Ethan saw Ivy get pulled into the mailbox.
From his own experience, though, the teleportation itself was painless. His vision blurred for a moment, and when it cleared, he found himself standing on an unfamiliar dock.
Several multi-masted sailing ships were moored there, each with a gryphon carved into the prow. Their sails had already been furled. On deck, sailors with their faces hidden behind various ornaments were busy wiping down ropes and scrubbing the pnks.
Ethan's gaze drifted toward the stern.
Merchant banners hung there, their gryphon emblems so vivid they almost looked alive. The fgs stirred in the breeze. In the Empire, the gryphon stood for nobility and glory, and it also represented the proud history of the Lofik Consortium. They had started out as bankers, then amassed enormous wealth during the catastrophe of the st Epoch. Their influence ran through politics, finance, propaganda, and religion. Their presence could be felt on every scrap of Imperial soil, including a frontier backwater like Willowbrook.
People always said a town could survive without an occult organization.
But never without a bank.
The docks were lively.
Guests in all sorts of strange outfits crowded the area. Masks and masquerade pieces were the most common accessories. Some people had wrapped their faces in bandages. Others had painted their entire bodies and dressed like circus clowns. The sheer variety of clothing made Ethan realize that plenty of these people were probably not even from the Empire.
At the far end of the docks stood a small town under the cover of dusk.
The entrance was guarded by Lofik Consortium troops, a mix of knights and gunmen. Ethan noticed that only a very small number of guests actually approached the town itself. Before entering, they had to show papers to the guards and submit to a strict search.
You could tell from their luggage and jewelry that they were people of rank.
The kind of people who had clearly spent enough money to qualify as top-tier premium customers.
That was not his ne.
Ethan had enough self-awareness to admit that much.
What no one seemed to notice, however, were the yellow motes.
They kept breaking apart and reforming, sketching out the outline of a doorway in the air. Every single guest had stepped through that door to arrive here.
Ethan could see the flow of magic.
This was an extraordinarily refined teleportation spell, one designed so well that even ordinary people who had never stepped onto the supernatural path could still use it.
Teleportation magic ranked easily in Ethan's top three most desired abilities.
Just imagine it. With a single thought, you could jump from one end of a city to the other. For a former office worker like him, few things in the world were more attractive than that. It meant skipping the commute entirely and sleeping an extra thirty minutes in the morning.
Unfortunately, while both mages and elemental casters technically worked with mana, the systems behind them were completely different.
Mages worshipped the God of Trickery, and most of them came from old and secretive bloodlines where magic was taught from early childhood. For someone like Ethan, who had started halfway through life, it was already far too te.
That was one of the reasons he had always wanted to leave Willowbrook.
The town library was packed with introductory books, the kind of thing that helped you understand what kinds of dark creatures existed or what the various supernatural paths looked like in broad terms. But there was almost nothing with practical instruction in it. The only book in his possession with any real substance at all was Fireball and Ice Arrow Fundamentals, the one Lucky had dug up from somewhere two years ago.
What Ethan needed was the magical equivalent of One Hundred Handy Tricks for Beginners.
Books like that probably only existed in big-city libraries.
Or inside institutions like the Bureau of Containment.
Maybe in Hearthbay...
Ethan shook his head and quickly forced the thought away.
Ivy had warned him before they left. The moment desire took root in a pce like this, that was the beginning of a fall with no bottom. Hearthbay definitely had things he wanted.
But the same old question still applied.
What would the price be?
Anything with even the faintest connection to the supernatural shot up in value instantly.
Clearly, not everyone here understood the danger. Even through masks and face coverings, Ethan could still catch glimpses of greedy, feverish eyes.
Which led him to the next problem.
Where was Ivy?
He waited on the dock for nearly ten minutes and saw no sign of her. If he remembered correctly, the noble dy had specifically warned him not to wander around Hearthbay once he arrived.
When Ethan considered asking a passerby whether they had seen her, he froze.
Without being allowed to mention Ivy's name, and without being able to describe her clearly, how exactly was he supposed to ask where she had gone?
Was he really supposed to grab random strangers and ask if they had seen a masked woman with a voice that sounded like it needed strict correction?
In the end, Ethan quickly lost all desire to ask for directions at all.
Because he was not the only newcomer in Hearthbay.
A nervous young man stood up ahead of him, wearing a cheap formal outfit and searching the crowd in growing panic. He looked as though he was one step away from a complete breakdown.
The people around him, seeing his distress, were more than willing to offer guidance.
Directions, three gold lions.
Help finding someone, five gold lions.
No bargaining.
Why don't you just rob him outright?
Ethan silently asked the question on the young man's behalf.
In a pce like Willowbrook, one gold lion was enough to live quite comfortably for a month.
The young man had demonstrated one important lesson for Ethan. In Hearthbay, if you asked for directions, the answer was always going to cost you. In this cursed pce, you were on your own.
Mugram.
That was the name of the shopkeeper.
Ivy had vanished before she could finish expining, but the crucial information had already gotten through. Mugram's shop was on one of these merchant ships. If Ethan checked them one by one, he would eventually find it.
Maybe Ivy had already made it there and started browsing.
Unfortunately, Ethan had seriously underestimated how dangerous Hearthbay really was.
And once again, the first victim of his education was the poor young man ahead of him.
The young man climbed onto the first ship, his face pale.
Just as he seemed to be sinking into panic and confusion, a warm and cheerful middle-aged man stepped toward him. His booming ugh stood in sharp contrast to the cold indifference of the passersby from before.
"Don't panic. You'll find what you're looking for eventually. This is Hearthbay. Anything you want can be found here."
He held out an ice-cold beer.
"Go on, drink it. It'll put some fire back in your veins."
Ethan saw the expression in the young man's eyes beneath his mask.
It was the look of a drowning man grabbing hold of the st piece of driftwood.
The young man took the beer with trembling hands and drained it in one gulp.
Confidence returned to him at once. Light came back into his eyes.
"Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll never forget this kindness as long as I live."
"No need for thanks."
The middle-aged man smiled and shook his head, then extended his hand.
"Just settle the price of the drink. One gold lion. Pleasure doing business with you."
"Huh?"
"This was brewed by a master brewer from Stillwind, using only top-quality hops and wheat. You can only taste craftsmanship like this in Hearthbay."
The warm smile on the man's face contrasted sharply with the burly enforcers emerging from the crowd. They closed in around the young man, trapping him in the middle.
"Gold lions aren't the only form of payment we accept," the man continued pleasantly. "Colteral works too. Eyes, blood, kidneys, all perfectly acceptable. Did you know a person can live just fine with only one kidney? And if you'd rather not put anything up as colteral, there's lending avaible over there. Interest is forty-five percent. Very fair."
