A road is a living creature. It breathes the morning mist, sweats under the midday sun, and falls asleep, covered by the velvet blanket of a starry night. For the first few days of their journey, it was wild and untamed to them. The familiar forest with its well-known paths, which had seemed like an entire world, was replaced by boundless fields and hills dotted with sparse groves. The air became different—drier, filled with dust and the scent of distant, unknown places. The transition from the shaded, enclosed space of the forest to the open, sun-drenched plains was, for them, akin to stepping out of a cave into the bright afternoon. The world suddenly expanded its borders to the very horizon, and this feeling of immense space was simultaneously intoxicating and frightening.
They walked, adhering to a strict rhythm set by Raine. Rise an hour before dawn, a quick breakfast of dried meat and flatbread, and then long hours of walking until the sun began to dip toward the horizon. Their conversations were rare and short, as if they were afraid to startle the silence of this new, vast world. Bell, more open by nature, constantly turned his head, his ruby eyes absorbing every detail with eager curiosity: a hawk soaring in the sky, the whimsical shape of the clouds, the bright wildflowers on the roadside. His soul sang with a sense of freedom and anticipation. Every stream, every squirrel they encountered was a small discovery for him. He soaked up this world like a sponge, and his imagination painted pictures of future exploits and adventures.
Raine was his complete opposite. He walked immersed in his own thoughts, yet his attention never wavered for a second. His amber eyes methodically scanned the horizon, catching the slightest movement, and his hearing, honed by years of hunting, could distinguish the snap of a twig hundreds of yards away. He was the guardian, the shadow moving alongside Bell's bright flame. He assessed every hill as a potential ambush point, every cluster of trees as a possible enemy hiding place. His calmness was not innate, but forged—the result of thousands of hours of meditation and training from his past life, superimposed on the harsh reality of his current one.
On the third day of their journey, the monotony of the road was broken. Ahead, on a hill, the silhouette of a slowly moving column appeared—a merchant caravan. Several cumbersome, canvas-covered wagons, drawn by oxen, crept slowly along the track, surrounded by a dozen grim, heavily armed guards in worn leather armor.
"Stay close," Raine said quietly, his hand instinctively resting on the hilt of his knife. "We don't know who they are. Look at their weapons; they've seen use. There are nicks on the armor. These guys aren't wearing it for show."
As they drew level with the caravan, they slowed their pace. Leading the procession was a portly, bearded man in a leather vest, perched on the driver's seat of the front wagon. Noticing them, he narrowed his small, cunning eyes.
"Well, will you look at that! Chicks fallen from the nest!" he barked, his voice as rough as an unplaned board. "Where are you heading, runts? Don't tell me it's Orario, for fame and fortune?"
Bell, a little flustered by such a direct address, nonetheless nodded. "Yes, sir. We want to become adventurers."
The merchant burst out laughing, his huge belly shaking. "Adventurers! Ha! You're not the first and you won't be the last. Hundreds of dreamers just like you flock to Orario every year. You think they're waiting for you with open arms? The city will eat you alive and won't even burp if you stand there gaping. It grinds kids like you to dust."
"We are prepared for the hardships," Raine replied coolly, his voice cold and steady, which made the merchant turn serious for a moment and curb his mocking tone.
"Prepared, are you?" He gave them an appraising look. He noted the homemade but sturdy bows, the travel packs, and, most importantly, the confidence with which they held themselves. One's gaze was naive, but full of fire. The other's was calm and cold, like a veteran's. "Well, maybe you'll amount to something. Name's Borin. I'm hauling goods to the city. It's a long way to Orario, another ten days of hoofing it, if not more."
They walked with the caravan for several hours. Borin, once he got talking, turned out to be not such an unpleasant sort. He spun tales about different cities, complained about the Guild's taxes, and gave them practical advice.
"The main thing, lads, is don't poke your nose out on the road at night. Goblins are small fry. There are worse things out there. And people... sometimes people are more dangerous than any monster. Best to camp for the night with folks like me, merchants with guards. It's safer together."
In the evening, when the caravan stopped to make camp by a small river, Raine approached Borin. He silently laid out half a dozen magic stones, harvested back in their home forest, on a piece of cloth.
The merchant's eyes gleamed greedily. "Oho! So you're not traveling empty-handed! The stones are small, goblin-grade, but for the whole lot, I can give you a couple of bags of provisions, a flint and steel, and a good steel kettle. Deal?"
The deal was struck. The new food and the sturdy kettle were far more useful than stones they had no way of selling until the city anyway. That night, they sat by their own small fire, a short distance from the noisy merchant camp where the guards were laughing loudly and drinking ale.
"He's right, Raine," Bell said thoughtfully, staring at the dancing flames. "We really don't know anything about this world. Only what was in Grandpa's books."
"Books give you knowledge, Bell. But only the road gives you experience," Raine replied, tossing a dry branch into the fire. "And we will get it. Every new day, every new person we meet, is a lesson. Our job is to learn, and fast."
The following days on the road were not so lonely. They met other travelers: farming families moving to new lands; a troupe of traveling performers who showed them a few tricks in exchange for some of their dinner; silent pilgrims walking to holy sites. Every conversation, every overheard phrase, added new brushstrokes to their picture of the world. They learned that some bridges required a toll, that larger villages had inns where you could stay for a modest fee, and that it was best not to call beast-people "dogs" or "cats" if you didn't want trouble.
Two days before their expected arrival in Orario, the road became noticeably wider and more crowded. Now they frequently encountered armed groups—real adventurers, returning from excursions or hunts. Raine studied them with cold curiosity, while Bell stared wide-eyed, afraid to blink. He saw dwarves in heavy plate armor with huge axes on their backs; graceful elves with bows, from whom emanated a deadly grace; beast-people, whose movements were animal-quick. But what struck him most was the diversity of styles. A group in classic medieval armor, knights from his past lives, just walked by. And right behind them, a warrior in light, lamellar armor with a curved katana at his waist, painfully reminiscent of a samurai. He even noticed several amazons, whose equipment consisted of a minimal set of metal plates that barely covered the most important places. "Bikini-armor..." he thought with a wry smirk. "Unbelievable. In my old world, that only existed in games and anime. Here, it seems to be a perfectly viable option. Either their skin is stronger than steel, or they're so fast they just don't need armor." This world continued to shatter his notions of logic and common sense.
And then, finally, the day came. They crested a high hill, and a view opened up before them that took Bell's breath away.
Orario.
The city was enormous. Not just big—it was colossal. A gigantic, perfectly circular wall, so high that clouds clung to its battlements, seemed to encircle half the visible world. And in the very center, piercing the heavens, stood the Tower of Babel. It rose into the highest sky, disappearing into the blue haze, and seemed not a creation of human hands, but a needle with which the gods had pinned the earth to the sky.
"Incredible..." Bell whispered, his eyes wide with amazement and awe. All the fairy tales and legends, all the descriptions in the books, turned out to be just a pale shadow of this grandiose spectacle. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. This was the place where heroes were born. The place he had striven for his entire conscious life.
Raine was silent, but his shock was of a different kind. He, who in his past life had seen the skyscrapers of Tokyo and the majesty of ancient temples, was struck not so much by the height as by the scale and the sheer monolithic structure. "This... this is impossible," flashed through his mind. "To build such a wall would require technology that, by all appearances, doesn't exist in this world." He looked at the architectural styles, a mix in the buildings visible beyond the wall, and saw echoes of Gothic, Romanesque, and something completely alien, unearthly. This city was a living history book, written in stone.
The descent from the hill and the walk to the main gates took almost an hour. The closer they got, the denser the crowd became. Wagons loaded with goods, riders on strange mounts that looked like giant lizards, and an endless stream of pedestrians of every imaginable race and nation. The noise grew, swelling into a deafening cacophony of hundreds of voices, the creaking of wheels, the neighing of animals, and the clang of armor.
The gates themselves were a marvel of engineering—a giant arch as high as a five-story building, protected by a massive iron portcullis, which was currently raised. On either side of the entrance stood guards in armor polished to a mirror shine, holding halberds. Their faces were stern and impassive. Their gazes were fixed on the crowd, searching for potential threats.
The flow of people split into several queues. One for merchants, another for city residents, and a third, the shortest, for newcomers. Getting in line, they slowly moved forward.
"Next!" a booming voice from a guard rang out when it was their turn. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a thick mustache and a scar across his cheek. He sized them up with a bored, professional gaze. "Purpose of visit to Orario?"
"We want to become adventurers," Bell replied, trying to keep his voice from trembling with excitement.
The guard sighed wearily. "Another two. Alright, standard procedure. Entrance fee is one hundred Valis each. And a check."
Raine silently counted out the coins from their budget. Another guard led them to a small pedestal, upon which rested a smooth, black crystal the size of a fist.
"Place your right hand on the stone," he commanded. "Don't try to lie or hide anything. You can't fool the Truth Stone. If you have malicious intent, or thieving or bandit intentions, it will glow red. If you are clean—green."
Bell was the first to place his hand on the crystal. He felt a light, cool vibration run up his arm. The stone was briefly enveloped in a soft, emerald-green glow. The guard nodded in satisfaction. Then Raine stepped up. He was calm. The stone under his palm flared with the same pure green light, without a single trace of another hue.
"Clean," the guard stated, making some marks in his book. "Here are your temporary permits. They are valid for two weeks. During this time, you must either leave the city or settle your affairs. If you register with the Guild as adventurers, you will receive a permanent document, and you won't need this permit anymore. The Guild is on the main square, right at the foot of the tower. Follow the main street, you can't miss it. You're free to go."
They stepped past the gates, and the city crashed down on them with all its might.
If the scale had astounded them from the outside, the chaos deafened them on the inside. The streets were packed. It was a churning, multi-faceted stream, in which all the races they had read about were mixed: bearded dwarves, arguing loudly about something with an arms merchant; graceful elves, wrinkling their noses in disgust at the surrounding smells; cheerful and nimble pallums, darting under everyone's feet; and a multitude of beast-people with feline, canine, and fox-like features, whose ears and tails flickered in the crowd.
And the smells! The air was as thick as soup. It smelled of freshly baked bread from a nearby bakery, roasted meat and spices from street stalls, cheap ale spilled on the cobblestones, the sweat of thousands of bodies, horse manure, and a faint, strange ozone tang—the smell of magic.
They kept getting sidelong glances. A drunken adventurer, passing by, shoved Bell with his shoulder and grumbled, "Watch where you're going, pup." A female merchant sized them up and shook her head sympathetically, as if seeing yet another pair of lambs being led to the slaughter. They were outsiders, two "dreamer" kids, just another drop in the sea of others like them.
"We should ask for directions, just to be sure," Raine said, yelling over the noise.
They approached a stall where a lively cat-girl was selling caramel-covered apples on a stick.
"Excuse me," Bell began, blushing slightly under her cheerful gaze. "Could you tell us the quickest way to the Guild?"
"Straight down this street, cuties!" she purred, flicking her tail. "You'll run right into the main square, and there's a building there you can't mistake for anything else! Good luck, boys!"
They thanked her and moved on. Every step revealed something new to them. Here was a blacksmith's shop, from which came the deafening ring of hammers and bursts of sparks. Here, an alchemist's shop, filled with flasks of colorful, faintly glowing liquids. And here, an equipment shop, its window displaying shiny swords, armor, and whimsically shaped staffs encrusted with gems.
And the adventurers. There were so many of them. They sat in taverns, laughing loudly and discussing their trips into the Dungeon. They stood in groups on corners, studying maps or checking their weapons. They were everywhere, and every one of them was interesting. Their armor was covered in scars and dents—evidence of brutal battles—and their eyes held both weariness and resolve.
They walked on, stunned, absorbed by this whirlwind of life. Their entire previous experience, their whole life in the quiet, sleepy village, seemed like a dream. Reality was here—noisy, dirty, dangerous, but incredibly alive and alluring.
Finally, the wide street led them out onto the central square. It was so enormous it could have held their entire village. In the center of the square rose a gigantic fountain depicting the battle of ancient heroes with a sea monster, and dominating it all was the Tower of Babel, which from here, at its very foot, seemed endless. And right in front of them, it stood.
The Guild building, the Pantheon.
It was a majestic structure of white marble, with high columns and a wide staircase leading to massive oak doors. Above the entrance was a crest—a set of scales and a sword, the symbol of justice and strength. Its architecture was stern and monumental, inspiring both awe and a sense of reliability.
They stopped at the foot of the stairs, looking up. Streams of adventurers entered and exited, paying them no mind. This was the heart of Orario. The place where all stories began.
Raine looked at Bell. His friend stood with his head tilted back, and his ruby eyes reflected the white splendor of the Pantheon and the blue of the boundless sky. The fear, the uncertainty, the grief—it was all washed away by a wave of pure, unadulterated delight. He was home.
"Well then," Raine said, and for the first time in a long while, a warm smile sounded in his voice. "Shall we? Shall we start our adventure?"
Bell took a deep breath, gathering his resolve, and nodded firmly. His fists clenched with determination.
They looked at each other. One step. And another. Their feet touched the first step of the staircase leading to their new life.