The Harry Potter World.
Bernadette followed the crowd into the supermarket called "Sainsbury's," picked up a basket from the entrance the way everyone else did, and walked in.
Before her stretched rows of neat shelving packed with things of every shape and size, in packaging of every possible colour — food, household goods, toys. An astonishing abundance.
Customers moved through the aisles, picking things up, putting things back.
She watched one woman for four or five minutes. That was enough.
This building was clearly a large-format shop of this world. Customers could select items freely from the shelves and pay for everything at once at the counter near the exit — almost entirely unsupervised.
Her father had once tried to open something similar in Trier. The trial run lasted less than a month before it had to be quietly shut down. Too much "zero-yuan shopping" happening every day — oh, that term was her father's coinage, too.
So how does this world prevent zero-yuan shopping?
The thought had barely formed before Bernadette patted herself down. Sure enough — not a single coin of this world's currency.
Back home, as the Queen Mystic, one of the Four Sea Kings, quietly "borrowing" food from a shop was nothing. But here... if she did that, she'd draw the police immediately.
Getting arrested over a bit of food wasn't worth it.
She followed her nose to the deli section. Two long rows of roasted meats and whole chickens. Bernadette swallowed involuntarily. She glanced around — no one nearby.
If I eat here without taking anything out... they won't notice, will they?
Keeping one eye on her surroundings, she picked up a whole roasted chicken, peeled back the cling wrap, tore off a drumstick, bit into it, and tucked the rest back on the shelf.
The chicken was tender — pull-apart soft, the meat slipping clean off the bone at the first bite. The flavour was passable. Good enough to deal with hunger.
She tucked the stripped bone to the back of the shelf, drifted two steps sideways to a new spot, confirmed again that no one was watching, then picked up a piece of roasted pork and tore off half.
Hm. The pork was noticeably better.
Bernadette nodded, moved to the other side of the shelving, pulled off a chicken wing, took one bite, rendered her verdict internally, and deemed the flavour mediocre — then returned the bitten wing to its spot and moved on to the next option.
In the security room, the guard watched Bernadette work her way through the deli section — eating, nodding occasionally, shaking her head, moving on — like a restaurant critic doing her rounds.
No. No food critic works like this.
He grabbed his radio, somewhat belatedly. "There's someone in the deli section eating the stock — no, wait, that's not the worst of it, she doesn't even look satisfied. Get some people over there, now!"
"This one's not good either."
Bernadette shook her head, set down a half-eaten piece of fried fish, and turned to continue her survey — and at that moment caught the tail end of a uniformed man creeping toward her, hand drifting to the baton at his hip.
Caught?
She tensed. Glanced the other way. Another one, coming in carefully from the opposite side.
Yes. Definitely caught.
Impossible — she'd checked the area. No one nearby. Did they have some kind of surveillance Beyonder ability? No — she'd observed enough to be fairly confident that supernatural abilities were uncommon in this world too.
Bernadette gave no sign of having noticed the two guards. Her face remained composed. Her mind, in the meantime, was tracing escape routes at speed.
She walked to the item she'd liked best out of everything she'd sampled — the roasted pork — and then...
Grabbed the whole box and bolted.
"Stop her — she's running!"
"You take that side — cut her off!"
"Security room, track her position, continuous updates!"
Bernadette wove through the shelving at a dead sprint, heading for the entrance.
Three guards suddenly blocked her path. She grabbed one item from each side of the aisle with both hands and, channelling a sliver of mana into each, hurled them forward.
Crack.
Both guards went down under two bags of crisps. Bernadette vaulted over them, and in passing scooped up one more thing to throw at a guard lunging at her from the side.
He staggered back and crashed into a shelf. The shelf toppled into the next one. And the next. A chain reaction — an entire row of shelving fell like dominoes, a crashing wave that buried several unfortunate shoppers underneath.
The noise stopped every person in the vicinity cold.
They saw a young person with an injured face, clutching a box of roasted pork, sprinting full tilt with seven or eight security guards in hot pursuit.
Everyone cleared a path. This was a weekday morning in a supermarket — mostly housewives and elderly folk. Nobody was about to play the hero.
"Lock the doors! Now!"
The guard at the entrance fumbled frantically with the glass doors. Bernadette's brow creased. With genuine reluctance, she channelled mana into the pork and threw it.
CRASH.
The glass door shattered. The guard who'd been locking it stumbled backward and sat down hard on the floor, and could only watch as the thief ran straight past and out.
"STOP! HALT!"
The guards poured out after her, chasing her down several streets — until her figure was growing steadily smaller and their lungs were giving out.
"God— how is she this fast?"
"With legs like that, why isn't she at the Olympics?"
"Less talking. Call the police. Call the police!"
…
"Ha. Hahaha."
She'd lost them.
Bernadette leaned against a wall, heaving for breath. Then she caught sight of her own bare right foot and burst out laughing — which immediately pulled at the injury on her nose bridge, making her wince and grin at the same time.
The Queen Mystic herself. A Sequence 3 clairyoyant. Chased by ordinary people over a bit of stolen food until she'd lost a shoe.
A shame she hadn't gotten to keep the pork, either. She hadn't even finished eating.
She shouldn't have been so picky earlier.
Bernadette staggered to a nearby tree and braced herself against the trunk, still breathing hard. A pervasive weakness was settling into her limbs. She looked at her faintly trembling fingers and her brow furrowed. "This body is in terrible shape..."
…
"This body is unbelievably powerful!"
Meanwhile — in the world of the Lord of the Mysteries — Vincent had the bread tucked firmly under his arm as he wove through the streets, the wind rushing past his ears, the shopkeeper's furious hollering fading behind him.
"What in the hell," he muttered, more to himself than anyone. "What kind of woman is this body, exactly? Dead, and it's still acting on its own?"
Then again — if not for her instincts, he'd probably have been hauled back to that pirate ship yesterday and subjected to things he didn't want to think about.
That thought had barely cleared his mind when he rounded a corner and came face to face with two policemen drawn by the shouting. They spotted him instantly, drew their batons, and came charging.
He made a sharp turn, shouldered through the people ahead of him, ducked into a side alley to a chorus of curses, and helped himself to one of the butter rolls on the way down.
The rich, sweet butter hit him like a revelation. Soft, fluffy, melting on his tongue — miles better than rye bread. He nearly cried.
So he ran and ate at the same time. His pace didn't drop.
The two officers gave chase for three streets before their legs finally gave out at the entrance to another alley. They bent double, gasping.
"How is he this fast?"
"Not just fast — he's eating. I watched him finish off that entire tray while running."
"What do we do? File for a warrant?"
"For a few bread rolls? Use your head."
On the other side of the alley, Vincent leaned against a wall and caught his breath, punctuated by a long string of butter-flavoured belches.
Ten-odd rolls down. Stomach well and truly full. He had the distinct sense he wouldn't want to look at a butter roll again for quite some time. "Next time I steal something, I'm picking differently."
"...???"
He stopped himself.
"Wait. Why was 'steal something again' my first instinct?"
To be continued…