Stepping away from the bank is a little harder than I thought it’d be. There’s something about the place that bothers the hell out of me–like staring down a dark alley and seeing something shift in the darkness. It’s not as messed up as the houses, since the lighting works right and there aren’t any obvious signs of system interference, but… well…

  Honestly, I can’t explain it. All I know is there’s something off. “Illumisia, did you find anything else?”

  She appears next to me and shakes her head. “My instincts tell me that the vault and the bank itself were not made at the same time, but I cannot say for certain. If I had to guess, either the entire bank was destroyed and they left the vault untouched or everything was restored, and… no that does not make sense.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Doesn’t make sense how?”

  “The system intervened somehow. That much I am certain of–but you found absolutely nothing in the vault. I could not sense any magic, either, and seeing as Pearlescence has not chimed in I assume she has not felt anything either.” She glances up at Pearl and hums in thought. “Maybe we are looking at a singular piece of the puzzle, yet they do nothing without looking at the entire picture.”

  Pearl taps her lip and frowns. “I don’t know. All the other ‘puzzle pieces’ we’ve found so far actually felt like magic and did things on their own. This is more like… um… looking at the entire puzzle and trying to figure out what it’s supposed to be.”

  “That is a terrible puzzle if it is the case.” Illumisia chuckles. “Though I must admit it makes more sense considering what we’ve seen. Shelby, what do you think?”

  I have no idea what I think. There’s nothing around here that’s given me a solid picture of anything at all–just that the system did something here and we don’t know why. Were there houses here before the system put them here? Or was this more a… pass-through town where people slept above their businesses and relied on the money coming in from merchants and people with classes?

  Hm… honestly, I can’t say. If the system altered the bank, then it could’ve removed a floor or a basement really easily. Or if those houses existed before, then the system had a reason to convert all of them to the weird same-houses. Then… what’s the reason it had for doing anything at all to the bank?

  “You’re sure the system did something to the bank?” I ask as Illumisia leads us to a building that looks like a bakery and a butcher that share a wall. “What if it’s trying to make us think it did something to all the buildings, but it actually only put in the houses?”

  “Yes, that is a possibility. One that we must either rule out or prove true.”

  Illumisia nudges the door to the butcher’s open and steps inside. I follow immediately after her, fully expecting a wall of scent reminiscent of rotten meat and age-old decay. Instead, it smells like an abandoned factory–water, rust, and dirt. A glassed-in display counter with frost rolling off of magical inscriptions stops us from going any further than a dozen feet inside, and just a little beyond that lies multiple metal shelves, tables, and hooks where I assume they’d store meat.

  Almost all of them look perfectly pristine. All but one–a rusty hook attached to an inverted L-shaped pole on wheels that’s just as decrepit as it is. The hooks around it don’t even look like they’ve been used, but that one–marred with rust, moss, and dripping with brown water–looks like it’s been sitting in the woods for a decade.

  “At least the system isn’t trying to hide that something’s fishy.” Pearl says flatly as she crosses her arms. “But we’re still stuck with exactly the same question–why is that one thing decrepit while everything else looks as fresh as the day it was built? And–and why can’t I feel any magic from anything in here? It’s weird! Magic’s supposed to be everywhere!”

  She huffs and sits down on something without uncrossing her arms. Now that she mentions it… I can’t feel any magic at all. There’s always at least a little bit of it–since pretty much everything in this world is at least a little magical–but the only magic things I can sense in here are me, Pearl, and Illumisia. Whatever the system did here, it didn’t leave behind any residue. Or it cleaned up the aftermath so diligently that nothing was left behind.

  But why the hell would it bother with that, when it’s leaving so many obvious clues behind? I sigh and shake my head; there’s no point in trying to figure out the system’s intentions. This quest was put in place before I even came here, so it can’t be purposefully messing with me. Maybe this is just the norm and I’m used to exceptions, so this seems wrong.

  The door swings open behind me. My awareness tells me it’s Clutter before I see him, and from how his shoulders aren’t sagging and his tail isn’t wagging, it looks like he didn’t find anything.

  “No luck?”

  He shakes his head. “Everything was just weird. Not magical, or important, or mysterious–just really weird. The system doesn’t usually do things like this.”

  I stifle a snort and instead pat him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it–we haven’t found anything either. I do have a question for you, though–did you ever hear about this place before this?”

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  “Do you mean the… butcher shop?”

  “No, the little town, dumbass.” I sigh and shake my head. “Was this place completely abandoned before this, and the system swooped in to rebuild it?”

  “Oh, that. Hmm.” Clutter grabs the door and sticks his head outside, then looks around. “I know I was kind of aware that it existed. But it definitely isn’t being used right now, since I haven’t seen a single sign of life. Maybe it got destroyed by something, and the system rebuilt it for the quest. For some reason.”

  “That’s what I’m leaning towards. Only problem is the ‘why’.” I nod at the rusty hook as Clutter closes the door. “The vault in the bank was just like that hook–completely busted in the middle of an otherwise perfect building. Can you think of any reason why that’d be the case?”

  Clutter raises his palms in a shrug.

  “Yeah, neither can we. Might as well check out the bakery next.”

  “I will check the back for any other signs.” Illumisia says and hops over the counter with ease. “If this truly is a butcher, then they should have more machinery and cooling than just this. I assume there is a doorway here that we are misinterpreting as a wall.”

  Pearl nods and points at one of the racks. “That rack is perfectly covering a handle.”

  Illumisia tilts her head at the rack in question, then turns to look at me. I get the feeling she wants to check this out alone for some reason, and I don’t have a reason not to let her. So I pat Clutter on the back and herd him through the door once more.

  “Maybe the bakery will shed some light on things.” I say without looking back, but in my awareness, I feel Illumisia pulling open something incredibly thick. “You said something about a well being around here yesterday, right? Do you know where it is?”

  Clutter frowns and tilts his head. “I did say that, didn’t I? Yeah, there’s definitely a well around here somewhere. But… if I remember a well being here… why don’t I remember a town this close to it? Actually, all I remember is a well in a thick forest and some old people saying there was a town around here. I… wait… why can’t I remember?”

  Uh-oh. That sounds like system interference if I’ve ever heard of it. I open my mouth to try and pry some more info out of him, but before I can get a word out, I remember something horrible.

  “Clutter… didn’t you say you grew up in Denmary?”

  His expression falls as the blood drains from his skin. For a split second, I’m convinced he just got caught in a lie. Then he slowly raises his shaking hands and stares at them blankly while opening and closing rapidly drying lips.

  “I grew up in Denmary.” He murmurs. “I lived here. This is Denmary. Why… I told you… and then… I forgot? Did… did I actually grow up in Denmary, or did the system make me think that so I would be happy to come here?”

  That’s an unprecedented level of freaking out for him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him openly question the system like that, before, either. As his eyes focus a little too sharply on his own hands, full of question and doubt, I summon a purification coin and carefully snap it between my fingers to release the spell.

  It washes over us like a wave, and Clutter’s eyes widen likek he’d just seen a ghost. He takes a step back, rapidly scanning the area, then grabs my arm and starts pulling me towards the bakery. I don’t resist, but it’s weird as hell, so I command the cloud of purification to follow us into the building.

  The second we’re inside, Clutter slams the door shut and looks around manically. He rushes at a display rack, almost exactly like the one inside the butcher’s, and struggles to push it towards the door.

  He locks desperate eyes with me. “Help!”

  The emotion in his plea spurs me on, and before I can really think, I’m lifting the other side of the rack and bustling it over to the door. We slam it down on the ground, but even then, Clutter doesn’t stop. He takes rack after rack, these one without my help, and barricades the door with each and every one of them.

  When he finally steps away, breathing heavily, I smack him on the bicep and shoot him a confused look. “The hell was that about?”

  “Them.” He jabs a finger at the door. “When I ran away at the jewelry store, they did something to me. It must’ve been a psychic, since I’m not hurt at all and only my memories were messed with. I… they didn't erase them.”

  He turns to me, eyes full of fear, and starts to shake. “They just put them in a nice little box and made sure my brain couldn’t look inside. Then when you said what you did, I tried to find those memories, and they just… they…”

  It looks like he’s about to break into tears. “It’s okay, Clutter. You’re good now.”

  “No! We’re not good! They specifically targeted me because I know this place! They knew the system did something here, and they targeted me because I’d know what the system did!” He throws his hands in the air as he screams. “And that means they know we’re coming here! They’re here somewhere, waiting for us to screw up, or even just put out guard down a little, and then they’re going to–”

  Magic washes over the building like a soothing breeze. Clutter freezes up completely, his hands drooping to his sides as his outburst of emotion is stilled like a robot returning to its idle pose. I wave a hand in front of his face, but his eyes don’t move in the slightest. Even my purification doesn’t seem to do anything, wafting uselessly around him in a glitter of magic and salt.

  The magic pushes against me. It tries to worm its way into my brain, but I push it back with all the might my awareness can muster. I feel it snap. But the snap doesn’t resound back–it just breaks around me, then dies out. Something tells me that whoever just did that has no idea that I’m not subdued like Clutter is.

  “Illumisia, I need–” I start, fully intending to tell her to kill whoever did this, but my voice stops working. Exactly like how it stopped working back with the masked assholes. “Shit, my skill. Illumisia… keep an eye on us and make sure whoever’s doing this doesn’t kill us. Only step in if it looks like we’re about to die or somehow lose access to the quest.”

  Something angry rumbles up against my gut. It’s hot, emotional, and insanely protective. A small smile graces my lips, and in the midst of the fear, a small comfort worms its way into place. I take a deep breath, relax my shoulders, and pick a random spot in the distance to stare off into. Shadows darken the frosted glass window on the door. I swallow the last of my fear and dismiss my remaining purification.

  If my skill isn’t right about this, then I’m never using it again.