One of the most ironically troubleso parts of disguising oneself from being noticed by any form of genius loci was that the more powerful you were, the harder it was to hide. Their senses were very good at noticing powerful auras, though certain sorts of entities could bypass that. If one wanted to maintain that facade while participating in an event that would bring scrutiny from the core, it would require a certain amount of cleverness to pull off.
This was the reason that Haji had hidden portions of his power behind 20 different rings, two on each finger. Not in the rings, mind you. No, the power itself was sitting in tiny sealed realms he'd created for this purpose, with the rings acting as both the seal and the stabilizing force. Shifting the power into the ring would have made the rings noticeable instead, but by using this trick, the power was completely absent.
It did make accessing the power more difficult, though he was going to be taking advantage of that too. The seals were connected in a specific order, and as he strained and exerted himself in combat they would begin to wear and crack in that order, creating the illusion of soone who was pushing past old limits to find new power within.
This was part of solving the second problem: blending into a crowd of people who were all trying to stand out and be noticed. Haji needed to be just exceptional enough to look like all the other people who were striving to improve themselves in the territory of this particular spiritual nexus.
To that end, Haji had also created a specific fighting style for this infiltration. It was a subset of his normal abilities, with so of them in a less efficient form.
Rapier and cloak was a fairly well-established dueling form. Haji combined that with a modified hilt and custom gauntlet/bracer combinations. These contained small hidden compartnts, as did his cloak and clothing. He had a variety of alchemical powders and mixes in these compartnts, though most of them were not for direct offensive use.
Instead, he had a wide variety of flash powders, glittering dusts that floated, overwhelmingly pungent scents, powerful irritants, and other assaults on the senses. His cloak was also made of layers of shimring material that were tough enough to handle being used to entangle a blade, and Haji was planning on using carefully asured amounts of illusion magic.
Misdirection was not going to be his only tool of course. The rapier was notably thicker and wider than most blades of that style; Haji had created a functional false blade over the real one that had the sa function as his rings but for the blade's magic. That false blade also had a set of enchantnts to activate different elental auras depending on which compound he coated it with. It had required so practice to get used to the reduced skill set, but he'd had a few months to do so once he'd heard of this particular nexus and the tournant it would be holding co its local spring ti.
Then there was his personal disguise. Naturally, he would not be using the na Haji during his delve, but on top of that, he created a careful physical disguise. In this form, his hair was a pale sandy blond, and Haji then physically dyed that an intense red. His eyes were mostly brown with flecks of hazel and hints of green; dying his hair made them stand out more.
None of that was his true coloration, but making his hair obviously dyed was one of the best bits of misdirection he could think of. Between the limitations of this form and the amount of power Haji had locked away, he felt slow and heavy, and his senses were dull. It took a lot of practice during his travel to the dungeon to adjust to these limitations.
Finding a group to delve with once he arrived at the Azeria dungeon was another challenge, but a relatively minor one compared to the other unexpected issue he found himself dealing with.
Haji had not been expecting so many of the inhabitants to be so, well, attractive. That was definitely different than what he'd experienced before, and it was a little distracting. Not to ntion all the kitsune won around; he'd not really registered the implications of the local clan having such an unbalanced gender ratio. But it had been a very long ti since he had been on this world, and even longer since he had been in this area, so so changes were to be expected. Though having another nexus territory abutting this one while remaining secret to most people was stretching the idea of rely 'unexpected'.
In itself, the distraction provided by the concentration of beauties was readily overco with proper focus, and in so ways it helped that there were so many of them. Saturation leveled things and reduced contrast. Still, the fact that he'd been caught off guard suggested to Haji that maybe he had been letting himself be a little bit isolated back ho. Sothing to think about later, lest it distract him from his current mission.
Haji had no problem with doing his part when they battled the third-zone bosses, despite one them being a blue-haired usagisune beauty, much like the ones he'd found so distracting upon his arrival. But things changed after his final strike against the zone boss in question, Betty.
He'd not intended quite so lethal a hit, as the zone bosses had shown a willingness to concede a fight when the victor was clear. But with a bit of bad luck, Betty was distracted by another part of the skirmish at the sa mont, and his rapier slid ho right into her heart.
Given his understanding of an inhabitant's life, this should have only been a little frustrating because he'd made a mistake. But then she grabbed his arm and stared into his eyes. Though the ti was only asured in seconds, it took far too long for the light of life to burn out in her eyes, and the blasted woman smirked at him shortly before her body slumped over.
The image seared into his mind by that mont was a little haunting, though it did tell him that her true strength had already surpassed the strength she was allowed as an inhabitant and zone boss of a zone this weak. She'd been keeping herself alive for that long by pure force of will and spirit despite her flesh already having failed her.
He'd also felt the dungeon's attention shift their way right before Betty smirked at him.
The remaining inhabitants in the boss room scattered, the fight officially over, and the group carefully laid Betty's body aside before starting the process of figuring out their rewards. But then it turned out there were several magical auras on Betty's body, and not enough in the rest of the room to make a zone-appropriate reward, even with a portion removed for later rewards during the tournant.
None of them wanted to deal with looting her body, which made Haji annoyed with himself as he should know better than to feel guilty about it.
While they dithered, a buzzkin flew into the room and glared at them. "Alright, here's the deal. I've been inford that if you don't get your rewards, you will be forfeiting them. Also, Lady Kazue says that Betty passed on so requests before her mind went to sleep; Betty wants you, specifically, to deal with fetching the rewards."
The buzzkin was pointing at Haji.
He managed to not swear at the inhabitant, but he was confused and frustrated. Haji had not intended to stand out, and he had no idea what was going on here.
That made it extrely stressful to very carefully find and remove valuables from Betty's body. This wasn't the first ti that he'd searched a body; in fact, he'd stripped and looted the bodies of both n and won under very different circumstances. But this was a painfully unique situation, and he could tell he was being watched very intently.
At first, Haji had no idea why he'd been picked and no inhabitant was willing to tell him, which was rather annoying.
It took a few more days to clear both the library and the mushroom forest, by which ti Haji had cracked the seal on one of his rings. When they reached the town at the start of the river zone, all of them were happy to get separate rooms and take so long baths.
Later that night, when Haji was enjoying one of the local ads, a feminine, husky voice spoke softly into his ear from behind. "You were very respectful a few days ago, and I rather appreciate that. But now I wonder, are your hands just as skilled when they are being much less 'respectful'?"
Haji nearly choked on his ad and by the ti he'd recovered, Betty had slid into the stool next to him, shortly followed by the bartender putting a drink down in front of her. "I, what? You-" He cut himself off and shook his head. "Wow, what a way to throw a guy off balance. Normally I'd be introducing myself, but I think we're past that right now."
That was about when he began to register that Betty's clothing choice ant she was certainly 'off duty'. His gaze had reflexively dropped for a mont and bringing his eyes back up to et hers took so effort; that was a fair amount of thigh showing and it wasn't the only exposed skin.
Betty gave him a wicked little smile and said, "Mm, another test cleared. Oh, to be explicit, I had Kazue show an illusion recreating how you handled looting my body."
Huh. He'd figured it was so sort of test, but not this sort of test. Also, this was a reminder of the different mindsets of inhabitants and most people. Haji took a long swallow of his ad before he replied. "Well, that wasn't exactly what I expected to be going on, but I am glad to have t your standards. So, what gained your interest before that?"
It was pretty obvious what Betty's goal was at this point, which ant that he mostly just had to avoid ssing up. Well, that and decide if this was really sothing he wanted to have complicating his delve right now, though it was rather hard to stay focused on his end goal at the mont.
Betty tapped her lips for a mont before she said, "I could make an innuendo about the feel of your sword piercing my flesh, but honestly, I started off a little angry; I should have been able to avoid that thrust. There was no plan at first, I just wanted to vent my frustration by ssing with you, but I liked the look in your eyes. Regret for a mistake, but you understood my reality enough to not feel horror. Oh, and the slightly confused concern when I stared into your eyes like that was cute."
That she glossed over the pain was a fairly typical inhabitant response too. They certainly felt it, but the life of a dungeon inhabitant would be an impossible torture if pain and death were as traumatic as it was for other people.
"Cute, huh?" Haji said with a smile. "I can certainly return that complint, and then so, but I think you already knew that. You're rather impressive as well; I suspect you are already stronger than this zone, just as you were clearly stronger than your ho zone."
She gave him a considering look before replying, "Interesting; not everyone can tell so easily. You must be pretty familiar with dungeons and their inhabitants."
"Oh, you could say that," Haji replied before taking a sip of his ad.
"Hmm, are you going to be all mysterious about your past, then?" Betty asked.
He laughed and said, "Absolutely. At least, until after the tournant. Before then, I'm willing to talk about general topics and I'd be happy to learn more about you, though whether or not that includes 'talking' seems to be debatable."
Wait, he hadn't really decided to... yeah, who was he kidding? His mind was just looking for excuses to do what he wanted to do anyway.
Betty looked rather self-satisfied as she slowly sipped her ad. "There are tis when talking is overrated; it's good to know you already understand this. Mm, it's tempting to just flirt and tease for a while longer but honestly, I've been whetting my anticipation since I started planning my little entrance there. There's just one thing to cover first. I can be hard to keep up with, but so long as you are willing and able to keep entertaining in other ways we're good. If I find myself disappointed, I will leave to find other options."
Hah. It would be wiser to work within his current limitations and use more techniques to play with her, but that was not really what he wanted right now. There were performance advantages to the right sort of power.
Haji discovered two more of his seals were cracked when he put the rings back on in the morning, and he'd still been outdone and had to resort to other ways to satisfy Betty's needs.
Well, there were three more zones to clear before he could participate in the tournant, so he couldn't spend too much ti savoring those mories. Sadly, Betty had been gone by the ti he'd woken up. The note she'd left had been sweet and encouraging, but it has also not hinted at any sort of promises. Haji couldn't exactly complain about that; he wasn't in the position to offer more either. Still, he hoped to see her again before he was done here.
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