Chapter 108: New Identities Avaiable

POV Eliza

I stood indecisively in the boss room and wondered what I should do after the past events. The betrayal of the three was bad enough, but nobody could have guessed that I would meet the heroes beforehand. I also feared that they would recognize me, as they seemed to have stayed in Tyros longer. After all, the scout Liss looked exactly like me and so there was always the danger of being recognized as long as I stayed in Tyros too. That meant I essentially had two options. Either I left the city or I took on a new identity. If I left the city, my first port of call would be Lightburgh. But after the turmoil I caused last time, I didn't know if I should join Master Freyna's community at this point.

I should be able to transform myself into a new person for a new identity. A woman in my own image was out of the question. Then I could stay Liss and I had to hide the name Eliza from the heroes at all costs. Otherwise, I could only turn into Dilara, but a Beastfolk was not a safe alternative in the Empire. So what did I do instead?

That's when my eyes fell on the three corpses. I remembered what Luna had told me about how the skill Self Transformation worked. I could transform into any person I had previously absorbed the mana from. I didn't have any skills that allowed me to do that, but there was a second option: blood. I had to absorb some of the blood. The thought made my stomach turn, but I was afraid I had no other reasonable option. The opportunity to transform into others was too advantageous to pass up. I desperately needed the skill to absorb mana, but apart from Luna, I couldn't ask anyone about it. I had to go back to Lightburgh soon.

I looked over the three corpses and now I noticed the faint metallic smell of blood in the air. I hadn't consciously noticed it earlier during the battle. The strongest smell came from Zeel, because he had lost the most blood in one place. But Zeel definitely fell out of the selection, because I didn't want to portray someone with that character and maybe there was a bounty on his head somewhere. Karem was too big and beefy and since my attributes remained the same, my low strength value was immediately noticeable. He was also too far removed from my actual physique. I couldn't compensate for that with my current skill.

All that remained was Stevt, who had a strong build but was still within the normal range. He was also not too tall at around 1.80m and had a fairly average face. He wasn't a bad choice. I approached him and picked up a drop of blood with one finger. I took a deep breath and put my finger in my mouth. As expected, it tasted metallic, but not unpleasant. I sighed, because now the change to my old self was particularly noticeable. Earlier in the world, I had had problems with bloody flesh.

After sticking my finger out of my mouth, I checked the self-transformation. In fact, I didn't have another man to choose from now. Why not? I was confused. Did I already have him in my repertoire or did the skill not work? To check, I also took a drop of blood from Karem. It worked for him. Apparently I hadn't realized that I had already saved Stevts shape. So theory 1 seemed to be correct. I had probably accidentally got some of his blood in my mouth during the fight against Stevt. Both men were only shown to me as human males, of which I now had three to choose from. The other was probably Cornelius, if I had understood Luna correctly. I faintly remembered biting his hand many years ago.

I tried out the three transformations and started with Man 1. I felt myself shrink visibly, but not as much as expected. I transformed into younger version of Cornelius, i.e. the skill saved the appearance at the time I had ingested the blood. I was lucky I hadn't turned into Karem, because then my clothes would have been ruined by now. So I had to be careful if I wanted to transform spontaneously. I just wondered why that didn't seem to be the case when I transformed into Eliza. The first time I transformed, I was significantly smaller than my old, full-grown self. Perhaps this one form was an exception. But I had other problems at the moment than to dwell on it. I immediately canceled the transformation because I didn't want to be Cornelius for a second longer.

The heroes were waiting outside for their boss fight and the time they needed gave me a head start as soon as I left the room. I took another deep breath, pulled my hood back over my head and left the boss room. I moved swiftly to the next portal and left the dungeon. Just before the exit, I turned into Stevt. I expected there to be soldiers outside the dungeon again, and there were this time. I walked past them so that I could be seen as Stevt.

The return journey was extremely strange. The shape of a man was very different from that of a woman. This became particularly clear to me in my crotch. This thing dangling between my legs bothered me enormously. How could men cope with that? I was wearing relatively tight clothes and the thing hurt because it was constricted. As I had no great interest in unnecessary pain, I dropped the transformation and ran back as Eliza. Fortunately, I was able to end the transformation at any time.

In the city, I went straight to the guild and approached Sana.

“Hello Sana.” <Eliza>

“Hello Eliza. How did your mission go?” <Sana>

“Good on the one hand and really bad on the other.” <Eliza>

“Tell me, what happened?” <Sana, slightly worried>

“I met a party of three that I was supposed to take to the boss of floor 15. We were able to defeat the boss without any problems, everything went well until then. Since the three of them couldn't use magic, I was supposed to take over the slimes and I did. But as soon as I'd done my bit, one of them tried to stab me in the back.” <Eliza>

“What, are you okay?” <Sana>

“Yes, I'm safe and sound in front of you. I've healed all my injuries. Unfortunately, my clothes have suffered quite a bit.” <Eliza>

“I'm glad about that. What happened next?” <Sana>

“I pretended to go down badly injured and about to die. Then the person who attacked me got careless and I managed to surprise him myself. He went down with a neck wound and bled to death. As the other two were still busy fighting monsters, I was able to surprise them too. They were the two fighters of the three, but they were significantly weaker than me. They were also much slower than me.” <Eliza>

I didn't mention the heroes. They entered the boss room after me and had found the bodies as a result. I wanted to have as little to do with them as possible if I could avoid it.

“Well done. They deserved that. Betrayal is a serious offense among adventurers. We didn't know about it, otherwise they would have lost their license immediately. Who were the three of them? We still have to open an investigation.” <Sana>

“Their names were Karem, Stevt and Zeel. Zeel in particular was a really bad guy. But now I have several problems. Firstly, I can't prove that I was attacked beforehand. Then I can't prove that I fulfilled my quest and I'll probably have to pay a fine.” <Eliza>

“That won't be a problem. Just give me a moment.” <Sana>

Sana disappears up the stairs for a moment and then comes back.

“Eliza, please follow me.” <Sana>

Sana led me up the stairs to the top floor. I was expecting to meet someone important now and I adjusted my status. There she knocked on an important-looking door. A female voice was heard from inside

“Come in.” <Female voice>

Sana opened the door and led me in. I saw an office with a large desk, two chairs and lots of shelves on the walls. There was a large window in the back. Next to the window was a birdcage with a small colorful bird on a stand. Behind the desk sat a woman of around 60, with a long wizard's staff leaning against the side of the desk.

“Guildmaster, I bring you the adventurer Eliza. There's been an incident.” <Sana>

She briefly told the guild master what I had told her earlier. Then she left the office and I stood in front of the desk, unsure of what was about to happen.