Chapter 392

Cain focuses on the desired form, a copy of Vala, with Bronze demonic skin, large leathery wings that fade to black towards the far edges, and a whip-like tail with a bone blade at the tip. He alters his face to look a lot like her, only more masculine, and changes his hair to the same long black dreadlocks with Golden bands around them. 

Since Vala is already tall, Cain grows himself to 220 cm tall and adds a heavy dose of well-toned muscle. The cloven-hoofed feet take a second to get used to, but they’re quite stable once he does. Cain switches his outfit to the Dark Elven suit in all black and Vala digs out a pair of sunglasses and puts them on his face.

Cain equips them and turns to the small mirror to look at himself. With the Golden rings in his hair and the gold plates on his wings that the gear he has equipped adds, he looks the part of a Demon Lord for sure. 

“I like it. I should use this more often.” Cain agrees, and Nemu snuggles up under his wing.

“Oh, this is nice. Your wings are even bigger than Vala’s and they are so warm.” The Felian purrs.

“That only leaves finding a skill that will convince others that this form is real. I think there should be one in the Spell Crafting book, I just need to find it.”

There is no desk in this little room, and Cain doesn’t want to be researching Spell Crafting in public, so he settles into the small chair where Vala was reading last night and opens the large tome that contains the learning materials for his new trade.

He finds a lead right away, and not far from the section he was already working on. It is called [I Walk Among Them] and it is supposed to keep species with keen senses from detecting your true nature. The spell itself isn’t hard to learn, taking Cain only four hours to successfully complete, and he stores the hard copy in the storage chest inside his inventory.

This chest is mostly empty since it is intended as an overflow, but Cain notices that it has a wide variety of snacks and women’s clothing inside it that he doesn’t remember putting there. He did pass all the chests to the ladies a few days before they left though, so they must have left some random items in the spare chest. If nothing else, that will make Laura happy. Her own limited inventory has been giving her anxiety when the snacks run low, despite the fact that she doesn’t actually need to eat. Maybe they can go hunt some of the cat beasts that she thought looked tasty while they traverse the Awakened areas.

Cain activates the skill and sees that he gets an option for himself and all the Companions that are nearby separately. He sets Evangeline to Parrot Kin and himself to the generic ‘Wrath Demon’. Many sizes and shapes of demons from the Wrath lineage show that way in the system, but they all have one thing in common, they are all older than the system and their particular lineage didn’t have enough living members when the system activated to get a unique name of their own.

That way Vala could have been a Blood Dancer if her mother was one, and Cain can pull off the act of being her father without raising any suspicion. The Duke title isn’t as easily hidden, being under the Rank instead of the Accomplishment category which can be hidden entirely or deactivated. Keeping others from seeing the Duke title would take a whole other skill, but at the very least, he now passes as a somewhat nondescript Wrath Demon Lord.

“Hey, that’s pretty cool. Your status says Wrath Demon, but you have the same Life Leech Aura that I do.” Vala exclaims, checking Cain over.

It seems there is more to a Mythic disguise than simply changing his status data. He also gained the essential Species Skill of the form he had chosen, allowing him to blend in perfectly with others of his supposed kin. For species with certain abilities, the lack of any one of them would be a dead giveaway that he was an imposter, a problem that Cain would usually solve with a merger, using a summon to gain the missing aura or talent to blend in. But with [I Walk Among Them] he doesn’t need to bother with any of that anymore.

Cain catches a few hours of sleep before the sun comes up, with Nemu and Evangeline curled up against his sides under his wings for warmth. The sun streams straight at his face when it comes up though, so the nap is short-lived, under three hours. That’s their cue to go grab breakfast and head out of town while everyone else is engrossed in the Final Round of the Beast class matches.

The fights are in the same location as last time, but more bleachers have been arranged all around the arena, holding what Cain suspects to be half the population of the town. All the shops they pass have placed signs up that they will be closed for the day, or are closing an hour before the matches start.

The guard thinks they are a bit strange to be leaving before the finals but knows not everyone can get tickets, so he doesn’t give them any trouble as Cain leads his group out of town, with Evangeline happily taking to the sky to test out her new wings as they go, circled by the pixie sized Laura, who is intrigued by the shine and color of the bright blue bird feathers in the sunlight.

They leave the artificially rustic city behind them and begin walking down the rough dirt road, meeting a constant stream of local farmers heading into the city for the fights. No wonder there aren’t enough tickets, everyone in the area wants a chance to come and see the last day. From what Cain can tell, it is a bit like a monthly festival for them. The city might be closed, but hundreds of stalls will be set up near the bleachers for those that can get in, selling everything you could want.

Stuffed animals are a big hit here, and Cain sends a mental message to Nila to bring fluffy textiles and stuffing the next time she comes to visit the Southern Continent since both are imported items to this region. They might not be nearly as valuable as the ores, but they are still in high demand and will sell out without issues.

It will be a few more days before they get to an awakened area, but first, there is a local attraction that the Cartographer marked on the map. A waterfall and pond that are supposed to have a mysterious healing aura to them. Looking at the tropical forest in that direction that replaces the worked fields around Musashi, just the view alone should be worth the visit. Plus, it would only be a few minutes off course. Not enough to delay their progress in any case, and a healing pond might just be the sort of place a man can pick up a quest.