"Ethan, honestly, becoming a werewolf comes with a lot of perks."

  Ivy seemed to have completely forgotten she was talking to someone who had actually studied werewolf ecology in detail.

  "Great strength, lightning-fast speed, insane regeneration. The followers of the Goddess of the Hunt have to imitate wolves for years and even eat human flesh if they want to turn into werewolves. You could get the same result just by putting on this collar."

  Her eyes were shining.

  She looked exactly like one of those infomercial salespeople promising you could take the product home today for only 9.99.

  Ethan shut that pitch down immediately.

  "But you'd get stupid."

  He had always considered himself an intelligence-based hero.

  For a mage, strength and agility were secondary stats.

  Ivy picked up the collar and held it out like she was presenting merchandise.

  "Don't you think it's beautifully made? It's prettier than a lot of expensive jewelry."

  "Once you turn into a werewolf, you can't turn back."

  Ethan did not budge.

  "In A Beginner's Guide to 100 Dark Creatures, Augustus wrote that he had never encountered a single case of a werewolf turning back into a human."

  "That's fine. I can keep you."

  How is that fine?

  Ethan saw right through her at once. This follower of the Society of Enlightenment just wanted to study the cursed object and the changes it caused.

  He shot a look at the tuft of blond hair on top of Ivy's head, trying to convey, can you please control your girl.

  The little tuft clearly couldn't take it anymore either. It gathered all its strength and slammed itself into Ivy's head, but the effect was minimal. It was nowhere near enough to interrupt her spellcasting.

  She kept going, listing the benefits in a rush.

  "You'd move into a big house, much bigger than this one. Every meal would come with premium beef. I could even hire a professional cook just for you. And if you wanted, I could get you a groomer to keep your fur in order. Teeth and claws too. I'd have specialists look after them regularly."

  "I refuse."

  Ethan was firm.

  Then he changed tack.

  "But I do have a plan. We can recruit a volunteer."

  This was a problem he had known he would have to face sooner or later.

  Before the Bureau of Containment arrived in town, the question was how to keep the cursed object secure.

  As the books made very clear, one mistake during storage could lead to catastrophic casualties.

  Based on the properties Ivy had identified, the safest solution in theory was to assign rotating teams at the Guild to guard the collar.

  In practice, though, things were not that simple.

  This world had a black market.

  And nobles across the Empire loved collecting strange little horrors to show off how unique their tastes were.

  If someone managed to sell off a suspected Tier Three cursed object, they would never have to keep living on the edge of a knife again.

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  The moment Ethan imagined the guards murdering each other over who got to claim the collar, he decided the fewer people who knew about it, the better.

  Constantly resisting a cursed object's pull was exhausting and thankless, so he chose to think about it from the opposite direction.

  If one volunteer put on the cursed object first, then its pull would no longer affect everyone else.

  Which left only one final question.

  Who would make the right volunteer?

  After all, once the collar went on, there would be no changing back.

  Ivy looked up at Ethan and waited quietly for the next step in his plan.

  "Chloe would be an excellent choice. She's an only child. Her parents died in an accident and left her with nothing but a shabby little house. More importantly, if she suddenly vanished, no one would even notice."

  In times like these, everyone knew a lonely girl like Chloe was unlikely to survive long anyway.

  "Instead of dying pointlessly from hunger or sickness, she'd be contributing something to the town. And later, people could carve her name into the monument in the town square. That should fit the Society's principles nicely."

  Just as Ethan expected, Ivy's brow relaxed almost at once.

  It was easy to see she was very pleased with this proposal.

  As for guilt or moral unease, that had never really been something followers of the Society of Enlightenment worried about.

  Ethan spoke up at once.

  "I'll go talk to Chloe."

  It only took him half an hour to bring the good news back to the Guild.

  When he walked in, Ivy was sitting in a corner on the first floor with a parchment book in her hands.

  The second she saw Ethan heading over, she looked up and asked, "Where's Chloe?"

  "Chloe was very understanding. Once she heard why I came, she agreed right away."

  "How much compensation does she want?"

  Ivy answered smoothly, which suggested this was far from the first time the Society had dealt with something like this.

  "If I put the study of this cursed object down as a research project, I can apply for funding through the Society."

  In an age where most people lived below the poverty line, the Society of Enlightenment could always find plenty of volunteers willing to sell themselves for the right price.

  "No need. I've already paid her compensation. Chloe is waiting for us outside town."

  Ivy nodded and praised him without hesitation.

  "I've always thought you had the potential to join the Society."

  It was just a polite thing to say.

  Ethan only smiled and walked back out of the Guild.

  The Society of Enlightenment was for respectable people.

  Most of the people who could join belonged to the nobility or wealthy merchant class.

  People with empty stomachs rarely had the luxury of chasing truth.

  Near the river at the southwest edge of town stood a small wooden cabin.

  It had originally belonged to an old hunter. After he died, it sat abandoned. Ethan had found that in the Guild records. When he first started practicing Fireball, he had borrowed the place for himself. Later, once his Fireball proficiency rose high enough for long-range casting, he had stopped coming here very often.

  The understanding Chloe was waiting outside the run-down cabin.

  A thick rope was tied around her neck.

  The moment she heard footsteps, she excitedly came running over, happily calling out with a series of eager clucks.

  Chloe was a gentle girl.

  When Ethan had carried her here, she had rested quietly on his forearm the whole way. She had not struggled, and she had not pecked him once.

  Her compensation had been half a slice of wheat bread.

  Chloe had been very happy with the arrangement.

  "This is the Chloe you were talking about?"

  Looking at the cheerful little hen, Ivy's expression darkened.

  The tuft of blond hair on her head stood straight up and seemed equally suspicious of Ethan.

  "I watched Chloe grow up. After her parents died, she was left all alone in the coop."

  The cause of that accident had been simple.

  The previous winter in Willowbrook had been brutally cold, and the town had already been short on food. On the night of a blizzard, people from town had broken into her home...

  Ethan lowered his gaze to the little hen hopping around by his feet and pushed the unpleasant memory aside.

  The chickens in this world were no different from the ones on Earth. If you raised one from a young age, it would always come running after you.

  "I think this is the best solution we have right now. Even if the cursed object twists Chloe's soul, the damage to the town will stay as low as possible."

  Except that it was not especially useful for Ivy's research.

  Still, Ethan believed people were always willing to compromise halfway.

  If you told a follower of the Society of Enlightenment to completely give up on curiosity, they would refuse. But if you offered a second-best option and even brought them a small animal to help with the experiment, they would give in.

  Ivy said nothing for a long time.

  In the end, she drew in a deep breath.

  Then she took out her notebook and handed the collar to Ethan.

  "You put it on her. I'll record the results."

  Ethan had to admit that the moment the collar landed in his hands, he felt deeply uneasy.

  Especially when he met Chloe's innocent little eyes, he was hit with a level of guilt he had never felt before.

  "I'll have your name carved into the town monument."

  That was the promise he made to Chloe before fastening the collar around her neck with his own hands.

  The change happened almost instantly.

  Her soft clucking turned into a sharp, shrill screech. Chloe's body swelled several times over in an instant, and a single shake was enough to knock Ethan away. Feathers began bursting from her body at a speed visible to the naked eye.

  The whole process lasted close to a minute.

  When it was over, the Chloe standing in front of him had become a giant creature that reached all the way up to his waist.

  Man and chicken stared at each other for a long moment.

  Then, for the first time in his life, Ethan got tackled by a chicken.