Naia, with bright eyes, looked at the hardworking teen. "Can I buy 10?"
The boy sparkled and nodded, but saw the bill and looked awkward. "I just opened the shop an hour ago. Do you have smaller bills?"
The bundles of cash she got from the old man were in the largest denomination, which was 1000 danas. She didn't want to cause trouble for the hardworking boy (she always had a soft spot for children), and she wanted to have as much as she could anyway.
"Then…can I have a fifty?"
"E-Eh? Really? Sure! Sure!" the young lad excitedly answered, immediately taking back his question lest she change her mind.
He happily took the money—the largest bill he had ever made, according to him—and passionately started to work.
While waiting, the adjacent stall sparkled at the sight of Naia.
"Beautiful lady, before you get scouted to a modeling agency, would you like to buy my cucumber juice? It's good for the skin!"
"Pretty girl, do you want to buy my dim sum? I have 10 varieties! All guaranteed to be delish!"
"Try my churros! Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. Add the silky and creamy melted chocolate dip, and you will enter heaven!"
And so on. Many adjacent shops looked at her with bright eyes, various compliments spewing out of their mouths.
Naia gulped, nodding cooperatively.
She didn't care about the compliments on her, but those descriptions about food made her stomach gurgle.
Now that she thought about it, she hadn't eaten since arriving in this world, right? She also didn't feel like touching anything in the old man's refrigerator and pantry (which didn't have much variety anyway).
She had just been so used to being famished that she didn't think to eat when she got a little hungry.
Like the barbecue kid, she also bought quite a few servings of the others. She only stopped when she realized she couldn't carry everything.
Other than the duffel bag, which was worn like a backpack, every inch of her arm had a bag handle attached.
"..."
She gulped, realizing everything she bought so far was food. She scratched her nose, feeling a little embarrassed.
Just as she was wondering how to carry all these properly, the familiar overlaid box appeared in front of her. No one could see it, and she didn't control it, so she flinched.
She decisively walked away from the food stalls and headed to the other streets. She scuttled to one of the alleys and looked around, making sure there were no windows or other hidden places that could be used by someone to peek.
Her eyebrows furrowed, and she summoned space again, and an alternate space that seemed to overlap with her current location appeared.
She tentatively placed the items on her arms inside the translucent box, and her whole body immediately felt lighter after getting rid of all the things in her hand.
She turned it off, and the items were gone.
"Really a portable space…" she muttered.
Not even Kael had a portable space. The concept of a storage area in a different dimension was purely theoretical, with some people taking the idea from antique novels that existed before the apocalypse.
Since it didn't exist, even with the most powerful space user, she didn't think in that direction earlier.
However, an awakener's power was connected not only to their talents and experiences, but also to their wishes. This was why, when the space appeared when she hoped to carry the items more conveniently, she made a rough guess.
For a while, she just stood there, amazed that she had such a wonderful thing.
She couldn't help but think of Kael. His ability was said to be space, but his abilities were highly aggressive, like throwing space blades, making people's heads explode, and so on. The most auxiliary one was teleportation.
On the other hand, she was fairly sure his teleportation was quite different from how hers worked. If it were the same, he wouldn't have been able to teleport several kilometers away. She, on the other hand, could only move along the box she had, which had 3 meters in any dimension (for now).
He could also take groups with him. While it exhausted much of his energy, it was no less amazing.
She wondered when their interactions started to change. At some point in their teens, he started acting cold towards her. When she confessed to him for the first (of many) times, he ignored her and pretended that she never said anything.
Still, despite her being 'bothersome', she was the only one who could come close to him. Others would feel their bodies heavy and unable to come close.
It was why she never lost hope and kept on shamelessly blurting out a confession whenever he made her heart skip a beat.
She never did quite get an answer to why he was so cold, but the apocalypse was a time when drama was a luxury, so she never allowed herself to wallow in anything. She just said and did what she wanted, even if she always met a wall when it came to that man.
She shook her head, pulling herself back to the present.
Regardless of his lack of reciprocation, that man cared for her in his own way. She never forgot to appreciate that, and she would never dislike him for rejecting her (though she often called him a blind block of rock behind his back).
After all, having feelings for someone did not make one entitled to it being returned.
Not to mention, she had a feeling that this space had something to do with him, though to what degree she was not sure.
She smiled, eyes soft, already happy to have received such a useful thing for him.
"Thanks, Kael."