Before they realized it, the sky had filled with dark clouds. When they had left that morning, the sun had still greeted them.
When Angoulême suddenly looked back, the two of them were still not far from the griddlecake stall, and Victor could smell the rich, warm aroma of cooked wheat in the air.
Her shout was the starter's pistol, announcing the official beginning of the first Produce Cup footrace, with the doppler in first place, the girl close behind in second, and the boy trailing in third.
This time, they had to settle things completely. There would be no second chance.
Because this was Novigrad, the greatest city in the North. Nearly forty thousand permanent residents lived here, and the number of travelers and drifters passing through was more than double that. In a place with that many people, finding one specific doppler was impossible.
If they scared it off today, then it was almost certain it would never appear in front of Angoulême again. After all, the girl had turned around and caught it with absolutely no clues at all.
Until it understood how Angoulême's enemy-sense worked, it would never dare come near her again. And Victor was not about to let Angoulême roam the entire city every day, chasing some vague trace of hostility.
The instant chase thrown into motion by the three of them plunged the produce market into chaos. Merchants and customers alike became obstacles, shoved aside at will as screams, curses, collisions, and crashing wares erupted one after another.
"Hey! Stop right there!"
"Ow, my back!"
"Thief! Thief!"
"Robber! You damned robber, get back here!"
The doppler burst through the crowd at high speed, but not nearly fast enough to compare with the Parkour King of Kaer Morhen, the Ultimate Endurance Champion, and three-time Vizima Road Race winner—Victor Corion.
Victor, however, did not close the gap. He kept a steady pace behind Angoulême, because the doppler's most troublesome ability was mimicry. Time and again, it would cut around a corner, slam through a stall, create a knot of confusion, and when it emerged again, the thing running away had already changed from a man into a woman, or from an old person into someone young.
Fortunately, as long as its attention remained fixed on the girl, it had nowhere to hide. So Victor could not allow it to shift its focus onto him. Once its attention moved off Angoulême and it transformed again, the Phantom Troupe would have no way to identify it.
So the boy did not pass the girl. Instead, he meant to pressure the doppler at an unhurried pace, herd it somewhere with fewer people, and then subdue it in one stroke.
Angoulême understood Victor's strategy, so she also kept a steady distance without rushing. She had great confidence in her stamina. Ever since moving to Novigrad, Victor had never given up on his dream of training her into a long-distance running specialist.
He always said that the one who laughed last was usually the one who lasted longest, and Bell Town had provided plenty of examples of that, so morning runs were never optional.
The doppler soon ran out of the produce market and headed toward Tretogor Gate. That probably meant it lived in Farcorners, the poorest district in Novigrad, which fit well enough with its habit of constantly stealing food.
One after another, the three of them rushed into the city outskirts. This area handled all sorts of things the city center could not: food processing that needed space to spread and dry, laundry services, and dye works that required broad open ground.
Seeing how sparse the area was, Victor suddenly burst forward, overtook Angoulême in an instant, and slammed hard into the doppler's back.
It crashed to the ground and rolled all the way to the edge of the moat. By the time it struggled back up, it found Victor and Angoulême already flanking it from both sides.
"So we finally meet, Mr. Doppler. What's your name? Let's talk, all right? We mean no harm." The atmosphere was tense, but the witcher apprentice spread his hands to show he meant no immediate threat and went straight to the point.
Panting hard, the doppler was currently shaped like an extremely full-bodied mature woman. "You're monster hunters hired by that bastard Sylvester, aren't you?"
"Well... monster hunters, yes, but... wait, don't!"
Before Victor could stop it, the doppler's body began to writhe and shift. Its form suddenly shrank, slimmed down, caved inward, and lost height. The chestnut curls gradually turned blonde and shortened until they brushed the ears.
Its long dress gleamed and changed into black leather. Silver studs appeared on the shoulders and sleeves. The plump, ruddy face stretched into something leaner and sharper.
In the blink of an eye, it had turned completely into Angoulême.
It ripped off the cloak and hurled it to the ground, then planted a foot on it. "Hmph! Doppler killer! Don't think you can fool me. How could I possibly trust you?" The voice was clear and lively. No matter how one listened, it was Angoulême's exact same aggravating voice.
Victor could not help but marvel. Judging by appearance alone, there was truly no way to tell them apart. The straw-dry hair, the flat backside, the flat chest, the thick waist, the short little build... even the Doppler Detection Set on her body had been copied perfectly.
No wonder humans hunted dopplers so relentlessly. Seeing something turn into you right in front of your eyes was enough to make anyone lose control.
"You damned bastard!" Angoulême roared.
When a human being saw a creature identical to themselves appear before them, an uncontrollable fury would burst forth on instinct, because it violated that very sense of uniqueness that made a person a person.
And Angoulême's killing intent surged even higher in that moment, because before setting out, Victor had carefully explained how a doppler worked. It involved copying the patterns of the brain and mind—or perhaps, one could even say, the soul.
Once it had observed someone well enough to imitate them, it could reproduce the victim's voice, thought processes, behavior, professional knowledge, and skills. In front of it, none of your ideas were truly safe.
It could effortlessly take over the victim's place in society, and even the closest people around them would be unable to spot the difference. That was what Angoulême hated most. She was deeply attached to the idea of being irreplaceable.
The doppler shook its head and sighed. "Good heavens. I'm so sorry. So that's what you went through."
"Don't do that!" Victor shouted a second warning, but it was just as useless as the first.
With a hiss, Angoulême drew her steel sword, and in an instant the two Angoulêmes crashed into each other in a savage exchange, matching wild speed with wild speed.
This doppler truly was a perfect example of asking for death. Its sigh and sympathy completely enraged Angoulême. They charged each other, clashed violently, and their blades rang again and again by the moat like a storm of hammering steel, leaving Victor without an opening to intervene.
"Not bad," Angoulême said between breaths after they sprang apart by a step. "Not bad at all, monster. But you're not me, and you'll never replace me. Prepare to die."
"I am you. There's no difference between us. So this is how you found me." The doppler answered with complete confidence.
Angoulême drew in a deep breath. That brief exchange had already made one thing clear: her chances of winning alone were slim. The doppler had copied her agility, and even its strength was hard to distinguish from hers. Her only edge was that Victor stood nearby, forcing the doppler to keep part of its attention on him.
The doppler attacked again.
Angoulême parried, slashed back, ducked low, then leaped up, trying to seize its wrist. But her strike hit empty air. The doppler had found just enough room to break away, and immediately fled once more.
Victor rushed after it at once. Having copied Angoulême, the doppler now understood the weakness of her tracking sense: as long as it felt no hostility toward her, she could not tell the difference.
In other words, if they let the doppler transform again and melt into a crowd, that would be the same as declaring the Phantom Troupe defeated. And it would also carry away every secret about Victor that existed in Angoulême's head.
The doppler might not necessarily use those things to harm him, but Victor would never tolerate leaving such leverage out in the world and beyond his control. Even if he had to kill it, he would never let it go. A doppler's talent for mimicry truly was the kind of gift that invited death.
This time, however, the chase was no longer so easy. After all, the doppler had copied Angoulême's physique.
A fine drizzle began to fall from the sky, cool against the face. Following the road, their path led straight toward Glory Gate, where drunk layabouts and thugs, after being thrown out of nearby taverns at the end of an all-night binge, often wound up collapsed beneath the arch.
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