Hearthbay.

  He had heard plenty about the pce over the past two years.

  Sometimes it came up when Guild hunters were drunk and bragging. Sometimes it was gossip brought back by traveling merchants. But no matter who was telling the story, one thing stayed the same. Everyone spoke of Hearthbay with a kind of endless longing.

  If you could afford the price, you could buy anything in Hearthbay.

  Even the key to opening the path to the supernatural.

  It had another name too.

  The bck market.

  Sadly, Ethan had never been there even once.

  The reason was simple. There had never been a ship willing to take him.

  The bck market required an invitation of sorts, and someone like him, a nobody from a frontier town, was not the kind of person anyone bothered to notice.

  But things were different now.

  He was not the same man he had been before. He was now an Imperial public servant.

  White shirt.

  Gray tie.

  A broad bck overcoat over the top.

  Dressed like a proper gentleman of high society.

  Ethan was no stranger to the identity of gentleman.

  Back in college, in his previous life, he had once earned exactly that title. No one understood better than he did what a real gentleman was supposed to do.

  Step one, download the ZIP file beled Gentleman Mod from the website.

  Step two, leave a comment that said, Thanks for sharing, man. Wishing you a long and happy life.

  Step three, pass the file along to the roommates.

  Do not underestimate those three steps.

  They demonstrated a gentleman's ability to gather information, his spirit of kindness, and his willingness to share.

  Not only had that earned Ethan the title of gentleman, it had also gotten him treated like the father of the dorm for quite a long time.

  That ended near graduation, when his roommates discovered that the st thirty-gig archive he had shared with them contained the complete collection of Society and Law.

  That was the day he lost both the titles of gentleman and father.

  But Ethan had always felt that, if anything, this was what truly gave the title father its proper weight.

  After graduation, everyone would scatter and enter the workforce.

  The world was full of people with different hearts, and you should never trust anyone too easily.

  Not even a man people respectfully called Father.

  That...

  had been his final lesson.

  Standing in front of the mirror, Ethan carefully adjusted his tie.

  This was the first time in two years since his transmigration that he had seriously looked himself over. Clothes really did make the man. His old outfit had been too shabby. Even the best face in the world would lose half its charm dressed like a broke peasant.

  "Not bad."

  Ivy's reflection stood behind him with her arms folded as she gave her verdict.

  "You at least look vaguely human now."

  "If you don't want to compliment someone, you really don't have to."

  Ivy's serious expression made it hard for Ethan to imagine what kind of image he had previously held in her mind. But he had already decided that was Ivy's problem. She had been raised in a wealthy household and had grown up in the Capital. She had probably seen beautiful men and women her whole life. It was only natural for her standards to be sky-high.

  Personally, Ethan was very satisfied with his new civil-service look.

  At the very least, it gave him strong local-market competitiveness in a pce like Willowbrook.

  "Put this on."

  Ivy handed him a masquerade mask and motioned for him to wear it.

  "And remember, once we're in Hearthbay, don't let anyone know your name."

  She had prepared a full-face mask for herself that left only her eyes visible. Her short golden hair had been pinned up and hidden beneath a top hat, and she wore a bck overcoat that was obviously several sizes too rge. Altogether, she looked very much like a real Bureau investigator.

  Ethan guessed the oversized coat was meant to hide her figure.

  In practice, though, the effect was only moderately successful. Even the most battle-hardened royal soldier would have a hard time training chest muscles to Ivy's particur scale.

  "We'll talk on the way."

  Ivy headed for the door first.

  "What follows is everything you need to know about Hearthbay. The man we're meeting today is named Mugram. He's a bck-market merchant who regurly does business with the Bureau. But don't let that lower your guard, and don't be fooled by his appearance. Every merchant in Hearthbay will smile while squeezing every st bit of value out of you."

  Ethan nodded.

  A profiteer, then.

  No shortage of those these days.

  "And another thing. Don't strike up conversations with strangers unless you absolutely have to. One careless mistake there can ruin your life."

  That sounded a little extreme.

  Ethan had to make sure he was understanding this correctly.

  "Just to confirm, we're going there to buy things, right?"

  He genuinely struggled to imagine what kind of shopping district could cause customers to vanish.

  "That's right."

  "So the public safety situation there isn't great?"

  "Hearthbay belongs to the Lofik Consortium. Nobody causes trouble there. What I mean is that you need to keep your desires under control. Otherwise, you'll pay for it."

  "You can rex. Completely."

  Ethan secretly let out a breath of relief.

  For a moment he had thought Hearthbay was crawling with kidnappers. As for desire, that was the easiest thing in the world to suppress.

  "Haven't you heard the saying? Poverty keeps a person pure."

  Ivy's expression turned far more animated than usual.

  Even behind the mask, Ethan could practically picture the look she was giving him. It was the kind of smug, almost taunting expression someone wore when looking at a clueless hatchling.

  "Oh, there it is," she said.

  Ethan was now seriously convinced the mask had unlocked something in Ivy. Even her voice had changed. It had taken on a strangely teasing lilt.

  "Men like you are exactly the easiest to fool. In Hearthbay, money isn't the only currency. Your eyes, your blood, your limbs, your organs, even you yourself can all be used as payment. There will also be people willing to lend you things. They can very easily make your deepest desires come true."

  "I get the idea," Ethan said, "but what's going on with your voice?"

  On this point he had a very different opinion.

  In his view, the truly dangerous person here was obviously Ivy.

  That strange, lifted little voice of hers was far more likely to stir up people's desires than anything he might do. If she kept talking like that in Hearthbay, events were going to take a very unpredictable turn.

  "It's the mask. It alters the voice."

  Ethan wanted to say more.

  But the route they were taking left him distracted for a long moment.

  Ivy led him through a maze of streets and corners until they arrived somewhere deeply familiar. The town was still bnketed under the witch's influence, and the residents had shut themselves indoors early. They had not passed a single soul on the way.

  He had been here before.

  In a dream.

  In that dream, he had stood across the street and watched Lucky walk with elegant steps deeper into the alley, disappearing around the next bend.

  "Turn left," Ivy told him.

  This was the very corner where Lucky had vanished.

  When he had followed her in the dream, he had seen something impossible. Lucky had leaped down from a wall, transformed into a white-haired girl, and vanished in front of a mailbox.

  "What is this pce?" he asked.

  "This is Hearthbay's magical node in Willowbrook."

  Ivy walked up to the mailbox and pced her gloved left hand inside.

  "Watch carefully. I'm only going to show you this once."

  She pulled out a sheet of parchment and pced her index finger on the upper right corner, slowly drawing it inward toward the center. A faint outline appeared beneath her fingertip. At first gnce it looked like the curve of a coastline. Small bits of writing surfaced along the edge like pce names, and when Ivy's finger reached the center of the parchment, the image of an old sailing ship appeared.

  Ethan found it difficult to stay focused on the demonstration.

  Because something strange was also coming out of the parchment.

  Tiny yellow motes, no bigger than a fingernail.

  Ivy seemed not to notice them at all.

  The yellow lights did not seem interested in her either. Like little fireflies, they drifted straight toward Ethan. He had no choice but to look away from the parchment and follow one of them until it nded on his nose.

  It felt cool, like a drop of water.

  And it made his nose itch terribly.

  "You have to stay completely focused and keep the route precise. If the line slips and you're sent somewhere strange, I won't be able to save you. Remember, Mugram's shop is located at..."

  "Ah-choo!"

  Ivy, who had been concentrating with total intensity, nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden sneeze.

  Her hand jerked against the parchment.

  "You little..."

  The words cut off halfway.

  Ethan watched Ivy's body twist into a blur and get sucked into the tiny opening of the mailbox.

  He scratched at his nose.

  With that earthshaking sneeze, the yellow mote had vanished too.

  Clearly, Ivy's teleportation spell had activated.

  Still...

  Had the noble dy just cursed him out while getting teleported away?