Adventurer's Supply Shop. Shelves lined with the promise of survival. Weapons, armor, crystals, potions. I walked past the racks of standard swords. My eyes were searching for something specific.
"A dimensional bag and combustible oil," I said to the old male clerk behind the display case.
"A dimensional bag?" The old man adjusted his glasses. "That's high-tier magical equipment, lad. Not your average sack."
He pulled a small bag from a locked glass drawer. It looked unassuming, made of worn brown leather, but I could clearly see the intricate weave of mana across its surface.
"Ten cubic meters of capacity. Time stands still inside for inanimate objects. It'll cost you ten gold coins."
Ten. Almost half of my hunt's earnings.
The price was absurd to a layman. But as a generalist, I knew the true value of 'space' and 'time'. Carrying logistics without the physical burden was an absolute strategic advantage.
"I'll take it."
The old man was stunned for a moment, then nodded respectfully. He knew only crazy veterans or nobles bought these items without haggling.
"And... rope?"
"Yes."
He presented several types. I touched one of them. Silvery-white, thin, but densely woven.
"That's webbing from a Dungeon Spider," he noted. "Can hold up to fifty tons, fire-resistant, and virtually impossible to sever with a regular blade."
"How much?"
"Fifty silver coins for fifty meters."
Half a gold coin. Cheap for me, but it was a month's worth of food for a family of four.
"I'll take fifty meters. And three liters of high-grade combustible oil."
"Blue Phoenix Oil? Its flame won't easily go out, even in gale-force winds. Ten silver per liter."
"Binoculars?"
"Three gold coins. Pure crystal lenses, ten-kilometer visibility."
"Compass?"
"One gold coin. Resistant to magical magnetic fields."
I did the math in my head.
Bag (10 Gold) + Binoculars (3 Gold) + Compass (1 Gold) + Rope & Oil (~1 Gold).
Total, fifteen gold coins.
Plus the clothes (5 Gold) and the tax (1 Gold).
Twenty-one gold coins vanished in a matter of hours.
I handed over the coins. The clerk counted them with trembling hands.
"Thank you very much, sir. May luck accompany your travels."
I stowed all the items into the new bag. It swallowed them all without altering its shape or adding a single ounce of weight.
Practical. Terrifying.
I stepped over to the medical section.
"Bandages, S-rank topical salves, stamina boosters, and emergency vitamin pills."
"That will be one gold coin in total, sir."
I paid once more. Three gold coins remained in my pouch.
Money flowed like water in the desert. Fast, seeping into the ground without a trace, leaving only a damp patch that evaporated almost instantly.
But this was the cost of survival. Not to live comfortably, but to ensure I didn't die a foolish death from running out of rope or bleeding out.
That night, at a mid-tier inn.
A soft mattress. Clean blankets that smelled of lavender soap, not sweat or blood.
No bone-chilling wind. No sound of giant insect legs skittering outside a tent.
Only silence.
An unfamiliar, oppressive silence.
I lay there, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling.
Outside the window, the faint sounds of drunken laughter and carriage wheels drifted in. The human world was so noisy, so alive, so brimming with material desires. I had just spent enough gold to sustain an entire village, yet it felt like tossing pebbles into a river. It left no meaningful ripples within me.
I sat up. My body felt heavy—not from fatigue, but from inertia.
I brewed some coffee. The bitter, sweet aroma filled the small room, the only scent I truly recognized.
Sip...
In this city teeming with millions of people, strangely enough... I felt more alone than I ever did in the middle of the wilderness.
I sat on the wooden chair by the window and pulled out a cigarette. Miraculously, I never ran out of them. An anomaly—an infinity artifact tethered to a mortal creature like me.
A flame flared to life.
Haa…
The smoke billowed, thick and white, forming an abstract dance in the air before fading away.
"Tomorrow..." I muttered into the darkness.
"Tomorrow, I need to find something real."