[Una Bluewater]

[Lvl 16 Farmer]

[390/390 HP] [135/135 MP]

Freya smiled at the new grey textbox in the corner of her vision. Her level was rather high for a farmer, but that didn’t matter at the moment. She had successfully activated Misidentify! Plus, she had successfully changed her identity back to an NPC. Her normal green text box that identified her as a player was now grey. Her plan was in reach.

As with other skill activations, she suddenly had the sense that she’d done this before. She innately knew she could pull off this simple deception. However, she would need to be careful. If she acted too out of character, any slightly perceptive person would see-through.

Knock Knock

She frowned at the interruption but realized this could be the perfect opportunity to test out her skill. However, upon opening the door, she knew it was going to fail.

On the other side of the doorway stood Yina. The dressmaker blinked a few times and rubbed her eyes, then said, “Freya, I almost forgot to give this to you.”

Freya slumped, “You found out it was me too easy.”

She glumly accepted two small empty vials. Freya had given Yina some potions to cure headaches last week. It was nice to receive the vials back, but now her new identity was gone. Just seeing Yina with the glass vials made her come back to herself.

[Freya Evenkey]

[Lvl 16 Martial Artist]

[390/390 HP] [135/135 MP]

“Does this have something to do with the new bad idea you were talking about?” Yina asked, her sharp eyes boring into Freya’s depressed countenance. Freya had explained her plan briefly to Yina before she left to talk to Nightscythe.

“Yeah,” Freya admitted. “I learned a new skill that’s supposed to make people think I’m someone else. But my level’s so low you easily found out.”

Most likely, since Yina was familiar with Freya and knew she should be in this inn, she could easily see through the Misidentify skill.

Yina cocked her head to the side, “Who were you pretending to be?”

“An average farmer girl.”

“Hm,” Yina pursed her lips and tapped her chin, “I still think you’d be better as a boy.”

“I’m just practicing! I’m not ready for something like that yet. And I think that’s going to be too hard for me to pull off unless I level up a lot,” Freya shook her head. She walked to put the empty vials in the inn room sink.

Yina entered the room and sat down in the spot she had initially cleared for Nightscythe.

“It’s really a mess in here,” Yina nagged, looking around Freya’s room.

Drying herbs, glass vials, and various other equipment littered every available surface. Even her bed was no exception. The old distiller she was trying to work with earlier had been deposited there to clear the table. Freya would have never let her original workshop get to this state, but it was difficult to maintain cleanliness in this small space.

“Sorry,” Freya said, pushing some trash on the floor into a corner. She wiped down the small empty section of the table in front of Yina. “Do you want some tea?”

Yina shook her head, “I’m okay. I suppose I should leave you to practice. But I am curious. Wouldn’t changing your appearance help this skill work? Or can the skill change your clothes?”

“At high levels, I should be able to change the perception of my appearance,” Freya said, trying to remember what the skill book said. Since she had learned the skill, it had now poofed out of existence. “But, I suppose the right clothes might help strengthen a certain perception. If I don’t have to change the perception of what I’m wearing in the first place, that should make things easier.”

Yina clapped her hands together. Freya frowned and sighed.

“I know what your thinking,” Freya said, seeing the twinkle in her friend’s eye.

The dressmaker smiled, “Come on, it won’t be that different from what you wear already. If you’re going to pretend to be a boy, you’ll need something that hides your figure. Oh, and maybe a high collar, but that won’t be good if you need to move around…”

“I don’t know why you’re so excited about this.”

“But it will be good for your plan,” Yina said confidently. “It will be odd if an older, skilled woman tries to become a demoniclast apprentice. But a young boy that hasn’t had his growth spurt yet, who asks lots of questions about the organization, will not draw much attention.”

“I suppose,” Freya said, chewing her cheek.

Yina stood up and almost ran out the door. On her way out, she called, “I’ll get to work right away! Why don’t you ask one of your friends to practice your skill with you? You need to level it up, right?”

“Yes, okay- bye.”

The dressmaker was already gone by the time Freya finished her broken sentence. Freya shook her head. Yina loved any opportunity to create new clothes. Apparently, this challenge piqued her interest. Although, Freya didn’t understand how she planned to make her special men’s clothes. Shouldn’t any clothes designed for a man be fine? She already had plenty of plain-looking garments that could be uni-sex. Creating new clothes seemed like a waste of time, but she trusted Yina.

Freya considered Yina’s other parting words. To level up her Misidentify skill, another game player would be helpful to challenge herself.

She scanned through her short Friends List. Immediately she had to mentally cross off Nightscythe, Hamra, and Scrimmancer. They all had high perception levels that wouldn’t be practical to practice against. Infamous Biscuit said he would be busy for the next few days, and Freya wasn’t ready to explain her plan to him yet. Similarly, Heilong also said she would be busy fulfilling her agreement with the wizard Mecha.

That left only three names.

[Tox]

[Strawberry Knight]

[K13]

She had no intention of ever interacting again with the first player, and she didn’t know Heilong’s brother well enough to reach out to him. So, that left the quiet berserker. Out of everyone, K13 probably would have been her first choice anyway.

The in-game dot indicator was grey, so Freya carefully typed him a message he could read later. That taken care of, she sat down to practice.

Let’s try to get to level 2 by the end of the day!