Isabella walked gracefully among the crystal display racks, her slender fingers gliding over fabrics that cost the equivalent of months’ wages in the Lower Zone, a small, contented smile playing on her face beneath the white mask.
She stopped in front of a midnight-blue tailored ensemble and pulled it out, examining the stitching under the store’s light.
"Halon, if you want to move around the Upper Zone without being stopped by patrol drones on every corner, I don’t think basic black is enough..." she remarked, her voice taking on an authoritative tone she usually used when she was deeply focused on something. "People here don’t just look at the color of what you’re wearing; although they’re quite foolish and superficial in many ways, that part of their minds has developed to the point where they even look at the thermal signature and light refraction of the fabric you’re wearing."
"This one is made of Synthetic Ether Silk. In the Upper Zone, wearing something that breathes with the ambient energy is what distinguishes a functional citizen from a prestigious heir. This fabric doesn’t accumulate static dust and shows that you don’t need heavy filters to stay clean."
She turned toward him, bringing the fabric close to Lohan’s face.
"Besides," she continued, her tone softening slightly. "The deep blue will create a nice contrast with your black hair. And considering that your blue eyes have become much more intense after the... integration... this outfit will make you look like someone who was born and has always belonged to the Upper Zone, leaving no room for people to judge you by your appearance."
As she explained, Isabella looked up and met Lohan’s blue eyes directly.
For a second, which seemed to drag on for several minutes, she held his gaze, observing the calm and confidence he now exuded naturally, while he, too, held her gaze, meeting her golden eyes with calm and a faint trace of affection.
The blush she was trying to hide beneath her mask crept up her pearly neck. She abruptly looked away and refocused on a rack of smart-fiber shirts.
"Anyway... it’s a matter of aesthetics and status," she murmured, regaining her composure and quickly piling items into his arms. "Take this silver-ion shirt to neutralize any residual odor and these molecular-compression pants. They adjust to your musculature as you move, which is useful since you seem to be getting bigger every day."
Lohan watched Isabella move back and forth like a reddish-white blur, grabbing tech belts, jackets with kinetic insulation, and low-gravity footwear.
The stack in his arms grew exponentially, obscuring his vision and weighing almost as much, if not more, than the various valuables in his backpack.
He looked at the mountain of luxury fabrics and felt a chill that not even his Structural Stability could suppress.
And the funniest part of it all was that all these technological features of these clothes were completely useless to him.
Everything these clothes were capable of doing, and they were expensive for being able to do it, he could do even better with the upgrades he’d received from the game.
But seeing the small smile forming in the girl’s eyes, and the faint blush appearing on her neck, Lohan stayed quiet and let it continue.
’Right... I asked for this, but I think I just got myself into a dungeon far more dangerous than a Level 15 one...’ Lohan thought, realizing that the Astralis Requiem President’s shopping spree was just beginning and that he would be her test model for the next few hours.
Isabella laughed, selecting four outfits ranging from modern executive to urban tactical. When Lohan picked up the clothes and headed for the fitting room, one of the employees, a middle-aged woman with cold eyes, finally intervened, blocking his path.
"Excuse me, sir..." she said, her voice laced with acidic politeness. "These garments are made of extremely delicate organic materials. I cannot allow anyone... without proper prior sanitization to try them on. They could be stained by dirt from outside."
Lohan stopped, feeling a faint trace of Killing Intent pulsing subtly beneath his skin, but before he could respond, the store manager emerged from a side room.
The manager was an older woman, with a keen eye for identifying the true elite, and her watchful gaze did not fix on Lohan, but on the masked girl beside him.
The manager walked quickly over and grabbed the employee’s arm, whispering something urgently. The employee frowned, confused, looking at Isabella’s arm.
"Look at her bracelet, you idiot," the manager hissed.
The overhead light hit the bracelet Isabella wore on her right wrist, a cherished gift to the girl, and suddenly, a rainbow light spread across the store floor, reflecting off the crystal walls.
This was the optical signature of a Primal Ether Gem, a stone so rare that few people in the solar system had the connections to buy even a single gram of it. But on the red-haired girl’s arm, there was a full bracelet, studded with those gems.
The silence that settled over Hera’s Grace was absolute.
The other employees froze in their tracks, and the woman blocking Lohan turned pale instantly, letting go of his arm as if she’d touched a burning ember. They realized, too late, that the girl with the "beggar" wasn’t just rich, she was on a level they couldn’t even imagine.
Isabella didn’t say a word; she merely adjusted her hat with cold elegance.
Lohan, sensing the drastic shift in the atmosphere, gave a wry smile to the terrified employee and entered the fitting room with the outfits worth a fortune.
As the fitting room door closed, the employees stood motionless and silent, watching the "rat from the Lower Zone" being treated like royalty by proxy, while the rainbow light from Isabella’s bracelet continued to mock their prejudiced mediocrity.
Isabella didn’t focus on the women or waste time lecturing them; she simply looked at the woman who had coldly interrupted them and walked toward the fitting room entrance. But to the manager’s watchful and experienced eye, she knew that this was far more dangerous than public humiliation.