Trekking through the rainy gorge with her corpse servant in tow, Dorothy’s journey proved far more arduous than she had anticipated. The drizzle from above and the treacherous, slippery ground beneath her boots made every step a struggle. The dim light from the old gas ntern did little to pierce the gloom, and more than once, she stumbled into trouble.

  But the greatest challenge came when she had to scale a steep slope to return to the main carriage path. The incline was slick with mud, and the darkness made the climb nearly impossible. On more than one attempt, Dorothy found herself dangerously close to tumbling all the way back down.

  Fortunately, just as she was about to give up, she spotted another corpse down by the riverside—the body of one of the bandits she had drowned earlier. A flicker of inspiration struck. Using her Corpse Marionette Ring, she raised the second body. With the aid of two undead helpers, she was finally able to haul herself back onto the carriage road.

  During this struggle, she also discovered something important: the ring could control only two corpses at once. That was its limit.

  Back on the road, travel became much easier. Accompanied by her “butler,” Dorothy trudged along for nearly an hour. Exhaustion nipped at her heels with every step, but just as her strength threatened to give out, a soft glow began to emerge from the horizon.

  Torchlights. Lanterns. The shimmer of civilization.

  “Finally…”

  Dorothy exhaled with relief. She had made it to her destination—Vulcan Town.

  Before entering, she commanded her two corpse servants to hide outside the outskirts, buried beneath foliage and shadows. Once they were concealed, she pulled up her makeshift headscarf, opened her umbrel, and stepped into the town streets.

  Vulcan was quiet—eerily so. The hour was te, and the drizzle kept most indoors. The buildings were modest two- or three-story wooden houses with pin exteriors. Only a few windows glowed faintly in the night. Streetmps were few and far between, their flickering light casting more shadows than comfort. The roads were muddy, covered in wagon tracks and footprints. Occasionally, a carriage rolled zily through the gloom.

  “A little too quiet…”

  Dorothy murmured to herself, hugging her soaked cloak tighter. She needed a pce to rest—and fast. Her limbs ached, her mind buzzed with fatigue.

  Eventually, near a crossroads not far from the town’s central church, she spotted an inn. Its wooden sign creaked slightly in the wind, but the windows were warmly lit, and the structure looked stable enough. She stepped inside.

  At the front desk, a short and plump innkeeper woman looked up, eyes narrowing at the sight of a muddy, disheveled girl who looked more like a stray than a guest.

  But then—clink—Dorothy pced a few silver coins on the counter.

  The woman’s face lit up with a warmth that was almost grotesque in its suddenness.

  “Oh my, what a polite little miss! You must be freezing—come, come, we'll get you settled right away!”

  Without asking for any sort of identification, she had one of the staff escort Dorothy to the best room in the inn.

  Edrick’s corpse had been carrying around roughly five pounds in cash. According to Dorothy’s memories, the currency of the Pritt Kingdom was the Pound—one pound equal to one gold coin, or one hundred iron pennies. Her Aunt Hannah, who farmed year-round, rarely made more than nine pounds annually. As for Dorothy herself, she was lucky to ever have more than a handful of coins at a time.

  With this kind of pocket change, a night at the nicest inn was no trouble at all.

  Her room was located on the upper floor. It was clean and well-decorated, with a mp, a carpet, and a few simple wall paintings. Most importantly—it had a private washroom with a real bathtub.

  As soon as the door closed behind her, Dorothy nearly colpsed onto the floor in relief.

  But there was no time to waste. Stripping off her dirty clothes, she filled the tub with warm water and slid in with a sigh of utter bliss.

  And yet, for all the comfort, the bath turned into an unexpectedly awkward ordeal.

  This was, after all, the first time she had ever truly examined her body—this girl’s body. A wave of conflicting emotions washed over her: embarrassment, curiosity, shyness, and a strange sense of distance.

  She fidgeted, spshed, blushed. She tried not to look, and then looked anyway. She explored her new form with the delicate hesitation of someone holding a fragile artifact.

  By the time she finally emerged from the bath, her face was as red as a tomato, and the water had long gone lukewarm.

  Wrapped in a towel, she dried off and slipped under the warm covers of the bed. She reached out, turned off the mp, and finally allowed herself to rest.

  But just as the room fell into pitch-bck silence—

  She noticed it.

  A faint glow at the edge of her vision.

  She raised her hand.

  Her eyes widened.

  “...Huh?”

  At first, she thought it was the Corpse Marionette Ring glowing in the dark—but no. The light wasn’t coming from the bronze ring on her right hand.

  It was from her left index finger.

  A different ring. One she hadn’t noticed before.

  It was simple—pin even. But atop its band rested a small crescent moon engraving, and in the absolute darkness, it emitted a soft, silver luminescence, like moonlight frozen in time.

  “When did I put this on…?”

  But she knew—deep down—that she never had.

  It had always been there.

  The ring wasn't unfamiliar to Dorothy.

  In fact, in her memories, she'd been wearing it since she was very young.

  According to Aunt Hannah, it was the only thing left behind by the woman who had so cruelly abandoned Dorothy and her brother. That ring was their sole inheritance, and the original Dorothy had always kept it close, never taking it off.

  “What a pitiful child…”

  She muttered softly, gazing at the silver-glowing ring on her finger.

  But she didn’t dwell on it. With a sigh, she curled up under the bnkets and drifted off into sleep.

  That night—she dreamed of nothing.

  . . . . .

  When she sat up the next morning, rubbing her eyes and yawning, the first thing Dorothy noticed was the sunlight peeking through the narrow gaps in the curtains.

  After a deep yawn, she quickly got out of bed and freshened up. Though her clothes from yesterday were still damp, she had no choice but to wear them again. After eating a simple breakfast of bread and milk provided by the inn, she stepped out into the streets of Vulcan.

  . . . . .

  Morning in Vulcan Town was far livelier than it had been the previous night.

  The rain had stopped, but the streets were still damp. People bustled back and forth along the muddy roads. There were far more carriages now than before. Along the sidewalks, ragged beggars sat slumped with bowls in their ps, and in the distance, tall chimneys puffed thin trails of bck smoke into the sky.

  The scene was surprisingly busy—more than Dorothy had expected. Especially the number of freight carriages transporting goods and people back and forth.

  She recalled something the coachman—now lying dead at the bottom of the gorge—had told her once: Though Vulcan was small, it served as a major transit hub. Many caravans heading from the western coast of the kingdom to Igwynt would pass through here. And Igwynt… that was the important city in the southwest of the Pritt Kingdom—where her brother was.

  In theory, she could hop onto any one of these carriages and resume the original Dorothy’s journey.

  But she didn’t.

  Because the contents of the two letters she found on Edrick’s body still lingered in her mind.

  ‘Beneath the ordinary surface of this world… something extraordinary hides… And within that hidden world, someone has already set their sights on me. I don’t know why, but I can’t just sit back and wait for them to strike again…’

  As she walked through the bustling streets, that thought repeated itself in Dorothy’s mind.

  After what happened st night, she couldn’t just leave. She couldn’t pretend none of it happened, couldn’t py the ostrich and ignore the fact that someone—something—was after her.

  If she didn’t figure out who they were or why they were targeting her, she’d never sleep soundly again.

  ‘I can’t let them take the initiative. I have to do something…’

  She understood all too well: staying passive meant staying vulnerable. She still had no idea how they got ahold of her travel information, but if they had it once, they could get it again. And if they came after her a second time, she might not be so lucky.

  The original Dorothy had died because of that.

  ‘And I’m not about to die again.’

  So, instead of waiting around for them to come knocking, she’d take the initiative. Even if she couldn’t face them head-on, at the very least, she needed to dig up some information—anything was better than walking around blind.

  According to the letters she took from Edrick, the organization had operatives here in Vulcan Town. That alone made this pce a rare opportunity.

  ‘But how exactly am I supposed to go on the offensive…? I’m just a thirteen-year-old girl…’

  Dorothy sighed, a bitter thought rising in her chest.

  A mysterious organization—possibly one that wielded supernatural powers—was not something a thirteen-year-old could face. Not even with her Dragon Shout. This wasn’t some storybook adventure where the plucky kid wins through sheer guts.

  She couldn’t confront them directly. Just approaching them might be suicide.

  ‘What am I supposed to do? Go to the cops?’

  ‘Yeah, right… Like regur police could handle this kind of thing. If those people really have extraordinary abilities, the cops would probably get themselves killed…’

  Walking down the muddy street, Dorothy racked her brain for a way forward. The gap in power was too great, and she hadn’t thought of a single viable pn.

  She was starting to wonder if she should just cut her losses and leave. Pretend she’d never come across those letters. Get on a carriage and head to Igwynt. At least she’d still be alive.

  But just as she was about to give up—

  Her eyes caught something on the side of the street.

  A storefront. One she hadn’t noticed before.

  Behind a rge gss window dispy were dozens of bck-and-white photographs, neatly arranged. A small bell hung by the door. Above the shop’s entrance, she saw the sign:

  Henry’s Photography Studio

  Zaztra_Vandesh