Taking over the Abyss

20- Welcome to Bible Study

It was immediately evident that Diluc regretted giving you the job of choosing the fake names the two of you would be using. In your defense, the first page was your way of venting stress. But he hadn't flipped to that page. Fidgeting behind him, you watched as his posture became more and more tense, as he read some of the more terrible ones out loud.

"Ben Dover, Mike Hawk, Craven Morehead..." Diluc turned to glower at you, "What is this?"

You suppressed the urge to snicker at some of them and defended yourself, "Okay, that page is a joke. Go to the next one."

Diluc's eyebrows furrowed as he read another one out loud, "Haywood Jablowme."

He did take your word and flipped to the next page, which put his heart at ease immediately. You couldn't really think of many names, so you started writing down the names of characters from other medias. Thankfully, since Teyvat was a fantasy world, a bunch of the names you chose were plausible.

Diluc quickly picked out the two names you would use, Corrin and Kiran, which were both... surprisingly fitting. The two of you were decked out in your epic disguises courtesy of Diluc, with him wearing a white wig to cover his flaming hot cheetoh colored hair. On your end, well... Kiran was technically an isekai protagonist... so...

Since this was a ball, you needed to dress 'proper'. You wanted to wear a suit like Diluc, but was ultimately shut down when he told you that the two of you were supposed to blend in. Which meant you ended up wearing a dress. You didn't dislike it, since it wasn't tight, and you were wearing shorts underneath, but the feeling of fabric swishing against your legs after wearing pants so long was strange. You also had to wear opera gloves to cover up the fact that one of your arms looked like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Though since you had to walk all the way to Mondstadt in fancy shoes, the dress quickly became very manageable. It was moments like these that you were grateful for your pain resistance ability. Just from the outside you could tell that the Fatui really went all out in making sure the Goth Grand Hotel was fully decked out for the event. The Fatui guard stationed outside looked ready to either pass out or strangle somebody, forcing a deeply strained smile at each and every guest. Feeling nervous even though there was no reason for them to assume you were anybody suspicious, you kept tightly to Diluc.

"Corrin and Kiran, huh?" The guard said absently, scribbling down your fake names onto a ledger. His eyes flickered up to the two of you, "Last names?"

Diluc stared the poor guard down, while you hurriedly came up with an excuse, "M-my apologies! We're a newly married couple, and we've come up with a new last name instead of having one take the other's, ahaha... it's new, so we both forgot to write it down- it's Jaeger."

"Uh-huh," the guard scribbled the last name down, then took both your invites, "Well, enjoy yourselves."

You hustled inside the hotel, pulling Diluc with you. Almost instantly, all of your senses were assaulted with... whatever the hell was going on in here. In theory, you had been prepared for going to a party to snoop around, but actually being inside one wasn't something you were prepared for. The amount of people was inside was completely absurd and more kept coming inside. A pair of crystal chandeliers were shining excessively bright white light down into the room, which didn't help with your overloaded senses. If it wasn't packed by couples dancing and talking, then any space was occupied with tables fully stacked with refreshments of all sorts. Seriously, did these people exist outside of the hotel? You'd never seen this many people in Mondstadt in the time you've been wandering around.

Diluc took note of your discomfort and gently nudged you with his elbow. Playing along with your poor excuse, he leaned down to whisper, "Are you alright, dear?"