The more I think about Tania’s request, the more I realize I don’t have time for this. I then remember that I actually do because my tails are still working on it.

  Hey tails, work a bit harder, will you? Look what you’ve gotten me into because of you guys are being lazy.

  They didn’t respond as usual. Besides that, I have another problem. I need to stay hidden from the idols. I either have to use [Transform] or weave intricate illusions. The problem is that vixens are masters in [Transform] and [Shapeshift] I might be able to fool Noelle with my [Transform], but Giana is going to notice. Well then use Illusions would be the answer. Well, that depends on Noelle’s influence as a 7t. She is a bit more sensitive to illusions and might not know it’s me but that I’m layered in illusions.

  What a pain in the ass combo are they. It would be no problem if I could pull off a convincing [Shapeshift] but I can’t. I can’t even pull off a flawless [Transform] and I had 1 day to figure this out. This is too sudden!

  I rolled around in the room I had rented in the AA. How do I solve this! It’s not as if I can just get another body! Oh, I can! I can create a spirit vessel for myself, get my spirit into it and then use [Transform]! I am amazed by my genius! So I got to work.

  I had enough clay for 1 more male spirit vessel. I tried to make the most boring-looking unimpressive guy as I needed to be invisible to almost anyone, a nobody.

  It was done after messing around for 6 hours. I blasted it with foxfire and it’s look was locked in. The only problem was that it seemed hard to master coordination in these vessels. I carefully loosened my spirit tethers and attached them to the vessel. It was difficult because my real body had a higher affinity for my spirit than this vessel.

  After 2 hours of tugging, I got my spirit into the vessel and got up easily. Moving in this wasn’t hard at all. I felt a strong tug though as my body wanted its spirit back. I placed my body in my dimensional pocket and the tug disappeared.

  I dressed myself and did some movements to make sure all was well. I was shorter than my original body but it moved well.

  Nilah what do you think? Ooh my voice even sounds wimpy!

  Nilah looked at me as if I’m an idiot for attempting this.

  I know what you think Nilah but this is important! You might disagree but vixens are dangerous! And Noelle is dangerous too! I will get found out if I don’t do this! Oh, my voice cracked. I did such a good job!

  I had Nilah turn into her sword form because I couldn’t stand her judging glare. I then noticed that I needed to disguise her too. She turned into a normal unimpressive sword. I made a [Frost mirror] and looked at myself. The only disadvantage of this vessel was that I didn’t have Elgards eyes. Which means I won’t know if Giana finds out about my trick until it’s too late.

  This will just fall under ‘Occupational Hazard’ and it would be a problem for the future me.

  I looked quite normal. Maybe below average. Nothing would suggest that I am an A-rank adventurer. Now for my fighting style... Water will be too obvious. Fire it will be. It’s common and I will be a noob that can only use [Fireball]. It will just be like in Witchaven! The Fireball Misha is back! Although I’m just a ‘human’ male now.

  I cleaned up the room and teleported to Tania’s office since the next morning had already arrived. “Wha? Who are you!”

  Hey Daddy’s girl, I will go with this disguise.

  “Hey I am the Vice… wait Agnis? That is a very good disguise, but why do you need one?”

  Uhh for reasons. I also need to look boring but it will add a stealth factor. It won’t look like you have a bodyguard with you if I go like this.

  “You have a point but… you know what? Fine! Are you ready? We will take the teleport gate in 20 minutes.”

  We went down and took the teleport gate. This vessel wasn’t as light as my normal body but it was still as light as an average human infant so I still arrived first. I looked around but only saw walls. Right, no Elgards eyes.

  Tania, some important-looking people, and several other adventurers, hired for bodyguarding, came out of the gate 5 minutes later.

  I recognized this as the place where I had my students do their exam. Good times, actually not good times as it ended in a mess. Wait… this is not going to happen again, is it? Nah! I’m not that unlucky!

  The adventurers and I got sent to a large hall while the important looking people would have a meeting. Couldn’t they have done this before coming here? Now I’m stuck with random adventurers.

  “Hey you!” Someone sounded quite aggressive. “Hey wimp! I’m talking to you!”

  What do you want?

  I realized that this didn’t fit the persona I was going for.

  “Wow what is with that attitude!?” A tall handsome guy in shiny armor walked over to me and lifted me by my collar.

  I…I’m sorry! I talk strange when my… when I’m nervous!

  “As long as you understand, so what’s the deal with you? We’re all B-rank or higher but you seem quite weak. Are you sure you’re a B-rank adventurer?”

  I showed my adventurer’s ID which was covered in illusions. Currently I was the adventurer, Walter Junkshooter. I had to think of a noob name and Noobgod came to my mind.

  “Walter Junkshooter, an A-rank adventurer specializing in... Fireball? Is this a joke?”

  O...Of course not! I don’t have access to guns so it had to be fireballs.

  “Hey Lisa, do you have any clue what this guy is saying?”

  A blonde Misha in a long Misha like robe reacted. “Just leave him be Kevin. Something is off about him. I can’t feel any mana from him. He might be stronger than he looks.”

  “Or he is weaker than he suggests! [Fireball]? Ha! I want to see that!”

  “Kevin, please don’t mock [Fireball]. We had a witch at our academy years ago that could incinerate anything with just a [Fireball], we called her the Fireball Misha.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re so afraid, this guy certainly isn’t a witch!” He said as he shook me around. It did nothing to me because my spirit vessel is overpowered as fuck. I could probably knock him out cold with a simple punch.

  I...I’m sorry! Please let me go! My mom will get angry if I return home with bruises!

  Kevin threw me down. “Pathetic.”

  He gave me a mean stare and walked back to the others. It seems I am already an outcast. Good. Nobody will pay attention to me now. This Misha is a problem though. She knows about my career as a Misha. I need to be careful how I use my [Fireballs] now. What a pain in the ass.

  They started talking and bragging about their achievements while I slipped out of the room. I didn’t have my Elgards Eyes so I had to physically investigate. I could normally share vision with my shadow clones but I can’t now so even shadow clones will have limited usefulness. I still sent out 3 of my shadow clones.

  I used [Fade] because the place already had security in place. Nothing in the north wing. I was about to go to the west wing when a clone notified me it had found something. I decided to check out what he found in the south wing.

  The problematic element was this wall in front of me in a dark corridor. I don’t have my Elgards eyes but this is an illusion, quite a shitty one actually. Is it because I’m an expert at illusions that I can spot this or is it truly a shitty illusion? I couldn’t see what was behind this wall but it wasn’t hard to find out.

  I stepped through the wall which wasn’t a wall and fell down the stairs that was behind it. What a blunder. I also made quite some noise. [Fade] had dropped so I used it again.

  “What was that! It sounded like someone fell down the stairs!”

  “Impossible! Nobody knows we’re here!”

  “Ok Mr. smartass how do you explain that sound then?”

  I swiftly assassinated these 2 cultists and chucked them into my dimensional pocket for incineration.

  More corridors. Do these lunatics have a base under this arena? How far will their lunacy bring them? I started to regret coming here in a spirit vessel. These lunatics are probably going to have a Dimsha.

  I am normally relatively hopeless against them but in my current state even more. I spotted another cultist and I assassinated him too. I took his attire and disguised myself as a cultist. I could walk around freely now and made a shadow clone that would lurk around in [Fade]. This is starting to become ridiculous. I am Agnis Hourai, disguised as Walter Junkshooter, who is disguised as a cultist. This is disguiseception!

  “Hey you! Come here we need to go over the plan!” I got pulled into a large circular room. It was quite dark except for candles that had made a circle. They are taking this cult thing way too far.

  A dwarf seemed to be the leader of this group. “Alright lads, you all are wondering why I’ve gathered you here today…”

  Please get to the point…

  “Ah a volunteer I see!”

  But you haven’t explained anything yet…

  “But it’s good to know you volunteer! Anyways our current plan is to harvest mana. We have set up various of these things throughout the arena. When the tournament starts, they will collect mana from all the spells flying around.” The dwarf said as he showed us some light blue transparent marbles.

  What are those things?

  “Quite talkative today eh Barry? Well, I don’t know the specifics, the higher ups told us that it’s part of a bigger thing that uses these to collect mana. Something something desha.”

  Dimsha?

  “Yes! I’m glad that you’re the volunteer! Either way. Most of us will make sure that the tournament gets rigged in such a way that we will get the most explosive battles. Barry, your role is to disguise yourself as a guard.”

  Can I refuse? I have performance issues.

  “Don’t worry, we have a backup plan which involves you enterigng the tournament. the original plan is that you will get assigned to be a guard for the idols.”

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Now this sucks. I don’t think refusing here will do me any good here because I get a lot of envious stares.

  “You can extract mana from them. A dangerous but rewarding job. I’ve heard that Noelle Yasmin is quite strong. Good luck!” He gave me a thumbs up but I could read on his face that he was happy that he didn’t need to do this task.

  “Lucky bastard but I don’t want to get punched by Noelle.” Most of the cultists seemed to have accepted that I would disguise myself as a guard and get punched by Noelle. This fucking sucks.

  Does anyone want to trade?

  Nobody reacted.

  Just my luck.

  I got herded to a room where I could change into a guard uniform. This is a lot of disguises. Is the end goal that I have to disguise myself as the Silver Torrent? Where is this going? I notified a shadow clone that he needs to impersonate Walter Junkshooter because I’m stuck with this shitty job.

  I am seriously considering getting caught by Giana and have her check if I have some super strong curse on me. But wait. I’m in a different body! Shouldn’t curses only apply on bodies? I don’t know. I can’t find out because I don’t have my Elgards eyes. I got released in the wild, I mean outside. I was just a regular guard now. The card in my hand had the location of the VIP room of the idols and the location of the item I need to use to steal their mana. There is no world where this is going to end well. I will get punched by Noelle. This has a 100% fail rate. I can also pretend to have tried and ruin the cultists plan like this.

  The next day had arrived and the tournament would start in an hour. The audience or spectators, however they’re called streamed in. An assassin like cultist told me to hurry up and go to the VIP room before the management of the tournament would replace me because I’m tardy so I got to the VIP room.

  “Oh here he is. This is Gerard Noskill, he will be your personal guard for today.” Tania said as she introduced me to the idols who turned their face toward me and got up.

  “Nice to meet you Gerard”

  Nice to meet you too.

  I shook Giana’s hand. So far so good.

  “Hello! Welcome to the VIP room of 3 sexy idols!”

  “Noelle! Just give him a normal greeting!” Giana reprimanded Noelle. I also shook her hand.

  “N...nice to meet you. I’m Yvonne.” I also shook Yvonne’s hand.

  “We’re idols Yv, of course he knows who you are!”

  It is nice to meet you ladies but I’m here to do my duty, pretend I’m not here.

  I wanted to walk to the back of the room and keep watch there.

  “Oh no! come sit with us, let’s have a great time!” Damn Giana and her social skills.

  I’m sorry but that is inappropriate. I will stay here.

  “Oh, how stoic, hey Giana how about you try blasting him with some charm magic?”

  Really Noelle?

  “Noelle! You know that that’s only meant for serious seduction!”

  I sighed in relief. I don’t want to bring Zen Agnis back. Although… this body isn’t organic. I should be fine right?

  “Ah right, only for Agnis then, do you think he will appear in this tournament?”

  “I don’t know, it isn’t his thing, but on the other hand it is. Anything could happen…”

  I felt guilty. I was hearing things that I shouldn’t hear. They kept talking about me and it was quite uncomfortable.

  Ahum, so are you all interested in this Agnis?

  “He is my little brother but I’m not interested in him romantically, he belongs to Giana, I’m interested in Raishin.”

  Crazy Firecracker if I remember right?

  She turned around in her chair and leaned over. “Oh! You know about him?”

  Uhm, only from hearsay. My friend is a fan of him I can’t remember much about him though. Maybe you can jog my memory.

  Mission successful, they were now talking about Raishin. But the more Noelle talks the more I noticed she is quite similar to Raishin.

  “Oh it started!” Noelle said as she got comfortable.

  I had noticed that Yvonne was quite quiet. I wonder if she’s interested in Greg. Greg always has this thing where he gets people interested in him by just existing. Maybe his edgy aura is drawing in chicks. I have to ask him someday how that works. When I get him back…

  I wanted to ask my tails what the progress was but I didn’t have them now.

  Tania had a great speech about everyone needing to stick together and that the adventurers were the heart of the continent bla bla. This chick surely loves to talk. The grand prize seemed to be 25 gold, a free ticket to a rank up assessment, a meet and greet with the idols and of course the fame of winning the tournament.

  The roster got revealed. It was a large roster and sorted by role, elemental specialty and adventurer rank. A lot of C and D- rank adventurers.

  Noelle started to get excited. This would be something Raishin would also get excited for. “Aww, it seems your sweetheart isn’t participating, maybe another time Giana.”

  “It is fine. We will have our break to catch up with him and else after we finish our tour.”

  “Ehh that is if he can stay alive for that long.”

  I had to do my best to not reacting to this. So this is how Noelle sees me eh?

  “Noelle! Be more considerate to Giana. Let’s think positively!” I was taken aback, this was the first time Yvonne talked like that, although maybe not true, she talked like this when I first met her in Gittrian. Is this her idol mode?

  Noelle turned around in her chair again. “Hey, Gerard, who do you think will win?”

  I am unfamiliar with the participants; I will have to watch the fights for a bit to decide that.

  Noelle patted on a empty chair. “Then come sit here! You can’t see shit from over there!”

  Uh, that’s fine. I’m here for work not for entertainment.

  The real reason is that I will get in trouble if I get close to them.

  Several matches had started. The crowd went wild but I couldn’t see shit because I was far from the viewing window. Not having Elgards eyes surely sucks...

  “Hahaha look at that guy! He needs to train way longer to pull off earth magic like that!” Noelle was making fun of the failures of some adventurers. I want to see too…

  Giana was mercilessly analyzing the mistakes anyone made and pointed out the reason why some lost or flaws in their strategy. Yvonne was just watching.

  “Ohh that guy looks strong! Kill him!”

  “Noelle it’s a friendly match there is no killing!” They seemed awfully into it and I got the feeling that this might work out well after all.

  I then remembered that the cultists are stealing mana. I forgot to investigate what they need it for.

  A shadow clone will figure that out.

  Hmm? My shadow clones are gone. I guess this is the point where everything goes horribly wrong. I walked over to the idols and sat down next to them and watched the tournament.

  “Ohh couldn’t resist our charm and wanted to get closer, eh?” Noelle was moving her eyebrows up and down like Raishin likes to do. I am going to kick his ass if he messes up with Noelle.

  I was just a bit curious.

  I was focusing more on the confirmed locations of the mana collectors. I couldn’t see the flow of mana which made me miss my original body as I couldn’t tell if anything was going wrong.

  “Hey Gerard, are you perhaps a spirit mage?” Giana was looking at me with light blue eyes with a strange pattern. She is seeing something but I don’t know what.

  Not really. My grandfather might have been a spirit mage. Why do you ask?

  “Hmm nothing, I just noticed that you have an affinity towards spirits.” She said after shifting her gaze to the fight.

  If I had a body that could sweat, I would’ve probably be sweating buckets. I would be happy If something goes horribly wrong that draws her attention.

  Something went wrong but not as I expected. Someone got wounded quite badly. It could happen but it was still a bit shocking. The victim had severely underestimated her opponent. Who even underestimates a Misha? And the victim was a human. Just as I was thinking it was the victims fault. Giana said what I was thinking which gave me spinal shivers as I realized Giana and I had more in common than I thought.

  I tried to ignore this and tried looking for clues about the cultists plan. The fights were indeed explosive, besides that one incident but even without my Elgards eyes I could see that all the magic used was extremely inefficient. It even made me bored. I got up and went to the back.

  Noelle followed me with her eyes. “Already seen enough?”

  I’ve seen enough. I already know who is going to win.

  “Huh already? This is a 2 day tournament and you already know after watching for 30 minutes?”

  I started to become uncomfortable again. Nobody told me it would take 2 days. I look like an above average guard now.

  Haha sorry I was just trying to act cool I don’t know who is going to win.

  Giana also turned around.

  “Oh, tell us. It seems you really do know who is going to win.” Damn why does my race need to be so overpowered?

  Uhm that guy named Sendley Garvith. He seems to be able to read his opponents well.

  “Hmm?” Giana was looking at me with amber colored eyes. I recognized it as the color of Elgards eyes that is trying to observe any of my movements and extract context from my words and body language. I never realized how intimidating it must be to be stared at with Elgards eyes.

  “Interesting, I will pay closer attention to him then, he seemed quite unimpressive so far.”

  I had to now hope that I was completely wrong here. But as time passed Sendley started to become the fan favorite. I should have kept my mouth shut.

  “Wow Gerard! You were right! This guy is quite good! His earth magic also seems solid!” Noelle seemed impressed with that guy but nobody here impressed me. I was only interested in one person here but that wasn’t important right now.

  Nothing strange happened. The break came up and the idols went out to have a mini concert. I sat in the chairs while they were having their concert.

  I still needed to thank them for saving me.

  An assassin sneaked in and I readied a [Fireball]. “Barry! It’s me! I came to ask how your mission is going?”

  They are very sharp it’s hard for me to get an opportunity in. What is the status of the rest of the plan?

  “Uhh, we’re not collecting as much mana as we hoped to. It seems something is wrong with the devices. We might not hit our quota.”

  Good…ness gracious that’s not good. Anyway, I will do my best to fulfill my objective.

  The assassin nodded and left the VIP room. It’s good to hear that their plan is not working out. I love it when problems solve themselves. I will just have to wait till their plan self-destructs