Galliath was noted in a thousand retold stories or witchtales passed from mother to daughter, father to son. Many have claimed to spot an island in the distance, barely peeking out at the horizon, clashed with all the clouds in the sky, as if taking revenge in the form of some sky deity.

That God, which Harans thought of, may have existed as a living being, controlling and watching the mountains they erected, resting under the fiery pits of the volcano. But most turned to the other solution: that Galliath was once home for witches.

Even if those tales turned out to be real, Harans and alike had no way of confirming their suspicions. The only evidence that arose was when the first Harans set to sea to escape the ongoing onslaught from both sides of the Second War.

When all hope was lost, people ran, searching for a new light to chase. Following a distant hum and a slim silhouette, the first woman who ever set foot on the island, Gallia, held onto a witch's hand. Through sorrows and pain, a land of refuge revealed itself.

Families soon arrived, settled down, built houses, and raised a monument to commemorate the victory. Meanwhile, Gallia lived to an unusually old age for Harans and smiled as she looked out over the fortress forming over decades. She beamed with joy because she had finally found a place to call home.

That word loops around to the speculations. How did the witch know where to take her? Was it, perhaps, a place they knew so well?

What was the thing that drove them away in the first place?

With years passing, in relative silence that they fought for, the island changed and formed into the quiet landscape the Morians met. Although, one would argue that the hush brings uneasiness and a very ominous answer to the things people didn't concern themselves with.

The volcano dimly lit up in the distance, but Jyuzou didn't pay much attention. This came from two factors. Firstly, the thick white clouds covered the nearby hilltops and engulfed them in a thick fog all over Omer Narrows, and secondly, because there were different answers he sought.

Morio found himself quizzed and lost. Overlooking the stone steps stretching through the tight squeezes of the streets, the wooden lamp posts hiding tiny fireflies or thin-barked trees with rich, dark green crowns, he somehow didn't catch the attention of the people passing by. It was, as if, everyone avoided him, heading towards something else in a hurry.

Morio wasn't even trying too hard to comply with Jyuzou's request, in all honesty, avoiding having to admit that he didn't know how to strike up a conversation either. Lots of the people he met were essentially pushed into talking with the Morian, and not the other way around. He sighed.

With a swift turn to the right, Morio looked into the canal below a bridge.

It was rather slim, with white houses that had the same emerald leaves stretched on their sides, and slanted brown rooftops with oval, red lamps hanging down from the extensions. The windows were nestled in the tight embrace of oak, patterned blinds, stretching towards the grassy ground, leading to small, darkened and steep steps towards boats.

Someone looked out the window, finally meeting Morio's curious, yet, careful gaze. They bore a white robe and gloves, and their face was mostly covered with stained bandages. Their lower lip dragged towards their cleft chin, with a faint red tint. With an unsure half-smile, they stepped back into the darkness.

Morio made a strange noise, shrugging both shoulders and catching a glimpse of his reflection, before meeting the object that stretched behind his lost gaze. Turning around, he faced a clock, hanging down from the nearby, wooden building next to the stone railings. A woman stepped out, counting something on her fingers, glancing at Morio for a second before running inside.

"What is up with you people?!" Morio yelled out, but it seemed that his screams weren't heard, or rather, understood by anyone passing through.

The mentioned made haste. Morio's gaze shifted towards the hanging clock. He squinted his eyes, opening his mouth. "Sixteen," he muttered, reading through the squiggly lines next to the arrows, adjacent to the scribbles that meant 'four'.

"Sixteen!" he reassured himself. "That's the answer!"

His happiness didn't come from the hour, rather, the fact that he managed to read numbers that were written in Old Manjuno, which wasn't that big of a feat. With nowhere else to go, he headed to the fountain and the puzzled Jyuzou.

Morio stopped halfway, looking right and left, as most of the main street grew empty.

The other Morian stared at signs in the distance, unable to make out the lines that Morio hadn't struggled with a few seconds ago. He sighed and then turned to the other Morian, who suspiciously observed everything around him.

"Did you do it?" Jyuzou quickly asked.

Morio stopped, blinking a few times.

Jyuzou sighed, sitting down. A few drops of water from the fountain landed on his back. "Expected."

"I don't think they want to talk to us!" Morio signalled. "Cop a feel for yourself!"

"What on Errarion is that supposed to mean?"

"There's no one on the damned streets!"

Jyuzou straightened up. People grew scarce as if they were hiding from an approaching storm.

He gulped, turning his head to the few people carefully walking towards the bigger structures at the other end of the street, a church-like house with a massive tree slapped down in the middle, with stairs leading up to the construction. Earlier, he swore there were thousands of gatherers there.

With the blink of four eyes, the main street was empty, except for the two.

"W-What hour is it?" Jyuzou asked, nervously.

"Oh!" Morio jumped up. "Sixteen!"

"Sixteen." Jyuzou slammed the thin paper on his head, thinking things through. He squinted, conjuring up the most important of memories. Morio gave him an unsure glance. "Remember the story about Harabara that Bancho once told us?"

"We're not in Harabara." Morio shook his head, trying to act like the bigger person.

"Close enough, though. The people that walked the streets, they're Harans."

"Wait. Really?" Morio asked, confused. "How can you tell?"

"Isn't it obvious, you dumbass? Do you remember Mrs Ella from Magna?"

Morio slowly nodded, despite the mentioned name not ringing a single bell in the empty cathedral that was his brain. "Hey!" he caught onto one of the words. "Don't call me dumb, it took you a while too!"

"No, it didn't!" Jyuzou stood up. "It was obvious from the beginning and not something worth mentioning! The fact that you're surprised is what makes you a d-dumbass." Jyuzou nervously fixed his glasses.

"D-Dumbass." Morio mocked him, quietly, scared of the potential consequences.

"My point still stands. Bancho once said that Harans have an hour in the day dedicated to rest, and now recalling, even Mrs Ella's bar was closed in the middle of the day at times." he raised a finger, swiftly noting that down with the other hand in his journal. "So, empty streets are nothing to be scared of, Morio."

"I know you're not speaking! You asked me in the first place because you were too anxious." Morio smirked. As mentioned earlier, Morio also had trouble with the thing that tainted Jyuzou but took every opportunity to compete. That's just how the two were.

Jyuzou breathed in through his nose, calming down. A few hours ago, he was filled to the brim with joy upon seeing his friend awake but slowly began to understand the sorrows that come with a Morio who desperately tried to win an argument that didn't matter.

"Look." He handed him the paper that lay on top of his head a few seconds earlier.

Morio squinted, slightly surprised that the text he saw wasn't written in the same mysterious language he struggled with earlier. "You won't find any use of the libraries. All your questions will be answered elsewhere." he quickly looked up at Jyuzou. "Restaurant," he muttered.

"Get a grip."

"Head to Roses Alley. Don't waste time." he read aloud. "Okay, I was wrong here. Where did you find this?" he asked.

"It was in my pocket. I have no clue how it got there, I never put paper in there, it gets all wrinkly."

Morio closed his eyes for a quick second, deeply humbled by his words, stuffing the map he had begun drawing just a few seconds ago into one of the open pockets that his brown backpack spotted. "Maybe it was Ambrosia's doing? If you were asleep most of the time, maybe you didn't realise?"

"No luck here either. I checked my pockets earlier." Jyuzou shook his head. "I'm more interested in that street, though. Roses Alley."

Morio scanned the paper again. "The Behemoth," he muttered to himself. "Didn't the horse guy mention that name before?" he glanced at Jyuzou.

"Yeah, I wanted to point that out too," Jyuzou muttered.

"Can't quite recall his words. Hmm..." Morio muttered, squinting his eyes. While dots started slowly making connections, many of the questions that came with answers remained obvious.

If what the paper entailed was true, the only direction they were supposed to head in was the aforementioned Roses Alley. Great expectations came to Morio's mind. Perhaps, words that would lift this fog or tasty foods he never tried before. Fueled with rather simple determination, he handed the paper back to Jyuzou and glanced around the place. "We need to find Roses Alley!"

Jyuzou crossed his arms. "If you managed to ask somebody in the first place, we wouldn't have had half the struggle we a-already do!"

"You almost didn't stutter!" Morio pointed, chuckling. "Yeah, I guess I'm at fault too. Whatever, we live and learn!" he stuck his tongue out, turning back to the clock, and then towards the house he overlooked earlier.

"Don't say we!" Jyuzou waddled. "It was your job from the very beginning! I'm not going to waste any more food if you're gonna act like this..." he added, slightly tilted.

From the far distance, Morio once again concluded, that someone stood in the window, carefully observing the Morian with a reluctant and distant smile.

"Ha. There's one person we could ask."

"Hm?" Jyuzou stuck his head out.

"Over there, by the canal. In that house, there's-"

His words and train of thought were suddenly broken by the deafening and abrupt ringing of a bell. One that wasn't distant, but standing right above the clock, echoing towards the empty streets of Omer Narrows and deeply into the ears of Morio and Jyuzou.

A few birds passed by, as the reverb travelled into the thin air and through the clouds floating above the cobbled streets, steps leading towards trees, shrines or houses, and moving right towards the Morians. The painful hush from earlier turned into simple uneasiness.

Morio froze, slowly analyzing everything around him.

In contrast, Jyuzou moved around, carefully, but with big and heavy steps.

More noises sounded. From the taller buildings, wooden gates moved, revealing counters stacked with different items; glasses, filled with strange, pink liquids, fruits that shone without a light, and bamboo deliciously coated in a thick, orange sauce. Demon pelts, decorative clothes, armour, primitive weapons and little water bottles (perfume, as they call it here).

Small wooden statues, embroidery... anything one would have seen on the busiest of days in Magna, especially in the right season.

Morio thought it was rather absurd. The things he tensed up for, that is. He almost wanted to laugh, but something kept him standing still and alert. Jyuzou gulped.

A woman, dressed in a satin, colourful robe, with hair split into two ponytails stepped out of the building she hid in, placing both hands near her chest, with a proud smile.

"Up!" she announced. "The shopping spree begunth!"

Despite the rose she bore, clenched on the right side of her chest, the only thing Morio managed to spot, was its sharp and prickly thorns. With a calm, and perhaps, elegant announcement, came a wave of everything that opposed the idea she presented.

Morio's and Jyuzou's eyes shrunk simultaneously. From the far distance, came a cloud of smoke. Not one that would emerge out of the volcano or the clouds that drifted above the city. It was dust that appeared from the various and faraway sprints of the Harans approaching the open counters, holding onto massive bags littered with money.

The Morians screamed in a panic. Ambushed from both sides and noticing even more people pouring in like water from the steps above, the two legged it. Jyuzou stumbled into Morio, Morio stumbled into Jyuzou, and now holding hands, they blindly sprinted across the only alley with enough space to barely squeeze through.

Raising arms above the people pushing each other towards the sales, listening to ear-bleeding bellows and screams of people eager to snatch the greatest discounts, the Morians struggled.

Jyuzou's glasses were snatched, landing in someone's gloved hands with a question about their price. After a "hmm" and a nervous announcement that Jyuzou couldn't see anything, they came back to their righteous owner.

Rubbing them against his clothes, pushed from either side, Jyuzou stepped to the pavement. That led to the glass-eyed Morian losing track of the only safe being through this thick jungle of mishap, anger and those who vowed to get the things they wanted.

"Morio!" Jyuzou yelled, raising his hands and jumping up, before being sent to the ground. Despite how loud it was, and how much noise the stampede of humans made, he heard the call from the other side of the street. With a courageous leap, he squeezed through the people, pushing on clothes that seemed either rough or very smooth, there were no in-betweens there.

However, Morio's Talia cloak was of a very specific texture, so it was his hand that first gleamed a signal of safety. Grabbing onto his forearm as if trying to escape a deadly demon, the Morians tried running.

There was a massive emphasis on tried since one incorrect swing of Morio's leg led to the Morian crashing forward and pushing the Harans who counted the money they had. One Haran pushed the other, and although Jyuzou scolded Morio, his eyes widened as he saw a domino-like effect; the crowds and tight squeezes behind folding on the sides and onto each other.

Through chaos, yells and questions as to who sparked this fire, the two Morians jumped across and moved into a very tight alley, where only thirteen people thought of the same idea.