James nodded, feeling mildly excited. The core of the shop itself, huh? He wondered how it would look. Just what was it in the first place?

He grasped at the door knob and turned it, pushing the door open, only to fall.

There was no surface to step onto on the other side. Thus, his hastily taken step caused him to lose his balance, falling into whatever lay on the other side.

However, the fall he was instinctively expecting never came. He did not feel a woosh nor the wind whistle around him. No, he felt himself float.

He was floating.

It was then that James took in the sight around him, the place he was in, what he was in the presence of.

A giant, blood red ball was in the center of whatever place he was in. He genuinely couldn’t tell. He only calmed down once he tried to turn, which he successfully did so once he swished his hands a bit, and saw that the door was still there, ajar, with Archaniel looking at him with a smirk present on his face.

“Don’t worry too much and enjoy the experience, James!” Archaniel announced. “You can come back to this room by waving your hands some more like you just did! You can access the control panel by asking for it!”

James nodded and turned back to the core, taking in the glorious sight in front of him. It was like the sun, though much less bright than the sun and much less hot. There was nothing else within the core room. It was all darkness, simply surrounding and complementing the central core.

“Shop…” he mumbled under his breath, staring at the core with awe. There was something about it that was enchanting, beautiful, something that was larger than life. Something that made him feel so infinitesimally small, so tiny. “Can you give me access to the control panel?”

A keyboard popped up in front of him, floating along with him. It was only really shaped like a keyboard. There were none of the buttons or keys one would usually see. Instead of the square characters that had to be tapped on to be typed, there were circular spheres. Almost like joysticks, but smaller and etched into the keyboard.

“Click on the biggest one. The one right in the center,” a voice prompted him. James turned towards the voice. Archaniel had, at some point, floated next to him. “That’s the on button for the control panel.”

James pressed on it gently, and the keyboard lit up. White dots began shining on each of the joysticks, like little stars on a vast black canvas.

“Look up now,” Archaniel mumbled, poking at his ribs.

James obliged, looking up from the keyboard and its various joysticks, towards the core, when a gasp leaked out of his lips. All around the core were tiny white dots, just like the ones on the control panel. Some were bigger, some smaller, but none were overshadowed by the blazing core. Instead, they were complemented by the redness of the core in a way James would have never thought possible.

All the stars were connected with a blue line—-a line that passed through their centers, forming a map using them.

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Archaniel guided, “Now, long press the center button and ask, ‘Worlds in which a hundred years passes for every one year on Earth.’”

James nodded and did as he said. As soon as he did so, many of the dots disappeared as the map shrunk and approached him, appearing right in front of him. The joysticks glowed in conjunction with the map, all but the center joystick rearranging themselves to form a similar pattern as the map.

Once they did so, names began popping up below the dots in front of him.

Yeltneb.

Encprud.

Amrien…

They were probably the names of the worlds.

“Indeed.” Archaniel explained, “They’re the names of the worlds the shop can travel to. The shop stays in each world for a minimum of a hundred years and can stay longer based on your discretion. Of course, if you can gather enough soul energy before the hundred years, you can exit early.”

“I see,” James replied, reading through the names of the worlds steadily but slowly.

“Choose any one that seems appealing to you. Just press on the corresponding joystick for details about it and a long press to choose that as the destination of the shop.”

James nodded absentmindedly as he continued reading through the names. After he’d finished skimming through all of them, he decided to go with a random one. He could probably sit here and read all of their details one by one, but since Archaniel did not tell him to do so, it was probably fine even if he went random.

He couldn’t help but feel both a bit excited and a bit jittery. Perhaps that’s why he’d decided to go random. He pressed a random joystick once. The map changed as all the other dots disappeared, leaving only the dot corresponding to the joystick he pressed. Around it, text formed, informing him the basic details of the world.

“Understandable.” Archaniel chuckled. Right, Archaniel could hear his thoughts. That kept catching James a bit off guard, no matter how many times it happened. “I was even more excited than you for my first world. And yeah, it’s fine even if you go random. You’ll only get more indecisive if you get to know all of their details, after all. And since your goal isn’t to sightsee this time, there’s no reason to be picky.”

James nodded and skimmed through the text that had popped up in front of him.

Iasatlan, a world filled with mana. This world is unique in the sheer sparseness of mages and magecraft present. They worship the Inheritor of Light, and thus any mage who inherits or is able to use healing mana, corresponding with the abilities of the Inheritor of Life herself, is seen as someone holy and blessed and even worshiped.

A world of nobility and feudalism. In this place, might is right.

Raising his eyebrows ever so slightly, James turned towards Archaniel. “Wouldn’t that be risky for me, since I’d probably be seen as a commoner?”

“Not particularly,” Archaniel explained. “You do not really need to exit the shop and can return to it whenever you want to. Of course, no one in that world will be able to harm you once you reach the shop, even if you’re running low on soul energy. There is no reason for concern.”

“Ah.” James nodded. “I see.”

Then… this stereotypical fantasy world would be his first location of work, huh?

“Indeed.” Archaniel nodded.

James long pressed the joystick, and the control panel fully disappeared along with the map. A second passed in silence – a deceitful silence, the kind that made James wonder if he’d truly successfully told the Shop to take root in that world, when inky, cursive black words popped up in front of the core.

Destination set to world, Iastlan. Expected time of arrival – Ten minutes. Advisory: Do not look out of the windows without protection. Advisory: Do not exit the core room until the destination has been reached.

Archaniel turned to him, smiling with pride. “Well, dear James. Congrats on officially beginning your duties as the shopkeeper of the shop.” Before James could thank him, he continued, “Once you make your first sale and deposit of soul energy, I’ll go on vacation to Earth and help your sister.”

James bowed his head instinctively. “Thank you so much, honestly. I really appreciate it.”