“Just don’t walk so fast, okay?”

“I’m sorry, I was just eager to get out and see the city.”

They were only about a block from the inn where he and his friends were currently staying, which was a fairly congested area. The well-kempt streets were swelling with people, most of which wore the colours of the CMA. Although they hadn’t gone out much thus far into their stay in Tallgate, Esteban got the sense that most people in town were either merchants or affiliated with them, though there was an obvious presence of foreign nobility no matter where in the city that he had been.

He remembered his childhood before the Interspatial Migration, recalling how excited the thought of nobles in such a setting had always made him. All of the videogames that he had played and many of the cartoons he’d watched had focused around medieval themes, and while some cities and peoples in Venara were more advanced than others, most of what he’d experienced was more in line with a less-developed world. Thanks to actually living in such a place, Esteban had gained a subconscious dislike for most nobles and well-off individuals, for in this world they tended to take what they wanted and treat people poorly without any regard to the feelings or safety of the other party.

“Why do you look so bitter? If you really don’t want to come, you don’t have to.”

They passed by three people, two pretty girls a bit older than him, and a man in his mid-fifties. Dragging his eyes from the fat, chuckling merchant that was absolutely dripping with wealth, Esteban stifled his glare. “It’s not that. I just saw an annoying person.”

Aine grabbed his hand and pulled him along in an impatient manner, stifling any possible retort with the contact. “Come on, already. We passed a nice clothing store on our first day, and I really want to look around inside.”

“O—okay.”

If she insisted, then he figured that it wouldn’t be too much of a sacrifice.

It took them about twenty minutes to find the right place, Aine having held his hand the entire time. At first he’d thought that she simply didn’t think of it, but once they stopped at the entrance to the store she glanced at her hand and retracted it with an awkward gasp.

He followed after her as she hurried inside, revealing an interior of cool stone floors and high wooden walls. All sorts of mannequins were set up throughout the open space, all of them garbed in different clothing. These were less like the ones he was familiar with and more similar in appearance to the adjustable wooden dolls that had been commonly used by artists back on Earth. His mother had been a painter, so he had seen many of them during his childhood.

“Do you think this would look good on me?” she asked, awaiting his response as she held up a thin dress that was similar in size to her small frame.

“Uh, yeah.”

“I think so too. I think I’ll buy it.”

“Whoa, you’re going to spend fifty spirit stones on a dress?”

“Why not? I can buy hundreds of them if I want to.”

“I mean, I guess you’re right.”

He had personally saved up over 100,000 spirit stones since Nolan had taken him in, though he rarely spent his money. His family had been quite poor back on Earth, more so than he’d originally thought now that he was friends with people that had lived in the prosperous parts of North America. Sean and Nolan often talked about their lives back in the United States and Canada, of how even young teenagers like him had had the opportunity to earn the equivalent of hundreds of American dollars in a single week if they had wanted to go out and get a job, and that it hadn’t been difficult in those societies to find such work. This compared to the twenty odd dollars that his parents would have been lucky to make in a single day, combined. The stories that his friends often told drew stark contrasts with the life he’d lived in Central America, in a little country by the equator where his mother had eked a living from selling her paintings to tourists on the streets. Meanwhile, his father had risked his life on a daily basis to sell bagged snacks at checkpoints along the highways or in the middle of the busiest intersections in the city where they had lived, almost always in the hot sun.

“What about this one?”

Looking at the second outfit that she had retrieved from a rack of clothes, he nodded his approval. “That one’s nice too.” He didn’t actually put any thought into how the clothes would look. Instead, he focused on the price. Eighty spirit stones? You could buy so much food with that… If it were his father, he’d have fainted from the frivolousness.

Due to his upbringing, no matter how much wealth Esteban accumulated in this world, he would never overlook the value of even a simple copper card. Regardless of what anyone might think, he viewed his frugality as a valuable trait that he had learned from his parents, as something that connected him to the life he had lived in the past.

Thinking of his parents had resulted in a painful amount of self-pity, but he distracted himself by giving Aine his earnest opinion about the clothes that she wanted to try on. Doing so was surprisingly uncomfortable, just enough to forget how much he missed his family. She ended up buying twelve outfits, five pairs of sandals and three pairs of boots for a grand total of 1,250 spirit stones. As Esteban was helping her carry everything over to the counter behind which several clerks awaited them, he wondered if he could find some cheap street food in the area.

I hope there’s some barbequed meat skewers around. He had originally taken a break from cultivating to grab a bite to eat in the main area of the suite, but had walked out of his room to find Aine sulking on one of the many sofas. He hadn’t even made it to the nearest table when she had rushed over to him and all but dragged him from the room.

“Will that be all, miss?”

“And this one, too.”

Looking at the clothes that she had just placed on the counter, Esteban spoke out in confusion. “Aren’t those guy clothes?”

“Your awareness is impressive,” she teased, paying the clerk the rest of the cost. “These are for you.” Smiling happily, she held them out for him to grab and waited patiently for him to do so. “Thanks for coming with me, Esteban. I know it must have been a bother, but I haven’t done anything like this since my family was still around, so it really means a lot to me.”

He grabbed the clothes with hesitant hands, unsure of what to say. In the end he settled for, “Thank you. I mean, you’re welcome. Er…both, I guess.” He suddenly felt that it wasn’t so bad of an idea to tag along with her on her shopping trip.

“Is there anything you want to do?” she asked. “If there is, I don’t mind going with you. It’s only fair, after all.”

Was she always this nice? He’d never thought of her as a bad person or anything like that, but Aine tended to tease him about his height fairly often, which annoyed him to no end. After his most recent breakthrough to the Integration stage, however, they were now the same height, which was probably the reason why she hadn’t made one of her usual jabs at him by now. He was still tied with her as the two shortest members of the group, but at least it didn’t seem like she was going to bother him about his height any longer.

“A lot of people have been talking about an auction happening later tonight. Do you…want to go?”

“An auction? Okay, that sounds fun!”

“Okay, let’s go then.”

“Wait,” she said, pulling him to a stop. “I’ll only go under two conditions.”

“What?”

“You have to wear the clothes I bought you.”

“Alright… What else?”

“You have to get me something at the auction.”

Seeing the expectancy in her bright eyes, Esteban forced a cough. “On second thought, it’s getting pretty late.”

“Don’t be such a miser!”

“Alright, alright. You don’t have to hit me.”

Esteban had only thought to go to the auction because he had picked up plenty of random things during all of the previous conflicts and adventures that he’d been involved in, and he had been hoping to see if he could sell any of them to make some quick money. Auctioned items generally weren’t cheap, so now that he had to buy something for Aine he suddenly regretted ever offering the option. When he thought about it, he also couldn’t turn her down, since he had just accepted a gift from her mere moments ago.

“I’m gonna go change.” Dragging his feet, he walked over to one of the changing rooms at the back of the store and quickly swapped out his current outfit for the comfortable set of thick, cottony robes that Aine had bought him, which were a light shade of blue.