The young man's fate left Ethan staring in disbelief.

  Wasn't this just the old-school version of a bar scam?

  The era might have been behind the times, but the technique was decades ahead. They had skipped the entire drinking-and-flirting routine and talked a customer into paying one gold lion in three sentences ft.

  Ethan lingered in the crowd a little longer as a bystander.

  He watched the young man get hauled off by a group of burly men led by the beer seller, then pushed into taking out a fast loan for one gold lion. The moment the seller pocketed the coin, the light in the young man's eyes went out. He stood there bnkly, like a puppet, forcing a smile onto his own face.

  He had fully given up.

  Ethan's understanding of Hearthbay's horrors deepened.

  And that did not just depress him on behalf of the stranger. It also dealt a painful blow to his pn to freeload some spellbooks. He had originally thought he might be able to find a bookstore and read without buying, but with how dangerous the merchants here were, he had a feeling that the moment he touched a book cover, they'd make him pay for the whole thing.

  Forget it.

  Ethan moved with the crowd and continued exploring the ship.

  After a while, he had a rough grasp of the yout. The deck served as the area for casual visitors. The vendors there were temporary stalls, selling everything from food and alcohol to foreign trinkets. The managers of the ship charged each stall owner ten gold lions a day for the space.

  The permanent shops were all inside the hold.

  Compared to the deck's chaotic sprawl, the proper stores were far more organized.

  There was a scroll shop. A potion store. A tavern where information was bought and sold.

  And if customers were interested, there were also pces where they could "enjoy themselves."

  While Ethan was looking around, a girl in a dancer's dress and a face veil stepped right into his path.

  One gold lion for a look at her face.

  Step inside, and there were all sorts of additional services avaible.

  Ethan immediately decred himself strictly free-to-py and walked off under her disgusted gaze.

  He stuck to one iron principle.

  He would look, but not spend.

  Nobody was getting a single coin out of him.

  Even so, when he passed an occult bookstore and saw a sign outside reading Reading Day, Everything Half Off, his heart still wavered for a second.

  Not bringing his savings card had been a very wise decision.

  Mugram's equipment shop was not hard to find.

  It occupied the most prominent spot in the hold of the second ship.

  The moment Ethan saw the sign, Old Mug's Spirit Shop, followed by Bureau-Approved Selection, he knew he had found the right pce.

  No one without serious backing would dare hang the Bureau's name on their storefront.

  The first thing Ethan saw when he stepped inside was the overwhelming variety of goods stacked across the shelves.

  Potion bottles, spray canisters, tool kits. Things that had no business sitting together at first gnce were piled onto the same racks, and the sight hit him with surprising force. The yout resembled a library. One shelf after another, with only narrow paths between them, barely wide enough for two people to squeeze past. Once you stepped inside, you were boxed in by merchandise from every direction.

  "Did the Bureau recruit someone new?"

  The voice came from behind the counter by the entrance.

  "Hello, I... wait, a treant?"

  Ethan blurted it out as he pointed at the figure standing behind the register like some kind of mascot.

  The only reason he had not greeted him the moment he walked in was because the figure had looked utterly lifeless.

  Ivy had neglected to mention Mugram's species.

  His barklike skin was dry and cracked, with a dark brown tone that made him look less like a living being and more like some enchanted prop pced in the store for decoration.

  Two years after transmigrating, Ethan was seeing a treant for the first time.

  "You're not the treant. I am."

  Clearly this was far from the first time the misunderstanding had happened.

  "My name's Mugram. I'm the owner here. You can call me Old Mug."

  Realizing he had lost his composure, Ethan immediately crified his political stance.

  "Sorry. It's my first time seeing another race. But please don't worry, I fully support racial harmony."

  "No need to be so tense. I used to work for the Bureau myself."

  A treant's face was not built for much expression, but Ethan could still hear the nostalgia in his voice.

  "That was over ten years ago. I was young once too."

  "Good to meet you, sir."

  Ethan quickly switched to a more respectful tone.

  Though he still found the idea of a treant investigator deeply surreal, he got to the point.

  "I'm here to purchase the standard equipment package."

  "Hm, let's see..."

  Old Mug flipped through a list with fingers that were not especially nimble.

  "Right. Willowbrook Intelligence Outpost. One [Basic Kit] reserved. Already prepared. Ah, and you also booked the matching usage tutorial. Have you used any of this equipment before?"

  He bent down and lifted out a box packed with spray cans and bottles from the shelves.

  He started with one of the sprays.

  Twisting the cap off, he poked a finger through the seal with one sharp motion.

  "[Dark Creature Begone 3.0.] Compared to version 2.0, this one adds coverage for ghost toads and goblins. A major technological breakthrough. It also has some effect on humans."

  "It works on humans too?"

  "It won't cause actual harm, but it includes an extremely pungent formu. One of the ingredients is slime from SI-0733. That's an excretion, about ten times worse than human waste. Get even a tiny bit on you, and people will think you fell into a trine."

  "Don't point that thing at me!"

  Ethan moved with astonishing speed, ducking behind a shelf in one clean sidestep.

  He had not expected the very first item to be on par with a biochemical weapon.

  "Hm? No, no, that won't do. You'll have to get used to this smell sooner or ter."

  "...Why would I need to get used to this smell?"

  A deeply ominous feeling crept into Ethan's heart.

  Old Mug looked entirely unsurprised.

  "You know how you're supposed to use this spray?"

  "When a dark creature charges me, I spray it in the face."

  Ethan answered with absolute conviction.

  As far as he was concerned, that was the only possible use.

  "Now that's a beginner."

  Old Mug sounded almost amused.

  "If you wait until then, you're already dead. The correct answer is that the moment they notice your presence, or the moment you realize dark creatures may be nearby, you spray this on yourself."

  He continued, "Never underestimate the wisdom of the research department. Data shows that most known dark creatures have a strong aversion to excrement. So if you make yourself smell like waste, they'll lose all interest in you instantly. In that sense, they're actually not that different from humans. After all, no normal person goes out of their way to attack a pile of filth."

  Ethan strongly suspected this counted as a personal attack.

  Unfortunately, he had no evidence.

  And the more he thought about the advice, the more it sounded like turning himself into a self-propelled biohazard.

  So he made a quiet decision on the spot.

  He was never using Dark Creature Begone 3.0.

  At the very least, never on himself.

  "Teach me something else instead."

  Ethan slowly leaned his head back out from behind the shelf.

  His eyes swept over the bottles in the box, especially the ones filled with dark, viscous liquid radiating ominous energy. He decided to skip the mystery fluids for now and pointed instead at something beside the box that looked like an old-fashioned pager.

  "What's that one for?"

  "[Where the Dark Creatures Are 2.1.] This version fixes the fw in 2.0 that caused it to fail during Old God sacrificial rituals. In simple terms, it's a detector. You'll be dealing with this every day from now on."

  At st, something sounded normal.

  Ethan let out a quiet breath.

  "So it can detect the presence of dark creatures?"

  "More accurately, it detects the field waves caused by their activity. Version 2.0 also added a rating system. Blue means everything is normal. Yellow means weak field activity has been detected nearby. Red..."

  Old Mug stopped mid-expnation.

  This had been meant as a routine demonstration.

  But the moment the detector switched on, the needle shot all the way to the edge of the red zone. It even looked as if the device might burst under the strain.

  But this was a Lofik merchant ship.

  How could there possibly be a dark creature out of control here?

  "What does red mean?"

  Ethan swallowed.

  In truth, he already had a vague idea of the answer. He just did not want to believe it.

  He was standing directly across from the entrance to Old Mug's Spirit Shop.

  From where he stood, he could clearly see the figure approaching.

  Each step she took hit the floor hard enough to make it tremble. Behind the mask was a pair of bloodshot eyes, and at that moment, those eyes were locked squarely on him.

  For one brief instant, Ethan had the overwhelming feeling that this miserable world was finally coming to an end.

  Her clothes were soaked through, clinging tightly to her body and tracing every graceful curve beneath.

  Ethan, however, was in no state to appreciate the scenery.

  When she stopped directly in front of him, he forced out the only question he could manage.

  "Uh... why are your clothes all wet?"

  The ugh that came from beneath the mask sounded like something dragged up from hell.

  She raised a hand and cupped Ethan's face with a leather glove soaked through with seawater.

  "Yes," she said softly. "Why do you think my clothes are soaked?"

  Ethan could smell the ocean on her.

  His mind bnked.

  Only one thought remained.

  That uncontrolble fury.

  That murderous resentment.

  This was straight-up revenge-arc energy.