“Slave order, Attack him!”
“Ahhhhh!” The girls started screaming.
“Cancel that!” I immediately canceled the order.
The doppelganger started laughing. “I am you, but my orders are not the same as yours. In other words, I can’t cancel your orders, and you can’t cancel my orders. The best we can do is leave your teammates writhing in pain as I kill you!”
“Hehe… aren’t you the bastard? I am you, after all.”
“Ahhhhh….” Shao started screaming again as she forced herself to her feet.
I turned to her and grabbed her as she stumbled forward. “Shao…”
“I can… fight…” She panted, her eyes in pain.
“No…” I patted her head. “I’ll do this on my own.”
“Oh, and since I’m you, I already know how you think. If you had thoughts of freeing them of slavery, know that, once again, you and I start out the same, but we are different. In other words, they will still be my slave, even if they stop being yours.”
“…” I hadn’t really thought of it, but he seemed to be closing off my options one at a time.
“Hey… don’t look at me like that. If I wanted to play dirty, I could order them to attack you. Then, you’d have to order them to stop, and I could kill them like that.”
My face turned white, and I couldn’t help but ask. “Why don’t you?”
“You’d probably not make that order, and you’d let them kill you. That’d be no fun. Besides, you must remember that I am you. Perhaps, deep down, I don’t wish them harm either.”
“Enough of this, it is time that you die!” He lunged forward with his blade, immediately doing a Quick Attack.
I barely managed to dodge it. I quickly tried to decide on what job lineup I wanted to use. For him, I didn’t understand completely what skills he had. He said he could use all of my skills, but did he know I could switch jobs on the fly? He said it himself, he had the skills that I had. However, the second I change my job layout, I change the skills I have. Right now, he has White Mage, Slave Master, and True Hero equipped, assuming he has the jobs I had when I entered. We were different, so if I changed jobs, then he should still stay the same, a snapshot of me.
Our swords clashed several times. Each time, metal struck metal with a flash of magic. These were identical swords with an identical magic being used in an identical way. Although the fight looked even, I quickly could feel myself on the defending end. This guy may have my abilities, but he wasn’t me. He didn’t have my hesitations, my hangups, or my doubts. He could attack confidently and use the skills smoothly.
Thus, it was the moment of truth. I switch from Slave Master to Basic Magician. I immediately tossed out a fireball just as he raised his sword to attack. His eyes went wide in surprise as the fire shot out of my hand and struck him. He leaped back as the flames burnt the leg and arm of his clothing. As he shot back, a water spell suddenly swept across him.
I was wrong. He was able to adapt and instantly gained my Basic Magician abilities. This meant that my plan was instantly destroyed.
“Interesting…” he responded, “You can switch jobs, huh? I was wondering why you have so many wonderful skills. However… I am not you. I can only replicate what you have equipped, but whatever skills you offer me, I keep!”
My eyes widened and I took a step back. What he was saying was that he didn’t lose the Slave Master skills. Instead, he had just gained my Basic Magician skills. Any time I switched jobs, he would gain all of the skills and status of that job! In other words, every time I could surprise attack him, I’d only have one chance before he adapted and grew more powerful.