Chapter 498: Career Change

Once the "duel" had officially commenced, Merc and Cial confidently faced the fake Eisen, "Come on, show us what you can do! We"re here to protect these people from you!" Merc exclaimed loudly, just pointing forward at the fake Eisen.

But with a grand, evil laugh, the fake just replied, "Hahah! You think an Original like me can lose against a fake like you two?! Just my t.i.tle shows that I"m better than you, doesn"t it?!" The fake yelled out, and it was immediately obvious that the crowd surrounding the three of them was getting pretty heated, especially once the fake turned around and looked at the other people directly.

"All of you are just lesser beings compared to me, understood?! Me, Eisen! The Original of Craftsmans.h.i.+p!" The fake exclaimed, and the real one just wanted to drop down onto him immediately to just cut him in two for that statement. For one, he was feeling personally insulted at that, since it obviously was supposed to be insulting, but the fake even got his t.i.tle wrong.

"What a piece of s.h.i.+t..." Eisen muttered quietly to himself as he was still just floating there while flapping his large wings around. He was actually pretty surprised that they didn"t notice him. Although, Eisen was pretty far away, the only reason he was even able to hear them was because of an item he made using Raziel"s element a while ago to strengthen his hearing ability a bit for situations like this.

"We will prove to you that this is not the case, you wicked man!" Cial exclaimed, pointing the heavily unbalanced staff forward toward the fake, "For all of us! Artificials and people of this land alike!"

"Oh really? Then show me what you can do, kid!" The fake exclaimed, before slowly turning around toward another person that apparently was supposed to be some sort of helper that handed the fake a giant hammer. And it really was giant, with the hammer-head behind basically as large as the fake"s whole torso. But in return, the long handle was obviously way too light... It was just stupidly unbalanced!

Although, he did give Eisen a pretty good idea after that... "This is it! The Legendary Blacksmith"s hammer, which belonged to none other than the first man that peaked!" The fake exclaimed. And the idea that the real Eisen was given wasn"t to start wielding a hammer as a weapon, but rather to try and see if there were any sorts of actual-life applications for warhammers when it came to smithing.

It surely wouldn"t turn out an amazing item, but a giant hammer like that did seem useful when it came to especially large items. Maybe when he travelled to the Giants" Country he could make use of an idea like that.

But on the other hand, the hammer that the player was holding was obviously just a simple rank 4 item. The player"s level wasn"t all that high, after all. It did seem like he was wearing an item to obstruct others from using appraisal on him and his items though, although Eisen"s truth-seeing eyes were able to see through him immediately.

He was also able to appraise Merc and Cial, noticing that they were both just at the beginning of the Level 200 range, so they should be easy targets for Eisen.

And then, the old man applied something that he should really try out now. He was pretty sure he heard that there were systems that were implemented to make sure your character couldn"t artificially be made to look like another person or their character during character creation, except if you simply looked like that in reality. And since Eisen doubted they just so happened to find someone that looked this much like Eisen that was willing to play the bad guy in this, the old man a.s.sumed that the fake was something like a changeling.

He did find someone like that before, after all. And when Eisen actually tried to inspect this player a bit more intensely by combining his appraisal with his truth-sight, as the latter was something that heavily improved the performance of the former, albeit costing a fair bit of mana.

It seemed like the player was actually a Changeling-t.i.tan halfling, making his base-build actually rather familiar to Eisen"s. All he had to do was bulk himself up a little more, change some details in his face, as well as his hair-color to look like Eisen.

It was pretty weird that he was able to do that this easily. Usually, as he learned during his interaction with Dragoon, the changeling he met a few weeks ago, you needed to actually "scan" a target so that you could copy their body. But when Eisen thought about it, the changeling racial skill wasn"t the only skill that could change your appearance, so he might have some that helped him out in this whole ordeal a bit more.

Either way, now that Eisen figured out all that he actually had to know about these three people in the center, he had them continue their little act while he looked around the rest of the crowd to see if there were any other important people.

For one, it seemed like the priest that they hired to get the duel ready was indeed real and apparently properly sanctioned the duel, which Eisen could see through the thin mist of divine energy covering the whole s.p.a.ce that had been appointed as s.p.a.ce for the "duel". He didn"t seem to be aware of any trickery, so Eisen just continued looking around the crowd to see if there was anything weird going on, or if there was someone that maybe wasn"t supposed to be there mixed into the crowd.

But luckily, the only ones that Eisen could spot were his five dragon knights, or rather his one dragon knight and the four dragon squires, mixed into the crowd in different locations to handle it if things went haywire. Of course, they wore special disguises created through Evalia"s magic that hid that they were actually Half-Dragons, and their weapons were inside of special s.p.a.cial items that Eisen made them on the way.

There did seem to be even some n.o.bles that lived inside of Ornier here trying to watch the "show" unfold, and they had people build something like small stages for them to watch from, which just seemed weird to him. Although, the rumors of the real ident.i.ty of the "Golden-Eyed Demon" probably went around, and since he was the one that caused a bit of terror inside of Ornier a couple months ago, Eisen did understand that some of the more important figures were curious about it. The whole stage-thing just seemed weird, really.

Just as Eisen was looking around the crowd and judged that there shouldn"t be anyone dangerous in there beside the whole thing that was set up underneath the area that they used for the duel, it seemed like the duel actually started right underneath the old man. Apparently, for now, the fake Eisen had the upper hand with his attacks, although it seemed pretty obvious to Eisen that the whole thing was completely set up. It would be even if he didn"t know about it in the first.

But soon, when it seemed like Merc and Cial were about to lose, things started to turn around after some kind of weird speech about the two of them having to believe in themselves and each other, while Eisen was just receiving a constant onslaught of messages from Komer saying how sorry he was about how embarra.s.sing his brothers were turning this situation.

Although, Eisen just ended up smiling and sent another message back to Komer.

[Eisen] No need to apologize. I"ll take care of it

And just when Eisen sent that message off, he started to stop flipping his wings to just make his body drop down toward the ground at a high speed.

"...that"s why we"ll utterly beat you, Eisen!" The old man overheard Merc yell out toward the end of his speech, although he was obviously rather confused when the whole place was just suddenly covered in dust in response to Eisen flapping his wings quickly just before he arrived at the ground to stop his fall.

"Oh, will you?" The old man asked with a broad grin on his face, floating just a bit above the ground with his truly giant figure. Since he could now turn roughly five meters tall, he was literally more than double the height of anyone else that was currently here. And his giant wings and demonic horns didn"t necessarily help out with the confused reaction that literally everyone there showed.

Although, as to not scare anyone, Eisen had transformed as much into his Demonic Yang form as he possiby could. He simply wanted to turn this situation produced for Merc and Cial"s advantage around so that it would work out properly for him instead.

Of course, everyone immediately started asking about who or what this creature was, and many players took up their weapons in case they needed to fight as well, but before anything else happened, Merc and Cial slowly managed to regain their composure.

Eisen looked fairly different, but they still had the image of him in his demonic form burned into their memories, so they knew that it was him. "You! You are the real one, aren"t you?! I knew that this just had to be a fake! Can"t even take a duel you called us to serious, huh?!" Merc yelled out immediately, and Eisen could hear the whispers of people around him that were speculating about what was going on, actually believing what Merc just said.

And before Eisen could say anything else, the fake Eisen stepped up behind the real one and seemingly deactivated all of his own transformations, "Boss, what are you doing here? This wasn"t part of the plan! I thought I was doing well!" The fake exclaimed, and Eisen slowly turned around toward him and for just a moment turned his demonic form into the yin one as his foot touched the ground for the first time.

"Be quiet, you low-life." The old man said, with as much impact in his voice as he could possibly produce. Not many players knew about it, since only extremely high-level monsters were capable of this usually, but it was a false a.s.sumption to think that players weren"t affected by things like fear inside of this game. Sure, they didn"t feel it like NPCs, but at a certain point, the abstract "fear" status became utter and absolute "Terror".

That was actually something like a de-buff that players could experience as well. Their bodies would freeze up and start shaking, their sight would turn blurred, and their defense dropped immensely for a while. It wasn"t a de-buff that lasted that long, but all that Eisen needed were the few seconds that it did last.

And due to the immense level difference of above 100 levels between Eisen and this fake, it was obvious that the fake would be affected by it. When the fake was freezing up, and the onlookers started freaking out over this, Eisen held his hand to the side and had a pitch-black sword appear on his palm.

With a grin on his face, Eisen just looked at the fake, "I would consider changing your career, your acting was utterly horrible." The old man said, before slowly holding the giant black sword in his hand above his head with only one hand.

"If I could suggest something, then it would be the one thing you seem useful for. How about you become my personal experience farm?" Eisen asked with a light smile as he swung his blade diagonally downward, with the help of the blade"s ego quickly changing directions to cut off the fake"s head.