Chapter 38: City

Rael stepped out of the apartment building and into the street. The first thing that hit him was the smell—thick, metallic smoke mixed with the sharp tang of ozone. The outskirts had always had poor air quality, but after months inside the Dream Realm the difference felt almost physical. He drew a slow breath and tasted grit on his tongue.

Bloomingdale stretched out in front of him like a half-finished dream of the future. Before mana stones were discovered, technology had stalled for decades. Energy was the bottleneck that kept every ambitious design on paper. Once high-level monsters started dropping those glowing cores—essentially the crystallized hearts of beasts—everything changed. Mana stones powered the smallest clock battery and the massive arc reactors that kept entire city districts lit. There was almost no limit left to what people could invent. The only real barrier now was how many stones you could afford.

That was why everyone still chased awakening. The gap in wealth between a normal citizen and an awakener was brutal. One successful run through a dungeon could set a family up for life. Rael understood the hunger better than most.

He started walking with his hands in his pockets, mind already sorting priorities. First he needed a new place to stay. The apartment he had bought with the compensation money was gone—sold out from under him while he was trapped in the realm. The thought still made him angry. The owner had no right to flip the place the moment the tenant disappeared. Second, he had to ditch the phone. Even if his family no longer cared enough to track him, someone else might. Transferring the money into fresh crypto-credit accounts would come right after that. And above everything else he needed an official Awakener ID from the Awakener Authority Association—AAA for short. Walking around awakened without one was enough to get labeled a terrorist. The Association kept records on every single person who returned from the realms. There was no way around it.

The city itself was not wealthy, but it was far from a slum. Neon signs in harsh blues and sickly greens flickered along the lower floors of the towers. Holographic advertisements floated at street level, cycling through offers for cheap mana-stone chargers, black-market skill manuals, and "guaranteed" gate maps that everyone knew were fake. Above him, layered traffic moved in three distinct bands. Closest to the ground were the ordinary wheeled vehicles—old combustion engines converted to stone power, still the only option most people could afford. Higher up, sleek flying bikes and compact cars slid through designated air lanes, their undersides glowing soft violet. Highest of all ran the elevated metro lines, silver carriages streaking past between the towers with a low magnetic hum.

Tall buildings packed so tightly they stole most of the remaining daylight. What little sky showed between them was the color of dirty steel. Winter had arrived while he was gone. The wind cut through his borrowed jacket and carried the constant low roar of the city—engines, distant sirens, the occasional crackle of a failing neon tube. He had been missing for more than four months. The news articles about Rael Blackthorn were already three months old. The media had moved on. Even the public had started to forget.

From those same articles he had learned that his family never admitted to throwing him out. They had simply let the story settle as "missing." Cleaner that way. No bad publicity, no awkward questions about why the once-promising heir had been discarded the moment he failed to awaken. The elders had almost certainly suggested the approach. Rael felt a familiar irritation rise. One day he would settle that particular debt. Not today.

His fingers brushed the storage ring on his right hand. Lila’s ring. He stopped walking for a moment and focused on it. A translucent panel unfolded in his vision, listing everything still stored inside. The preserved corpses of the horned rabbits and the wild boars they had hunted. A few scavenged weapons. And there, near the bottom, the simple necklace she had pressed into his hand.

If anything happens to me, give this to my sister.

He closed the panel and let his hand fall. "I’m sorry, Lila," he muttered under his breath. "You’ll have to wait a little longer. I promise I’ll find her." The Awakener Association would have records. Once he had an ID he could start looking.

He kept walking. The sidewalks were crowded with people in heavy coats and cheap thermal masks, most of them keeping their heads down against the cold. Street vendors sold skewers of synthetic meat that hissed on mana-heated grills. A pair of enforcement drones drifted past overhead, red scanners sweeping the crowd. No one paid them any attention.

Up ahead a glowing board advertised a mobile store, the letters flickering between white and pale cyan. He needed a new phone. To reach it he would have to cross the wide avenue. Ground traffic still dominated this level—long lines of converted cars and battered delivery trucks waiting at the signal. Flying vehicles hummed above them, ignoring the lights entirely.

Rael stopped at the curb and waited for the signal to turn red. The cold wind tugged at his jacket. Neon reflected in the oily puddles at his feet. Somewhere far above, a metro carriage screamed past between the towers, leaving a brief trail of blue light.

He was back in his world.

---