A week had passed and the adventuring duo had made significant progress in their adventuring career. From nothing but lead to now skilled silver plates, Braun and Bear were ready to head out for another town in their journey up north.

It was their very own Journey to the North.

Braun looked at his last customer, flashing the poor lad a professional grin as he sold him one of his numerous trinkets.

“One hundred gold in one week, not bad!” Braun whistled as he stored the last bit of his earnings in his bank account. Just a bit short of a hundred gold coins; that’s basically 10k dollars back in Dela, which is an absurd amount.

However, as a professional conman, it was basically his life’s existence to convince others to buy his defective goods. Adventurers had flocked to him like moths to a flame, buying his cheap magical trinkets, not knowing that in a year’s time, they would be gone.

Well, with those trinkets, they would get stronger by a significant margin and could hunt more monsters, earn more money, and make up for the loss easily, but who cares? It’s still conning and that’s all that mattered.

He could clearly feel his class mastery grow along with his powers. The more he mastered his class, the more he could tap into the true essence of conning—his lies were more believable, his deceit more subtle, his illusions more truthful, even if his skills’ ranks didn’t change.

Bear nibbled on a meat skewer and grunted, “Ror?”

“Yes, we’re going now,” Braun assured the bear as they approached a group of carriages. Among them, he saw his fellow adventurers and the merchants who hired them.

It was an accompaniment quest, and this time, they were heading for the town of Lakeview.

The merchant caravan had already started its travel, with the carriages moving forward. The adventurers rode on their respective carts, while Braun and Bear sat on their magical carpet.

Some gave strange looks, others with envy, at the carpet they rode, but kept quiet. The two adventuring duo were experts, silver plates adventurers. It was wise not to get on their bad side.

From morning till afternoon, the group traveled with barely any rest, only stopping whenever it was time to eat so that they could reach the next town as quickly as possible. By their estimates, in three days, they would arrive at Lakeview, and they could sell their goods for a large profit.

It was said that in Town Lakeview, the lake in the middle of the town could reveal the true selves of the people who glance at their reflection. There were even rumors of a powerful artifact that had sunken to the bottom of the lake, but after years of diving around, no one had found the artifact.

During their travels, Bear had been busy fiddling with a gun he requested from Braun, which surprised the man. Bear hadn’t shown much interest in craftsmanship all this while and focused on more combat-oriented development, so why the sudden change?

“You plan on exploiting your nanites now?” Braun curiously asked. The sun had already begun to set and night was approaching. The caravan had set up camp in an open plain, so even if monsters were to attack, they had a clear view and wouldn’t be surprised.

“Ror…” Bear mumbled some nonsense and kept examining the nanite-made gun. Nanites then formed from the tips of his paws, replicating some of the parts of the gun, while others were crude imitations of it.

In the end, the Bear wasn’t a born hero and was an artificially made one. Heroes were naturally talented at birth, and the hero unique skill was just a tool to help that talent become power faster. Bear could only just level up his skills and class faster, not be a super genius.

It’s the difference between system skills and natural skills. Yes, Bear might have Martial Arts (A), but against Braun, even without the system, would get decimated because Braun was a true martial arts expert.

What makes heroes overpowered, other than their great classes, unique skills besides the hero unique skill, and rapid rate of development, is that they both have high system skill and high natural skill, a combination of talent and system.

However, Bear is a determined draconian robobear, and he is going to create a gun. Maybe it would take a day, multiple days, or weeks, but eventually, his efforts would bear fruit!

“You know, sure, I’m proud of you, my dear blood brother.” Braun patted the bear on the back, while also giving some advice. “But if you want to speed up your progress, you could… And I’m not encouraging you, but you could eat some smarter species so your cells could take their genetic data as a basis to help your constant evolution.”

“Ror…?” Bear raised his eyebrow.

“Hey, I’m just saying that it works.” Braun shrugged his shoulders. “That’s why I keep feeding you my dragon meat. I’m already a bit stronger than a week before, and your cells would take that genetic information and apply it to themselves. It’s like plagiarising my development.”

“Ror.” Bear shrugged his shoulders. How was he even gonna acquire human meat in the first place, much less eat one?

The bear then realized something, glancing at his blood brother with a stupefied look.

“Yep, I can feed you my brain if you want to.” Braun grinned. “But be warned, it’s a predominantly human brain, so it doesn’t have the heavenly taste of dragons.”

“Ror!” The bear decisively refused the offer. It was already strange enough that he was eating his brother’s meat all this while, and now his brain? No, he was gonna do this the old-fashioned way, practice!

“If you say so.” Braun shrugged his shoulders. “But we could still feed you some brains later if we go hunt some bandits or things like that.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Bear contemplated the offer, before agreeing. He then went back to recreating the gun, continuing his diligent practice.

The journey then continued onwards, with the sun slowly descending over the horizon, and nightfall overtaking the land. As the caravan stopped and parties began preparing dinner, Roan and Bear huddled in their own corner.

Before the two went to sleep along with the rest, Braun gave a casual glance at the rest of the adventuring group and smiled cryptically.

…

Braun snapped his eyes open in the middle of the night.

“Who the fuck are you, eh?” Braun grabbed the hand reaching for his ring, tightening his grip. A magical barrier appeared around the area, concealing everything that would happen within it.

As a conman, his illusion magic was strong; it was stronger than others of the same rank. So, as long as the others were asleep, they wouldn’t notice this ruckus.

“W-Wait!” A woman covering her whole body in a skintight black suit tried to pull her hand away but to no avail. Braun’s physical strength was already at the epic rank, so even as a conman, he was a formidable brawler.

He glanced at the woman, peeking at her stats.

[Name: Lila Darkfall]

[Class: Thief (Rare)]

[Skills: Steal (B), Sneak (B), Shadow Magic (B) …]

As Lila found herself unable to break free, her form swiftly transformed into shadows that retreated into the ground. She ran at an extreme pace, displaying the swift speed of thieves. With the enhancement brought by her shadowy form, she quickly dived deep into the nearby forest, disappearing from the camp.

What the fuck?! How did he notice me?! She cursed in her mind, regretting her actions. He was supposed to be an easy prey! I’ve been keeping tabs on him and even joined this quest just to steal from him, but now…

She looked back in fear but gradually slowed down when she noticed nobody had caught up to her. Lila almost forgot she was a thief, and that escaping was her specialty.

“Damn it.” She spat on the ground, taking off her mask, revealing her face; she had short red hair and bright blue eyes, with freckles on her face. She was quite beautiful, with a foxy charm. “I thought he was an Artificer? Why was his grip so strong?”

Thankfully, an artificer is far from the definition of the word fast-

“Why?” A voice echoed all around, shocking the woman. “I’ve been eating meaty steroids since I was a child, that’s why.”

The trees seemingly reached for the clouds and the ground became muddy and deep. The shadows slithered like living snakes, while the stars above winked out of existence.

“You know, I intentionally kept myself pretty open so would-be-thieves like you would fall bait to my harmless exterior, but I never expected it to actually work.” Ten different Brauns walked out of the woods, surrounding the woman.

“Illusions?” Lila kept her cool and gazed intently at the illusions. Wait… Why are the illusions so good?

“Wondering why it’s so good?” All of the Brauns smirked. “Go ask that in hell.”

They whipped out a strange weapon from their pockets and aimed it at the woman.

Lila swiftly reacted. She collapsed into a burst of shadowy gas, melding in with the ground. Her form, transforming from human to half-shadow, dispelled the illusion, causing the forest to return to normal with no Braun in sight.

He wasn’t even there in the first place! Lila cursed as her plans of taking Braun by surprise didn’t work.

Bang!

A beam of light pierced through the darkness, narrowly missing its target. Lila had sensed the danger in advance, dodging before Braun even pressed the trigger.

Damn danger sense. Braun adjusted his aim, taking into account Lila’s skill.

Lila ran deeper into the woods in her shadowy form, her mind already starting to panic.

Bang!

Another beam of light was shot, this time from an entirely different direction completely. It was as if Braun had gone from left to right in the black of an eye, taking Lila by surprise as she had expected the attack to come from the same place as last time.

She bent her body to an unnatural degree, taking advantage of her amorphous form, but the beam still hit. A searing pain snapped her awake as her vitality dwindled; a single attack had caused so much damage that she instinctively knew two or three more hits would end her.

“Hey, Lila, is it?” The voice echoed from all parts of the forest. “You’re gonna die if you keep running, you know?”

How does he know my name?! She widened her eyes but didn’t stop moving.

“I can provide you a truce!” Another beam came flying in, barely missing her by a centimeter. “I intentionally didn’t hit you if you were wondering. I could end your life whenever I want to in this forest.”

“Don’t test my marksmanship,” added the voice. “I could hit an ant ten kilometers away without a scope even as a normal human back in my heyday, so you’re like a non-moving target for me right now.”

Convinced by the voice, she slowed down her movement and hid behind a dense canopy of trees.

“What do you want?” She returned to her human form, covered by a barrier of shadows. The dagger in her hand glowed with a dark red light, a sign that she activated one of her skills.

Probably Deadly Strike, identified Braun.

“Simple.” Braun, the real Braun, walked out of the shadows holding a rifle in his hand. “Work for me as my slave for five years.”

“Five years…?” Lila was surprised by the generous offer. She would have been fine to be a slave her whole life if she kept her life, but just five years? “Yes, I’m fine with that!”

“Oh, I didn’t expect you to agree so fast.” Braun grinned and clasped his hands together. “Well, you are a smart lass.”

His grin widened, a malevolent green light glowing from his innocent eyes. “But not smart enough.”

Chomp!

The illusion was dispelled the moment Bear bit her head off, revealing the furred martial artist in all his glory. Lila fell to the ground, her head missing, leaving her empty neck to bleed out the body’s blood.

Bear licked his tongue, picking the space between his teeth to deal with the tiny bits of flesh stuck between them, and mumbled, “Ror.”

“Disgusting?” Braun appeared amused by the bear’s words. “I guess we have different tastes.”

He then knelt beside the headless corpse. His whole face shifted, transforming into an unrecognizable monster with a maw so wide it could fit a baby elephant inside. With one chomp, the whole body was eaten.

“Ror.” Bear gagged at the sight.

“Shut up!” Braun returned to normal, his face wriggling between black tentacles and normal flesh. “It’s an optimal form for eating large bodies, okay? If you have half of my intellect, you’d do the same.”

“Ror.” Bear rolled his eyes. So what if it was optimal? It looks disgusting nonetheless.

“Yeah yeah, at least I’m practical.” Braun wiped his lips. “Now, let’s go back to camp. I’m not done acting.”

…

The next day.

“What the fuck?!” Braun shouted obnoxiously loud, just to make sure everyone would hear him. “Who the fuck stole my storage pouch?!”

“Ror?!” Bear acted shocked, grabbing his face and widening his eyes.

“Stole?” People gathered around Braun and Bear. “Somebody stole from you?”

“Wait… My knife is missing!”

“Someone stole from you too? What if… My wand is missing!”

“My sword is gone too!”

“MY MONEY!”

Almost everyone in the group seemed to have lost something. Eventually, as they kept looking around, someone finally noticed Lila Darkfall’s disappearance.

“That bitch!” Someone cursed. “She definitely stole from us!”

“I remembered that she said she was a rare class thief!” They clenched their fists. “I should have known this would happen when she said she was a thief!”

Braun and Bear watched from the side and remained silent. The two exchanged glances, grinning from ear to ear.

Not only did they make a nice profit, but Braun had once again understood another part of being a conman.

Illusion magic is fucking awesome, and his high luck, developed over ten years, is pulling its weight.

[Illusion Magic (C) -> Illusion Magic (B), Lie (C) -> Lie (B), Deceit (C) -> Deceit (B), Marksmanship (D) -> Marksmanship (C)]