Zoe didn’t get a very satisfactory answer. “Lady Blodmane looks how she wants to look,” Rudy said, “and I don’t know why her name is Victor. I hesitate to speculate.”


    That—was a weird response. Not that there was much she could do about it, though. She’d resolve to ask Lady Victor herself when she had a chance. From there—well, Zoe didn’t really have any other questions—not ones that she felt comfortable asking the butler, more accurately. So they decided to go to that restaurant she’d seen.


    Rudy readily agreed to the decision, and they departed Victor’s mansion within minutes. The Butler did advise her to disguise herself again. Zoe was fine with that—she was planning to anyway. He took it further than she’d expected, though. Rather than just removing her nonHuman features, Rudy had her completely change her entire appearance. He also switched out her shawl and topped her off with a big hat.


    The walk to the restaurant was weirdly nice. Zoe enjoyed the movement, the fresh air, the greenery—and just the lack of worry. The Blodmane estate was really quite nice. She was better able to appreciate it now that she was going out to eat and not meeting with the big boss.


    Rudy himself was a refreshing change in company. He was the first person in this entire world who Zoe actually felt at-ease around. Sure, that’s kind of his job—but Zoe didn’t want to ruin it by analyzing things too hard.


    The butler talked a bit about different parts of the estate they passed along the way. It was mostly surface-level stuff—but if it was a rehearsed tour-guide script, Zoe couldn’t tell. She didn’t even have to ask questions for him to pick up on what was most interesting to her. Sure, you could manage that by just paying attention to the other person—but most people didn’t really do that.


    When they arrived at the restaurant a few minutes later, Zoe was relieved by the lack of a wait or a line. And why would there be? While the place was far from empty, it was also one-hundred percent exclusive to the estate. Not only that, but the larger manors all had their own staff, and this wasn’t even the only restaurant.


    Just how big are the Blodmanes, Zoe wondered. It was starting to feel less like a large noble house and more like the world’s smallest ethnostate.


    As for the restaurant, it felt weirdly modern. It could easily have been a place back on Earth. The biggest tells were the varying ways people were dressed and the lighting. Rather than electric lights, the interior illumination came from glowing, origami-like paper constructs floating about close to the ceiling.


    Zoe was sorely tempted to jump up and grab one of them. "Do it," Lilith urged her. "You know you want to." But Zoe was a rational and mature young woman with an adequate amount of self-control. She was not going to grab one of the paper lights. "Coward," Lilith snickered as she materialized in Zoe''s vision.


    Using her miniature, cartoon-like doll form, the apparition zoomed up to fly around at the level of the magic lights. Zoe’s eye twitched when the Demon poked one of them and it wobbled. In almost all instances, Zoe’s unwanted passenger appeared to be totally incorporeal. Yet there were a few instances, like this one, that suggested things might be a bit more complicated than that.


    Zoe would just have to keep an eye on it. She didn’t know what else to do—and she doubted asking directly would get her anywhere.


    The waiter—or greeter, whatever he was, led them up to the second floor and onto the outside balcony overlooking the street. This pleased Zoe, because it was exactly the area she wanted to end up in. It probably helped that I explicitly asked for it.


    “So,” Rudy began after they were both seated, “what do you think of the estate?”


    _____


    Zoe ended up doing most of the talking that evening. It was a bit surprising, even to herself. She fully expected to ply the butler for endless questions about the estate and the world in general. That did happen—but mostly she ranted incoherently to him about random things she’d noticed and wondered about.


    The upside was that the man took it upon himself to address a lot of the implicit questions that arose through her rambling. He could have just as easily sat back and drained her for information, so Zoe appreciated it.


    For instance, he wasn’t at all surprised that she had no idea how money worked. Well, he did laugh for a few seconds at the idea of a gold being worth a hundred silver, which was worth a hundred copper, and so on. Zoe couldn’t even be mad, though. That was pretty stupid. Fortunately, his knowledge that she was a Demon was helpful for explaining her lack of knowledge about the most basic things. Lilith remained deeply insistent that she do nothing to reveal she was from another world. Zoe needed to know why—but that could come when they were alone.


    Anyway, about money. For the most part, you didn’t convert the metals yourself. Things that were listed in tin you paid in tin—things that were listed in gold were paid for in gold. At first, Zoe thought that was weird and confusing.


    It became less confusing when Rudy explained the unwritten conventions for retail transactions—and how the banks worked. If you were haggling, bartering, or otherwise trading with someone, you just did that. There wasn’t much need to be exact about exchange rates since you were already bartering.


    For retail, there was a general understanding of which metals to use to set the prices. Small, everyday purchases were mostly dealt in tin, with some copper for the bigger ones. For more expensive items, they mostly used silver.


    Once you got bigger than that—either in value or just sheer scale—well that’s the point where you already made contracts and more formal agreements. And if you were haggling at that level, then you probably had the time or the people to do the math for the current market exchanges accurately.


    There was also the way the banks played into all of this. According to Rudy, the banks measured most things against gold. If you wanted to exchange your carrying money for another metal, you went to a bank and they did it for you. And you could trust they wouldn’t cheat you, because it wasn’t actually that hard to publicly audit those exchanges. Trying to screw over the average commoner wasn’t remotely worth the scandal.


    By this point, Zoe was starting to wonder if there was even something like a credit or debit card. The answer was ‘technically yes, but basically no.’ It could be accomplished with mana signatures and linked enchantments, but no one ever got comfortable enough using it for it to catch on.


    Zoe didn’t reveal how much money she had. While she obviously didn’t know the current exchange rates, let alone the relative value of goods in this world, she picked up enough to understand she was already rich.


    How rich? No idea. Enough that she wouldn’t have to worry about money in the near-term if she didn’t blow it all like a moron—but probably a lot less than a smaller noble house or wealthier merchant.


    That was a pure assumption based on how she’d gotten it. It was a large portion of the goods from the storage ring the cult leader had given her. For various reasons, Zoe doubted even an absolutely loaded cultist would literally toss her a lifetime fortune. Even Lord Darius didn’t seem like he’d do that—if he would even carry that around in the first place.


    When she asked Rudy if Lord Darius was particularly wealthy, he laughed. “Only one of the two richest merchants in Norvask, girl. And don’t let this kingdom’s small size fool you—Norvask is a wealthy place. Expensive to live in, too. Comes naturally with intellectual talent and a willingness to trade.”


    Zoe mulled that over as she chewed her steak. She’d never liked steak before—any big cuts of meat, really. But Lilith had convinced her to get it, and the pesky Demon was right. Zoe was kind of pissed off that the whole stupid Demonic ascension thing gave her a taste for hefty slabs of rare meat. On the other hand, it tastes really good, so maybe I shouldn’t complain about that one.


    Anyway—Norvask. A small, coastal kingdom high up within a temperate latitude. One that was generally wealthy, fairly peaceful, and one built on an economy of information and trade. Getting some real uh, innocent little western-European colonial power vibes here.


    “Got any colonies?” She asked as she set down her fork. “You know, primitive places you go to with boats and pillage and enslave for riches?”


    “In a way, yes,” Rudy replied without an ounce of hesitation. “Norvask itself is one such colony—or it was. There was a little scuffle for independence one hundred sixty odd years ago.”


    Ah—so it’s like a budding United States?


    “No, not a war,” Rudy corrected when she asked. “It was barely even a battle. Oh, they say there was a whole lot of hot air blowing around leading up to it. In the end, it was more like a half-effective pirate raid and fifteen years of petty prisoner-exchange negotiations.”


    Huh. That was even less intense than the American Revolution. It was pretty ironic that Norvask was also a former colony on the east coast of the northern part of a western landmass, though. “So which side were the pirates?”


    “We were,” Rudy said. “A few ships went and raided some islands that are closer to us than to them. They tried to steal a weapons shipment from under their noses, as well as a couple hundred gallons of whiskey. Well, two out of the four main ships got blown up, but they made away with the whiskey.”


    “But not the weapons.”


    “But not the weapons,” the butler confirmed. Yeah, that sounds pretty American to me, Zoe thought. The butler then moved on to talking about their current colonies. While the total land area controlled by Norvask was extensive, the most valuable colony was a small cluster of islands to the south. The islands were rich in a variety of alchemical resources, mines, and fertile soil. Frustratingly, Zoe still didn’t know if they had slaves.


    Either way, this is some classic 18th century style imperialism. There was technically a difference between foreign exploitation and slave-taking, though.


    She also found out what was up with something she’d basically forgotten from her adventure in the temple-turned-cultist lair. Well, not really an answer. Norvask itself was a foreign colony, and thus there was already a native population. She vaguely recalled someone thinking she looked ‘native,’ and she hadn’t understood that at the time.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    She still didn’t understand it, but at least she had more context. When she asked Rudy what features about her gave that impression, he was no help at all. Why do I look ‘native?’ “You just do” was all she got for an ‘answer.’


    _____


    “This is where you’ll be staying for the coming days.”


    Zoe looked up at the guest house. It looked pretty nice. It was far better than anything she’d been expecting, really. It was an actual house. Like, a free-standing house with its own  fence and a tiny little yard. Is this normal?


    “Here’s your key,” Rudy continued, depositing a disappointingly ordinary key in her hand. “The guest house is already stocked with some basic amenities—but should you find yourself out of anything, don’t hesitate to contact someone. You’ll also find a note from Lady Victor in the office. I don’t know what it covers, I haven’t read it. I’m only to inform you that it is there.”


    Huh. Zoe didn’t expect that. The note could only have been written after her meeting with the head of the Blodmanes—but the butler had been with her the entire time. How did he know about the note, then? She decided to ask him.


    “I wouldn’t be much of a head butler if I didn’t have means of such communication, now would I?” He gave her a wry smile. “Now. I have no desire to treat a guest poorly—“ uh oh. “—but I would advise you to remain inside from now until someone comes for you in the morning. Not everyone in the estate knows who you are—and I’m sure you understand why they shouldn’t.”


    Yeah… that might be a good idea. Zoe nodded. She had no right to complain about it anyway. These ‘accommodations’ already seemed excessive. “Thank you.”


    The estate butler walked off, and Zoe unlocked the guest house and made her way inside. The inside was about as nice as she expected—which meant far nicer than she felt she deserved. It was also a bit hard to see since all the rooms were completely dark.


    Being a Demon might do a little to improve her night-vision, but it was still inconvenient. After stumbling through the entire first floor vainly searching for a light switch, Zoe gave up and reached into her inventory. A magical, floating paper lantern materialized above her palm, casting a pale glow across her immediate surroundings.


    If anyone else saw it, they would say it looked remarkably similar to the lanterns from the restaurant. If they questioned Zoe about it, though, they’d learn it was just a coincidence. She would probably have trouble recalling precisely where she did get it—maybe it was just from the cultist chief like most of her current possessions. One thing was certain, though. She most definitely did not snag it from the restaurant on her way out when no one was looking. Zoe was a responsible young woman who respected private property.


    Snagging the lantern before it could rise out of reach, Zoe made another circuit of the first floor before climbing the stairs. She didn’t find anything that looked like an office, so the note from Lady Victor was probably upstairs.


    The office was upstairs. There were also two bedrooms, a second bathroom, and a casual lounge area. Pretty comfy, Zoe decided. The first room she checked was the bathroom, of course. It had a shower and a bathtub. Hell yeah! There was also something that looked basically like a toilet, just—different. Either way, an immense burden eased off Zoe’s shoulders at the confirmation of sophisticated indoor plumbing. If it had turned out she was supposed to just go out and shit in the woods, she would have had to learn to man up and hold it.


    “Hold it for the rest of our immortal life?”


    “Uh, yes.” Lilith didn’t look convinced, but Zoe was deadly serious.


    After that, she went to the office. The note wasn’t very hard to find, seeing as it was the only thing on the plain, wooden desk. She hoped it was something important and not pointless formalities that any regular guest would get. Picking up the note and holding it beside the enchanted lantern, Zoe’s brow furrowed—and her heart stopped.


    God fucking dammit. Scanning back over the fairly short paragraph of text, Zoe failed to fully suppress a groan. She’d prepared her mind for a lot of things—but the words before her proved that it could always turn out worse. I should have considered this… but I kind of thought it was taken care of based on how things went when I spoke to everyone.


    That assumption was false, and the truth wasn’t ideal. Are you seriously telling me I’m going to have to learn how to read?


    _____


    It was a quiet evening in the Blodmane Estate’s main archives. The main entrance was already locked up for the night, which meant that Walter could finally get started on re-cataloging the mess of news-records from when he knocked over the crate they were stored in a full two weeks ago. It wouldn’t be difficult in the slightest, and the archivist would hesitate to even call it time-consuming. He’d just been so busy dealing with poorly-timed requests that he’d never gotten the chance to finish it.


    But now, it looked like he’d get his chance. By the grace of—well, Walter wasn’t one to believe in the grace of anything. But by a stroke of fortune, he’d managed to hustle every last patron, client, and tourist out of the building a quarter hour ago. With the archives closed and no official work until morning, he could finally get those news clippings sorted out.


    And really, it shouldn’t take him more than an hour total. After that was finished, he’d have all the time he needed to continue his personal research into advancement techniques. It was about time he completed his advancement to Rank C, the archivist thought.


    It was just as Walter retrieved the fallen crate that someone entered the restricted section.


    You’ve got to be shitting me. Now that was just obnoxious. Of all the times some noble brat could decide to snoop around where they shouldn’t be, it had to be now. For a good thirty seconds, Walter considered just ignoring it. Since neither the main wards nor any of the real juicy restricted areas had signaled a breach, this person had a borderline legitimate way to get in after hours but not authorization for anything but the basic public levels.


    That in turn meant it was a noble kid from one of the side branches having a go at it. Probably looking for forbidden advancement techniques or the like. Just the usual stupidity. The only actual danger was that the brat would knock something over or end up afflicting themselves with some obscure curse.


    And that’s exactly why the majority of forbidden techniques are forbidden in the first place, Walter scoffed. They had an almost unnatural appeal to children, though, who seemed to for some reason equate ‘forbidden’ with ‘powerful.’ The archivist was sorely tempted to simply let them fuck around for tonight and then find out why they shouldn’t have.


    But then he looked back at the crate in front of him. Damn it. He would be unfathomably pissed if the kid fucked up something even remotely important anywhere.


    _____


    “I told you someone would come!”


    Zoe wasn’t in the mood to indulge Lilith with the usual banter. After the indignation over her newfound illiteracy had calmed down, it hadn’t taken Zoe very long to find the library. Archives, technically. While she had no idea where they might be—if they even existed—she decided she could just ask someone.


    That went well enough, but then she found out it was closed down for the night—and worse, locked. Instead of breaking in like a moron, she realized that there must be a whole bunch of people who had some sort of key. Specifically, she realized that after finding what was essentially a VIP entrance while poking around while trying to break in.


    From there, she found a random drunk guy and threatened him in an alley until he got it across to her that all of the noble branches could get in. When she asked how, she learned that like a whole lot of other stuff on the estate, it was keyed to their blood.


    All of this implied that being part of the Blodmanes and living on their estate didn’t make you a noble. Also, even the nobles weren’t all part of the main branch, and at this point Zoe was thoroughly confused. She’d figure it out eventually.


    So then she found the nearest noble branch house place, knocked politely, and asked for some of their blood. This went shockingly well, actually. Even though the guy who opened the door was high enough rank to give her a headache when she failed to identify him, he was really nice and hurried to help her out.


    It might have had something to do with Zoe using lesser disguise to make herself look like Lady Victor. Actually, that was interesting too. When Zoe tried to check her system display privileges thing to see what it showed the guy, it wouldn’t let her see it—because she herself wasn’t able to identify the Rank A woman.


    But it showed the random noble guy what he expected to see, so like… that’s pretty interesting.


    But regardless, that all led Zoe here—running around the library trying to not get caught by the night guard or whoever he was. The only reason she wasn’t caught yet was because of how much she was drawing on mirage.


    “No, I think the reason is that he’s not trying very hard. It kind of looks like he’s more worried about you knocking something over than actually getting you.”


    Either way, it was getting annoying. And I don’t need your advice, Lilith.


    “Fair enough. If you had listened to my advice and not tried to go into the restricted section, we wouldn’t be trying not to get caught in the first place.


    Lilith did have a point there. Zoe even knew that it was stupid at the time—but in my defense—who wouldn’t want to go take a peek in the restricted section of a magic library? That was like, exactly what you were supposed to do.


    “If you were supposed to do it, I don’t think it would be warded to alert the workers if someone tries it,” Lilith pointed out.


    _____


    Walter was getting increasingly irritated. It was one thing to break the rules and disrupt his work—and it was quite another thing to lead him around and around the shelves like a runaway toddler. At least you can actually see toddlers most of the time, the archivist muttered to himself. Whichever wayward teen had snuck in this time had some kind of stealth skill that was just good enough to make them frustratingly slippery.


    Come out already, damn you. What was even the point of carrying on like this? At first  he’d expected them to try to escape—and then he would have been keeping an eye out in case they thought they were clever and tried again a few minutes later. But no. This cheeky brat was practically toying with him.


    “Looking for someone?”


    Walter spun around. They’d somehow gotten all the way behind him, and also chosen to reveal themselves. About time. The only problem was that it wasn’t a self-entitled teen who faced him, but Lady Blodmane herself.


    Walter just narrowed his eyes. “Consider me impressed by whatever skill you’re using—it’s convincing, I’ll give you that. But you’re not Lady Blodmane.”


    The imposter opened her mouth. Walter noticed that even the way she carried herself was similar to the posture and gait of the house head—but he still knew better. “And if you think you’re going to convince me with some kind of fake status, I can’t identify Lady Blodmane anyway.”


    The mouth closed. Damn, she has a skill that can fake statuses too? That was possibly even more impressive than such realistic shapeshifting. Walter would have been more impressed by this kid if they had the sense not to break into the archives. “If you’re looking for a forbidden advancement technique or some other rubbish like that, save your time and just leave. Most of those aren’t good anyway. They’re forbidden because they do bad stuff like put curses on you.”


    The fake Lady Blodmane arched an eyebrow. “Oh? That’s actually good to know, thank you. But that’s not what I came here for.”


    Yeah, right. Walter’s eyes could hardly get any narrower. “Then what are you here for?”


    “Well…” a flush of shame crept through her pale cheeks—something that wasn’t there before. “I was trying to avoid meeting anyone, but now that you’re here… can you teach me how to read?”