The air hit him first.
Warm and thick, carrying everything the district had to offer before he had taken a single proper step into it — wine, roasted meat, something sweet underneath it all that he couldn't quite name. The kind of smell that was designed to make a person feel like they had already decided to stay.
Above, the sky was black-red and completely bare. No stars. No moon. Just that deep, bruised colour stretching across the district like a ceiling, held up by the glow of rose-gold lanterns that lined every street and doorway. The light they gave was warm and deliberate, making everything look slightly better than it was.
Eric started to walk.
Vendors called out from open storefronts. Somewhere to his left, two men were locked in a heated negotiation over a price, their voices rising and falling with the rhythm of people who had done this before and expected to do it again. A gambling den spilled noise into the street — the crack of tiles, a sudden burst of laughter, a single sharp curse that nobody around it acknowledged.
Families ate together at low tables outside small restaurants. That surprised him, faintly. Families. He hadn't expected that texture here — the ordinary domesticity of people sharing food, a child reaching across a table for something, an older couple eating in the comfortable silence of people who had run out of things they needed to say.
And through all of it, unhurried and practiced, the consorts moved. Some stood at doorways. Some walked the street in pairs, talking quietly between themselves. Some approached men directly, reading them in seconds, adjusting their manner accordingly. They were part of the district's texture — as much as the lanterns, as much as the smell of wine, as much as the black-red sky pressing down over everything.
Eric continued forward, weaving through the crowd. Lady Elara was waiting somewhere deeper within the district. The task should have been simple. Yet the place had a way of slowing his steps, pulling his attention toward every corner of its restless life.
Yet Eric wasn't the only one doing the observing.
More than a few eyes followed him as he walked.
Some recognized him immediately. A Lysi Nova was not the sort of figure that could move entirely unnoticed in the lower layers of the city. Information traveled quickly, especially regarding people powerful enough to matter.
Others cared less about his identity and more about what they saw in front of them. Eric was handsome, well-dressed, and carried himself with the quiet confidence of someone accustomed to authority. To many of the district's workers, he looked exactly like the sort of wealthy client worth approaching.
A beautiful-looking woman slowly moved through the crowd; her steps were fluid like a fish in water, quickly reaching another woman who was eating on the go.
The woman who was approached was fat, almost horizontally challenged. The woman she approached was broad and heavy-set, her face layered with thick powder and rouge that had been applied with more enthusiasm than precision. She wore a white robe with red flowers, her considerable frame filling it, her cleavage presented to the world with the optimism of someone who had never quite abandoned hope.
She was the madam of Lover's Heart Brothel house, which was a very reputable and famous brothel house in the district. It was always in competition with The Scarlet Rose Brothel House.
"Shh. Madam, I have just noticed a Lysi Nova around, he is a tall and handsome man with pink hair and heterochromatic pink eyes. Do we try to tail him?" The woman said in a low voice.
The Madam, who was happily eating meatballs, suddenly turned her head and looked at the woman with widened eyes, shaking the woman's heart. She knew that her Madam was a very cruel and greedy person. If she had not informed her, she would have screamed and beaten her up for not giving information at the latest, and would still beat her if she decided to.
"Do you know his name?" The Madam asked in a serious tone, but her happiness couldn't be hidden. The woman heaved a sigh inwardly as she answered.
"I have read about him in a newspaper some years ago. I remember it was Eric Heisenberg."
The Madam immediately jumped at this, her fat body rippled as her body shook, the bowl of the meatballs that was in her hand fell on her head, and one meatball even entered her cleavage.
The woman barely stopped herself from laughing. "What happened, Madam? Is he a dangerous criminal?" she asked in a worried and scared tone.
The woman removed the bowl from her head and threw it at a waiter, screaming at him to get another one as she cleaned herself off the meatballs and soup with a towel. She had quite the difficulty getting the meatball in the middle of her cleavage out.
"Hmph, little girl! You are young and ignorant, this is why you don't know about this, but that man bears the surname Heisenberg, he is most definitely a member of one of the thirty royal families-The Heisenberg Family. We must not offend him. Go and probe him. If he is here to participate in some bedtime activities, then get him to the brothel house. I would be waiting there. If not, then leave him alone and try to help him as much as you can if he is here for some other reasons. It won't hurt to get on the good side of a royal Lysi Nova."
The woman nodded her head, feeling happy at finding out more about the handsome man she had just seen. She stood up and quickly left.
At this moment, Eric was enjoying his time in the district.
Eric was now standing in front of a shop, they were serving a special street food named 'Flower's fingers'. Eric was intrigued and wanted to try it out.
The shop owner quickly recognized Eric as an Aura user and gave Eric a plate of the delicacy, leaving after bowing respectfully.
"News about me has already started to circulate." Eric was not ignorant of this point. He knew that it wouldn't be long before he started getting attention. He didn't mind it and simply started to eat.
This dish, named Flowers Fingers, looked exactly how it was named. They were the petals of a flower that was rolled into a roll, some seeds that looked like lime seeds were sprinkled on the plate, a large amount of spices were ground and stuffed into the fingers, making it let out a fragrance that was a perfect balance of bitter, sweet, and spicy.
Eric took one and put it in his mouth. The dish seemed to melt in his mouth as he chewed. The sweetness hit him first before the spiciness took over. As he swallowed, a bitter feeling was left in his mouth, which he chugged down with the drink that the owner had given him for free. The coldness filled Eric's mouth, leaving a warm, faint aftertaste of the dish. Eric was quite satisfied with it.
He quickly paid with a small piece of an Aura stone and quickly left.
He calmly stood up and walked out of the shop. The ring jingled as he departed, turned right, and joined the crowd again.
Just as he was carefully moving through the crowd, someone bumped into him.
The collision was soft, and the woman who caused it was anything but accidental. She had black hair pinned up in a loose bun, a single white rose nestled against the dark silk of it, with stray wisps curling against the pale column of her neck. Her eyes were large and dark, the kind that caught lantern light and held it, and when they blinked up at him in feigned surprise, something in them glimmered — not innocence, but the careful performance of it.
She stumbled and was just about to fall.
Eric's hand shot out on instinct, his fingers closing around her left wrist — and she let herself fall into him, her body meeting his chest with a warmth he felt even through his robes. She was small against him. The top of her head barely reached his chin. Her pink robe — scattered with white flowers, gossamer-thin in the lantern light — had slipped at the shoulder during the collision, and the scent of her drifted up to him: jasmine, and something warmer underneath it.
For a suspended moment, neither of them moved.
Her palm rested flat against his chest. He could feel the light pressure of it — He could also feel the way she didn't pull back quite as quickly as propriety demanded. When she finally stepped away and bowed, the movement was graceful and practiced, and it drew his gaze exactly where she intended it to go. The candlelight caught the curve of her chest above her neckline, her left hand drifting there as though by accident — a gesture that was no accident at all.
"T-Thank you, Dear Lord." She opened her pink lips. Her voice was soft and a little breathless. She kept her eyes low, her cheeks flushed a lovely, deliberate pink. "I hope I haven't caused you any discomfort."
She looked up then — just barely, just enough — and the corner of her mouth curved.
Eric held her gaze for a beat longer than necessary.
He had noticed everything. The calculated stumble. The way she had angled her body into his rather than away from it. The rose in her hair would smell like a garden if he leaned close enough to find out. She was beautiful, and she knew precisely how to wield it — each small gesture laid out like stones across water, inviting him to step from one to the next.
He was not unaffected. He was simply focused.
She had come to him on her own accord, which saved him the trouble. He needed consorts to tell him the information about Lady Elara. Specifically, he needed to know where Lady Elara had gone. If this woman was willing to get close, he was willing to let her think she was winning.
He let the silence stretch one moment longer, watching the faint rise and fall of her breath quicken under his attention.
Then he smiled — slow, and with intention.
"The fault was mine entirely," he said, his voice low enough that she would have to lean in to hear it clearly over the crowd. "Are you hurt?"
She chuckled a little as she assessed him, "Hmm... He looks even taller from up close, and he is polite too." She shook her head, took a step forward, and looked up at him as she slowly said. "No, Lord, thank you for asking. I wonder what you are doing in such a place, though." She started to poke his chest with her right hand's index finger, having a small knowing smile on her face.
Eric respectfully took a step back and said with a plain voice, his eyes cold, "I am not here for stuff like that. I appreciate your offer, but I am here for a different reason. Would you tell me where I can find Lady Elara?"
The woman blinked twice before standing up straight. "So he is not here for bedtime activities." She thought as she then bowed, "Apologies for my previous behaviour, then, Lord. I wonder what you would like to know about Lady Elara?"
Eric asked all the questions he could ask. He found out that it had been two weeks since Lady Elara was kicked out of The Scarlet Rose Brothel House. She had disappeared since then.
"Maybe the people on the north side know something." She said with a little awkwardness.
He thanked her and turned north.
The lanterns were the same colour in that direction. The street looked the same. But the crowd was already thinning at the edges, and somewhere underneath the smell of wine and incense, the air was cooler.
He walked toward it.