As they entered the city, the first thing that caught their attention was a big statue.

“You see that?”

Resembling a withered tree, this stone sculpture was crafted by a normal human’ hands that wasn’t even a Master.

“Is that the Memorial you talked about?”

“Yup. The [Sigh of sorrow].”

Once upon a time, there lived a young boy in the city that was established just recently.

He was an orphan and he had moved from the central states to this newly founded city with the hopes of turning his life around.

He believed he would strike it big since the city was new and there were many opportunities… or at least that’s what he overheard from the old passerby.

He believed his life would change if he came here, but that didn’t happen.

Even after pushing himself for three more years, he was still the same orphan that he was when he arrived there.

It was depressing, and he was in an insurmountable misery.

Then one day… an old woman saw his misery, asked him what made his eyes so dark, smiled at him warmly unlike anyone had ever done for him, and sat down with him.

She talked with him, took him to her shop, and showed him various pieces of simple stone statues that she had made.

“To think that’s the work of an untitled master… there sure are some funny things in this world, Alex.”

“Oh you still have a ton to see.”

She taught him how to carve the stones… or at least, she tried to do it before she passed away the very next day.

“Stone carving is regarded as one of the superior arts in Kalp.”

“Not just simple stone carving, Miss Rin.”

It wasn’t an accident, and it wasn’t an unnatural death.

She passed away on her bed, with a smile. And the people of the city looked after her corpse as she did not have any offspring.

She was an old lady, someone that many knew and looked up to.

One such person, after that point, was the boy that later spent the next twenty years of his life carving a single stone at the end of which, this time withered three was produced.

“Kalp is called the city of preservation for two reasons: the first being its innate unchanging nature, and the second being this.”

Carving.

It was also an art form.

“Wood carving, stone carving, enchantment, gem carving, cloth carvings that have still survived in this modern era, and the most famous of them all, metal carvings.

What better way is there to immortalize something than carving it down on something?”

Alex liked this place not just because of its unchanging nature.

There was something unique about this city that not all cities of this continent possess.

In this constantly changing world, the certain need of a place stuck in its past was what gave meaning to the eternal change.

“I wanted to go to the inn first, but how about we take a look around for the time being?” Alex suggested when she saw the unique look Elio had on his face.

She could tell he wanted to go and look at that tree, she could tell he wanted to touch that old stone, feel it and understand what kind of emotion the creator of that thing might have felt while creating this beautiful piece.

“Ohh~. Yes~. Let’s go play~.”

For Elio, looking around this city of the past was the same as looking at the past era that he couldn’t find in the other cities.

For Misha, looking at the new things around here with her friends was the same as playing.

Miss Rin would have to look after the little girl while Alex knew she would have to look after this blessed bastard of hers.

“Alright then…”

The horses needed some rest as well so they were going to leave them a good place before they go on and walk around the town.

“Miss Rin?”

It was still early morning so the city was just waking up.

There were a lot of people around even though this was still morning time, but by the time the sun progressed further away on its path, the city was going to become even more cheerful.

There will be people all around the streets. The workshops would start and there would be even more things that they would have to do.

“I’ll look after Misha and the two little ones. You three should go and have fun.”

Sera was going to go with the two of them, but there wasn’t any need for her to come with them right now.

They were just going to look at a few things and go to their inn.

Even though they weren’t tired, they needed to do a lot of things when they were here.

Reaching the (Level-100) was one of those tasks and they needed to do a lot of things to make it happen.

“Alright. We should go now.”

Thanks to The librarian, they reached their destination in no time and unlike a simple flight, since they were using magic, Elio wasn’t affected by any of the effects.

And the same was true for the rest of their partners except Misha.

But she was going to be fine the next time they did this since, as Alex had predicted already, she would awaken by the time they were going to leave the city through the [Gate] located in the center of the city.

“So…”

The individual that carved this withered tree from the stone didn’t want to portray anything grand.

This was his life’s work that he spent most of his waking hours on.

He ate, he drank, and he carved the stone with his nail and hammer.

That was all that he did in the fifty years that he was alive twenty of which were spent on this one rough piece…

“The rawness of this piece, Alex.”

When the mother-daughter duo along with Slime-gecko duo had left them in the plaza, the two stood before the sculpture once again.

“This is unbelievable, you know?”

And now that he had the chance, he was once again going to bore her with his Endless talk of deep artistic knowledge…

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