I leaned my body against a nearby tree to gather my thoughts as Nina looked at me with large, concerned eyes. Though I tried to put some distance between her and myself, she bridged that distance while trying to get a better look at my visage. To someone else, I looked like I had just been grasped by a fit of lightheadedness.
This alien force trying to influence my movement filled me with fear. If this outside force was able to gain access to my Talent, it could turn anything within thirty meters of my body to ash within seconds.
“I’m fine. I just need to rest for a moment,” I said. “You can go on ahead if you want.”
“No,” Nina said with her cheeks puffed out angrily. “You’re sick with something. I won’t just leave you in the forest while you’re like this.”
“Okay,” I said, leaning back against a tree as I spoke. The possessing force had not yet returned, but I wanted to keep all of my senses focused on defending against that force if it were to return. “While we’re here, why don’t you show me your other Talent?”
“How did you know about that?” Nina asked, disappointment obvious in her expression.
In response, I gestured to my eyes and said, “We both have two Talents.”
“It must be because we’re both nobles,” Nina said with a smile.
There was some truth to her statement. Both she and I had Noble Talents, which were hereditary abilities that were common among the ruling families of Rubigo. Noble Talents were typically much more powerful than normal Talents, and the nobility used these abilities to strengthen their power base.
“Sure, I can show you my [Doppelganger] Talent. Dad has already shown me how to do it,” Nina said.
[Doppelganger] was the Noble Talent of several noble houses. Of the three regions of Etronia, each had one house with the [Doppelganger] Talent. These three houses were all secondary to another more powerful house. In the capital city of Etron, House Arcturus, a royal family with the [Doppelganger] Talent, served as one of the royal family’s closest allies.
Nina walked in front of me and spread her arms out wide as if preparing to do a magic trick. Her expression tightened in concentration, and a blurry figure appeared next to her. This figure resolved and sharpened until it was completely indistinguishable from the little girl standing next to it.
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“There,” Nina said, a self-satisfied smile coloring her expression. Her smile was mirrored perfectly on the doppelganger. “You can’t tell the difference, right?”
I could differentiate between the two but only because of the direction of her voice. If she didn’t speak and I didn’t see the doppelganger’s creation, I would have been completely unable to differentiate the two.
The experience was quite unsettling, actually. My old world was filled with illusions, and I was confident in my ability to distinguish reality from fiction. Unlike the illusions of my world, the one in front of me was visually perfect.
Unconsciously, I checked the places where a visual AI would make a mistake. I looked at the illusion's hands, eyes, and clothing. Yet, even with a sober and searching eye, I could not find any mistakes in the illusion. If the illusion was created by an AI, it was far too advanced for me to find a visual mistake.
“It’s perfect,” I said. It would typically take an illusionist decades to create a perfect moving illusion, but Nina was a master of illusions at nine years old.
That was the nature of Noble Talents. Talents were engraved upon the blood and bone of their users, and they could use their Talents without any training. In the same way that [Hellfire] made me an expert pyromancer with little effort, [Doppelganger] made Nina a master illusionist.
Like [Hellfire], Nina’s Talent also came with secondary ability. Those with the [Doppelganger] Talent naturally took on the personality traits and quirks of those they spent a significant amount of time around. This was why House Koravin and House Arcturus were such indispensable and loyal followers. The scions of House Koravin would start to resemble the scions of House Feldrast over time, and it was the same with House Arcturus.
For the first time, it occurred to me that Nina was probably mirroring me in the same way she mirrored Thale in the original timeline. She was miraculously intelligent for a nine-year-old, and that could have been the result of my own unnatural intelligence. In the original timeline, Nina’s fall to evil was frequently attributed to her mirroring Thale’s deteriorating morals.
The thought unsettled me greatly. By my presence, I was causing an actual child to be more like me. I imagined what Nina would be like in a few years. At that rate, she would be a dour academic with difficulty forming close relationships by the time she was fifteen years old.
With such thoughts plaguing my mind, I got to my feet with a smile. Trying to look healthy and unconcerned, I held the box filled with powder out to Nina and said, “All right. I’m ready to go, but I would like for this box to get to my home as soon as possible. Do you think you could go ahead and bring it there?”
“Okay!” Nina said, happy to be useful. I briefly thought about how those with the [Doppelganger] Talent were probably the most agreeable people on the planet. “Should I wait for you to get there?”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said, waving my hand. “I have some errands to do.”
Nina ran off toward Sableton with the box of the miracle powder held in one hand. After running a few dozen meters, she turned and waved back toward me. I smiled and returned the wave, though my internal thoughts did not match my expression.
Once she disappeared behind the tree line, I started slowly making my way toward the town. As I walked, I pondered the unknown force that tried to influence my body and the nature of Nina’s Talent.