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“Uh, um…where am…ugh! Ow, it hurts…” Bogle frowned and appeared very flustered. Then he looked at Dalgil and jumped up. “C-Captain?”

“Bogle! How are you—!”

“Look at the condition you are in! How injured are you?”

“No, I’m fine—”

“Wait a bit! Huh? Where is it! Where?” Bogle jumped and frantically searched for the bag he always carried around with him. Thus, Ru Hiana handed his bag to him, and Bogle immediately took out two healing potions and said, “Captain! Wait a bit! You have muscle strains, cuts, and burns…what happened to you?”

“Bogle, I’m really fine. It’s you who needs help—”

“No, the person who needs treatment the most right now is you, Captain. And don’t you know that the use of healing potions during an expedition is entirely decided by the one playing the role of a priest?” Bogle said firmly and shut Dalgil up by pouring a bottle of potion into his mouth. Then Bogle carefully poured the remaining healing potion onto Dalgil’s body after forcing him to take off his armor. And while drinking the potion, Dalgil’s expression relaxed. He had been worried that Bogle would turn out to be a fake, but his behavior and speech suggested that he was the real deal.

“It seems like two bottles aren’t enough…”

“It’s really fine now. Won\'t we have to leave one bottle for Airi?”

“Hm…” Bogle seemed pensive when Dalgil brought up Airi.

Bam! In the meantime, the violent knocking persisted.

“…Hey.” Bogle flinched and looked up at the red door. Then he turned back to his surroundings and asked, “I wanted to ask when I woke up, but what’s that noise? I’m not the only one hearing it right?”

Ru Amuh answered Bogle’s question. He articulately explained everything that had happened after the fourth room, including only the key, important parts. Bogle’s face turned serious and scared after hearing Ru Amuh’s explanation.

“Then, doesn’t that mean…we have to quickly decide before the count reaches 100? What are we doing? We don’t have time for this.”

“Don’t worry, Bogle. We still have enough time.”

Dalgil comforted Bogle and glanced at Hawa, who replied tartly, “Twenty-one.”

“We were about to make our decision. It’s really fortunate that you woke up.”

“Don’t tell me you were about to open the white door?”

Dalgil halted at Bogle’s question. Nothing was set in stone yet. Dalgil was planning to make his decision after listening to everyone’s opinions, but he hadn’t thought Bogle would be the first to disagree with him.

“Captain.” Bogle straightened up as he spoke. “I think this expedition is enough as it is.” He continued in a clear voice. “I know how you feel. We’re one compartment away from the end, and you might feel regretful, but pushing the expedition team further is too much.”

Chi-Woo suddenly felt a sense of unfamiliarity from Bogle. The Bogle he knew so far wasn’t so outspoken. He chimed in with his thoughts and went along with what the captain said in the end. In other words, he was usually the type to be led by others.

“Take a look at your own condition, Captain. There’s no point in using the rest of the healing potions. You need care from a professional priest and healing spells cast on you. You must know it in your heart too.” Bogle continued, “And it’s not just you, Captain. There’s Airi and me…no, is there even a single person who’s fine in this team right now?”

Bogle wasn’t wrong. Everything he said was logical and sound.

“Although I’m not the expedition team’s captain or guide, I suggest we end this expedition right now and head to Shalyh City. This is my advice as your companion.” While Bogle talked, the knocking count passed thirty. Though they still had quite some time, they couldn’t drag it out much longer.

After organizing his thoughts, Dalgil spoke again. “You said the same thing when Airi got ambushed by those anguses.”

“Yes. Although I relented that time because I didn’t think I had a choice, I’m not going to do that again. The situation had changed far too much.” A groan punctuated the end of Dalgil’s appeal. It was Airi.

“Cap…tain…” Airi sounded very faint. As if murmuring in her sleep, she talked about how pained she was and pleaded for her life.

“Airi…!” Bogle stomped on the ground in distress and shouted while turning back to Dalgil, “Look, Captain! We don’t know…how much longer Airi can last…!” Everything was somehow fitting perfectly into place.

“You said it was written on the door—that ‘greater despair’ is waiting inside the white door! It will be a struggle to go through that place even in our best conditions. How bad would it be in our current states?” There was a sense of urgency after Bogle saw Airi’s state; he continued pleadingly, “I followed everything you said until now. Can’t you listen to my suggestion this time? I’m not trying to be stubborn. It’s because of how dire the situation is. You must know it too.”

Dalgil bit his lower lip and fell into deep contemplation. Bogle also closed his lips for a moment, but the persistent knocks made him frantic. And when the number of knocks exceeded forty, Bogle failed to control his anxiety and yelled, “Captain…! Please…!”

Dalgil opened his eyes. “I…” After some hesitation, he revealed what was in his heart, “I don’t want to give up yet.”

Bogle looked like he was doubting his own ears. He was about to say something when Dalgil continued, “Yet I don’t want to ignore your thoughts and push ahead. So…” Dalgil said with more force, “Throw your staff, Bogle.”

“…What?”

“I said, ‘throw your staff’.”

Bogle didn’t say anything for a moment and simply stared at Dalgil. Then he slowly shook his head.

“No, I can’t.”

Dalgil’s eyebrows wiggled. “This is a command coming from the expedition team’s leader. Throw it, Bogle.”

“What if the staff points to the white door?”

“It could point to the blue door.”

“But whichever door it points to, this whole discussion would’ve been meaningless then.

“Is that the reason why you are saying you will disobey my orders?”

“Captain, this staff moves according to a god’s will, not ours.” Bogle sounded angry, but he continued while repressing his emotions, “I mean that we must decide this matter on our own rather than following a god’s will. Only then would we be able to reach a decision we don’t regret. Even if I throw this staff, would we be able to acknowledge its result from the bottom of our hearts?”

Dalgil stared intently at Bogle. Bogle stared back without backing down. Thud! Despite the situation, the knocks continued. The count had surpassed fifty. Though they still had some time left, they needed to decide now.

“…I understand.” Dalgil took his eyes off Bogle and turned around. Then he said, “We will decide by voting.”

“What? Voting?”

“They are all members of the expedition team. We also have to listen to their thoughts since they fought with us.”

“…”

“I vote for the white door, while you and Airi vote for the blue door. Do you have any objections?”

Bogle looked like he was harboring many complaints, but didn’t say anything. He simply looked at the rest of the team with his hands clasped in a pleading gesture.

“I…think the blue door is better,” Ru Hiana spoke first. “Honestly, I agreed with Bogle. Not only is the captain heavily injured, but it will also be difficult for Ruahu to fight much more… I’m sorry, Captain, but I also agree that we aren’t in a state to fight any longer.” Ru Hiana spoke as she looked very apologetic to Dalgil. Bogle gripped his hands tighter in gratitude, and Dalgil calmly muttered, “That makes it three people for the blue door.”

Then he turned to the rest of the members and asked, “What about you? It will be good if you can decide as fast as possible.”

Thud. “The white door,” Hawa said at the same time a knock sounded, and she added, “That was the sixtieth knock, by the way.”

There were two members left now. Ru Amuh glanced at Chi-Woo, but in the end, he collected himself and said, “I will also choose the white door.” Ru Amuh agreed with Bogle that they had lost a lot of fighting power, but he believed they could still push on. Above all, he wanted to respect the leader of the team, Dalgil’s stance. It was a line of reasoning that was very him. Thus, the voting reached a tie, and it came to Chi-Woo to make the final call. All eyes shifted to him, but Chi-Woo didn’t feel much pressure this time; he’d already made up his mind.

“I will choose the white door,” Chi-Woo said calmly. Dalgil nodded while Bogle looked at Chi-Woo in disbelief and sighed, but Chi-Woo didn’t waver.

“It’s been decided.”

“Captain!”

“Stop. Rules are rules. A decision has already been made, so even if you don’t want to, you must follow it. If you refuse to do so, I won’t think of you as my companion any longer,” Dalgil said firmly, but Bogle didn’t back off.

“What about me and Airi!? Are you saying that you will push us to our deaths in the end? Just because of your goals?”

Dalgil halted. “…If you are so adamant, I will give you one last opportunity,” he said coldly while looking down at Bogle. “Throw your staff.”

“…”

“If your staff points to the blue door, the voting will be voided, and we will go through the blue door.”

Bogle didn’t say anything. He simply glared at Dalgil while gritting his teeth.

“If you refuse to do that, I won’t tolerate any further objections beyond this point.”

Dalgil turned like he had nothing left to discuss and stomped toward the white door. He was about to open it without hesitation when Bogle suddenly lunged, raising the staff upside down to point its sharp tip at Dalgil in an attempt to pierce Dalgil’s back. His great speed was unthinkable for his usual self, but Bogle failed to do what he intended. The moment Bogle approached Dalgil, his staff broke and smashed onto the floor.

Bogle was disarmed and trapped between Dalgil and Ru Amuh. Though Bogle tried to launch an ambush, the two reacted quicker like they had expected the attack. Ru Hiana shouted in surprise, but Chi-Woo appeared calm. He had also anticipated the possibility.

“I thought the monster could only read short-term memories to impersonate the person, but it seems it can also mimic their speech and behavior,” Dalgil said while pressing his feet down on Bogle harder. Then he snorted, “It would’ve been better if you had just thrown the staff and said God Miho wasn’t responding. Before anyone else, Bogle always said that he would throw his staff whenever a problem arose. Considering that, it seemed impossible such a guy would refuse to do so this time. The talk about our own will isn’t terribly convincing.”

“…”

“Tell me, where is Bogle?”

Bogle—no, the monster impersonating Bogle didn’t answer. It had a chillingly expressionless face before it smiled so wide that the corners of its mouth almost reached the ends of its ears. Was it laughing at them in this situation? Sensing that something was off, Dalgil looked around and furrowed his brows. Airi, who should’ve been in Ru Hiana’s arms, was gone.

“What?” Feeling Dalgil’s gaze, Ru Hiana’s eyes also turned wide. She didn’t realize that Airi had disappeared from her arms while she was focusing on Bogle. The expedition team quickly scanned their surroundings and spotted her in the left corner. Airi had already climbed to the top of the stairs and was in front of the red door. How did Airi move so swiftly after struggling to even stand? It was impossible.

Seeing Airi smirk in front of the red door, everyone came to the same realization: though the red door opened from the outside once the number of knocks reached a hundred, it could be opened from the inside right away.

Airi was about to jump and open the door when—Slid! A dagger suddenly flew across the air and pierced her. In pain, Airi tried to pull the dagger out, but she screamed again. Hawa ran up to her in an instant, grabbed the dagger’s hilt, and pushed the blade deeper into Airi’s body. She responded so skillfully and swiftly, as if she had prepared for this situation beforehand like Dalgil and Ru Amuh had done with Bogle.

When Hawa pulled her dagger out and glanced over her shoulder, Dalgil asked with a confounded expression, “How…did you know?”

“It said five.”

Dalgil looked confused.

“When we got out of the room, it said there needed to be at least five people for the door to open,” Hawa explained once more, and Dalgil still looked like he didn’t quite get it. After leaving the room, Hawa alone had looked behind her and saw the words on the outside of the door rather than the inside.

“The writing outside said five or six were unstable, while seven was the perfect number.”

“…When we found the writings on the inside, didn’t you say you couldn’t read it?” Dalgil asked a bit sharply this time after gazing blankly at her.

“I lied,” Hawa said matter-of-factly.

“You could read it?”

“I was trained in all sorts of knowledge since I was young, including languages of several species and even ancient languages.” Though not to Bogle’s level, Hawa’s knowledge about ancient times was abundant, as she had shown during her time in the cave under the Evalaya Volcano.

“Then why did you hide this fact?”

“I wanted to test you,” Hawa answered nonchalantly. “If you were the impersonating monster, I thought you would deliberately misinterpret what was written on the door, so I watched you.” In other words, Hawa had pretended like she was unable to read the letters and didn’t say anything even when she found writings on the outside of the door. She did this not only to test her team members, but based on the belief that revealing the information would alert the monsters among them. In short, Hawa had suspected everyone on the team since the very beginning.

Everyone looked stunned by Hawa’s thoroughness.

“Then when did you begin to doubt Airi…?” Dalgil asked. Chi-Woo was also curious. He had suspected Bogle, but hadn’t considered Airi a suspect at all.

“When…? Ah.” Dalgil realized then.

The thought that there could be two monsters impersonating their companions first came to Hawa’s mind when saw the number ‘5’ on the door. She thought about what the meaning of the number was. Was it the number of people in the room? No, that couldn’t be the case since it should be ‘7’ then. The suspicions she had deepened when she saw the ominous writing on the outside. What did it mean by ‘unstable’ with five or six, and ‘perfect’ with seven? While thinking about this, Hawa connected what had happened in the previous room with the writings and thought, ‘What if the number wasn’t the number of people in the room, but the number of companions?’ An impersonating monster couldn’t be seen as their companion.

Considering this, though the door opened when there were at least five people, things would be unstable with the current number of companions they had. Only if they had seven companions in the team would there be no problems. Everything seemed to fit then.

“Those writings on the door hinted that problems would arise in an unstable state.” And that was what almost happened. The relationship between Dalgil and Bogle worsened, Dalgil was almost ambushed from behind, and the red door was almost opened.

Bogle was on the more obvious side. Though it was unclear in the beginning, he had acted too differently from his usual self after he woke up. Thus, Hawa thought about who the last monster could be. Outside of herself and Chi-Woo, who had brought up exactly what had happened between them when they were at the Evalaya Volcano, she couldn’t be sure who amongst the remaining four could be the last monster.

“I suspected one or two of you, but couldn’t figure it out. That made me think in the completely opposite direction,” Hawa continued to explain.

“How so?”

“I kept my eye on the companion who was the least suspicious,” Hawa said. “The way the situation was progressing, I thought we would be completely screwed over—like getting backstabbed by the person we least suspected.”

It was the truth of life: in the most important time, one got betrayed by the person that seemed least likely to do so. Thus, Hawa kept her eye on Airi. Nobody suspected her as she had been with Chi-Woo almost the entire time and had been unconscious since they reunited. Hawa might have made a bold guess, but in the end, her deduction was right.

Bam! As if the existence beyond the red door felt enraged by this, the impact grew heavier.

“That was the eightieth knock just now,” Hawa said, craning one ear and squinting.

“Then…Airi and Bogle…” Dalgil said with a slightly dazed face.

Bam!

Hawa frowned and said, “It is time for us to decide.”

Bam!

“The door to turn back has disappeared.”

Bam!

“We have to decide whether to open the blue door or the white door.”

Bam!

“Choose which one—ah, so loud!” Hawa was encouraging Dalgil to make a decision when she aggressively kicked the bottom of the red door. It really was aggravatingly loud, and Hawa was understandably annoyed. And after the hard kick, the knocking suddenly stopped to their surprise. Yet the next moment—

Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam!

As if the being behind the door was also enraged by Hawa’s behavior, they began to knock on the door faster. Hawa responded quickly. Her eyes widened for a moment, and then she flew down the stairs. The knocks reached ninety in an instant and grew frantic.

“Quickly!” Hawa yelled urgently. Dalgil quickly came to his senses and turned. Unable to hesitate any longer, they headed for the white door he had decided upon from the beginning. He opened the ivory-white door leading to the next compartment wide and yelled, “Everyone out!”

With Dalgil on the lead, everyone hurriedly ran toward the open door. Simultaneously, there were sounds of the iron door crumbling.

“Wait—!” Though it sounded like somebody was calling them from the second floor, no one looked back. Chi-Woo was the last one to get out. He turned to close the door behind him. Then his face became blank.

“?”