NOVEL NEXT Chapter 67: Closing Act
I was about to start the final stage of my little plan when I heard a nostalgic beep. It had been so long since I got a notification from Noe that I had almost forgotten about it.
“Congratulations, my Host,” Noe’s soothing voice said, “You have earned your third legitimate secondary title.”
That was a pleasant surprise, but not wholly unexpected, given the amount of work I’ve been putting in for the last 5 or so days. I wanted to end this a little faster now that my mandatory rest period was also coming to a close. I was itching for a little bit of combat after all this time. Between frequenting the undercity bars and my excursions with Noel and Vadeem, I had done practically nothing else but sleep. It was good to see that my hard work was paying off, even if it didn’t immediately increase my attributes or combat abilities.
“Displaying information now,” she continued, "I hope you continue to grow in the future, my Host."
Secondary Title: The Devil’s Advocate (B Rank)
Title Description: Your silver tongue sows discord and chaos wherever you go, and you can bring societies to its knees with a whisper. You aim to fool those closest to you and bring ruin to your enemies from within. Beware the Devil’s Advocate.
Title Passives:
Charisma +25
Charisma +10% when user is speaking with another.
Title Actives:
The Devil’s Temptation: You can make a person with significantly less Charisma than you believe any one piece of information you say as fact (target must make a will save against your Charisma attribute).
Cooldown: One use per day.
Now this is what I was talking about. Not the most useful thing to have in combat, but with the insane growth that my Soul Title’s gotten, I was ok with fighting for the time being. The passives were a nice boon for my already impressive Charisma score, bringing it all the way up from 78 to 103 and that’s without counting that extra 10% bonus when I’m speaking. If I were to add in the bonuses from my Light Bringer Title when it’s dark out, then I was going to be a propaganda machine!
Of course, the active was also useful, although it is limited in what I can do with it. It is only usable once a day, and only affects one person was a drawback, but the payoff could be huge. But once again I’m seeing the issues with these skill descriptions. A lot of the time the information given was a little vague. What does it mean by significantly less Charisma, or how does a will save even work?
Once again, just like Noe’s Gamma class that she gave me earlier, I would need to test out these things on my own. Perhaps that was the purpose of giving the users incomplete information, as it incentivizes the Aspirants to test out and more naturally get used to the tools at their disposal. Having complete knowledge could lead to complacency and stagnation. If everything was spelled out to you, then fewer people would bother with experimentation, or trying to use their skills in creative manners.
I dismissed the stat page and focused on my task at hand once more. The boost in Charisma would have been nice if I had gotten it a bit earlier, but I couldn’t complain. At least I had the title to use now instead of having it after all of my plans were complete. Any extra boost in Charisma would be helpful now, and having the active as a backup was a nice touch of reassurance in case anything goes wrong on my end.
But first, let’s do the part I was dreading. I went into my room and called forth my stupid doppelganger. Thankfully his ability to communicate in English had improved drastically since his first appearance, although that unpleasant memory would resurface every time I saw the man.
I needed him to do one simple job since I can’t be seen in two places at once. All those social gatherings I had with Noel’s group meant that some people had seen my face under the helmet even though I tried to keep it on for as long as possible. I doubt people could remember what I looked like in great detail, but I could not afford to take any chances. No one can be allowed to link my two identities together. There were already rumors that I had to squash going around that William and Winslow were the same person, or at least related, and I couldn’t have that continue.
Having someone look remarkably like me would be a hard sell, but if they saw the two of us at the same time? Well, there’d be no doubt that we weren’t the same person, and I could even spin it as slander if I wanted.
As for how I explained his existence to the rest of my party? That was honestly quite easy given the new world that we lived in, where skills and abilities that regularly spat in the face of physics existed. The Walter lookalike was simply hired help that had the ability to change his form to match mine, and that explanation wasn’t even a lie.
The doppelganger appeared in my room as expected, now looking like the beggar version of myself. There were just enough differences between his features and mine that it would be hard for someone to notice the similarities if they were only seeing us from afar, which is hopefully where most of the snobby crowd will be. I planned on ditching one of these disguises in any case, and I planned to take full advantage of the creature’s abilities to transform.
“You read over everything I need you to do?” I asked it.
It looked at me wide-eyed with glee, I almost puked seeing myself make a face like that, “Of course, I have, lord Walter! I have memorized my part in full!”
I nodded, “Good, and you’re sure you can mimic a human death convincingly?”
He gave me a confident smile and handed me a piece of paper. Confused, I took it and saw that it was a report detailing my clone’s grades in his Intro to Earth class. He scored remarkably well, all things considered, but more specifically, he got a 98% on the Human Anatomy and Physiology subsection.
“I have studied the subject extensively!” he answered with pride, “I shall do you proud, Lord Arbiter!”
“And you know how to behave around the Anomaly and his friends, right?” I asked dubiously. The last incident was still fresh in my mind, even after all this time.
“Yes,” he smiled, “I have studied your instructions thoroughly, and I will not let you down.”
“So what would you say when you first see them?” I tested.
“Nothing!” he said with a smile.
I nodded, “And what do you say if they ask you any questions?”
He smiled again, “Nothing!”
“And what will you say if you ever see them again after?”
“Nothing!”
Perfect, he can’t fuck this up.
“Alright, let’s go introduce you to the rest of them, and then you can go prep for your part.”
“I will do my best to fulfill your expectations!”
Well, here goes nothing. I walked him out of my room and into the basement where I told the other three to meet me. For obvious reasons, Yoona and the twins were not included in my plans. The Regressor told me that they would be out of the picture until the time was ready, and I trusted his judgment.
“Damn, little bro!” Noel said the second we entered, “He really does look just like you!”
She all but ran up to the doppelganger and started looking him up and down, which made Vadeem do the same.
I greeted my friends and explained to the new member, “This is the guy with the skill I told you about.”
“You sure you can trust someone else with such an important task?” Jae-Hyun frowned. Was he suspicious about the origins of the doppelganger, or just the trustworthiness of the man? I mean, I knew that he had insider information given his unique nature, but surely not even he could know the abilities of every Aspirant in the world, especially after things had deviated so much from his first iteration. Hopefully, he was just cautious about letting a stranger know a little about his guild’s operations.
“I paid him more than enough for that, and if things don’t go as planned…” I glanced at Noel. She gave me a polite nod back.
That seemed to satisfy the Regressor, and he welcomed my clone as well. I think he agreed more readily after seeing firsthand my ability to manipulate the populace and had started to trust in my planning skills. That was one of the nice things about Jae-Hyun, the man knew when to trust the opinions of others when he knew that they were an expert in that field.
Vadeem also shook fake Walter’s hands and gave him a quick inspection. His face was scrunched up in concentration.
“Impressive skill…” the big man said, “I can’t see any difference between you two, other than the makeup.”
“That is a very useful skill,” Jae-Hyun agreed, “Can you freely change what you look like whenever you want?”
My clone didn’t respond.
“Uh, his ability to speak is limited when he’s using his skill,” I said quickly before they could question the stupid thing further, “His skill’s not perfect, but he can do what I assigned him when the time comes.”
The Regressor seemed to buy what I said and nodded slowly. He turned his attention back to me, “You’re sure that your plan will work out?”
“Yeah, I’ve been putting in the work these last few days, and all that’s left is the appropriate spark to set things off,” I smiled, “All you have to do is fix the mess that I made, and I can guarantee that you’ll win over the hearts of all the less-well-to-do Aspirants.”
He raised an eyebrow, “And the others?”
Vadeem grinned menacingly, “Leave the disgruntled elites to me and Noel.”
“We need them alive and on our side for the future,” Jae-Hyun clarified.
“Don’t worry,” I clarified, “We’re not approaching this group with the usual approach. I have plans for those people after.”
He gave me a long stare before finally nodding. Good, it seems like he was trusting me more and more now.
“Alright,” I said finally, “Fake Walter, you go ahead and get in position.”
My clone nodded and left the room, giving everyone a thumbs-up before going out of view. The others waved back and I forced myself to do the same, I really didn’t want to deal with him any more than necessary.
I turned to the Regressor, “You too Jae-Hyun, you know the signal for when you should make your entrance?”
“Yes,” he answered simply.
“Alright,” I said, “Then let’s put our costumes on and head out. Hopefully, we can wrap this up and get some dinner after.”
“I like the sound of that!” Vadeem answered with a mighty grin.
Vadeem, Noel, and I were the last to leave our guild headquarters, now fully dressed up as Veda, Nora, and Winslow. After spending five days and about 1000 times that number in gold, we were the center of attention for the A Group Aspirants and were greeted warmly when we arrived at our usual hangout in the market.
We welcomed the gathered people and waited for more of the Aspirants to show up. I had told them that we were going to have some extra special fun today, so I was expecting quite the crowd. The A Group were so used to bullying the weak at this point that they were drooling at the mouth waiting to see what I had in store for them. Well, it will certainly be a day that they never forget.
Once everyone was here, I led them out of the market and into the slums - the fact that a proper slum could be developed in just 5 days should speak volumes to how much harassment the B Group was taking every day. Just as I predicted, or more accurately, planned, there was already a horde of people waiting for us in the slums. And they were pissed and they weren’t afraid to show it.
At the center of the irate B Group, riling up the crowd, and was my doppelganger. Now it was the perfect time to finally let all this brewing tension ignite, and what better way to do that than the death of one of the leaders? Things will quickly devolve into beautiful chaos soon, but more importantly, I was just itching to “accidentally” kill Q’s clone.
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