When a foreign man with several people in suits accompanying him settled in the town three days ago, JD passed it off as any other elixir business that would leave after a week of advertising and selling their goods. Besides, it wasn't as if elixirs were a rarity in Abarly. They'd know better than to do business in this small, humble town.

But as JD opened the blinds of his room, he immediately took off to shower and prepare to present himself to a bundle of people crowding at the front of the inn he stayed. Of course, he wasn't as proficient or well-known to be the one these townspeople gathered for, but the expressions of glee on their faces didn't sit right with JD.

Fixing his watch and cuffs as he strode down the stairs from the hallways, an allusive sensation loitered in the air. The more JD got close to the inn's main floor, the more his nose picked up the sweet but poisonous scent of something dangerous to the human mind.

It might be magic.

Once he stepped out to the main floor, the barrage of laughter, cheers, and arguments here and there took off in his sense of hearing. The ground employees rushed about the tables taking and bringing orders, while the ones behind the counters had sweat pouring over their exposed skin to their soaked clothes due to the heat of their fire magic.

JD slid his hands into his pockets and walked across the bundle of people, successfully dodging the arguments between customers and the running waiters and waitresses on the floor. Eventually, he reached the side of the bar and leaned his upper body past the counters for a peek. Right there, the bartender was on all fours on the floorboards, grunting, agitated.

"Busy morning you guys got here," JD spoke, and the bartender jumped in surprise.

He sighed out loud. "Tell me about it."

"What's up?" JD placed his hands on the counter and used them to lean closer. "Something lost?"

"There's no more whiskey."

JD turned his head briefly to the customers in the bar and the patrons from the other half of the main floor. They all had empty bottles on their tables or in their hands, and even the standing and walking customers held a shot glass.

He scoffed, eyes dropping back to the empty bottles and a half-finished shot glass behind the bartender, "Gee, I wonder why."

"Shut up, St. Michael."

JD rolled his eyes and leaned his back on the counters, "Don't call me that."

"Oh yes, yes, of course! We would love to!" The innkeeper chirped as a man of small stature handed them a clipboard with a pen.

"Take your time reading through them, madam." The man smiled, the expression in his eyes unknown due to the sunglasses over them. But his smile grew as the innkeeper briefly gazed at the contract, taking the pen and immediately signing them.

They chuckled. "I'm sure Zalden means no harm. After all, I'd be a fool if I'd take much of a minute to reconsider!"

"You flatter me."

"It's a well-deserved one!"

"You got vodka?" JD asked, his eyes squinting at the innkeeper by the entrance. They had a massive grin on their face, the same as many other customers, as they shook hands with a short and plump man in a bald fade haircut and black suit.

"Just get in here to see for yourself." The bartender invited, sitting down and emptying his shot glass in one go. "Ugh."

JD focused his strength on his arms and flung himself to the other side of the counters, landing with a soft thud beside the bartender.

He squatted down and opened the cabinets, "By the way, Charles," his face lit up as he reached for a specific bottle hiding behind several beers, "you know that guy with Ellis?"

The bartender, Charles, grunted before rising to take a peek at the innkeeper. He stretched his arms and leaned on the wall, eyes closed.

"I forgot his name. But he's that guy-the CEO of Zalden. Heard his short stature is due to dwarfism."

"Zalden?" JD mumbled, ignoring the last statement and looking up while wrapping the bottle of vodka in a brown cloth from somewhere.

"Zalde Enterprise. That new elixir business from days ago?" Charles walked past JD, his voice growing tired. "I haven't tried their stuff yet, but the madam did, and honestly, they've been weird since then."

"Weird?"

"Always grinning. It's creepy. And they somehow always bring up Zalden in every conversation." He sprayed water on his hands from a spray bottle and wiped his face. "It's annoying."

JD secured a thin rope around the neck of the bottle before standing up and handing one gold coin to Charles. Charles scoffed and pocketed them right away.

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"You know this is too much for a single bottle of vodka, John."

"Keep it. I don't have any silver coins." JD flipped over to the other side without ado. "And don't call me that, either."

"Wealthy bastard," Charles muttered under his breath, walking over to the customers at the bar.

JD wanted to ask more about the innkeeper's condition since their intake of Zalden's elixir, but more and more customers kept arriving and asking for liquors. With a shrug, JD strode away to find a seat.

Back in his hometown, he couldn't drink a lick of alcohol until dusk. In some cities and towns, people didn't even drink. But in the medieval-inspired town of Abarly, everyone drank alcohol, especially in the morning before lunchtime.

Near the table where the CEO of Zalden sat was a lone woman with not one soul but a bunch of bottles in her company. Her face flushed crimson as she stared into the previously empty seat in front of her that JD claimed.

Upon sitting, JD couldn't spare the lady a glimpse. His pupils remained slid at the corner of his eyes, his mouth a straight line while his fingers gripped tightly on a bottle wrapped in a cloth.

"I'm saving that seat for someone." The woman said.

JD blinked, but his gaze didn't move away. "Are you, now?"

The woman's head moved side by side in slow motion, clearly wasted in more ways than the number of bottles she'd emptied in just an hour.

With no reply, the woman leaned her arms on the free space on the table, eyes tracing down from JD's eyes to the mole near his left eye, then down to his cheeks, then to the mole on his jawline.

She curled a strand of hair in one finger. "Say, do you-"

"No."

"...I haven't even-"

"I'm not interested." Still not looking away from the CEO of Zalden, JD promptly replied.

The woman blew a strand of hair on her face and crossed her arms. "Why did you sit with me, then?"

"The seat was unoccupied."

Her eyebrows met, and somehow, the alcohol in her system was gone in a flash. She could think clearly again.

"I just said I was saving it for someone."

"They're not coming."

The woman's eyes widened. Then, JD finally looked at her, his brown eyes seemingly boring through her soul.

"You should leave. The person you're waiting for w-"

She gritted her teeth and slammed the table, knocking some bottles over, "Shut up! What do you know about Flynn? About Flynn and I?"

This man wouldn't know a thing about her, yet he spoke to her like he knew everything. No such inborn talent oozed from the man even after she had cleared her head and attempted to sense if he had the magic to see through the truth. He could simply be making wild guesses and happened to be spot-on.

"Whoops." One of JD's legs rose and blocked the knocked-out bottle from falling down the table. Then he looked back at the woman's glare, his peripheral vision not failing to take note of the green flare from her gloved hands. "Nothing."

"Then-"

"But you've been waiting for an hour now." JD stacked the bottle properly before standing up and bowing his head lightly. "It might be best to retire for the day."

Any further anger JD could cause might push her into using her magic. But thankfully, the flare of magic around her hands died down shortly.

"Don't you speak to me so impudently as if you know me." She hissed, but the confusion in her eyes overtook the rage that was there a second ago.

Questions flooded her mind, but she pushed them away as she stood up and grabbed her pink and brown cloche hat from the table.

In a slow and low voice, she said, "I will remember this."

"Of course you will." JD hugged his wrapped bottle in one arm, two fingers from his free hand pointing to the moles on the left side of his face. "You took your time staring at these, after all." Before the woman could ask more, he turned his back to leave the inn.

The woman yelled, but JD ignored her and fastened his pace. Once outside, the barrage of people gathered by the front doors a while ago disappeared. JD's eyes took in the space where they all used to be, and an accent of magenta lingering in the air visible only to him flew about in the area. It had a scent-a faint but sweet scent of something from a land he forgot the name of.

The streets emptied, and people suddenly returned to their medieval-styled homes and ignored a man carrying a bottle around town. With the way the townspeople's expressions reverted as quickly as they left the vicinity of the inn, the hypothesis in JD's mind grew closer to reaching a conclusion.

He followed the trail, careful not to move too quickly as he recalled the same scent the woman had from earlier. An air of poison danced around her, but she didn't seem aware of it. JD guessed either she worked for Zalden or drank an elixir from them. But indeed, it had nothing to do with her affairs with the person she called Flynn.

The scent grew more potent, and something else reeked from how it traversed in thin air. The same as the one JD caught a whiff of when he was at the hallway of the inn. Eventually, he had to cover his nose with the strengthened smell.

There could only be one explanation based on how people smiled and spoke so highly of Zalden after drinking the elixir they made-limited mind control.

Once a voice came up to him, he took a stop behind a stack of crates. JD inched close slowly, then his eyes widened.

"I'm not sure which to give to my fiancée's family." The man took his sunglasses off and placed his fingers on his chin.

"Any would work. So long as they get one whiff at proximity," Zalden's CEO lifted an assortment of different colored liquids in crystal vials with basic telekinetic magic. "I get to tweak with some nerves of the human brain. Easy as that. So, pick whichever. The coloring is simply for a flavorful intake."

"Is that so... I guess I'll take the berry-flavored ones. Rei's family grows berries in their garden; they should like this taste."

The CEO rolled his eyes and sighed in frustration. "Why didn't you say you didn't have a stack of elixirs with you earlier? I could've had my hands on Reizel back in the inn! She was bait, and I saw the fish bite! We could've had him then and there!"

"My bad, sire. I didn't think my roommates would find the ones I hid in the fridge." The silly reasoning behind his little failure made the boss shake his head in disappointment.

"We part ways here," the CEO held his head and gestured for his other men to hold onto the boxes of elixirs. He turned his back. "We can always pin St. Michael tomorrow instead."

Footsteps on the soil rang loud in JD's ears, and his frozen feet couldn't get him out of there in time. His heart beat faster and pounded on his chest. With one curse under his breath, he made a run for it, fully aware of what would come to his doorstep tomorrow. Or later.

The sudden, constant tapping on the ground nearby alerted the man from earlier, and as soon as he took off for a chase, JD turned to the left alley. He decided not to pursue him and instead dialed his boss' number.

"We just spoke, Flynn." His boss started after answering the call, irritation evident in his tone.

"Yeah, and St. Michael was here just now. He might leave Abarly as soon as he returns to the inn."

"..."

Zalden's CEO pursed his lips and took a deep breath. He'd develop his own business and traveled around the world searching for a specific vagrant soul. Now that he was right behind his tail, he would never let him escape his sight.

With one last breathing exercise, he said sternly, "We strike before dusk."