We've closed the potion shop for the night.

Thanks to Alcazar's reminder today, I'll be exploring the cavern soon. I haven't been back there since we first arrived in the city!
I've been so preoccupied selling potions, training my magic and living my double life as "Sir Crow" that I nearly forgot about it.
I'm already overdue planning to investigate what caused the full potion explosion amongst a couple of other things.

But first, I'm sightseeing around the city by jumping between rooftops without my armour disguise on.

There are a couple of reasons behind this odd behaviour.

For one, the sounds a full set of armour makes whilst moving around aren't very stealthy.

And for another, it would be a hassle walking around the streets as "Sir Crow", since people tend to keep stopping me on the street as if I'm a celebrity.

So I've gotten into the habit of moving around the city like this at night now.
I've yet to be discovered by any civilians or guards this way.

Despite the medieval setting in this other world, the streets are well lit by modern-type lanterns produced by our very own Alcazar.

Needless to say, they're based on the types that I'm familiar with from my original world.
This is just one of the many things we've been using to earn an abhorrent amount of money.

I spot Elena, the demon that put a faucet on my body, drunkenly complaining to someone on the street down below.

It turned out Elena earns most of her money from selling lanterns and potions.
So I'm pretty sure Alcazar is particularly trying to run her business into the ground for slighting one of his creations with her... odd modifications.

Most of her money goes towards searching high and low for information on the "sentient scarecrow".
She seems to have become obsessed with me at some point.

(...It's most likely because of the full potions though huh?)

I wonder if she's angry that I blatantly ignored her during that big chaotic all-out war against the disaster-grade demon.
She seemed to be asking me a bunch of philosophical questions at the time, but I was sort of in the middle of something, so I just ignored her.

"I'm going to lose the store at this rate..." (Elena)
Elena is in earshot of me now, loudly complaining again about her sales to the merchant guild leader.

"You should stop obsessing over that lost scarecrow... and stop competing with Sir Crow's store..." (Olivia)

This has become a rather familiar sight around here ever since our shop gained some traction.

Also, I was surprised to find out that, the lady she's talking to, merchant guilder leader Olivia, is actually Alcazar's foster sister.

Not that Alcazar cared at all. He had no reaction when I told him whilst we met with her to buy the delver guild building years ago.

Moving on from the drunk Elena, I jump to another rooftop and begin to reminisce about what I've learned.

In my time living here I've learned that this world consists of a single supercontinent.
And surprisingly the human race here has also unified under the threat of the caverns at some point in the past.

According to some of the locals, caverns that are managed improperly cause unmitigated disasters to their surroundings.
Most concerning are some of the tales told about several other continents that used to be teeming with life.

If there used to be other continents, I should've found some of them by now.
Because I've been using my afterburner ability to explore the world together with Furby nearly every day now.

◇◆◇ 

 

"Clear." (Furby)
Furby, whose flying high up above gave me the signal I've been waiting for whilst casually passing my time sightseeing.

He informs me when the coast is clear to take off into the sky.

I activate my afterburner ability and shoot off into the sky like a rocket from the rooftop I was standing on.

Despite my efforts to be inconspicuous, the noise created from my ability has begun a strange urban legend around the city, but that's a small price to pay for my night-time joy flights in another world.

And thanks to this ability levelling up, I barely even need to put any mana into it to stay afloat.

I can even use it to travel nearly instantaneously between short distances if I pump a ridiculous amount of mana into it.
It's kind of badass.
That's how it levelled up in the first place anyway.
I almost killed Furby accidentally on the day I was testing it. 

"Want to go explore that direction today?" (Furby)

"Yup. I think that's the only place we haven't explored yet right?" (Scarecrow)

Furby nodded his head.

For whatever reason, I feel a pleasant nostalgia when I'm around him.
It's probably because we've been living together, training together and going on these flights exploring the planet together for several years now.

Though our exploration has been really boring so far actually.

Outside of the capital, there are copious amounts of farmland and the odd household in the middle of nowhere like Alcazar's old home.
But by and large, most of the content is covered in flat grassy plains and forests.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say humanity is almost extinct in this world.

The odd thing is that humans have all the resources necessary to expand further, and yet they don't.

◇◆◇ 

 

We've returned to the capital already.

I'd love to say we finally discovered something exciting today, but this flight was another fruitless endeavour.

Anticlimactic as usual...

The only thing we found was a small village consisting of just 5 or so houses.
It was basically right next to the capital though.

As far as we can tell, the entire supercontinent, besides the royal capital, is truly devoid of other humans.

At least it was still fun to fly around and see all the otherworldly animal species.

That, and Furby and me have secretly been training every time we go for a midnight flight.
Shooting magic all over the place as hard as you want is truly satisfying.

We often have contests between each other of who can shoot their abilities the furthest.
Like two boys trying to piss as far as possible.

Furby and I landed on the roof of the potion shop and entered through a large roof entrance we installed onto the building.
"Oh, you're back already?" (Alcazar)

"Nothing again? Right?" (Alcazar)
Alcazar had settled into a routine of reprimanding us for even bothering to explore.

"Yup..." (Scarecrow)

Despite the common sense here insisting that no other civilisations or continents existed, I obviously still went out to explore regardless.
Partly I'm just doing it because I enjoy flying around with my afterburner ability.
But I was also secretly hoping to find elves... or some sort of cat-eared race...

"Hmph. Like I've said so many times before, this world is nothing like yours or the ones you've read about." (Alcazar)

"Have any history books turned up yet?" (Scarecrow)

"No, again, like I said. There's no such thing." (Alcazar)
As per usual, Alcazar is adamant there's no recorded history.
I've been asking him to search for them on the market.

I've been trying to get hold of all the books and information I can find, but the only interesting things being sold are magic books and ludicrous fairy tales that seemed based on demons that escaped from caverns in the past.

Furby and I have been diligently studying all the magic books.
I haven't managed to learn any new magic skills from them though...
I'm sort of able to execute the magic still, but it just burns through my mana like crazy.

To combat that I've spent a significant amount of the fortune we've amassed on replacing all the mana crystals inside my body with the highest quality mana crystals available on the market.
Surprisingly, Alcazar didn't make a fuss about it.
Rather, buying all those mana crystals seemed almost cathartic for him for some reason.
We did recycle all my old crystals to create all kinds of other stuff too, so we didn't suffer that big of a loss ultimately.

At least I levelled up my existing magic skills.
They also both turned a different colour when I maxed them out.

I've yet to figure out what actual worth the different colours have for skills and magic though.

The mana cost did disappear entirely when my wood magic reached level three I guess.
So maybe that's why it's considered legendary grade?

It kind of feels overpowered.

Perhaps I've truly turned into a proper main character now. Maybe...

That said, Furby's status is even more ridiculous than mine though.