Following after Charlotte, we kept walking until we reached the middle of the desolate alley, at which point Charlotte stopped and turned around to face us as she said:

“I recommend that the two of you change your appearance, especially the little elven girl since she has that incredible ability. As for you, even if all you can do is change your hair and eye color, that’ll be enough. You’d be surprised at how bad people are at distinguishing others when even these two simple characteristics are altered.”

Hearing her unexpected suggestion, I gave Charlotte an inquisitive look that asked why she was telling us this, before the smile on her face finally returned as she said:

“You may not want to, but I’ll ask that you trust me on this. It’ll save you a lot of trouble for the future you know~”

Releasing a sigh, as I was now sure that things had already developed to a point more troublesome than I could imagine, I looked at Charlotte as I asked in a surprisingly calm tone:

“You wouldn’t have a mirror that we could use, do you?”

Raising one of her eyebrows as her smile turned into one of interest, Charlotte lifted her hand up as gas began to move around it and began to form an elongated oval shape. A second after it had settled on that shape, the large oval mass of gas turned reflective asa large mirror now stood in front of us.

After taking a moment to admire the convenience of magic, I turned to Ailya as I leaned in and whispered some instructions to her. After taking a moment to process my instructions, Ailya nodded her head in understanding as she looked at herself in the mirror and began to transform herself based on my orders.

Unlike her original appearance, the girl was now assuming the form of a pure-blooded elf instead of her previous half-elf form. This was not the only change she was making, as she was also inverting the color of her hair and eyes, with her hair now being a deep brown as her eyes took on a green color that made it seem as if one was looking at a green paradise trapped inside her eyes that contrasted greatly from the dreary monochrome color of our surroundings.

The last change that she performed, and the most impressive, was that she created a unique mana signature for the new form she was assuming. This change caught Charlotte’s eye, as the mage began leaning forward instinctively while she intently perused the transformation that was occurring in front of her with her glowing eyes. All the while letting out a few sounds in surprise and wonder at the spectacle occurring in front of her.

Although her countenance was almost the same as her original one, there were a few slight changes as a result of her transforming into a full elf. Despite her looking almost identical as before, I knew for a fact that just as Charlotte had said, people generally had a difficult time in recognizing others if just simple features about them changed, regardless if everything else stayed the same. So with her changing her race and mana signature, I doubted that with how little people she knew, no one would be able to recognize her. Even the old man shouldn’t be able to recognize her, as I believed that he didn’t even know how she actually looked, but instead only knew that she was a half-elf and had green hair and brown eyes. 

With Ailya finished assuming her new form, I turned to look at the mirror myself as I could see Charlotte’s eyes that were full of amazement intently staring at Ailya with a piercing gaze. Although I was displeased with the way she gazed at Ailya, I decided not to mind it for the moment as I began to change myself. At this, Charlotte turned to face me before letting out a silent “No way” as she watched me modify my features as well with a surprised face.

Unlike Ailya who was returning to her original form, I was adopting a new one for myself as I began to form a more ideal image of someone who could be a Demon Lord. Even if my journey was soon to meet its end, I still wanted to follow through with my conviction and enjoy myself. Therefore, although I still planned to remain human, I began to mold a few things about myself to fit a more ideal image of a Demon Lord that existed in my mind as I began to raise my height from the somewhat short 5’4 that I stood at into a taller 5’10 while keeping my body proportions pretty much the same as before. I thought that a Demon Lord should be a being that looked down upon others, not one that has to stare up at basically everyone because they’re tiny. It was due to this reasoning that I raised my height into one in which I would stand taller than the majority of the general population. Although I had originally planned to put myself somewhere over 6 feet, I was beginning to feel more uncomfortable with my body after every inch of height that I added so I decided to stop at around 5’10.

While Charlotte had been watching with an expression of intrigue at first, I was able to see from the corner of my eye the way in which her expression began to turn into one of incredulity, disgust, and then envy at my actions. Seeing this, I made a mental note in my mind to not mention anything to do with height in front of Charlotte, as I continued to make a few more changes to my appearance.

Following my increased height, the next thing that I did was, just like Ailya, invert the color of my eyes and hair as I my hair to changed into a light blue color while my eyes changed to brown in coloration. Looking at myself in the mirror, I felt extremely satisfied with this change since unlike how it had looked on my eyes, I felt that light blue really suited my hair. The final changes that I made were slight changes to my countenance to make myself more attractive. After all, it was said that the devil was beautiful… wait, I’m not saying that I’m ugly, just that I’m no 10 you know, I think I normally look cute…  Anyway, I decided not to make too many changes since I wanted to still be able to recognize myself and contented myself with only appearing a bit more attractive.

With these changes to my appearance, I was sure that no one who had known me previously would be able to recognize us. After all, my appearance had changed sufficiently that It would be borderline impossible to connect me to who I was before. It was also for the reason of not having anyone link us to our past appearances, that I had Ailya return to a form closer to her original appearance with only a few slight changes so as to avoid any suspicion that could arise from someone meeting another pair of sisters.

Though there was a chance that she would be recognized with her current appearance, I wasn’t too worried about it. Elves didn’t appear to be all that rare in the area, so with her changing her features and having a new name, I was confident she’d go undiscovered. So long as the girl in front of us wasn’t also looking for Ailya. If she was however, I doubted they’d be much we could even do to hide her anyway. So with those thoughts, I decided to have her return to normal since I really liked her original appearance that was far cuter than her appearance as… a little me… 

Somehow understanding the reason I was feeling down, Ailya walked up to me and gave me a hug as she said:

“I like Alex no matter what she looks like!”

Giving a wry smile to the lovely, once again elf, in front of me, I turned my head to look at Charlotte who noticed that we had finished assuming a new form as she mumbled a few incoherent things under her breath and dispelled the gas mirror before walking up to us as she said:

“I’m honestly surprised that both of you are able to change your appearances to such an extent. It’s not exactly a common thing to know two people who can transform their appearance to such a degree, much less seeing two supposedly strangers having these abilities. There’s definitely a lot of questions I want to ask the two of you, but it would be more appropriate for us to have this conversation elsewhere where we can talk in peace and with plenty of time. So why don’t you tell me where the two of you are planning on staying for the night.”

Thinking back on the fact that I had originally only changed my hair and eye color before putting on this show, I realized that I had probably just shot myself in the foot by further revealing the abilities of [Doppelganger] when she most likely thought I had a basic ability to disguise myself. Feeling like an idiot once more, since I had overlooked something so obvious in my anxious state despite the now obvious signs, I calmed myself slightly as I responded:

“We’re… we’re not staying anywhere. We haven’t picked a place to stay in just yet and I’m not sure we have the necessary funds to even do so.”

“Ah is that so? That’s actually more convenient then~ Hmm, are those the appearances that you both are planning on keeping?”

At Charlotte’s question, both Ailya and I nodded our heads as Charlotte came closer to us and scanned our two bodies closely. Once she had finished this, she looked at the two of us in the eye and said “Stay here” before trudging off to who knows where, as Ailya and I were left completely dumbfounded. Seeing her leave, the idea of running away with Ailya began to pervade my mind, but my fear at the consequences if she were to find me kept me rooted to the ground…