One thing led to another, which caused Sophia and Maya to end up in the blonde's original world. To make things worse, she already was plenty depressed after Canir had told her about her family right before and how her sister seemed to be having a hard time. Returning to her old home under these circumstances had stressed her a lot, and it almost seemed like she had regressed a little to her former self, as well. Luckily, Maya was with her, managed to keep her afloat, and cheered her up again.

Once they made sure that returning home was possible, the couple decided to explore the city they were in while the blonde explained all the curious sights to her girlfriend. She also took a lot of second-hand damage from explaining all the stupid mistakes humanity made, and is continuing to do, because Maya just could understand it. While arriving in the actual shopping district and noticing some familiar sights, the blonde finally realized why everything felt somewhat familiar. As it turned out, the two had ended up in her old home city.

“Eh… This is your city…?” Maya needed a moment to understand those words. “This is actually the place you came from?!”

“Y-Yes…” The blonde didn’t sound too happy about this revelation. “The city is gigantic, though… Many, many times larger than the capital. My actual home is quite far away. Basically impossible to reach on foot because we can’t run faster than ordinary humans here… Attention and all that stuff. I used other means of transport to go here for shopping and other things…"

"We can't do that to go there?"

“It costs money to use..." She shook her head before taking out one of the gold coins she had pulled out of her storage earlier. "Those obviously don’t work here.”

“Ahh, that makes sense…” Maya saw the issue. “Too bad.”

“W-We wouldn’t be going there, anyway!" The blonde got loud. "I don't know many people, but the chance that someone recognizes me there is not zero… Not to mention that… that Steph might be there…" Her voice instantly turned somber again. "It would only… end in a catastrophe…”

“You worry too much~.”

“I don’t worry nearly enough right now!”

“Let’s just agree to disagree.” The white-haired girl’s mood was a lot cheerier than that of Sophia. "Aww, but no money also means no shopping, huh? I don't get this place at all, and all the noise and moving pictures are actually scary, but… I bet there are lots of interesting things to buy, right?”

“You have no idea… But yes, we’re limited to looking at stuff only…”

“Too bad!”

“Yeah…” She nodded. After all, now that they were here, there would be many things Sophia wouldn't mind getting. "Wait…" She then stared at the gold coin from the other world she had pulled out earlier. “There’s no way this is actual gold, right…? The coin is pretty heavy, but it would be way too valuable, right? Though, is gold even valuable over there…? It might actually be common?”

“What are you mumbling about?” Maya tilted her head while trying to make sense of her girl.

“Say… How much is gold worth on the other side?”

“Gold…?” She paused for a moment. “The metal, some jewelry, and the bigger coins are made out of? A little more than the other metals, I would say? It looks nice, but it’s way too soft to make anything meaningful out of it. From what I remember, it’s almost exclusively used for jewelry and some fancy decoration. It looks really nice, after all. And the coins, of course. It's not that much of a rare material. Still, it's softer than most metals, and together with the color that stands out quite a bit, it's supposedly hard to make counterfeit coins. They would probably end up being more expensive than the original ones.”

"A-Are you for real…?”

"Yes?" Maya looked more confused. "I heard that there are some rules around gold, like everything made with gold has to cost at least as much as the same weight in coins to keep the value, but other than that, gold is nothing special. The same rule applies to silver, too. There are probably some, or many, other regulations, but that’s the gist of it.”

“Oh my goodness…”

“What’s wrong?”

“Gold is incredibly valuable here… If it’s actually real gold, as in the same as it is here, and we find a place to exchange it for money, a few coins would be enough to never stop shopping today!”

"S-Seriously?!" The white-haired girl got loud. "Well… a few gold coins do the same in the capital, so I guess it's fair?”

“I was talking about serious shopping.” Sophia stared right at her. “If I remember right, you need about 50 to 100 gold coins per month to live over there, right?”

“Normal people, yeah… We spend a lot more…” The incognito cat only scratched her cheek.

“Well, I’m not sure about the exact gold price right now, but if the coin is solid gold, a single one might already be more than enough to get through a month here.”

“F-For real?!”

"Yes!" Sophia was getting excited, and the whole situation of her worrying about being back in her home city was put on hold. “I need to remember where all those cash-for-gold scammers are again… Probably near the other tourist traps? We have to find the shadiest amongst them, though… I’m pretty sure the mostly legit ones ask for your ID or something similar. Something we don't have. That will probably hurt the exchange rate a lot, but I can't say I care about that if we can go on a shopping spree! Not to mention that the number of gold coins I have in my storage is in the 4 digits… We are filthy rich, aren’t we…?”

“What a thing to say…” Maya rolled her eyes. “It’s kinda true, though… Wait, so that means we might be able to get some of this world’s money?”

"A lot of it, if we are lucky!”

“Awesome!” She also got excited. "Before that, you have to explain a lot of things to me first!"

“There are many curious things here, huh?”

“Many?!” She raised her voice once again. “What’s up with this place?! You said that there is no magic here, but all the stuff I'm seeing, and don't understand at all, tells a different story! If anything, it's way more impressive than our magic!"

“I beg to differ! Like, a lot. A lot a lot, but I can see where you’re coming from.” If one has never seen electricity and or technology before, it’s not that weird to compare it to magic, after all. “Well, I’ll try my best to explain everything. Though, I can’t say that I know how all of that works exactly, either…”

“As long as I’ll be at least a little less confused afterward, that’s fine!”

“I can’t guarantee for nothing, but ask away~.”

“Why is it so loud here?! Sure there are a bunch of humans all around, which already is plenty unnerving, but it seems much louder… I think I can make out a ton of music, too… but I don’t see anyone playing an instrument. Ignoring the part where I don’t know any instruments that could even make sounds like some of the stuff I’m hearing… Is that even music…? Noise might be more fitting.”

“Ahh, well, I better not answer whether it's noise or music… Taste is subjective, after all.” Sophia scratched her cheek in return.

"There are limits to that, though…”

“Ahaha… Anyway, no, it’s fake.”

“Fake?”

“How to even explain all of this…?” She needed to think about it first. “Okay, it’s a really stupid explanation, but it’s similar to how we write down words on paper? Only that we have a way to actually note down the voice of someone and can make the sound of it come out later again. It works the same for music and basically everything that makes a noise…”

“S-Seriously?!”

“Yup.” The blonde nodded. “It’s quite nice to be able to listen to music whenever you feel like it. It’s actually one of the things I miss.”

“I can imagine! It gets a little overwhelming with all the noise, though…"

“Well, that’s what happens if every store wants to make you hear their own things. Combine that with how some people think everyone around them also wants to hear whatever they're listening to because they think they're the center of the world."

“Are they idiots?”

“Yup.” Sophia couldn't have said it better herself as she glanced at a few people using their phones on speaker right now. "Idiots."

"I see." Maya had no intention of questioning it. "What about all those small boxes with the moving art in them? And the GIANT ones all over those way too big houses?!" She just kept going. “It feels like my senses are getting fried here… How can anyone stay calm with so much going on?!”

“You get used to it.”

“Is that really something you should get used to?!" She got louder again. "Wouldn't it be better to turn all that down a little instead?"

"That's how advertisement works here... Instead of trying to sell something people actually want or try to catch them with something clever, they just make their ads louder."

"Why...?"

“…” Once more, there was no reply. “Anyway, well, it’s a completely different concept, but the idea is pretty much the same as the recorded sound. Only that it’s pictures, art, nature, or whatever else that got recorded visually. Often enough, it’s also specifically made for those smaller boxes. By the way, those are TVs, the thing Chloe and I talked about earlier. They’re able to play pictures and sound.”

“Ohh!”

“It’s pretty fun to have one normal-sized one at home for entertainment.”

“I still don’t really get it, but I’m starting to understand the allure of watching all those moving art. All of this at once is making my head spin, though…”

"Yeah… It's a little overwhelming at times. Even I have a somewhat hard time after seeing nothing like this since I left… Someone who sees it for the first time, that has to be too much.”

“Mh-hmm.”

“Anything else you’re curious about?”

“Is that a joke?!” She just pointed at basically everything around them.

“Ahaha…”

Afterward, Sophia spent quite a lot of time explaining absolutely everything that had caught Maya’s interest. Which was a lot. Once her curiosity was somewhat sated, the two could finally start exploring the city for real. The white-haired girl made no effort to stop being amazed at basically everything, though. For some reason, she was especially interested in some of the shops that used focused laser-like light to gather attention. Interestingly enough, Sophia also seemed to enjoy them a lot more than she remembered from her past.