In the Name of God - vanish into fiction

It was all black, so I couldn’t be certain, but he appeared slightly shorter than me with a frame that seemed not yet fully grown.

‘A child?’

Perhaps a teenager.

I felt that if I lifted the veil, I would see a face in its mid-to-late teens.

The other teammates, however, seemed too desperate to bother with such observations.

“Are you an Awakener too?! Are you from another team?!”

“I-I don’t know who you are, but help us!”

“Get a grip, everyone.”

At the shouts of the impatient teammates, Kwon Jeong-han’s voice sank low.

“That is not a human.”

Was it Kwon Jeong-han’s extraordinary intuition? Or did he feel the unnatural energy radiating from this black boy?

Whichever it was, Kwon Jeong-han was right.

The boy who had descended the stairs was meticulously shrouded in the same black energy as the other monsters.

Watching the boy approach, the Team Leader, still held by a monster, muttered with a pale face and a stutter.

“Could it be… the b-boss monster…?”

At that murmur, all the teammates looked at him as if he were talking nonsense.

“Why would the boss monster be here? The boss room is in a completely different direction!”

“A boss in human form? That’s impossible!”

But the Team Leader’s expression did not improve. Beside him, Kwon Jeong-han’s complexion darkened even further.

Though he didn’t say it aloud, Kwon Jeong-han must have realized it too.

That the human-shaped “something” before our eyes might indeed be one of the boss monsters, just as the Team Leader suggested.

‘They said there was a boss whose specialties are mimicry and transformation.’

In the briefing, we were told that among the two sleeping boss monsters, the one with mimicry and transformation abilities had to be dealt with first. They warned that if it happened to transform into an Awakener, it could utilize the exact same abilities, making it a much tougher opponent than the other boss.

It seemed that moment was now.

The black, human-shaped monster walking toward us glanced at the wooden statue, then suddenly smiled at me. Although his face was completely hidden by the veil, the hint of a smile leaked through the noise in his voice.

“It’s well-made, isn’t it? There are many smaller wooden statues upstairs too. Do you want to go see?”

It was a profoundly peaceful statement, utterly out of place in this tension-filled situation.

Nevertheless, the black boy held out his hand as if to escort me.

“Let’s go.”

I didn’t take his hand but glared at him in silence.

I thought I knew exactly who this creature was mimicking right now. Though I didn’t know how such a thing was possible.

When I simply stood there watching, the black boy slumped his shoulders dramatically. Then, he flicked his other hand toward one of the monsters.

“Aaargh!”

Blood sprayed from the shoulder of the teammate that monster was holding. The sharp claws had gouged the shoulder deep enough to expose bone.

The black boy’s finger pointed toward another monster next. The teammate held by that creature trembled with a face full of horror.

“Wait.”

I suddenly grabbed the boy’s hand just as he was about to give the command.

There was no need for deep thought.

This black boy’s target is me. Especially if my hunch is correct and this creature has mimicked “that child” from the past.

If so, the teammates behind me are nothing more than hostages used to move me.

Glancing briefly at the teammates behind me, I gripped the boy’s hand tight.

“Let’s go.”

I got the feeling the boy was smiling brightly behind the veil. If not for the noise, the sound of his laughter would likely have been a clear, pleasant tone.

The boy led me toward the stairs with a somewhat excited stride.

Creak, creak. The aged sound of the wooden stairs tickled my ears.

‘This sound is the same.’

It was the sound that used to occur whenever that child went up or down the stairs.

At the time, I wanted to fix it for him, thinking it might be annoying, but the child refused.

He said that during the times I wasn’t watching over him, this old sound felt like a companion to talk to.

Thinking about it now, I felt I could understand how lonely that young child must have been while growing up in this house, even without trying to measure it.

And one more thing.

‘This is definitely that house.’

It wasn’t a sophisticated imitation.

Nor was it a hallucination created based on my memories, like the phantoms I encountered in the new dungeon of the Disaster Zone.

This was truly the house where that child had lived.

I couldn’t fathom why this place was in the middle of a dungeon. I didn’t know why a monster was acting like the master of the house, or how it had transformed by mimicking that child.

‘But if it really has mimicked him…’

The moment we passed the stairs and reached the second floor.

I reached out and yanked the boy walking in front of me around. His underdeveloped body turned to face me obediently.

Without hesitation, I reached for the boy’s veil.

If he has mimicked that child, his face will be the same. If it’s now, I can finally confirm the face of my beloved Apostle that I had forgotten.

In an instant, the boy’s veil was whipped away.