Leniala was a receptionist for the Adventurer's Guild branch in the city of New West. Although it was a city with many towering buildings that stretched on for miles and was primarily inhabited by humans, she was a rabbit beastwoman. While she had her duties for the Guild, she was also met almost daily by people who just wanted to gawk at her bunny ears and ask her on dates. At this point, she was almost ready to quit or ask for a transfer from all the harassment the humans gave her. Even threatening to not assist the most persistent humans only got her reprimands from her superiors who claimed they needed to get along with the humans.

Resolving herself to another frustrating day of harassment, Leviala had only just taken her position behind the counter when a human opened the door and walked in. Sighing to herself, she forced a smile on her face and greeted the man as he approached her.

"Hello sir, how may I help you?"

"I need to commission a quest."

"Very well. May I ask what type of quest you wish to issue through the guild?"

"Information."

"If it's a request for information, it's possible that all ranks may complete it, but it also means that you may be disappointed in the quality of information you receive. Is this acceptable?"

"Yes."

"Alright, may I please have the quest details and the amount you wish to reward for successful completion of the quest?"

"How to reverse summon. One hundred gold."

Leniala gasped. A hundred gold was no small sum. One had to know that a copper coin was like the equivalent of a dollar, and one hundred copper made one silver, with one hundred silver making one gold. So the man in front of her was basically saying he was offering a million dollars for the information. But that was just the beginning of her shock.

"Next, anything and everything about the Gravitus house. One hundred gold. Next, all books, no matter the subject. Negotiable."

Leniala felt stunned. It was the largest order she had ever handled for the guild.

"Okay?"

Leniala closed her mouth, regaining her composure.

"My apologies. The guild will take care of this for you. Please leave your deposit here and check back in a day or two."

The man nodded and pulled out bags of gold. As he did Leniala took a second look at him, noting his rich black cloak that hid most of his body except the loose cotton shirt he wore underneath. Because the shirt didn't fit him as snugly as she had seen on the humans who had been transported here by some magical means, she was able to see what looked like a lady's necklace around his neck. Strange tastes? A poor fashion statement by a noble? Leniala kept her thoughts to herself and hurried to complete the order. When she was done she thanked the human to which he simply nodded and turned to leave.

"Hey, bunny girl! How's about a date?"

Leniala looked up and saw one of the adventurers who wouldn't take no for an answer. But before she could say no again, albeit in a polite way so as to keep her job, the man she had just spoken with turned and looked at him.

"Hey. First of all, she has a name, not bunny girl. And second, no one is going to go out with you when you treat them like that. Not unless you pay them. Next time try being polite and asking how her day is going, then about her hobbies and interests, and then maybe you might have a chance if you politely ask her to have dinner with you."

Leniala wanted to cheer but she could only thank the man with her eyes. For the first time since working at this branch she felt treated with respect. It made her want to help the customer and go the extra mile for him. As such, she turned away an obvious con artist who applied to take one of the jobs whereas before she would have accepted and privately enjoyed the customer's shock and outrage when they were scammed. But that would come later.

James walked out of the Guild building and immediately began searching through the maze of buildings. From all the tall skyscrapers, most of which were not being occupied or lived in, he believed that it was somewhere from the North American east coast, perhaps even New York. But if that were true he could only wonder where the thousands, even millions of people had gone to. But then again, he had no idea where Jessica had come from originally when he had found her in the wilderness as a mermaid not far from his house.

After thinking for a moment, he made his way over to a shop on the same block. Like many if not most of the buildings in this world, there was a signboard outside for the illiterate or perhaps for those familiar with it that showed it was a magic shop. With a signboard of a magic staff and a wizard hat, James was a bit surprised when he stepped inside and saw a regular human reading a book. And not any magic book either, but Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin. The human wasn't even wearing the stereotypical wizard robes, but a concert shirt and faded jeans, with a pair of clip on earrings and a glare that shone off his bald head.

"Ah, hello!" the man greeted him as he put down his book and stood up from his stool. "What can I help you with?"

"I need anything and everything magic. Particularly anything on summoning magic, and possibly space magic."

"Hmm. Those are some of the toughest areas of magic study. Can I ask the reason?"

"Something of mine was summoned, and I don't know how to get it back."

"Well in that case, the best thing would be to get the mage who summoned it to unsummon it."

"That's impossible."

"I see. Well, without someone familiar with what dimension or space the object was summoned to, your best bet might be to get a familiar who is familiar with those dimensions."

"How many dimensions are there?"

"We don't know. We are still discovering new ones. You have the demon dimension, the angel dimension, the dimensions of the elementals that sometimes break through to this world, even beasts of all kinds."

"Demihuman races?"

"No, those are native to this world."

"Then what about people summoned into objects, or unsummoning them into this world?"

"That's taboo magic. It means transporting something from here to another dimension by turning them into a djinn or genie."

"What does that entail?"

"It means their body is broken down into an intangible form and then forced into a separate space."

James remembered how Jessica had screamed and turned into a faint wisp at the end. His fingers twitched but he restrained himself from stroking the necklace he still wore.

"So how do I undo it?"

"Hmm. Well, if you really want to make a study of it, I recommend you start from the basics. The Basics of Magic by Tom Hiddlesfoot, Apprentice Spells and Methods by Iron Anglewood, and Introductory Space and Dimension Magic by Klaus Barba."

James watched as the magician took out three large tomes and laid them on the counter.

"I'll take them."

"That'll be fifty-seven gold."

James winced a bit at the price, but he gladly paid it from his rapidly dwindling supply of gold that he had stolen from the Gravitus'. Magic sure seemed expensive.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Thank you for your purchase. If you find any magic books, please consider selling them. We will happily buy any you happen to find."

"Alright. Thanks."

James nodded at the man and carried the heavy books out the door with him. Once he was out of sight he put them in his inventory. He had noticed that only those of them that had been summoned to this world could use the inventory system, although from what he had gathered everyone appeared to have a status screen.

He made his next trip to an abandoned bank. Stepping inside, he saw several bank brochures and advertisement papers scattered on the floor along with several dollar bills of different denominations. While everyone knew that dollar bills were useless in this world, he also knew that many if not most banks kept some gold and silver.

Moving past the help desk, he made his way to the safe. Without electric lights working anymore, it was difficult to see by but he managed. When he came to the vault door, he placed his hand on it and concentrated on using his skill exactly like he had on the Vengeance. As he watched, a small hole appeared in the vault door over the course of a few minutes. Once it was wide enough, he reached inside and pulled himself through the narrow hole. Since there was now effectively no light to see by, James pulled out a torch he had scavenged from the tower keep in Sagaste. Lighting it, he looked around and saw the safety deposit boxes and vaults in the bank. Stepping up to the first deposit box, he placed his hand against the lock and again tried to repeat his earlier success, taking extra care this time to not destroy anything that might be inside. If he had been a wildfire on the Vengeance, now he was applying his skill like a welder wielding a plasma torch.

The box opened, but James was disappointed to see that it was empty. He moved to the next box and attempted to repeat his success. Over the next few hours he managed to find family jewelry and gold, but most of it was important documents like wills and trusts. Finally he moved to the vaults and found a little gold, but overall he was disappointed in what he found. Shrugging when he had looked through everything, James climbed back through the main vault door and made his way to the exit.

"Hey, what are you doing here?"

He looked over and saw a young man looking at him suspiciously. He chuckled darkly.

"Does it matter? Money doesn't work here anymore."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"Leave it be, young man."

"No, are you stealing? You can't do that!"

"Do you see me holding anything?"

"You put it in your inventory, didn't you?"

"Smart kid. Would you believe me if I told you my birth certificate was here?"

"Why would you need that?"

"Would it be any of your business?"

"No, you have to put it back!"

James walked over and leaned forward until his face was not far from the young man's.

"Kid, don't ever lose that naive optimism. Be an honest man, and treasure it. It's really rare these days."

The man looked at him confused, only for James to turn and walk away.

"Hey! Come back! You can't just leave!"

James shook his head as he left. He didn't hate the kid and actually found his integrity to be rather noble of him. But he also knew that he would probably need more money if he was going to have any chance of bringing back the woman who made his heart sing, so he only headed off to a private place to begin his study of magic.

He found a place near the top floor of a residential building. He only made a cursory examination of the top floor, gathering the furniture and things that would be useful before descending a few levels and finding a regular apartment to rest in. He did this so that anyone who came looking for a hideout or potentially rich place to live would see the barren penthouse and not run into him.

Sitting on a couch and ignoring the nearby picture of a family of three, James pulled out the books and set them down on a coffee table. Opening The Basics of Magic, James began to read, finding that somehow he could understand the script despite it being unfamiliar to him. The text was dry and some of it covered basic physics laws, but every time James wanted to take a break or look away he reminded himself of Jessica's final expression and powered through, making it through a third of the book by the time he finally had to close his eyes about sixteen hours later. Resting on the couch, he woke up after a few hours of sleep and went right back to reading.

When he finally finished the book, he quickly checked his status screen and didn't see any magic related skills. Which made sense, since the book was more about actual theory than a spellbook. After resting a few more hours, he moved right into the next book. As a result it was only a few days later that he finally closed the final book. Putting the books back in his inventory, he leaned back into the couch and closed his eyes as he thought. The basics of summoning implied that the more you wanted a certain creature, spirit or djinn, then the more you wanted to offer something to tempt them to answer the summons. But Jessica was a mermaid, and he didn't have any item or token of hers. He also still didn't have magic in his list of skills. But perhaps...

Thinking to himself, he left the apartment and started looking through the abandoned shops and businesses until he came across a pet store. Breaking in, he quickly grabbed a dog bed and a chew toy, then thought better of it and instead grabbed the whole store. He felt bad for the dead animals that had starved to death, but he studiously avoided looking at them for too long and ignored them and their rotting smell. Once he had everything, he took out his familiar hunting knife and sliced his palm just as he had seen the baron do. Drawing a summoning circle and referencing the books several times, he made sure that the summoning matrix was stable before placing the items in the middle of the circle. Making sure to not touch the inside of the circle, he allowed one finger to touch the blood and focusing on his mana points or MP, he willed the magic out of himself and into the circle. It took a couple tries, but soon he quickly saw a grey haze as the summoning magic took hold. A moment later there in the pet store stood a large Newfoundland dog, which looked at him with eager eyes and a panting tongue before walking over to him and waiting for a pet.

"It worked! It worked! Ha ha!"

James happily stood up and rubbed the dog's coat, feeling giddy with happiness. The dog was not Jessica, but to him his success meant that he was one step closer to getting her back. And when he thought of his Bitch nickname for her, he could not help but chuckle as he stroked the dog's fur knowing that if Jessica knew his thoughts she would end him.

"I think I will name you...Napoleon. So Napoleon, will you come with me and help me find Jessica?"

The dog barked, then barked again and nudged his hand with its nose.

"I take it that's a yes!"