Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?
Chapter 215 - 13: Memory Clones

Chapter 215: Chapter 13: Memory Clones

"Squad Leader Aske, aren’t you going to explain?" Matthews asked with a dark face, his voice cold.

"What is there to explain?" Aske did not even look up, just continued to check the other bodies.

Nora’s, Peggy’s...nine in total, all of them were here.

"He accused you of being an imposter," Matthews said coldly.

"Do you know why these bodies on the ground look like members of The Azure Longsword rather than your Free Wind?" Aske asked without answering.

"Why?" Matthews was stunned for a moment before responding.

"Because if they were to throw dirt on Free Wind..." Medea sneered, "we of The Azure Longsword certainly wouldn’t be fooled."

Matthews: ...

So, we’re easier to be fooled? Matthews was about to retort sarcastically when he suddenly realized the problem.

All the others were already dead bodies, yet this "Aske" on the ground was barely alive, just managing to survive until our arrival, then accused the people from The Azure Longsword of being imposters. Isn’t that too much of a coincidence?

Moreover, if the people from The Azure Longsword nearby were really imposters with Extraordinary Power from this mutant event, then with the Ability, they had demonstrated before they could have easily twisted this space and kept us from seeing these bodies on the ground.

Wouldn’t that be exposing themselves?

Thinking about this, Matthews broke out in a cold sweat. Thank goodness, I did not fall for this evil trap; otherwise, if we really had started fighting with The Azure Longsword, considering their strength from last time when they killed Temple Knight Fengkexim, it might have ended with both sides heavily injured.

Damn it, this mutant event is really cunning! It’s trying to make us kill each other!

Matthews thought to himself but pretended to be nonchalant and laughed loudly:

"Don’t worry, such a clumsy trick, of course, we from Free Wind would not be tricked. It was just a joke just now."

Behind him, the mercenaries from Free Wind were all dumbfounded.

Squad Leader! Can you stop panting when you speak? We all picked up our weapons, waiting for your command to attack, and then you say it was just a joke with the other party?!

The mercenaries looked at each other and could only put down their weapons, revealing smiles uglier than crying.

"Heh." Aske didn’t seem to mind and just walked around, returning to "his own" body, and carefully observed it.

Medea joined him and said with a tsk: "The dead squad leader, how rare. This isn’t something you see every day."

"Really?" The girls perked up at that and immediately rushed over, eager to inspect Aske’s body on the ground.

"What ’died miserably’!" Aske drove everyone away irritably, "Go on, go claim your own bodies."

"Why claim the bodies?" Nora asked curiously.

"Take a look and see in what ways the bodies on the ground are different from you," Aske said calmly, "so the next time counterfeiters try to infiltrate our ranks, it will be easy to identify them."

"I see." So the girls went on to strip their "bodies," exchanged notes, and discussed among themselves.

"Her axe handle has a different pattern than mine," Sigrdrifa picked up the North Wind Axe from a body and compared it with her own weapon.

"Tsk, the chest is a whole size smaller," Medea poked the chest of "herself" on the ground.

"Look at this, everyone!" Mia suddenly found something and called everyone over, "Look at Miel’s body!"

She pulled open the coat of the "Miel" corpse on the ground, revealing a white tank top underneath.

Crouching beside her, Miel had already taken off her coat, and on the hem of the tank top she was wearing, there was notably a pattern of a little bear.

One with a pattern? One without a pattern? What did this mean? The girls started to become puzzled.

"Miel," Medea seemed to realize something and asked, "Do you remember what tank top you were wearing today before this?"

Miel hesitated for a moment, then shook her head.

"I see," Medea immediately concluded, "It’s the impression."

"This mutant," she continued, "reads our collective memory and then replicates the corresponding character image, just like the nightmare we encountered last time."

"Whenever it comes to details of appearance that even the person involved isn’t aware of, the replication will deliberately blur them. If I’m right, everyone should check the tags on their clothes; all the tags on the corpses’ clothes should have incorrect text."

The girls hurriedly checked the corpses’ clothing. Indeed, whether on the inside of the neckline or the waist, the text on the clothing tags was either unclear or completely absent.

Because no one specifically remembers the text on the labels of their clothes.

"That means," Thira quickly reasoned, "in the future, to identify whether a team member is genuine, we just need to check if there is a tag on their clothes and whether the text is displayed correctly."

"The assumption here is that none of us has the ability to remember every detail at a glance," Nora added with a smile.

Ah, so it’s just about checking the clothing tags? Matthews, standing to the side and eavesdropping the entire conversation, was utterly impressed by these girls’ cleverness.

This girl’s brain is just too sharp, unlike the men in our squad, who have nothing but muscle in their heads.

"It’s not just about the tags," Thira said, "any detail that’s hard to remember in appearance won’t exist in anyone’s memory, and that’s the information this mutant can’t access."

"A very simple method is to write the numbers 1-9 on 9 pieces of paper, crumple them up, and distribute them randomly so each person carries one."

"That means, until the paper is unfolded, no one knows what number is on their piece of paper. Therefore, the mutant can’t replicate the number on the paper, and it’ll just show something blurred or blank."

"If you can’t determine someone’s identity, you just need to ask for their piece of paper and see if there’s a clear number on it."

Great idea! Matthews immediately instructed the mercenary nearby to quickly write a lot of random numbers from 0-9 on pieces of paper and then distribute them to the people in his team, thus preventing any imposters during this mutant event.

"Wait, isn’t that based on this mutant not being intelligent?" Medea, glancing at Matthews sneaking around listening in, scoffed and raised an objection, "If this mutant has self-awareness and intelligence, even though it doesn’t know what number is on each person’s piece of paper, it knows it must be one of 1-9."

"Then it could just randomly replicate one of them, and have the duplicate carry the corresponding piece of paper, right? No one could tell if it’s wrong anyway."

The girls fell silent; considering how the imposters had acted, the intelligence of this mutant was indeed not low.

"What about the tags then?" Eleanor said, "Assuming the mutant has become smart enough to create false information to deceive us, why then is there no information on the clothing tags of these corpses? It could have replicated false information there too, and we can’t possibly ask the clothing manufacturers to verify."

"Could it be that it had not thought of it?" Nora suddenly speculated, "Originally, it might not have realized that we would look for its flaws through these details. Now that we’ve discussed it, it’s aware..."

Everyone: ......

What! So this method doesn’t work?! Matthews, listening intently to the side, was instantly disappointed.

"Squad Leader, the papers are all written," a Free Wind mercenary came over to report, "How about you explain the distribution and identification rules to everyone?"

"No need," Matthews responded gravely, "I’ve thought it over thoroughly, and this method still has flaws. Hmm, I need to think it over again."

Free Wind Mercenary: ???