We left the village on a misty morning, when the world was soft and undefined.
Mira packed us food—bread, cheese, dried fruit that tasted like summer condensed. The villagers gathered to see us off, these strangers who'd become familiar over the course of a week. They hugged us, wished us well, made us promise to return if we ever passed this way again.
"You're always welcome here," Mira said, embracing me tightly. "Remember that. Everyone needs a place to come home to."
"Thank you," I managed, surprised by the lump in my throat. "For everything."
The little girl who'd first spotted us pressed something into Mash's hand—a small wooden charm carved to look like a shield. "So you'll remember us," she said solemnly.
Mash clutched it like treasure. "I could never forget."
We walked away as the sun broke through the mist, turning back once to wave at the small figures watching from the village edge. Then we crested a hill, and they were gone.
"So," Cu said, falling into step beside me. "Any idea where we're going?"
"Not really," I admitted.
"Perfect. Best kind of journey." He grinned. "I spent years wandering Ulster without a plan. Something about not knowing what's coming keeps you sharp."
"Or gets you killed," Emiya muttered from behind us.
"Same difference," Cu shot back cheerfully.
We fell into a rhythm over the next few days. Walking, talking, existing in the moment without destination or deadline. Sometimes we'd walk in comfortable silence. Sometimes we'd debate philosophy or tell stories or simply observe the world around us.
The landscape changed gradually. Hills gave way to forests, thick with trees that whispered in languages I almost understood. We found streams and forded them, losing shoes to swift currents and laughing as we fished them out again. We discovered clearings where wildflowers grew in impossible profusion, and we'd stop for lunch, dozing in the sun like cats.
But we also found stranger things.
On the fourth day, we encountered a road.
Not a dirt path or animal trail—a proper road, paved with stones that fit together too perfectly to be natural. It stretched in both directions, disappearing into the distance.
"This is old," Artoria said, kneeling to examine the stonework. "Ancient. But well-maintained. Someone's been caring for it."
"Question is," Da Vinci mused, "do we follow it, or stick to the wild?"
We looked at each other.
"Roads lead somewhere," Medusa said quietly. "To people, usually. Cities. Civilization. Is that what we want?"
It was a fair question. The village had been one thing—small, simple, manageable. But a city would be different. More complex. More questions we couldn't answer.
"I say we follow it," I said. "We came out here to explore, right? To see what this world has to offer. Can't do that by avoiding the parts that might be complicated."
"Spoken like someone who's never had to sneak through a city guard checkpoint," Emiya said drily. But he was smiling.
We turned south, following the road.
It led us through changing terrain—meadows, a stone bridge over a river too wide to ford, forests that pressed close to the road as if trying to reclaim it. We passed other travelers occasionally. Merchants with carts. Families moving between settlements. Once, a group of what looked like soldiers, who eyed us with professional suspicion but didn't stop us.
Each encounter reminded me that we were part of something larger now. Not isolated in Chaldea's bubble, but existing in a world that operated by its own rules, with its own history and conflicts and ordinary miracles.
On the seventh day, we crested a rise and saw it.
The city.
It sprawled across the landscape like something alive, all stone and wood and movement. Walls ringed it—not threatening, just defining. Smoke rose from countless chimneys. Even from this distance, I could hear the faint roar of thousands of people living their lives.
"Well," Cu said appreciatively. "That's impressive."
"It's huge," Mash breathed. "There must be thousands of people there."
"Tens of thousands, probably," Da Vinci corrected. "Look at the size of it. This is a major population center." She turned to me. "Ready for this, Master?"
Was I?
In Chaldea, I'd controlled everything. In the village, I'd been part of a small community where everyone knew everyone. But in a city that size, I'd be... nobody. Just another person in a crowd of thousands.
The thought should have been terrifying.
Instead, it was exhilarating.
"Let's go," I said.
We reached the gates as the sun was beginning to set. Guards stood watch, but they were casual about it—checking carts for contraband, asking perfunctory questions, waving most people through without trouble.
When we approached, one of them looked us over with mild curiosity.
"Business in the city?"
"Just passing through," I said. "Looking for lodging for the night."
"Got coin?"
I hesitated. In all our planning and exploration, we'd somehow never considered money.
Before I could answer, Da Vinci stepped forward and produced a small leather pouch from... somewhere. She dropped a few silver coins into her palm. "Will this do?"
The guard's eyebrows rose. "More than. Try the Wayward Traveler, three streets in and to the left. Clean rooms, good food. Tell them Marcus sent you."
"Thank you," Da Vinci said smoothly.
The guard waved us through.
Once we were out of earshot, I hissed, "Where did you get money?"
"Created it," she said simply. "Just a small localized reality manipulation. Nothing major. The world here seems to allow for minor adjustments if you're subtle about it."
I stared at her. "You can still manipulate reality?"
"A little. Not like you could in Chaldea—I can't reshape the landscape or create people. But small things? Material objects? If I focus hard enough, yes." She smiled. "I thought it best not to mention it unless necessary. Didn't want to rely on it."
"Can we all do that?" Mash asked, eyes wide.
"Try," Da Vinci suggested.
Mash closed her eyes, concentrating. After a moment, she opened her hand, and there was... a pebble. Just a plain stone, nothing special.
"I did it!" she said, delighted. Then she looked closer. "Although I'm not sure if I created it or just... found it? It's hard to tell."
"That's the point," Da Vinci said. "The line between creating and discovering becomes blurred. We're shaping reality, but gently. Working with it rather than dominating it."
I tried it myself, focusing on creating something simple. A coin, like Da Vinci had made.
Nothing happened.
I tried again, straining with effort.
Still nothing.
"Master?" Medusa touched my arm gently. "Are you alright?"
"I can't do it," I said, frustrated. "I can't create anything."
"Maybe because you don't need to anymore," Emiya suggested. "In Chaldea, you were the reality anchor. The dreamer. But here, you're just... one of us. That's not a bad thing."
He was right. Logically, I knew that.
But there was still a strange sense of loss—that god-like power I'd had and then consciously given up, now confirmed to be truly gone.
"Come on," Artoria said kindly. "Let's find that inn. We can figure out the metaphysics later."
The Wayward Traveler was everything the guard had promised. Warm, clean, with a common room that smelled like roasted meat and fresh bread. The innkeeper—a broad woman with laugh lines around her eyes—took our coin and showed us to rooms without asking uncomfortable questions.
That night, we ate dinner in the common room, surrounded by the noise and life of the city. Merchants arguing over prices. A bard in the corner singing a song I didn't know. Workers relaxing after a long day. Normal people living normal lives.
"This is nice," Mash said, echoing her words from the village. "Being part of something. Not separate from it."
"Do you miss Chaldea?" I asked her.
She considered carefully. "I miss the certainty of it. Knowing my role, my purpose. But..." She looked around at the crowded room. "I don't miss the emptiness. The way every day was the same. The way I could never quite hold onto anything because it would all reset." She met my eyes. "This is messier. Scarier. But it's real. And I think I prefer real."
"Even if you're not special anymore?" Cu asked. "No grand destiny, no saving the world. Just... existing."
"Maybe especially because of that," Mash said firmly. "Maybe being ordinary is its own kind of special."
Later, I stood at the window of my room, looking out over the city. Lights flickered in countless windows. People lived in each one—full lives, complete stories, entire universes of experience I'd never know.
In Chaldea, I'd been everything.
Here, I was nothing.
And somehow, that was exactly what I needed.
A knock at my door.
"Come in."
Medusa entered, still wearing her travel clothes. "Can't sleep?"
"Too much to think about."
She joined me at the window. "I've been thinking too. About what comes next. We could stay here. Find work, build lives, become part of this city's story."
"But?"
"But I don't think we're done wandering yet. There's more to see. More to discover." She smiled. "About the world, and about ourselves."
"You want to keep going."
"I want to choose to keep going. That's the difference." She looked at me seriously. "In Chaldea, I existed because you dreamed me. In the village, I existed because it was comfortable. But out here, on the road, making choices about where to go and who to be... I exist because I decide to. Does that make sense?"
"Perfect sense."
"So," she said. "Tomorrow, do we stay or do we go?"
I thought about the city spread out below us. About the road that had brought us here and the countless roads leading away. About being a god versus being a person. About control versus freedom.
"Let's stay a few days," I decided. "Learn about this place. Rest. Resupply. And then..."
"And then we see what's over the next horizon," Medusa finished.
"Yeah."
She squeezed my shoulder gently. "Goodnight, Master. Sweet dreams."
"You too."
After she left, I stayed at the window a while longer.
Somewhere in this vast city, my companions were settling in for the night. Ordinary people in an ordinary world, living lives that mattered precisely because they were small and real and theirs.
And I was one of them.
Not a god.
Not a dreamer.
Just a person, walking forward into an uncertain future, surrounded by friends who'd chosen to walk beside me.
I'd never felt more powerless.
I'd never felt more alive.
Tomorrow, the city would wake up, and we'd explore its streets together. We'd find food and stories and maybe even purpose. We'd make choices and mistakes and memories.
And someday, when we were ready, we'd walk out those gates and find new horizons.
But tonight, I was here.
Real, ordinary, and utterly, perfectly content.
I climbed into bed—a real bed in a real inn in a real city—and closed my eyes.
And for the first time since arriving in this world, I dreamed.
Not of control or power or endless possibility.
But of tomorrow.