The light faded, and the pair of us appeared in an alley outside of the palace where the reception was being held. The sounds of excited shouting and festivities turned into a cacophony around us.
“Wh-what did you do?” Alysia gasped.
“I can’t promise you forever, but perhaps we can have a little bit more time,” I responded weakly.
She looked out of the alley, and into the festival being thrown by the citizens of the Ost Republic. There were food stalls, games, music, and festivities stretched out as far as the eye could see. The entire city was abuzz with celebration, and that celebration was because their precious princess was being married.
“Why would you do this?”
“You wanted some time. I gave you some time. Would you rather I take you back?” I asked.
“N-no…” She looked back out, temptation clear on her face before she suddenly thought of another objection. “I can’t go out there! Not . I’ll be recognized.”
“That’s an easy enough fix.” I laughed.
I accessed my dungeon skill store, and the tattoos on my body all began to light up. Ever since I had recombined the two bodies, all of the tattoos were no longer visible. They only appeared when I was either pulling on the power of my blessings, something I still couldn’t do reliably, or when I was accessing my store. Alysia looked appraisingly as glowing light shone all over my body, leaking out from the seams of my clothing and some even shining through when the material was thin enough to allow it.
“Just… how many blessings do you have?” She asked in wonder.
“Enough,” I responded, and the light went out like a light switch.
She blinked a few times, and then let out a cry. “Ah! You look different!”
A standard nondescript Osterian stood in front of her. I was no longer wearing my fine outfit, but a typical commoner garb. I have Mimic, but it is still too low of a level that I wasn’t confident I’d be able to trick people with it alone. Thus, I equipped the Transformation skill. It was a twenty-five-point skill, but it allowed me to look like anyone I wanted. The setback was that it could only work on one person at a time and those points were used as long as it was active. However, I could stack it as I did with Portal, thus it was twenty-five points per person.
That was obscenely expensive, so I really couldn’t use it before. Since it was so expensive, I had to assume the Transformation was nearly perfect. This was a Transformation that would hide someone’s appearance completely so they couldn’t be tracked or identified. Wouldn’t that be an ability that would create the perfect assassin? Twenty-five points seemed kind of cheap when you realized the espionage-like possibilities of a level 100 Transformation.
Dropping most of the dungeon skills I previously had equipped, I waved a hand, and the princess in her fine dress turned into another woman. She was still beautiful, but she looked like a young girl ready for a festival, rather than a bride who had just been married.
“Wh-what about the palace? We’ll start a war!”
“We’re going to be gone for a few hours. They’ll sweat and rage, but there won’t be anything they can do about it. Besides, I have ‘Slave Communication’, so my girls will let me know if it gets serious. They’ve already safely returned to the embassy. Besides, I have several spells. They won’t take us off guard.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Just what is your job anyway?”
I held out my arm. “My job is the help the bride smile on her last night. Will you come?”
She looked down at my arm, and for the first time that night, a genuine smile came over her face as she took my arm. The pair of us walked off into the festival.