A dull longsword and a heartbroken villager

However, although the monster is dead, the people it killed cannot be resurrected.

The longhouse's already incomplete windows were now smashed open, and a corpse with part of its body corroded was hanging on the windowsill.

Not only this one person died, but two or three other residents also perished in this partitioned longhouse.

This time, the liquefied part of the mimicry beast is not its head, so it is very clear what kind of person it is mimicking.

Before it was stabbed to death, it was simulating one of the victims.

"Hurry up and get to the next location. If we're any slower, who knows how many more people will die," a guard said, frowning.

The monster at the longhouse wasn't the first mimicry they encountered; they had dealt with two more mimicry along the way.

According to Bray, there should be one or two more left to finish.

However, Bray's expression was somewhat gloomy, as if things were not as simple as he had imagined.

Previously, Bray had only seen a few mimicry beasts using his Mind's Eye, but upon closer inspection, he was shocked to find that after three had died, two more had appeared.

“There are more left over,” Bray said in a deep voice.

"What did you say?" The guards looked terrified.

Since the route indicated by the burlesque had been very accurate, they had come to believe in the "experience" and "intuition" that this former adventurer spoke of.

"Are you serious?" The wolf girl's forehead was covered in cold sweat as she spoke. She felt a chill run down her spine after hearing that the number of mimicry beasts had increased.

“Seriously,” Bray said; he didn’t joke about things like this.

He instinctively thought of Jonathan selling the flesh of some kind of monster in the market before.

That monster happened to be a mimicry beast.

Was the clown's action unintentional, or was it a deliberate hint?

"Hurry up, you have no other choice but to deal with these monsters as soon as possible."

If it's just about dealing with the mimicry beasts, Bray alone is enough.

However, the guards were mostly responsible for cleaning up the scene and organizing intelligence.

Killing the mimics is important, but it's not their whole job.

Basically, when Bray goes to a place, several of his guards have to stay behind to guard the location.

“Now only a few of us are free,” the wolf girl said to Bray, glancing at her two or three colleagues behind her.

"You're already short-handed... Claw Keep is really short-staffed." Bray sighed.

"That's enough, provided no more random monsters are added." The wolf girl's ears perked up, clearly dissatisfied with Bray's words.

"The problem is I don't know if we'll add more," Bray said, before leading the werewolf guards to their next destination.

"By the way... what's your name?"

“Talika,” the wolf girl replied briefly.

"Ah, another tower."

What are you muttering about?

"It's nothing." "Please, please let me go!" A middle-aged man with a lot of beard and goat horns sat on the ground, kicking his legs and backing away.

Before him stood a person dressed in linen clothes.

That person's gender is ambiguous; it seems acceptable to assume they are any gender.

However, the liquid dripping continuously from its legs is enough to suggest that "it" should be used to refer to this person.

"Please, please, let me go..." The man, no, the mimic beast, stiffly repeated the ram-horned uncle's words.

The only difference was that it didn't mimic the uncle's tone of voice.

"Help!!! There's a monster here! A mimic beast!!!" Seeing that his pleas were useless, the uncle simply got up from the ground.

The act of getting up was comical, but what does it matter if it's comical when it comes to life?

"Help!!!!!" he shouted, hoping someone would hear his cries for help and save him.

His voice was loud, and people in the distance could indeed faintly hear it.

Unfortunately, no one, driven by curiosity, came to take even a glance.

A cold hand grabbed the old man with ram horns by the neck.

Even through the thick wool, he could feel the coldness of that hand.

At the same time, her hands were very soft and smooth.

The soft, boneless hands made the middle-aged man think they were the hands of a young girl.

However, instead of enjoying it, he was horrified.

The next second, a gel-like liquid flowed from the hand and enveloped him.

Mimicry beasts are a strange kind of monster; they are not life forms made purely of liquid like slimes.

However, while maintaining the skeletal and muscular framework that a normal animal should have, it is still able to accommodate the fluidity of slime.

What is most repulsive about them is their habit of imitating the postures of lower species; they seem to have an instinct to imitate intelligent beings.

Encountering them in mazes and similar places can be a real headache.

For a large number of people, it is incredibly difficult to set out for a goal that is very similar to themselves.

Countless people have died because of one act of kindness.

"Glug—" With the sound of bubbles rising, the ram-horned uncle vanished from the world completely, leaving only clean skeletons and clothes.

It really was just bones and clothes; nothing else remained.

“It seems I understand more now,” the genderless mimicry murmured, the string of words spoken with perfect fluency.

Mimicry beasts do not become smarter after eating humans, just as wild beasts do not necessarily become monsters after eating humans.

But this mimicry beast did indeed exhibit intelligence that was different from its other counterparts.

While other mimics are easily recognizable, this one resembles a stutterer.

Coupled with her beautiful appearance, it's very easy for people to lower their guard.

"Tear—" A few seconds later, the mimicry split in two.

This division into two is a true division into two.

The ability to split from one mimicry beast into two is something that a normal mimicry beast should not possess.

The split individuals began to speak, but only uttered meaningless words intermittently.

This jumbled string of words is just like what a baby says when they are just learning to speak.

"You are... one of our kind," the creature with a face as exquisite as a porcelain doll said, pointing to the individual it had split off from.

Just as it wanted to continue interacting with its kind and teaching them more, a strong sense of crisis overwhelmed it.

“Danger,” it uttered a single word.

This is the most fluent word it has ever uttered since its birth.

This sentence was intended to warn its fellow beings who stood motionless, but its fellow beings did not seem to appreciate it and remained standing there blankly.

Like many mimicry beasts, this split individual will likely only act on instinct when it is hungry.

Many of the mimicry beasts within the Claw Keep safe zone originated from this gender-ambiguous Primarch.

However, those that split off were basically all swept away.

Seeing that its kind remained motionless, it did not hesitate and leaped backward.

During the leap, its body began to transform, eventually becoming a hunting dog the size of a human, which sped off into the shadows of the alley.

Half a second after its heel left the spot, a long sword swept through the air and pierced through the stunned mimic beast.

After the longsword pierced through the monster, it was pinned to the ground, making a crisp vibration sound.

"Did you guys see something run away just now?" Bray noticed a blur disappearing from the edge as he drew his sword.

As he spoke, Bray picked up the longsword he had used to kill the mimic beast.

“It looks like it, but I can’t see it clearly.” Talika shook her head. She had noticed it too, but she couldn’t make out what it was.

"Forget about the thing that left, quickly check the situation at the scene." She looked solemnly at the skeleton on the ground.

“One resident was completely eaten,” Bray said.

"However, it wasn't eaten by the guy I just killed."

“It was another mimic beast that ate him,” Bray said, crouching down and glancing at him.

What makes you think that way?

"Because none of these things are liquid, these monsters would have to liquefy a part of themselves before they could eat people," Bray said, expressing his thoughts.

“I have a feeling that a major unsolved case is happening here in Clawsburg,” he said to Talika with great emotion.

Talika shook her fluffy wolf tail and walked up to the skeleton.

“Your joke isn’t funny at all,” Talika said, frowning.

"I'm not joking."

"What should we do next? I can have another guard investigate this place, and then I'll follow you."

“But if we encounter a few more murders…” Talika hesitated before continuing.

The implication is that there really won't be enough manpower going forward.

“Even so, there’s nothing we can do; there are still a few left,” Bray said, carefully examining the surrounding traces.

His expression changed slightly very quickly.

"No, there's only one left," he said, his tone filled with helplessness.

Strictly speaking, there should have been two more, but one left Claw Castle.

“Wolf Girl,” he called out to Talika.

"Didn't I already tell you my name?" Talika said irritably.

"Do you think those silly-looking mimics will actively flee the safe zone?" Bray asked tentatively.

“Of course not. It sounds harsh, but the safe zone of Claw Keep is like a dining table for the monsters; they can’t leave.” Talika shook her head, wondering why Bray was asking such a basic question. In a separate space, an old man fiddled with neatly arranged mirrors in front of him.

He sat on a rustic wooden chair, holding a worn-out brown cane in his hand.

This place belongs to the Eastern Continent, but it is not on the ground or in the sky of the Eastern Continent. Instead, it is a place similar to another dimension.

The old man's beard was grayish-blue, and his hair and eyebrows were the same color.

However, his beard was more striking than anything else.

"He", not "he".

Miriel is described as a "mirror image" in some books.

It's as mysterious as a reflection in a mirror.

His true form is a monster shrouded in a cloud of mist.

The posture of an elderly person is nothing more than a dispensable disguise.

However, smaller sizes take up less space, so the alternate dimension doesn't need to be very large.

His gaze swept across a row of mirrors, and he instantly understood the scene reflected in them.

Each mirror reflected not the old man's face, but the scenery of the Eastern Continent.

But Miril wasn't so bored as to admire the scenery of the Eastern Continent; He was observing something in real time.

Something that He expects to give birth to wisdom.

"Did I get into a cage full of ants?" Miriel murmured to a mirror that was filled with static.

These mirrors of His were created using concepts, and therefore He could not observe the situation within the safe zone of lower species.

Normally, in order to obtain information about the safe zone, He uses His clones to observe.

As long as the clone doesn't die, it can transfer all its memories back after returning and merging with the main body.