Chapter 576 (1/2)

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to attack you. But I think… I think I noticed when you got out of the city yesterday that you weren’t who you said you were.” Tatiana said after a brief pause.

Randidly nodded slowly. That explained the tenseness earlier.

Abruptly, Tatiana looked up at him. “What’s your real name then? And my Woman’s Intuition is running at full bore, so I’ll sense if you are lying.”

Randidly’s smile widened. “Woman’s Intuition? Is that a Skill? You are saying it like it’s a Skill.”

Frowning, Tatiana said, “Of course it’s a Skill. I use it on a daily basis. The only issue is that it’s of such a high caliber that the System is unable to quantify its Levels.”

Randidly rolled his eyes and then said. “That’s fine then. Just… well, I’m a little afraid you won’t believe me when I say my name.”

“Yes, and these stalling tactics aren’t exactly making you more believable,” Tatiana said with a touch of her old humor in her voice. “Just get it over with.”

“Alright fine,” Randidly said, straightening. “My name… is Randidly Ghosthound.”

Tatiana just looked at him with a strange expression on her face. “Like… the politician? The guy who’s marrying the 16-year old pop star?”

Randidly winched. “She isn’t 16, she’s 19, and I-”

“Holy shit, I need to sit down,” Tatiana said, raising a hand and pressing it against her forehead. “I thought… and this whole time you’ve been sneaking away at night to visit your teenage sex pot-”

“Hey, wait, that’s not me,” Randidly said, raising his heads.

Randidly felt profoundly uncomfortable as Tatiana looked at him like he was a dead thing. “Imagine my surprise when I am told that I am about to get someone’s real name, and then they go on to say ‘that’s not me’. It makes me wonder what I should believe.”

“Uh…” Randidly shrugged, wondering how best to condense the truth. “The person marrying the pop star isn’t me. I have… a close friend, she’s acting in the role of me. I really am Randidly Ghosthound. But I wanted to disguise myself and figured it would be incredibly suspicious to the people in power here if I disappeared from Zone 32. They would assume I was hiding here.”

“Which you had,” Tatiana commented, but Randidly ignored her.

“So just like I’m disguised to look like this, she is disguised to look like me.” He finished.

Tatiana seemed to be considering him for several seconds. Then finally, she shrugged. “Okay, fine. You have a cross-dressing friend who is acting as you. My real problem… isn’t Randidly Ghosthound, well you, a really powerful Classer? How can you just… spend your time playing with drones?”

Randidly opened his mouth, but couldn’t find much to say. Honestly… knowing what he did now about the at the very least wounded Creature, he had wasted a lot of time. If he wanted Skills, he could have found them in other places. But he had armed the population against monsters, so it wasn’t a complete waste. That was just an unintended pleasant side effect.

“Well… I guess I just like it.” Randidly said with a half shrug.

“You like drones? Did you… were an engineer or something before?” She asked, her face setting somewhat.

“....well no,” Randidly admitted.

She just stared at him. Then she reached up and rubbed furiously at her eyes for 10 seconds, before continuing to look at him. “...can you understand why it’s hard to believe you? You are just being… so casual about everything. When I thought you were an underachiever this personality made sense, but when you claim to be the leader of Zone 32…”