The multi-story brick facade of the artisan quarter loomed overhead, its windows displaying the finest silks, enchanted furs, and masterwork leathers Caria had to offer. I navigated the familiar cobblestone alleyways with smooth, calculated strides, the heavy crate of alchemical equipment balanced effortlessly in my single right hand. Beneath the heavy canvas of my travel cloak, the three firearms resting against my spine shifted with a comforting, metallic weight.
My destination was the high-end boutique that bore the elegant wooden signage of Olive's Elite Tailor Shop. To any outsider, Olive was simply a premier, eccentric designer catering to the wealthy merchants and high-tier mercenaries of the upper districts. But to me, he was a vital node in my network of absolute survival.
The memories of our last encounter in his locked back room remained vividly etched into my mind. I remembered the sheer, frantic terror that had consumed him when my massive, translucent crimson blood-wings had first unfurled from my tattered commoner dress. I remembered the manic greed that had flashed in his eyes at the thought of the staggering sixteen-gold bounty placed on the head of the "Crimson Phantom," and the desperate, reckless trajectory of his sewing dagger as he tried to plunge it into my chest. If Alta Granite hadn't intercepted his wrist with her overwhelming, Diamond-rank physical strength and slammed him face-first onto the floorboards, that room would have run red with blood.
Yet, despite that violent introduction, Olive had chosen the path of absolute discretion. He hadn't run screaming to the Knight Bureau. He hadn't sold my coordinates to the highest bidding mercenary guild. He had swallowed his terror, pulled his leather measuring tape taut against my bare skin, and meticulously mapped out the contours of my altered, monstrous silhouette to craft a masterwork garment. In a world where my existence was branded an S-rank anomaly, his silence was a currency more valuable than gold. He had earned his place alongside Alta and my precious little sister Evelyn back at House 132 as a trusted companion of my double life.
I pushed open the heavy glass-paned door of the boutique. The sharp, sophisticated scents of premium tanned leather, imported dyes, and lavender satchels immediately enveloped me, masking the faint, lingering odor of sulfur and caustic NaOH pellets drifting from my alchemical cargo.
Standing behind a counter stacked with premium bolts of indigo velvet was Alice, Olive's bright and perceptive young apprentice. The moment the shop's silver bell chimed, she looked up from her ledger, her face instantly lighting up with an energetic, welcoming grin.
"Oh, Roxy! It's so good to see you here!"
Alice chirped, addressing me by the civilian alias I frequently utilized when moving through the commercial sectors. Her eyes traveled down to the massive, densely packed wooden crate resting in my single right arm.
"What can I do for you today? And goodness... what in the world are you hauling around in there?"
Remaining perfectly mute, I stepped forward and carefully transferred the massive weight of the titration equipment, glassware, and the brass mana-powered Bunsen burner directly into her arms. The sudden, unmitigated weight hit her like a physical blow. Alice let out a sharp, breathless gasp, her knees buckling slightly as her fingers scrambled to find a secure grip on the rough wood. She wobbled on her heels, struggling violently to maintain her balance against a load that I had been handling like a bundle of feathers.
While she was occupied with the sheer physics of not shattering the fragile Erlenmeyer flasks, I reached into my purse, pulled out my notepad, and quickly scribbled a concise directive with my stubby pencil. I tore the sheet away with a crisp snap and held it right in front of her straining eyes:
Lead me to Olive.
Alice blinked through her sweat, blowing a stray lock of hair out of her face as she looked from the paper back to my deeply shadowed hood.
"Sure thing, Roxy, but seriously... these things you're holding are absolutely heavy, you know! You must have arms of pure steel under that cloak. Come on, follow me. He's been back in the main workshop all morning finishing up a very specific, high-end order."
She turned, her leather boots tapping heavily against the floorboards as she led the way toward the rear of the boutique. I followed closely behind her, my single jade-green eye scanning the ambient shadows of the corridor, preparing myself to see the completed, fire-resistant crimson masterpiece that would officially serve as my armor in the dangerous peaks of Caria.
I set the heavy crate of alchemical supplies down onto a nearby wooden stool with a controlled, solid thud. While Alice was still catching her breath from carrying her half of the load, I quickly pulled out my notepad. With a few swift strokes of my stubby pencil, I scrawled a single, definitive directive:
Stay here.
I held the note right in front of Alice's face. The young apprentice immediately pouted, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at me with wide, pleading eyes.
"Oh, come on, Roxy! Wait! Can't I please come in with you? I desperately want to see you try on that brand-new crimson trench coat! Olive has been obsessing over the design for weeks, running around the shop like a madman, and it looks absolutely fabulous. Let me see!"
A tight knot of tension formed in my stomach. Alice was sweet and entirely naive to the grim reality of my double life. She had absolutely no idea that beneath my tattered civilian clothes lay the massive, razor-sharp appendages of an S-rank monster. If she followed me into that room, she would see the intricate, agonizing reality of how that coat was engineered to forcefully compress my monstrous blood-wings flat against my spine… shattering her innocent perception of "Roxy" forever.
Without uttering a single sound, I swiftly slipped through the narrow opening of the workshop door, stepped inside, and threw the heavy iron bolt into place with a sharp, echoing click.
"Roxy! Hey! Let me in!" Alice yelled from the corridor, aggressively banging her fists against the thick oak paneling.
I ignored the rhythmic thumping entirely, turning my single jade-green eye toward the center of the dimly lit, private workshop. Standing beside a large cutting table stacked with leftover shears and charcoal chalk was Olive. The tailor looked up, his initial startle quickly fading into a look of profound, professional relief when he recognized my hooded figure.
"Hello, Eirene, I heard a bit of a commotion out there between you and Alice just now. Am I right to assume she was trying to force her way in to see the final product?"
I offered a slow, deliberate nod, the shadow of my hood completely masking my scarred lips as Alice's muffled complaints continued to echo through the wood. Olive let out a soft chuckle, the lingering fear from our violent first encounter entirely gone, replaced by the genuine pride of a master artisan.
"Perfect. I managed to keep her completely away from the assembly line while I worked, we prepared our newly finished trench coat precisely to the specifications we hammered out last week. Every single dimension you gave me was executed with absolute, flawless precision." Olive said, turning on his heel and walking toward a velvet-draped alcove at the back of the room.
With a fluid motion, Olive pulled back the dark velvet curtain, revealing a heavy mahogany coatrack standing beneath a focused magical lantern.
My breath caught in my throat.
The garment hanging before me was a true masterpiece of functional tactical armor. Woven from the priceless chest of fire-resistant neospider silk I had gifted him, the trench coat radiated a deep, luxurious crimson hue that seemed to absorb the ambient light of the room. The stitching along the shoulders and lapels was reinforced with midnight-black leather trim, giving it a sleek, lethal silhouette that perfectly matched my dual Tommy guns.
True to my hyper-specific requirements, Olive had meticulously drafted the patterns using the exact measurements he had taken from my bare skin:
Waist: 28 inches
Hips: 38 inches
Bicep: 12 inches
Back Waist Length: 16 inches
Front Waist Length: 17 inches
Waist to Floor: 42 inches
Hip Depth: 8 inches
Shoulder Length: 15 inches
"As requested, there are absolutely no external wing cutouts or visible seams on the exterior panels. The entire back panel is lined with a specialized, highly elasticized magical mesh. It is engineered to completely compress the full 32-inch volume of your folded blood-appendages flat against your spine, distributing the mass evenly so your silhouette looks entirely human from the outside. The fabric will stretch and yield to your movements without a single seam bursting, keeping your true nature completely hidden from the public eye."
He reached up, pulling the top section of the garment forward to show me the heavy, oversized crimson hood attached to the collar.
"And I remembered your severe allergy to the sun, Eirene. I reinforced the interior of the hood with a dense, light-blocking weave. When you pull this forward, it will completely shield your face and neck from the harsh UV rays of the Caria peaks, acting as your ultimate tactical cover."
I stared at the flawless crimson trench coat, a profound wave of satisfaction washing over my chest. With this masterpiece keeping my wings compressed and my identity perfectly cloaked, I was officially ready to face the world as a ghost. I stepped toward the rack, ready to shed my tattered polo and don my new armor.
With Alice safely locked out in the corridor, still occasionally grumbling and thumping against the thick oak paneling, I finally had the privacy to shed my disguise.
I unclasped the heavy, road-worn canvas cloak from my shoulders and let it slide away. With a heavy, metallic clatter, my lethal arsenal… the custom Death Chant Shotgun, the pristine black-and-silver Tommy gun, and my bootleg backup copy… dropped onto the cushioned workshop rug, safely out of sight.
The moment the restricting canvas was gone, my massive crimson blood-wings violently erupted into the dim air of the room. They flared out instinctively with a soft, translucent shimmer, their razor-sharp tips slicing through the shadows before settling into a tightly controlled, rhythmic rise and fall behind my back. Standing there in my civilian undergarments, the grotesque yet powerful flesh of my appendages contrasted sharply against my deeply tanned skin.
Olive didn't flinch this time. He didn't reach for a sewing dagger, nor did his eyes betray a single trace of his past panic. Instead, he stepped back, crossing his arms as his professional, artistic gaze meticulously evaluated my physical form.
"It's good to see everything is perfectly in shape, Eirene, your monstrous form... it's magnificent. It's a terrifying silhouette, yes, but from a designer's perspective, the anatomy is flawlessly balanced." Olive murmured, a look of genuine, aesthetic appreciation washing over his face.
He lifted the heavy crimson trench coat off the mahogany rack and stepped behind me, carefully avoiding the razor-sharp edges of my appendages.
"Alright, take a deep breath. Let's see how the compression mesh handles the volume."
I braced myself, pulling my shoulders back as I folded my massive blood-wings tight against my spine, forcing them into a rigid, compact block. Olive slid the sleeves of the trench coat over my arms, lifting the heavy fabric over my shoulders.
As I pulled the front lapels together and began fastening the reinforced black leather buttons, I felt the specialized magical lining go to work. The elasticized mesh grabbed hold of my 32-inch folded wings, firmly compressing them flat against my back. It was a snug, pressurized sensation… almost like a tight corset wrapping around my lungs… but it wasn't painful. I shifted my shoulders, twisted my waist, and took a deep step forward.
The fabric yielded effortlessly. From the exterior, the back panels remained completely smooth and unbroken, entirely erasing any structural trace of my demonic biology. My silhouette looked perfectly, flawlessly human.
I walked over to the full-length brass mirror in the corner of the workshop and stared at my reflection.
The fit was absolutely immaculate. Olive hadn't just made a functional cover; he had engineered a stylistic masterpiece. Under the focused light of the magical lanterns, the fabric didn't just look like ordinary crimson red… the specialized neospider silk gave it a deep, rich, shifting blood-themed color that seemed to absorb the shadows around the trim. With the massive, light-blocking hood resting loosely on my shoulders and the sleek leather lining accentuating my 28-inch waist, I looked incredibly lethal. It was the perfect, terrifying aesthetic for the Crimson Phantom persona.
Olive stepped up behind me, looking into the mirror with a proud, triumphant smirk playing on his lips.
"Just look at that, the deep blood-tint matches your reputation perfectly. It completely masks your wings, shields your skin from the sunlight, and gives you enough flexibility to draw those firearms on your back in a fraction of a second. You don't look like a commoner from the slums anymore, Eirene. You look like the apex predator of the Caria peaks."
I offered Olive a slow, deeply grateful nod of my hooded head, a silent token of appreciation for the masterpiece he had engineered to keep me alive. I stepped back over to the plush rug and gathered my arsenal… the custom Death Chant Shotgun and the dual Tommy guns… strapping them firmly onto my back. The specialized compression lining of the coat held the firearms securely against my spine, perfectly concealing Luke Granhart's luxurious silk polo beneath the sleek, blood-themed fabric. I was completely armored, fully disguised, and ready for war.
I pulled the heavy iron bolt back and swung the workshop door open.
Alice was still standing right in the corridor, her arms tightly crossed as she prepared to let out another round of furious complaints. But the second her eyes locked onto my new silhouette, the pout vanished from her face. She completely froze, her mouth dropping open as her gaze traveled up and down the flawless, shifting blood-crimson fabric.
"Wow… Roxy... that is absolutely incredible! The color, the leather trim, the fit... you look so incredibly cool and dangerous! Olive really outdid himself this time. You look like a top-tier legendary mercenary!"
Remaining perfectly mute, I simply offered her a soft, reassuring smile beneath the shadow of my hood. I lowered the massive, light-blocking hood slightly over my brow to ensure the mid-afternoon sun wouldn't catch the sensitive skin of my face, scooped up the heavy wooden crate of titration equipment and chemical supplies in my single right arm, and marched out of the boutique into the bustling streets of the 6th District.
As I walked down the crowded cobblestone thoroughfares, I did a quick mental calculation of my current financial assets. After receiving the five gold pieces from Don Anthony's bounty and spending 50 silver pieces on the 50% discounted alchemical setup, my purse was still incredibly heavy:
Gold Coins is 4; Silver Coins is 50; Bronze Coins is 2
I had a substantial amount of purchasing power left in my ledger. I didn't just want to be prepared; I wanted to be unstoppable before I tracked down Vanessa Katt and mounted my infiltration of the Immoral Knights' base.
With my new crimson coat turning heads for all the right, stylistic reasons, I navigated through the dense merchant crowds and set a direct course toward the mystical sector of the marketplace. My next and final stop of the day was Vladimir's Weavers Edge, where I would use my remaining gold and silver to hunt down an artifact or enchantment powerful enough to push my combat lethality to the absolute limit.