Chapter 163. Disguise (1)
A traveling troupe.
As the name suggests, they were people who wandered without a fixed destination, making a living by selling entertainment.
It sounded like a life full of dreams, adventure, and romance—but in reality, it wasn’t quite so.
Like the saying goes, a comedy from afar, a tragedy up close. The life of a traveling troupe might look free and beautiful at a glance, but up close, it was shabby and carried a lingering salty bitterness.
This was because, by nature, traveling troupes sold amusement rather than necessities, making it difficult to expect a stable income.
In small villages, earning even a single meal was considered fortunate. Only in towns or cities of a certain size could they earn properly, and even that was limited to troupes with real skill.
In that sense, the Pebble Traveling Troupe wasn’t a particularly profitable one.
You could tell just from how they failed to earn much even in a Festival Village overflowing with practitioners.
But thinking about it, that too was only natural.
After all, the Pebble Traveling Troupe wasn’t formed to make money—it was a group formed by third-rate mages and lower-class folk who needed somewhere to flee.
So while they weren’t good at making money, they were exceptionally good at fleeing and hiding.
The fact that the Festival Village, stirred into chaos by an unknown disturbance, had been searching the surrounding area and still hadn’t found them was proof of that.
Of course, since they were always short on money, the troupe usually lacked food and couldn’t hold out for long, so they had to watch the situation and escape at the right moment.
Fortunately, this time was a bit different.
Thanks to Anagin, who had paid an enormous viewing fee on his own, they had more than enough food and supplies.
This time, they could hold out as long as they wanted.
To put it a bit more extreme, they could settle down here and last until next spring if they wanted.
Just thinking about it made their stomachs feel full and their backs warm.
“However, the more comfortable we are, the more we should be thinking about earning even a single coin, Leader.”
Said Hanpuni, the one in charge of the troupe’s finances.
The reason he was called “Hanpuni” was because he always insisted on earning and saving even a single coin.
Though everyone found his constant nagging annoying, he was the one who managed the troupe’s livelihood in place of their blind leader, Uma. Naturally, his words carried weight, even Uma usually followed his judgment.
Except this time.
“Let’s wait a bit longer. It wouldn’t be pleasant to run into practitioners with bloodshot eyes.”
“As expected… it’s because of him, isn’t it?”
The “him” Hanpuni referred to was none other than Anagin.
And it was true.
The Festival Village, usually full of laughter and leisure, had entered an unusual state of alert.
The Oracle of the Temple of Delphi had gone into seclusion, giving rise to ominous rumors.
And on top of that, there were the traces of a massive battle that had taken place in a forest not far from the village.
The aftermath of Anagin and Orpheus’s fight.
The rumors, once half-joking, of a great danger approaching were no longer just rumors. And the sudden disappearance of Orpheus and the New Argonaut Expedition Team only added fuel to the fire.
The Festival Village, once filled with music, had fallen quiet, and an eerie tension began to spread.
Some ambitious practitioners formed their own groups and began searching the surrounding area, investigating anyone suspicious.
After all, if they were lucky enough to earn merit, they might receive a blessing directly from the Oracle of the Temple of Delphi.
But because of that, the Pebble Traveling Troupe found it difficult to move.
As wanderers without clear identities, they were easy targets in situations like this. And given their direct connection to Anagin—the cause of all this—it went without saying.
To avoid a possible tragedy, it was wiser to stay put and wait for things to calm down rather than move around carelessly.
Hanpuni couldn’t deny that.
“Ugh… we should’ve just ignored him.”
“I understand how you feel, but that wasn’t something we could decide. It was up to Lady Sphinx.”
Uma was right.
Though the Pebble Traveling Troupe had helped Anagin, it wasn’t entirely by choice.
They simply didn’t have the strength to refuse Sphinx’s request to let him rest until he recovered.
If they had refused back then, no one wanted to imagine what that girl with those fierce eyes might have done.
“…That’s true, but still…”
“Don’t feel too bitter. Thanks to Lord Anagin, we earned a lot of money and escaped Magno’s interference. No matter how you look at it, we gained more.”
Uma listed the benefits Anagin had brought, comforting Hanpuni, and sure enough, he calmed down soon after.
As she said, they had gained more.
Though he didn’t like being stuck in one place without productivity, there was at least one upside—while they were hiding like this, they wouldn’t be discovered.
Hanpuni considered relaxing a bit.
If nothing else, he was confident in their ability to hide.
“Ah, so this is where you were hiding.”
A middle-aged man appeared, breaking through the magic that blended them into the surrounding forest, the magic they had been confident no one could easily see through.
He had golden hair and a beard, and wore unusual gloves on both hands.
At this unprecedented situation, all the members of the Pebble Traveling Troupe were shocked, except for one.
Their leader, Uma.
“I didn’t expect you to come in person.”
“I wasn’t sure if I should, but I decided to stop by anyway.”
“Was it because you wanted to hear about your disciple?”
“Oh, no need to go that far… though I wouldn’t refuse if you insisted.”
“Let’s talk inside first. There are too many eyes out here.”
With that, Uma invited Midas into her tent.
The members of the Pebble Traveling Troupe watched the scene with unfamiliar expressions.
* * *
The mages, though reluctant, accepted Anagin’s opinion to some extent.
When things didn’t go as planned, Anagin had threatened to take control himself, and that threat had worked, at least partially.
It was quite satisfying.
That said, they didn’t follow everything he wanted.
Instead of immediately raiding villages under the Barbaroi Cult’s influence, a compromise was proposed—to scout first.
It wasn’t hard to understand.
If they attacked blindly, there was no telling what might happen, and if things went wrong, it would be difficult to clean up.
In other words, they would observe the situation first and act accordingly.
It was a reasonable opinion, and Anagin didn’t object.
To begin with, even though he had suggested raiding, he didn’t actually want to storm villages outright.
What he really wanted was to introduce some variation into the mages’ plan.
Wasn’t that obvious?
From the fisherman mage to the captured subordinate woman, everyone was scheming—it would be ridiculous for him to just go along passively.
Even Anagin knew that blindly following others could lead him straight into a trap. To avoid that, or at least improve his chances of escaping one, he needed to insert his own influence into the plan.
Besides, he also had the urge to investigate the Barbaroi Cult himself and to observe how the mages operated.
‘Still… I didn’t expect we’d move like this.’
Anagin thought as he looked at himself disguised as a merchant, along with the mages.
“Something wrong?”
The fisherman mage, mounted on a horse, asked as he watched Anagin scanning his surroundings with a curious look. Behind him followed a mule loaded with goods to complete the merchant disguise.
“Ah, nothing much. I just didn’t expect we’d disguise ourselves as merchants.”
“Is there a problem?”
A problem…
Normally, there would be.
Disguises weren’t easy.
Put bluntly, if Anagin just changed clothes and adjusted his speech a little, would he really look like a merchant?
The answer was no.
Unless the other side was a fool, they’d quickly notice something off. If disguises were that easy, anyone could do them.
But this time was different.
The fisherman mage and the others all seemed used to acting as merchants—they genuinely looked the part.
On top of that, they had even received identification tokens from a merchant guild in a nearby city to support their disguise.
Disguise wasn’t Anagin’s specialty, but this seemed convincing enough to fool most people.
Still, there was one thing he was curious about: their connection to that merchant guild.
“A connection?”
“Yeah. Those ID tokens aren’t something you can just lend out easily, right? Or is it different here?”
“Ah… It’s not different. I just have some connections. They trusted me enough to lend them.”
“Oh, close, huh? Did you help them a lot with magic or something?”
“Well, something like that.”
The fisherman mage answered casually, as if brushing it off.
The answer felt strange. Not quite a lie, but not the whole truth either.
Maybe he just didn’t feel like explaining in detail.
“More importantly, focus on your acting. Actually, just do as you’re told.”
Anagin nodded without complaint.
He only wanted to tweak the plan and add some variation, not forcibly seize control.
As long as the plan itself wasn’t bad and he could get what he wanted, there was no need to fight over leadership.
Of course, if a better plan came along, that would be a different story.
“There won’t be much to worry about. The village we’re heading to is very small.”
Anagin had suggested visiting the largest fishing village first, but the fisherman mage opposed it, so they decided to start with a smaller one.
Still, rather than caution, it felt more like they had chosen it so things would be easier to handle if Anagin caused trouble.
Honestly, it was a very wise decision.
Anyone who had seen Anagin’s track record would know he had a knack for turning small incidents into big ones.
When Anagin pointed that out, the fisherman mage denied it.
“That’s not the only reason. The village we’re heading to is estimated to have relatively low influence from the Barbaroi Cult. It’ll be easier to gather information there.”
“Oh, really? Then why not scout it in advance?”
“We didn’t have the time, and our target is just the priest, so there was no real need to—hm?”
Mid-sentence, the fisherman mage spotted something in the distance.
The fog made it hard to see clearly at first, but soon it came into view.
Two well-built men.
Judging by their clothes, they seemed to be villagers.
Their skin was pale, their eyes unusually large, and there was something off about them—their pupils barely moved. Not just strange… It’s unsettling.
The men noticed them as well and spoke.
“…Who are you?”
“Merchants from the Rumga Merchant Guild.”
“I don’t recognize your faces.”
“We usually work elsewhere.”
The fisherman mage immediately showed his merchant identification.
At that, the villagers’ suspicion eased a little.
The Rumga Merchant Guild was one that regularly traded fish with them, so they trusted it.
Lending that kind of credibility implied the fisherman mage’s connection to the company was no ordinary one.
Once their identities were confirmed, the villagers’ guard visibly dropped, and the conversation became smoother.
“What are you doing out here, then?”
“…We’re chasing a village brat who caused trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“None of your concern. Keep going this way, and you’ll reach the village.”
Seemingly busy with their own matters, the villagers urged them to continue on their way, and the fisherman mage didn’t press further.
It wasn’t something he was particularly curious about anyway.
They exchanged brief farewells and were about to move on—
“Hey.”
Anagin, who had been acting as a porter, suddenly drew the Beast Devourer from Pairon at his waist and swung it at the villagers.
Just enough to lightly graze their faces.
“What the—!”
The fisherman mage was about to curse him out for the sudden outburst, but stopped when he saw what happened next.
Uoooh… Aaargh—…!
Grrrk… Guuuuurk…!
The villagers, now with small cuts on their faces, screamed in agony as their bodies twisted—
And suddenly, they transformed into fish-like creatures with limbs.
Just like Hippomenes had, when he was lightly cut by the Beast Devourer.
“Ah, I knew something felt off.”
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