Polymath Redux

Chapter 26: PROJECT: Hellgate Part 3

He was clearly no average person, thus Mordred decided to test the man. Mordred slipped out from everyone's gaze and [blinked] behind the shadowed man. Since showing himself directly was a bad idea he used [Alter: Appearance] to shift into Morialia's form before gracing the shadow man with his appearance.

"What are you doing here old man?"

Morialia spoke out in a playful manner, a devilish smile etched across her mouth.

"Huh, what?! Who are you... wait..."

The man's eyes grew wide as he seemed to have somehow recognized her figure. 'Odd', Morialia thought. She didn't remember meeting this man before but clearly he was acting like he knew her from somewhere. Perhaps it was the Hywel Knights? Or was this man connected to the Dragon King? No, neither of those answers seemed to be quite right.

"Is something wrong? You seem a little frightened of my appearance."

"It... can't be! You!"

The man fumbled backwards in but then stood his ground again. For some reason he seemed to be getting angrier and angrier by the second and without provocation the man attacked. A spear made from shadows was lunged at Morialia but was easily parried away by a single hand. Seeing this, the man's jaw dropped wide open in disbelief and simply stood there, open for an attack.

"Hmm~ it seems Casec's report was true after all, but to think Morialia was you all along."

A second man came out from the shadows. Because this Morialia was currently just a doppelganger, all of her skills were gimped to 10% of their maximum power. Even [intuition] had been lowered to 25 meters of detection radius, so since the man was hiding outside that range she couldn't detect him.

The man that came out was someone Morialia had seen once before; disheveled earthy hair, thick framed glasses, a distinct lack of muscles and unimpressive armor. The man had introduced himself as 'Sven Serus' before and just now he spoke the name of another adventurer, 'Casec'. So they were indeed related, it felt awfully suspicious after all, Sven seemed stronger than the average OMEGA rank adventurer despite his appearance and Casec's movements weren't normal either.

"It, it, it... but it can't be! There's no way someone that strong could exist! I refuse to believe it!"

The man shouted frantically as he summoned monsters of his own. Monsters made of shadows in the form of beasts rushed towards Morialia, but each of them was easily repelled.

"Grand Cardinal, I think it's fairly obvious that she's a lot stronger than she looks. It's time to admit it."

'Grand Cardinal'... the corner of Morialia's mouth pointed upwards. 'I finally found you', various thoughts were going through her mind as she was trying to figure out the best way to deal with them.

"No! I refuse!"

The man rushed at Morialia to strike her but all of his movements were easily telegraphed and evaded. It was evident that he wasn't used to frontal confrontation as much as he was to background mind control. Morialia kicked him back and forth for a while before Sven intervened and blocked one of her attacks.

"Unfortunately I can't exactly stay idle by while you continue to pummel my comrade."

She had half a mind to just punch him right there but stopped. She breathed a sigh to let out the pent up frustration and glanced at the Grand Cardinal who had a bloodied face. 'Pathetic', she thought. 'This man was the one who touched Rena?' Morialia's face twisted in disgust; death would be too good for him. Even if he died here right now, it would simply be attributed to this invasion and he would just die as a martyr for defending this city till his last breath.