Houren inspected the intricate drawing at length, first up close and then from slightly afar. His eyesight was more or less perfect, but he still felt the need to scrutinize the detailed drawing that had been presented to him. It was the family crest of his employers, who had happened to lose it and had tasked him with getting it back for them. It was actually a somewhat unsettling picture of two swans entangling their necks except their necks seemed to be made of some sort of strange material that Houren could not identify because it was just a 2D sketching. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he searched his memory for such a thing, believing that perhaps he had seen such a thing in Era since his arrival, since they had been missing the crest for a while but eventually, Houren felt short and he concluded that this sketch was the first time he had seen this design. It was somewhat unfortunate that he wouldn't be able to make the job much shorter due to his good memory, but he supposed that things were rarely ever that simple; he decided to ask around to see if anyone had seen it first before deciding on a more drastic course of action. With that in mind, Houren approached a middle aged man in the center of the town who seemed to be doing his shopping.

"Have you seen this anywhere? Please try to recall," Houren had been journeying across Fiore for quite a while now and it was safe to say that he had met all sorts of characters throughout his time on the go; he had met nobility, both the kind you wanted to beat up on the spot, and the kind that were humble despite their means, he had met criminals, some justified in their actions, but more often than not, they weren't, but more than these colorful characters, Houren's interactions were mostly with the common every man, much like the person that he had posed the question to. After what must have been 40 or 50 seconds of thinking, the man eventually shook his head, apologized and walked away, much to Houren's disappointment but he did not hold anything against the man. After all, it wasn't as though the Fairy Tail mage was expecting to strike bingo on his first try. He decided to ask someone else, a woman of similar age to the previous man who was with her young child, but it seemed like she was not willing to give him the time of day as her son began to run towards a nearby ice cream truck and she ran after him, only murmuring the most insincere and quiet of apologies before doing so. Houren didn't hold anything against her either, since after all, you couldn't trust kids to be by themselves at that age just yet, especially not if they saw it fit to run after ice cream carts, but then again, that could be blamed on bad parenting.

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Houren's luck eventually hit a turn for the better when he found a young man, perhaps around 20 or so who claimed that he had actually seen the family crest in the hands of a criminal who had attempted to sell it to him; the young man, who was aware that the seller was a felon of some sort refused and after some harassing, eventually decided that he would be better off elsewhere and slunk off to find another unsuspecting victim. This justified Houren's deduction that the family crest had, in fact, been stolen and the person who had stolen it was a thief who specialized in robbing valuable looking items and then reselling them at a much greater price. It was a practice that Houren absolutely could not approve of and he immediately asked the young man where he could find this guy, and he was redirected to a person named ''Gaud'' who was famous exactly for doing what Houren had feared; the robbing of valuables from people and then the reselling of them are extortionate prices. Or rather, this guy was different. Gaud was not the original thief, just a person who was willing to buy things and resell them at a higher price, a bonafide businessman but no criminal.

It pained Houren's heart to not have been able to bring the actual thief to justice, but in the end, that was not in his job description at all. He had been told to find out the whereabouts of the Family Crest and bring it back to the family who bore its emblem, and that was exactly what Houren's priority was. In that respect, such things like the actual thief didn't really matter so long as he managed to retrieve the crest itself. Houren sighed as he headed over to where Gaud generally sold his wares and brought him to one side before showing the intricate picture of the crest that he had with him. "If this is in your possession, I'm going to have to ask you to hand it over to me. I'll try to compensate you as best as I can, but you'll be in trouble with the Rune Knights if you refuse," it was not a threat, simply the truth. Houren would be obligated to tell the family where their crest was, and once they knew that Gaud was the one holding it, they would use all the power at their disposal to get it back. Being who they were, that would not have been difficult at all, and as such, Gaud was actually in danger if he didn't give it up. He swore and cursed as he took out the crest and handed it to Houren, albeit reluctantly.

"Didn't know it belonged to them." his words were full of resentment; Houren didn't care though as he headed back to the gate where the guard was waiting for him with his monetary reward in exchange for the crest. Life was sweet indeed.

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