This apartment building looks like it’s been around for quite a few years. The dim yellow lights in the hallway flicker on and off; you could probably shoot a horror movie here without bothering much with set design, just use the place as is. The entire building is owned by the president of The Bennett Detective Agency, Walter Bennett—the very same unscrupulous, slovenly, lecherous old man that Edward Harris always describes, who smokes, drinks, gambles, and constantly spouts nonsense.

The Bennett Agency is on the third floor. As Edward Harris headed upstairs, he glanced at his phone and, sure enough, saw several messages urging him to hurry up. They were probably asking why it was taking him so long to come back after just taking a few photos, and warning that if he was late any longer, the half-month rent reduction would be reconsidered and changed to just a week. They also reminded Edward Harris not to overdo it—this wasn’t investigative journalism, so there was no need to go too deep with the photos, and he wasn’t being sent to shoot anything 18+...

Of course, if he really did shoot something like that, he had a friend who’d want to take a look...

That “friend” wouldn’t happen to be you, would it?

Edward Harris didn’t reply. He reached the third floor, turned the corner in the hallway, and saw a sign for 【新土侦探事务所】 hanging above the door of one of the rooms in the middle. The flickering neon letters were especially eye-catching at night.

Wait, that’s not right—it’s Bennett. The light for the character “垣” on the sign had been half-broken since last week and still hadn’t been fixed.

Edward Harris pushed the door open and was greeted by the sight of a middle-aged man in his forties, with messy, shoulder-length hair and a scruffy beard, holding a bottle of liquor and propping both feet up on the desk in front of him, rocking back and forth.

On the TV nearby, a race from the New Tokyo racetrack was playing—the Yushun Himba. Judging by the way he was drinking alone, he’d probably lost money betting on the horses again.

Tsk! Who knows when he’ll finally manage to sell off this apartment building.

“Welcome! The Bennett Detective Agency is at your service...”

Walter Bennett noticed someone coming in, immediately put his feet down, and started his practiced introduction, but halfway through, he slipped back into his lazy, shameless uncle persona, grinning as he changed his tone, “Yo! It’s Mr. Harris. Why are you back so late? I was starting to worry you might get caught by the police, and was wondering if I’d have to pull some strings to bail you out...”

Edward Harris ignored Walter Bennett’s nonsense, pulled out the phone Walter Bennett had given him, and said, “Here, it’s all here. Next month I’m only paying half the rent.”

“Wait! Let me take a look first...”

Walter Bennett took the phone, quickly found the photo album, and started flipping through the pictures one by one. His expression grew more and more animated as he looked, and when he finished, he shook his head and sighed, “A honey trap? Damn... that’s rough. Makes you almost feel sorry for the guy...”

“So, are you planning to give these photos to his wife?” Edward Harris asked as he was about to leave.

Walter Bennett’s face immediately turned serious, as if his professional ethics had been insulted. “Mr. Harris, as a detective! Honesty is the only virtue we need to uphold.”

Would you still be honest if you weren’t getting paid?

Edward Harris grumbled to himself, turned, and headed upstairs. Walter Bennett cheerfully sat back down and picked up the phone, probably to inform the client that the job was done.

......

Leaving the detective agency, Edward Harris slung his bag over his shoulder and went upstairs.

He lived in a room on the fifth floor at the end of the hall. He walked up the stairs and took out his key.

But as he was unlocking the door in the dim light, he wasn’t sure if it was the effect of his newly acquired ability, 【九眼六道】—even though Edward Harris hadn’t turned around, he sensed a rustling figure in the dark corner of the hallway behind him.

He opened the door, but realizing something, he didn’t go in right away. Instead, he walked over, muttering, “That guy is so stingy. I’ve told him ages ago to replace the voice-activated lights on the west side of the hallway, but he keeps dragging his feet.”

As he got closer, illuminated by the murky yellow light behind him, the outline of a little girl with golden hair and jewel-like green eyes gradually became clear—she looked about five or six years old, wearing a dirty, pale yellow fleece dress that was far too thin for late autumn in November, and carrying a cartoon backpack as she squatted by a pile of wooden planks at the edge of the hallway.

Edward Harris recognized this little girl from his floor, named Emily Watson. He’d heard people in the building gossip that her mother had smuggled herself in from the Grand Duchy of Shayash, but disappeared not long after Emily Watson was born.

Her biological father, John Watson, worked odd jobs at a nightclub in Shibuya, spent his days loafing around and gambling, and when drunk would often scold his daughter for being a burden, but at least he didn’t actually hit her.

Hmm, at this hour he probably wasn’t home from work yet.

Speaking of the “Grand Duchy of Shayash,” where Emily Watson’s mother was from, after half a year of studying this world’s geography, Edward Harris had some impression of it—it was a country bordering the northwest of the Land of Wa.

Quite different from the Blue Star of his previous life.

The world Edward Harris now found himself in consisted of two continents crossing each other, dividing the world into four great seas: east, south, west, and north. The Land of Wa was located on the coast at the junction of the two continental plates in the eastern hemisphere.

Hmm... it sounded a bit like the world of “One Piece” from his previous life, except there was no Grand Line.

There were pirates in the four seas, though. For example, in the eastern sea near the Land of Wa, there were two major pirate crews, both led by superhumans ranked in the top 36 of the ability sequence, each with personal strength above the sixth tier.