“Thanks for the kindness.” Lance parted from the guards, like a leaf slipping free of a steady stream.

They crossed into the district, and Lance’s crew quickly linked up with Reina, whose voice was strung tight like a bowstring: “They didn’t give you trouble, did they?”

“Nope; why would they pick on me?” Fulin, playing Lance, set a hand behind his head, casual as a summer breeze.

“Is that so…” Reina’s doubt slid in, thin as a line of frost.

Awkwardness prickled like nettles, and Fulin tried to bury the bribery under sand. Lance flashed a sunny smile: “Yeah, the guards were good folks, even warned me off the Black Street Market.”

“Hmph. The Blazing Fire Knight is different—so popular.” Reina’s glance had a green glint, like ivy creeping up a wall.

“It’s not like that.” Lance’s voice thinned like smoke in the wind.

They strolled and chatted along the street for a while, words drifting like scattered petals.

Reina’s looks were lantern-bright, and her outfit caught eyes like a fluttering banner, drawing passersby to pause.

Talking warmly with her, Lance took more than a few jealous looks from men—stares sharp as arrows, some edged with hostility like storm glass.

Fulin sat on pins, heart crawling like ants under cloth, and the Lance she played offered a brief parting: “Time’s about up.”

“Mm, be careful on the road.” Reina waved lightly, like a willow frond. “The Vanilla Duke will arrange housing. See you tonight on Gem Street in the residential district.”

“Mm, see you tonight.” Their rendezvous set, Lance’s group split from Reina, paths parting like forked streams.

It was already afternoon, and in Fulin’s mind the sun’s westward slide was a clock of lengthening shadows.

They were in Golden Bay City’s commercial district just inside the gate, under the Trade Consortium’s wing, with compliant shops spread wide like a hive of storefronts.

Fulin settled her resolve, steady as a stone set in a riverbed.

Lance glanced at Jeremy and the others crouched nearby, like cats at the curb. “Take me to Modolo Clockworks.”

“Got it!” Jeremy snapped to, like a flag catching wind.

Jeremy had already scouted the area, and he led them through crowds and carts like currents in a river, turning left and right through the bright grid of commerce, until a quiet corner yielded Modolo Clockworks.

“Welcome, dear customer… You’re—!” Mr. Modolo came out himself, smile bright as polished brass, recalling the knightly youth he’d met in Georgetown, though names scattered like loose screws in his memory.

“Lance Morrison.” Fulin, playing Lance, gave a crisp knight’s salute, hand and gaze sharp as steel. “Well, does it ring a bell?”

“Oh! Mr. Lance—my memory’s a sieve.” Modolo chuckled and waved servants over, hospitality pouring like warm tea.

Lance took a seat inside, while Jeremy and the others kept watch outside, eyes sweeping like hawks over a field.

Modolo studied Lance for a moment, turning the name in his mind like a key in a drawer, then lit up: “So you’re the legendary Blazing Fire Knight!”

Fulin noticed other customers too, their looks landing like startled birds—gaze bright and odd, a ring of faces around a rare beast.

Lance wanted low profile, and he waved it off like dust from a sleeve: “Yeah, but let’s not bring that up.”

Modolo’s excitement flashed like sun on glass, words quick as a sparrow: “How could we not! You’re the second biggest headline in Golden Bay City! With clever tactics you flipped an absolute gap in numbers, then drove Count Karl’s remnants into a dead corner—the battle was a storm worth awe and respect!”

Fulin felt that prickly embarrassment again; not the hollow kind, but the earnest kind, like standing under a hundred eyes that weighed her like a specimen jar.

Still, playing Lance meant stepping into his boots, and she did.

“Hmph. If we must say it, it was child’s play.” The words dropped cool as rain on hot stone.

Folks heard that and looked at Lance with growing worship, eyes like candles set alight.

To avoid riding a tiger with no way down, Lance offered a step: “But without the mages beside me, I couldn’t have done it.” The concession fell like a gentle leaf.

“You’re so modest!” Modolo beamed, then leaned closer, curiosity sharp as a quill. “Your mage is something else. Top of the wanted list for this long, and still not caught.”

“Is that so strange?” Lance asked, brow creasing like folded paper.

“Of course.” Modolo’s voice rose, then smoothed into lecture. “Every mage has a field. To dig deep, you take a master or enter a magic academy, like roots seeking water.”

“Thus a full career record lands in the Mage Association—birthplace, when they began, who they learned from, what they excel at—nearly every mage is in the ledger, names lined like rows of ledgers.”

Fulin was stunned; she hadn’t expected mage oversight tight as a census net. The thought sparked another: if someone never swore to a master or school, wouldn’t their trail be wind and rain, leaving no tracks?

“Do self-taught mages leave records?” Lance asked, tone steady as a pond.

Modolo smiled, a touch wry. “Hedge wizards? Of course not.” He lifted a finger, like a reed motioning wind. “But a mage who can collapse terrain isn’t some two-bit hedge wizard; they’re either a high-tower academy mage or a battle mage with craft honed like a whetstone.”

“I see…” Lance nodded, thoughts turning like gears. “Then, Mr. Modolo, if my mage friend still hasn’t been caught, what do you think the reason is?”

He added softly, like a second string plucked: “We’re not close. She said nothing beyond agreeing to help.”

It seemed a thorny question, and Modolo’s face tightened like a knot. He sipped red tea, steam curling like mist, then spoke. “I’m no mage; what I know is hearsay drifted like rumor on wind. Even so—shall I?”

“Go ahead.” Lance’s gesture opened like a door.

“Either your mage holds high station, and the Association watches faces and stays its hand like a sheathed blade.” Modolo’s tone landed slow.

“Or they’re from abroad. Mages who enter by the book are recorded, so—” His pause hung like a suspended pendulum.

Fulin drew the line herself, like ink across parchment. Her true self would be tagged as an outside mage—an illegal archmage in tense times, suspected of being Dark Spirit, drifting in with the Shadowspirit Legion. It was serious as thunderheads, and no wonder the Mage Association held their strike, perhaps waiting on the Heavenly Spirit Empire’s word.

“I understand, Mr. Modolo. Thank you for the heads-up.” Lance’s gratitude was clean as spring water.

Modolo hadn’t expected such weight. “It’s just one man’s guess,” he said, hands open like pages. “If you want truth, ask the Mage Association. I believe they won’t trouble you.”

Who’d dare walk into that tiger’s cave! Fulin swore inwardly, curses fizzing like sparks.

On the surface, Lance stayed warm as a hearth. “I will, Mr. Modolo. Thanks for the advice.”

“Right, about the clock—” Lance drew back to business, words neat as a ledger line.

“Ah, my memory.” Modolo smiled sheepishly. “You kept the receipt, yes? Then—”

He went to the back to fetch the piece, footsteps steady as metronome ticks.

While waiting, Fulin noticed the shop ran a pawn line too, a quiet sign hung where clocks did not: Modolo Pawn. Behind the counter stood a refined appraiser, crisp as starch, ready with eyes like jeweler’s glass.

A customer approached, laying a blue gem on the counter, sapphire bright as deep water.

The appraiser smoothed his small curled mustache with one hand, raised a magnifier with the other, peering near and far like a heron inspecting ripples, then named a price. Money and gem changed hands like crossing paths, and the client left with a heavy purse, weighty as a stone in a sling.

Bored as she waited, Fulin wandered closer, curiosity tugging like a thread. Playing Lance, she pulled a ring from her pack and set it on the counter. “Could you appraise this?”

“Let me see… hmm… this is—!?” The appraiser jolted, surprise popping like a bead off a string, mustache nearly jumping free.

“What is it?” Lance asked, voice cool as shade.

The appraiser steadied himself and peered again, then lowered the glass and cleared his throat, formal as a bell. “If I’m not mistaken, this comes from elven alchemical craft—a contract relic.”

“Contract relic?” The words stirred like leaves.

The appraiser lifted his monocle, gaze focused like sunlight through a lens. “Forgive my shallow knowledge; I don’t know which contract in particular. But there’s an unmistakable trace of arcane power, humming along the engraved lines like a hidden vein. I believe the effect triggers the instant you wear it.”

Fulin’s heart jumped like a startled carp; she knew Vivian, that elf girl, wouldn’t hand over anything harmless.

She thanked the stars that Lance hadn’t slipped it on at once, else the trap would have snapped like a fox’s jaw.

“Is it worth money?” Lance probed, tone light as a feather.

“Worth plenty!” The appraiser’s brows flew like birds. “It bears a brand-new alchemical pattern. You haven’t activated it—an original prototype, the dream of enchanters and rune-smiths, bright as a first spark… Fifty gold—no, at least eighty!”

Seeing Lance hesitate, the appraiser leaned in, pleading like a man at the gate. “Sell it to me—please! I’ve had enough of this lousy job, like swallowing sawdust day after day!”

Before he finished, Modolo emerged from the back, face dark-lined like ink on parchment. “Is that so… Mr. Dorogin? You say you’ve had enough, yet that’s not what you said before.”

“No, boss—there’s a misunderstanding—” Dorogin’s hands fluttered like startled pigeons.

After the little scene blew past like a gust, Modolo finally handed Lance the finished pocket watch, case gleaming like moonlight on silver.

“Come again!” Modolo bowed, courteous as a clock chime.

“Here.” Lance stepped out and tossed the watch to Jeremy, the arc neat as a tossed coin. “Next, take me to the Magestone Workshop in the Black Street Market.”

Jeremy caught it, yawned lazy as a cat, then braced himself like a soldier. “Aye, boss!”

He didn’t lead Lance straight to the district’s far end. Instead he headed for the city ring canal’s dock, where water laced the streets like veins.

From the dockmaster, Jeremy rented a small boat, a skiff light as a dragonfly.

“It’s easier if we rent,” Jeremy said, voice steady as oars.

Fulin thought of Venice on old Earth, water-lanes sparkling like mirrors. Lance checked the map and nodded: “Makes sense,” words crisp as chart lines.

“Let’s sail.” Lance stepped aboard first, balance easy as a dancer’s.

Right then, a boom tore the commercial district, an inn’s second-floor wall ripped open like a wound in stone.

In the hole stood a giant in full black armor, two meters of brute mass, towering like a cliff. His right hand held a blood-stained longsword, his left dangled a mangled corpse, face twisted vicious as a wolf, and a crescent of fangs showed at his lip as a low growl rolled out like thunder under clouds.

He stood on the broken wall, looking down on the street, eyes glowing blood-red like embers, poised like a beast about to dive into a herd.

People shrieked and scattered, order cracking like ice, and the busy district fell to chaos like a toppled hive.

Lance’s group was not far, close enough to feel the tremor like a drumbeat.

Fulin could fix it, but better a smooth road than a thorny one. “Let’s move,” Lance urged, voice quick as snapping twigs.

The push snapped Jeremy from his panic, and he grabbed the oar like a lifeline. “Right, boss!”

No one expected the black-armored knight to be so strong. He sprang in a single leap—four hundred meters—like a boulder flung by a catapult, and crashed onto the boat before Lance’s, impact booming like a hammer on a drum.

The shock kicked up waves, spray flying like shattered glass, and before Lance could steady, the knight lunged. With a thud, he vaulted a boat’s width, closing from midair like a hawk’s stoop, blade angling straight for Lance.