developed nervous system.
“Scylla tentacles are capable of complicated and subtle movements, as if they are separate beings. That is achieved by masses of nerves in various parts of the body. In other words, sub-brains.”
“Mmmmmm! I-I know! I know that!”
“And one of those sub-brains is in the forehead.”
The upper bodies of scylla were supported by a skeleton, but they didn’t actually have any hard bones. All their flesh and innards were supported by cartilage. The lower half of their bodies was solid muscle. The top half looked human, but they were essentially mollusks.
To put it another way, scylla cartilage was light and durable. It protected their brains, organs, and nerves from enemies. Perhaps the cartilage was so tough because it supported their bodies in a constant battle against gravity. But the scylla forehead was relatively weak. Someone who knew as much about scylla as Glenn did could cause direct stimulation to the sub-brain under the stiff cartilage by touching the forehead.
“Oh! Ahhhh! Pleeease! Glenn, stop!” Cthulhy was screaming, with tears in her eyes.
Just from stimulation of the sub-brain, scylla could lose control of their tentacles, experiencing intense sensations somewhere between pleasure and pain. The reason Cthulhy always wore glasses was to protect this weak point, and Glenn knew it.
Cthulhy lay on the bed, her eyes watering, drooling a little from her relaxed mouth. She was in no position to argue anymore. At this point, all eight of her tentacles were splayed out, limp.
“I’m starting to have fun, Doctor.”
“Hmmm?! You scoundrel! You’re actually a sadist, aren’t you?! Arrrghhh!”
Glenn continued poking her forehead as he watched Cthulhy tremble. Though he didn’t realize it, the trick that he was performing so casually was actually quite difficult.
“Mm! Mmm! Ah! Ahhh!”
The cartilage that protected the forehead was incredibly durable. Stimulating the sub-brain through that cartilage didn’t just mean rubbing it forcefully; excessive stimulation would cause pain, resulting in a full-force reflex attack. Glenn was stimulating the sub-brain, but just enough so that the defensive instinct wouldn’t kick in. It was a subtle, prescribed stimulation.
Glenn unintentionally executed this skill exquisitely.
“Mmm! Hee! Mph!”
Cthulhy’s trembling tentacles began changing color, as if expressing her excitement. They transformed from a dark red to a light pink, almost white.
Scylla tentacles were like those of an octopus. When the muscles were relaxed, the tentacles were a darker color, and when flexed, the color was lighter. When the relaxing and flexing motions were repeated, the colors changed to a varying degree.
Cthulhy had her mouth closed so she wouldn’t drool, but the changing colors of her tentacles revealed the truth more than her expression: this “punishment” had been effective.
Then…
“Ahhh! Ahhhhh! Mmmmmm!”
When Glenn looked up, Cthulhy’s eyes were empty, and her limbs were spread out everywhere. It seemed the repeated stimulation had drained her of all her energy. Her tentacles were still trembling slightly; they didn’t have any strength left to stand up. Glenn returned Cthulhy’s glasses to her and completed the “punishment.”
“G-Glenn… You’re a technician…”
Glenn thought he may have gone too far. But, on the other hand, he also thought that this might be what it took for Cthulhy to learn her lesson. She did whatever she liked most of the time, so hopefully, she would stop abusing her authority over Glenn so much.
“Now then, I would like to be discharged.”
“F-fine… It’s not like I have the energy to move anyway…” Perhaps she was just a sore loser.
After thorough stimulation of the sub-brain, it would take a bit more time before she could move her tentacles. There was no one to question him returning to the clinic.
“It makes me happy that you’ve matured so much, Glenn…”
“Ahh, thanks.”
“But…just because you outsmarted me doesn’t mean you can just…do whatever you want. Don’t think you’ll be able to work…without running into any problems…”
Then Cthulhy suddenly fell fast asleep, as if she had used up the last of her energy. Since the director of medicine had given him her permission, the only thing left for Glenn to do was go home. Sapphee and the fairies were taking care of all his work, so he needed to hurry back and reduce their workload.
Cthulhy’s breathing had turned regular, but, even asleep, she uttered one last phrase before Glenn left the room. “There’s something…”
Even though it was the first time Glenn had played a trick on his mentor, all he could think about was her puzzling final words.
***
He walked home from the hospital.
It was already evening. That meant he’d been away from the clinic for a day and a half.
“We have been waiting for you, Doctor.”
There to greet him at the door was his capable assistant, Sapphee. But for some reason, she had lifted her torso higher than usual, using the length of her lower body to tower over Glenn. Her head nearly touched the ceiling. Her expression was also sterner than usual. Her eyes were that of a snake, staring at a frog it was about to devour.
“Oh… Umm, Sapphee—”
“I heard, Doctor. You were put on bed rest, but you forced Cthulhy to discharge you. You were supposed to stay in the hospital for three days!”
“Wh—huh?”
Glenn was flustered. How did she know that? Even if she had heard from a staff member at the hospital, how could she have gotten the information so quickly when he had come straight home?
“It’s a good thing I sent a fairy with you.”
Sapphee opened her palm. A fairy appeared and landed directly on it. Sapphee had been so worried that she’d sent a fairy to watch over Glenn. If it were a quick fairy, it could have easily passed Glenn on the way back to the clinic.
“N-no, Sapphee. I got permission from Cthulhy to be discharged.”
“Yes, yes, I know. I heard you attacked Cthulhy’s forehead to get free and forced her to give you permission to be discharged. Poor form, Doctor. You shouldn’t mock medicine when you’re a practitioner yourself.”
She knew everything.
As usual, Glenn found the face of the fairy on Sapphee’s hand unreadable, but he wondered if her expression was boastful.
Sapphee sighed deeply. “But I know you had no choice but to be discharged.”
“Huh?”
“As it is, Dr. Cthulhy is the director of medicine. If she gave you permission to be discharged—even if your methods were unfair and vicious—it wouldn’t make sense for you to go back to the hospital now.”
“Th-that’s right. And there is so much work to do.”
“Well then, make a choice.” Sapphee had a syringe in her hand filled with medication. Her face was dead serious. “Either stay in bed and continue your treatment for one more day…or be shot full of this special anesthetic that puts even ogres to sleep. The choice is yours.”
“Er… Huh?”
“You can’t run away. I can easily put this anesthetic on a dart and throw it. It will knock you unconscious immediately.”
If Glenn were to be shot with such a strong medication, it could put him into a permanent sleep. It was made for monsters and would be far too powerful for a meager human like Glenn.
He didn’t see how he could fight Sapphee’s threat.
“B-but…”
“Which will it be? Make a decision.”
“Umm.”
“Fine.” Sapphee’s eyes were stern and unforgiving.
“Ummm. Okay… Right, I’ll be sleeping then.”
“Good. Even doctors get sick. They get tired, too. Don’t think you’re special. You need to take care of yourself.”
“Yes… It was my own fault.”
Once he began acting cooperatively, Sapphee finally smiled.
Cthulhy probably knew this would happen. Perhaps that’s why she’d let him go so easily. She knew he would be under stricter monitoring at the clinic than at the Central Hospital.
“I will take care of the work. You rest,” Sapphee said. She maintained the posture of a snake lifting its head. No doubt Glenn would have to recover before she would return to her normal height and eye level.
But Glenn had an idea. He went to his room.
***
Glenn thought for almost an entire day as he lay in bed. He was thinking about the doppelgänger. He knew the doppelgänger was Skadi’s old heart, and he also knew it was somewhere in the town and was imitating the townsfolk. The doppelgänger had a will of its own.
But what sort of will? Did it plan to nest in the body of a monster again as it had with Skadi? There hadn’t been any reports like that. If such a patient appeared, the doctors would be the first to hear about it.
So…what was the final goal of a doppelgänger that did nothing but repeatedly mimic people? What was it thinking?
This was all Glenn could think about as he rested. He wasn’t used to being bedridden like this, but this was what came of a doctor neglecting his own health.