The morning air carried a gentle warmth that spread across the wide stone street as the first rays of sunlight slowly climbed above the distant rooftops. The city had only just begun to wake, yet the faint sounds of life were already spreading through the streets like ripples across still water.
Vendors were arranging stalls along the roadside, placing baskets of fruits, small trinkets, herbs, and polished tools in careful rows while exchanging casual greetings with neighbors who had done the same routine for years.
The scent of fresh bread drifted through the air from a nearby bakery, mixing with the earthy smell of damp stone and morning dew.
Eric stood near the corner of the street with a small wooden skewer in his hand, slowly chewing a roasted meat cube while observing the lively scene around him.
"This place really wakes up fast in the morning," he muttered to himself while taking another bite.
He had already walked through several streets since sunrise, and each one had felt slightly different. Some were filled with merchants loudly advertising their goods while others were quieter, occupied mostly by Adventurers adjusting their equipment before heading toward the city gates.
What fascinated Eric the most was not the people, but the sheer variety of them.
Humans walked casually along the streets, speaking loudly with merchants or bargaining over prices, yet they were far from the only race present in the city.
A tall beast man with gray fur and curved horns walked past him carrying a large crate of iron tools on one shoulder as if it weighed nothing. Not far away, a group of slender elves were quietly speaking to one another while examining magical crystals at a stall decorated with faint glowing runes.
Even further down the street, Eric noticed a large figure with deep blue skin and webbed fingers stepping out from a shaded alley, his heavy boots echoing softly against the stone path. These were just few of the races, there were countless that he could not even identify or even knew the name.
Eric watched the scene with quiet interest.
He slowly leaned against a wall beside the street while finishing the last piece of roasted meat on his skewer.
"This place is way bigger than I expected."
Although he had already heard Ash explain that this realm was far larger than the original world they came from, witnessing it directly was an entirely different experience.
The city itself was enormous. In reality, the city was as big as that of a world. After finishing his food, he started walking towards the inner district.
Eric passed by a massive building carrying the crest of the Adventurer’s Guild, where dozens of armed individuals were entering and leaving through its heavy doors.
Further along the street stood another large structure decorated with banners that carried the symbol of the Mercenary Guild, where armored warriors were loudly discussing contracts and drinking ale even though the day had barely begun.
He stretched his arms lazily while turning his gaze toward the center of the city, the core district to be precise, where several massive towers rose above everything else.
One of them belonged to the Mage Council, a place where powerful spellcasters gathered to study advanced magic.
Another tower was rumored to be used by the Rune Scholars, individuals dedicated to studying ancient runic knowledge. Indeed, with the fusion of countless words, the runic path has become quite popular, and many new runic symbols that help in daily life are being continuously researched and studied as of now.
Eric scratched his head slowly while staring at those distant structures.
"There are way too many organizations here."
And that was not even half of them.
He had overheard people talking about the Alchemy Society, the Realm Guardians, and even whispers about darker groups that operated within the shadows of the city.
Despite all the different races, organizations, and rumors of hidden conflicts, the city itself felt strangely peaceful in the morning light.
Children ran between market stalls while laughing loudly, merchants argued over prices in exaggerated tones, and travelers prepared for their journeys with relaxed conversations.
It felt like an ordinary day.
And that ordinary feeling somehow made everything more fascinating.
Eric looked down at the empty skewer in his hand before casually tossing it into a nearby waste basket.
"I should probably bring something back before Ash starts wondering what I am doing."
Although Ash rarely said anything directly, Eric had the distinct feeling that the man somehow noticed everything happening around him.
The street curved gently ahead, and as he followed it the morning bustle gradually softened into a quieter rhythm. In distance he saw a public teleportation gate, which he entered like everyone was doing and arrived at the inner district.
There was no fees for using the gate, after all the city was too big to be traversed by simply walking.
After walking few streets, Eric entered a new street dedicated to the tailors, jewelers, tool merchants, and a few other specialty stores.
Unlike the open stalls in the Outer district, these shops carried a more settled atmosphere. The City was divided into 3 districts, Outer, Inner and the Core District.
Eric slowed his pace when a familiar shop sign came into view.
The sign hung above a wide glass window framed by polished dark metal. Fine letters had been engraved into the surface, the grooves filled with a faint silver dye that shimmered softly under the sunlight.
[Stitches & Riches]
Eric stopped beneath it for a moment and pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The interior of the shop was calm and neatly arranged, the early sunlight filtering through the front window and spreading across rows of clothing displays that stood carefully positioned along the walls. Long coats, travel jackets, fitted tunics, and flexible trousers were arranged in clean lines, each piece hanging with the quiet confidence of craftsmanship that had been carefully refined.
At first glance, most of the clothing looked entirely ordinary.
Good fabric.
Precise stitching.
Comfortable designs meant for travelers and city dwellers alike.
However, every cloth was enchanted with the runes, that gave them various effects of their own. The enchantments were done in such a way, that they looked more like a design, that breathed life into the clothes.
Eric closed the door behind him and glanced around the shop with a satisfied nod.
"Good. Nothing exploded while I was gone."
A calm voice answered inside his mind.
{You say that every morning as if explosions are a normal possibility.}
Eric raised an eyebrow.
"Sister Eva, you have seen the kind of things Ash experiments with in the back room. I would say mild paranoia is a perfectly reasonable survival trait."
A faint sense of amusement passed through Eva’s presence.
{There have been no explosions so far. And he is older than you, Call him brother too...}
"So far." Eric repeated while walking toward the counter and completely ignoring the latter part of her sentence.
For a brief moment he simply stood there and looked around.
Six months.
It had only been half a year since they first arrived here, yet the place already felt strangely familiar.
The first few weeks after their arrival had been confusing, but not chaotic. Most of their time was spent learning what had actually happened to this place and how such a realm came into existence. Almost every traveler carried a different story, yet after hearing enough conversations and gathering information little by little, the general truth became clear.
This realm had not grown naturally like a normal world.
It had been formed when countless different worlds fused together into one enormous landmass. Fragments of lands, civilizations, and environments had merged into a single realm whose size was far beyond anything Eric had ever imagined.
Because of that scale, many natural rules did not work the way they normally should.
Even something as simple as the day and night cycle behaved differently depending on the region. Some distant lands were said to remain under constant sunlight without any sunset at all, while others rarely saw the sun and lived under dim skies or endless darkness. In some places moons moved across the sky like a normal world, while in others there were none at all.
The reason was simple.
The realm was simply too large for a normal planetary rotation to control everything evenly.
Other than that, they also discovered something far more surprising.
Time inside the realm moved faster.
According to the people living here, the realm had only existed for four years since the great fusion happened. However, after collecting information from many sources and comparing dates, Eric and Eva realized that almost ten years had actually passed since the realm first appeared.
At some point after the realm stabilized, its internal flow of time had changed.
Many scholars had already noticed this difference and were studying it. The most common theory suggested that because the realm was still new and still settling, the distortion in time had not fully stabilized yet.
Some researchers even believed that the time difference would slowly spread outward into the rest of the universe.
For now the effect remained limited to the realm itself.
People had no idea who created this realm and why, but there were many theories that Eric and Eva did not even know what to believe and what not to believe.
Eric did not spend much time thinking about those theories. For most people living here, life simply continued as usual, and the difference in time had already become part of the world’s normal rules.
"You know," Eric said thoughtfully, "for a place this big, the mornings here are surprisingly peaceful."
"That is because most of the travelers have already passed through the gates before sunrise."
Eric nodded slowly.
"That makes sense."
Eric leaned his back lightly against the counter while letting his gaze wander toward the front window again.
A few people were already moving along the street with steady steps, some carrying travel packs while others walked in relaxed conversation as they made their way toward the distant teleportation gates.
Then a thought surfaced in his mind, one that had appeared more than once over the past months.
"You know," Eric said after a short pause, his voice carrying a slow curiosity rather than complaint, "I have been wondering about something for a while now."
Eva answered calmly within his thoughts.
"{What is it?}"
Eric glanced toward the back of the shop where the door remained closed.
"Why is Ash even running a clothing shop?"
"I mean, if someone told me a year ago, back in the soul space that we would end up managing a clothing store, I would have laughed. Out of everything he could have done here, opening a shop selling clothes does not feel right."
He rested his elbows on the counter.
"And not just that. Why open a shop at all? With the kind of things Ash can do, he could have chosen a hundred different paths that would have been far more better. I an not complaining, after all the life has been quite peaceful so far and its cozy enough to get used to. I am just curious about his reasonings."
Eva remained silent for a brief moment before answering.
"{I do not know.}"
Eric blinked once.
"You really have no idea?"
"{No.}"
Although a large amount of Ash’s memories and knowledge were preserved inside the Soul Library, there were still certain sections that remained inaccessible.
Some parts were deliberately sealed, especially the ones connected to his previous life.
Because of that, even Eva could only see the parts he had allowed to remain accessible, which meant the reasons behind some of Ash’s personal decisions were simply unknown.
Eric leaned back again while looking around the shop.
"Well... I guess if he wanted to tell us, he would have."
The quiet settled again for a brief moment.
Then suddenly—
-Ding!!!
The soft bell above the entrance rang as the door opened and a customer stepped inside.
****