Ahem, Ahem.

The girl behind the counter, utterly engrossed in the newspaper she was reading, didn't even blink as Vern and De Flanc stood across her seat.

Ahem, Ahem, Butler cleared his throat once again, louder this time.

The girl, unbothered, flipped the page as she grabbed a peanut with her other hand and popped it in her mouth.

Knock Knock, he rapped on the counter and addressed in a louder voice, "Miss Rina."

"Ahh," she yelped and her body jolted as she threw the newspaper down in a swift motion that somehow folded it back neatly.

"How—how can I help you, sir butler?" she asked, patting her dress in a frenzy to seem more professional. De Flanc asked, unfazed, "Is Lady Selena available right now?"

The girl, Rina rushed to answer, "Yes, sir, butler." Then she turned towards a somewhat stylish calligraphic sign that said, 'Everything on sale,' and added, "She apparently has a sale going on in her…ah…emporium. So, she's taken to staying here where the…customers know to find her."

De Flanc maintained his stoic attitude and said, "Can you please fetch her for us?"

The girl, finally a little calm, nodded, got up, and walked inside to the resource allocation hall's inner chamber.

Vern, a silent bystander to all this, couldn't help but check out what she was reading. The title of the newspaper was—Gossip Gazette. He couldn't help but chuckle. The last time he was here, he remembered she was reading something just like this. The only difference was the headline.

Last time it talked about the betrothal of a marquis to some famous lady. This time, it was about the same couple's actual wedding. Well, looks like she's really invested in these two's wedding journey. He wondered if he'd see her reading about their cheating and affairs if he came back a couple of weeks later.

Amused by his own thoughts, he almost lost his bearing when he looked up. What in the name of steams is that?

Behind Rina, another woman walked out of the inner hall. She wore what could only be called…paper? The dress had hundreds of sharp folds and creases mimicking a frock with a braided wrapping of paper around the waist. Small paper planes floated around her as if she were their sun, and they were meager stars.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the exposed skin on her arms and homely face didn't crease like paper, nor did her brown hair. It would have been interesting the other way around, he thought.

Suddenly, she rushed forward and clasped De Flanc's hands, "Aha, I knew you were more than just a mean old butler. Here I thought your only hobby was to shoo away potential customers. But this…? You actually brought one to me!"

She turned towards Vern and gave him the widest smile, "What would you like to buy, dear customer?"

Vern instead felt goosebumps rising all over his skin as he backstepped just a little. It was almost as if he was a prey under the gaze of an alpha predator.

"We've got state-of-the-art weapons, firearms, intel, and even fine pieces of armor, all picked from the corpses of the best of the best. You can also sign a life insurance with us so we can salvage the gear after your death, and your friends and family would receive—"

"Please calm down Mistress Selena." De Flanc interjected in his unchanging, stable tone. "Captain Antonia has sent Master Vern here to freely choose one of the illusion artifacts up to the second shade from the resource hall. She was hoping you could help him find something suitable."

Her smile dropped instantly, and she replied coldly, "Lady-above, De Flanc, you're really a bad omen. I should have known not to put my trust in someone that goes around without soul armor when moving between so many observers."

She gave Vern a side-eye and sized him up as she grumbled, "I can still offer you a thirty-percent discount, butler. It can't get any better, trust me."

Watching De Flanc remain silent and not give in to her not-so-smooth pitch, Vern couldn't help but find the silence grow oppressive as she eyed him like an expensive corpse waiting to be looted.

His self-defense mechanism kicked in, and he played to his strength, bowing, "Hello, lady Selena. I hope your paper avian made its way back to you safely in the morning."

"Ohh…" she suddenly dropped De Flanc's hands and turned towards Vern, her expression turning thoughtful. "Vern…" she said, repeatedly tapping a finger on her chin.

"Ahh!" she slapped Vern's shoulders with a little too much strength and said, "It's you. The only one who actually tipped me today." Her smile turned approving, and she put one arm over his shoulder—something possible only for someone as tall as her—and pulled him towards the interior of the resource hall.

She turned back towards De Flanc and shooed him away with her other hand, "Go away, mean old butler, this good boy here has the sense to tip his courier, unlike a penny pincher like you. I'm sure he'll be a far better customer than you could ever be."

How am I a boy? he wanted to ask, but he didn't dare jump into that trap and kept mum. De Flanc bowed in that same unbothered attitude and backed away with one reminder, "Please remember Lady Antonia's task."

Vern wanted to say something and stop De Flanc from going, but it didn't seem right now that things had gone the way they did. Apart from that, I might actually be off to a good start, he mused. I just need to…match her vibes.

With that mission in mind, he let her drag him as the girl Rina looked at him with a pitying gaze for some reason all the while the paper planes excitedly orbited both of them.

No, no. This is fine, he tried to reassure himself, inhaling a non-existent tank of sedative.

As Selena dragged him in, she asked with a not-so-scary smile, "What are you looking for, good boy?" extending her free arm to show the interior filled with hundreds of drawers, stacking higher than it made sense. Surprisingly, this hall was also governed by the same pollution-restricting chandeliers as the whispering repository, but they seemed…lesser.

He answered, pointing at Duality on his back, "You see, I am looking for something that can help me hide this big fella right there and let me blend in better into the society."

Selena stopped in her tracks and so did Vern as she pondered something. Her fingers drummed on his shoulders, and soon she retracted her hands before reaching out to one of the planes revolving around them.

Her purple eyes shone with a bright gleam as the stars within them reflected that light. One after the other, three planes left her side and reached for the drawers. At the end moment, their tips…grew out of fingers and pulled on the drawers.

They then turned into little paper hooks and picked the items in the said drawers before flying back to both of them.

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Plucking the item from courier number one's fingers, she turned and leaned on the table and presented the glass case to him, opening it with one hand as it rested on the other.

"This one right here…" she squinted and read verbatim from the tiny script on the case, "is called Phantom Shard Ring."

He had an odd thought as she talked about its effects, Luckily, she's not on one knee, or it would have been terribly awkward.

"Hmm, so this one creates an intangible illusion that overlays the weapon with an entirely different shape."

Vern raised his eyebrows, It's…that simple?

"Though, it'll just cover up the visual aspect of it. The weight, volume, and space it takes will remain the same."

Of course, he nodded. That made more sense.

"On top of that, it requires constant concentration from the user to maintain the illusion."

He furrowed his brows, That won't be ideal in tense situations.

"Ahh, there's actually more. The illusion is fragile and can be dispelled by direct physical contact with anything other than the hand that dons this ring."

He closed his eyes, Okay, that's entirely fucking useless. It would stop working the moment it hits the ground or anything? Also, was air not considered another object?

Unimpressed, Selena scoffed, "Enh, terrible marketing tactic if you ask me. I'd never write down the repercussions so clearly. Not when they make it look like worthless junk."

Lady, you really like scamming people, don't you?

Regardless, he agreed with the latter part of her statement. So he nodded and said, "Mhm, it won't be very helpful. It has too many limitations."

To this, Selena narrowed her eyes, "How cute."

Vern opened his mouth to say something but didn't know where to start his counter. So he just tilted his head, hoping she'd get that he was clueless.

"You haven't dealt with many perceptual artifacts, have you?" she asked, chuckling as she hooked the case of the ring back to the plane as it floated there.

Vern nodded sheepishly.

He knew it probably wasn't his greatest idea to admit something like this to a shady merchant. Luckily, this artifact was on the house, so he didn't have to worry about the prices going up for his naiveté.

Turning to the other plane, she side-eyed him and explained, "Well, you're not going to find anything with only positives if that's what you're looking for. The world doesn't work like that."

Noticing that she was quite at ease and not frustrated by him at all, he dared to ask his hallmark question, "Why?"

"Hmm, I think the why goes back to how perceptual artifacts are formed."

Leaning on the same table next to her, he listened closely as she said with a modicum of seriousness, "Typically, there are two ways they to form perceptual artifacts. One's the good old exposure to a subjective viewpoint for far too long. So long that their essence gets distorted into entirely something else."

Then she paused.

After a bit, Vern pushed, "And the second?"

"Oh, right. Given you were literally in the whispering repository before coming here, you probably already know."

Ahh, he realized. He indeed knew where this was going.

She nodded, "Succumbing to whispers is the second main method. One's singularity, devoid of perception to anchor it, transforms them into something that's a sum of their positives as well as negatives. Their ambitions, regrets, hopes, and capabilities, all compressed into these tools we loot and kill for."

Grabbing the case from courier number three as well, she looked him in the eye and added, "Given these uncontrolled and grim origins, do you really think there's any chance for happy endings?"

Not having bargained for a somber reminder of reality but still appreciative of it, he dipped his head, "Thank you very much."

Her lip's end curled, and she extended a palm towards him, "Information is not free, you know. That's worth a sovereign."

This cheat! Vern cursed internally.

But soon, he set aside his vexation for a second and realized that a sovereign was pretty damn cheap for that information. Either her prices were insanely low, or she was just making a point.

Regardless, he shook his head and smiled before pulling out his wallet. He was somewhat rich, after all, with almost a regalia and a half or one fifty sovereigns to his name. And if he could get back to Nvoria, he had at least three more saved up in an account supervised by Master—assuming the banks weren't reneging on their debts as they did here.

"Hahaha, you're so cute."

Vern stopped in his tracks. God damnit! he looked up at her pleased smile and cursed, I fucking knew it. She raised her hand to pat him on the head, and Vern dodged it just in the nick of time.

Not angered, she patted his shoulder, "It's fine, you're a good boy. Since it's your first time, you can have it for free."

Before he could point out that he was well over twenty and not a boy, she swung and presented the other two cases to him.

Signaling at the right one with her eyes—a long item sitting inside velvet, she said, "This is the sheath of evanescence." The scabbard had cloud patterns all over it that shimmered under the sunlight peeking in from the stained glass windows.

"Whatever you put inside, it will visibly disappear and shrink in size to fit inside as long as it's not greater than two legs, and you can access it three times in an hour."

What a unit of measurement. Ignoring it, he asked, "And what's the catch?"

"Good boy. You learn quickly."

"I'm not—"

"The transformation only lasts half an hour and can be used once a day."

"Ughh…" That would mean I'll have to pick and choose my outings very deliberately. It's not entirely out of the question.

Unfortunately, the paper woman in front of him had more to say, and she reveled in saying so, "It only works two out of three times."

"Okay, that's crazy. What kind of twisted viewpoint did the original creator have to bake in such a flaw."

She shrugged, "Life's a gamble. Where's the fun without a little risk? On that note…" she trailed off as her eyes turned greedy, "Would you like to open some fortune boxes? They're on a fifty-percent discount right now. Last year, someone pulled a third-shade resonant catalyst. Who knows, this time, it could be you."

Vern smiled and shook his head, "Sorry, but I know the numbers. My master's spent a good time analyzing them and still lost dozens of Regalia in the process. So, no, thank you."

She bit her lip, "A smart, good boy?"

"I am not—"

"Okay, so the final one we have is called Chameleon Talisman."

"I am not a good—"

"As the name suggests, it can alter the color of the object it's attached to."

"But…?"

She smiled, "Prolonged use can cause hallucinations for the user, blurring the line between reality and illusion, making one paranoid that everything is fake. "

"And…?"

"It makes the user want to eat it."

Vern was speechless. This was…beyond his expectations. What kind of choices were these? He was expecting this to be a simple affair, but it was starting to seem daunting and almost not worth dealing with the repercussions of the added stealth.

"Is this…all?"

"Bad boy," she reprimanded. "Do you know how rare each and every one of these artifacts is? But yes, for you, this is it. I am not going to give you third-shade artifacts. They'll sooner take over your perception and ruin you before you can make use of them."

Knock Knock,"Madam Selena, there's another customer."

Selena's eyes lit up, and she placed the items on the table and ambled outside. She said, "Take your time mulling over the choice. I'll be back soon."

"I…see. Thank you, Selena," he said with half his mind as he pulled out his notepad and listed all the pros and cons. Let's analyze this.

Suddenly, something ruffled his hair, and he jolted back. What? Where did it—

"Good boy. Though I liked 'Lady Selena' better," she said from outside the door. Above him, one of the paper planes had turned into a hand that just messed with his hairstyle.

He yelled, "I am not a good boy!"

Slam!

The door clicked shut, and she was gone.

Hahhh… he let out a deep breath and sighed. "I am nice. I am nice. I am nice."

After a bit, he turned back to his notepad. The ring and the talisman most probably belonged to transformation and cognition fundamental primarily, whereas the sheathe seems to work using cognition and preservation, none of which he was really adept with.

He looked them over one after another and couldn't help but feel unsatisfied by all the choices. He would have gone for the sheathe, if it wasn't for the high thirty-three percent failure rate. And what was worse was that there was a chance, albeit a small one, that all three pulls he'd do in an hour would fail, and he would be left without his weapon, defenseless.

He just couldn't see himself going around with such a massive uncertainty.

Hmm, this is not…ideal.

He walked over to the items and re-read their information again and again. Soon, he narrowed his eyes as he found something of a ledger that required him to insert his vigil badge. He did so promptly, and a list of items appeared on it. However, most of them were just names that held no meaning for Vern.

Hmm, maybe not for me, but for the unified perspective, they might.

With this done, he walked over to a chair, closed his eyes, reached into his singularity, and asked himself, 'What artifact should I choose?'