“Let’s start the tour from the entrance then,” Archaniel announced, a smile ever-present on his face. On cue with his words, a two story building appeared in front of them, quite close to their table.

The building was the stereotypical two story local shop one would find in the countryside. The first floor for the actual sales and the top floor for the owners to live in. The shop was colored a rather pale black, blotches on its wall present that gave away its age. It had two windows on its top floor and a simple door present on the bottom, along with a window on either side of the door. Of course, its roof was made with tiles.

All in all, it looked like a rather cozy place. Like a house that people had lived in for a long, long time, or a stationery shop, rather than a shop that supposedly dealt in souls and soul energy.

Archaniel stood up from his chair and walked to the door, his smile widening as he pushed it open using the door knob. He bowed in a rather showy fashion, one hand grasped onto the door knob and the other bent near his waist.

James stood up, obliging, and walked to the door, entering the shop before Archaniel.

What he was first greeted by, just like the exterior of the shop, was its age. The walls inside were painted in a misty black too, and the floor was made out of black wood. However, all of the blackness present was of a faded tone, almost in a pleasant manner, taking away the bite from the blackness that should have existed.

There was a single desk at the far end of the room. On either side were rather simplistic chairs. Behind the desk was a door—a door that looked exactly the same as the one Archaniel had opened to invite him into the shop.

Archaniel stepped inside a second later, closing the door behind him.

“This is the entrance, the main hall, you could say,” Archaniel said in a simultaneously serene yet excited tone. “You’ll be entertaining all the guests and customers here, unless you know them quite well and wish to host them deeper in the shop.”

James nodded, taking in the room a bit more. It was… much simpler than he’d expected. Much less sinister than he’d have expected, too.

Archaniel walked in front of him, crossing the desk and approaching the next door. Opening it, he revealed a corridor—a corridor that was far too long to reasonably exist in this shop. At least based on its external appearance.

“This,” he began, “is the corridor of malleability. If you want to make exclusive rooms for anyone you hire to work in the shop—yes, that is something you can do,” he answered before the question could even pop up in his mind. “This is the place where those rooms would appear. Of course, you can also just decide to let them live with you in the upper quarters. That is completely up to you.”

James nodded once more as he took in the corridor. It had a red carpet covering its floor quite smoothly. The walls and the ceiling of the corridor, however, were a calming blue. Both the carpet and the blue were a welcome distraction from all the black he’d seen so far, and both were quite clean and rather shiny and new, unlike the other things in the shop. There were no doors that he could see in the corridor currently, which made sense. It would probably change when he wanted to change it.

Which was a rather surprising revelation. The shop would and could change based on his desires and expectations.

“It will take some soul energy to change the shop,” Archaniel explained. “But yes, it is very malleable. That is something I love about the shop too.”

Then he walked into the corridor, only gesturing at James to follow once he’d gotten quite deep into it. James followed Archaniel, closing the door behind him once he crossed it.

The corridor seemed to stretch on forever. It would probably have unnerved him a bit more if not for the fact that Archaniel was completely unphased.

“Oh, that is intentional,” Archaniel explained as he turned towards him. “The corridor is supposed to be endless. It depends on you in regards to how many and what kinds of rooms you want to make in this corridor, after all, so limiting and ending it is not something the shop will do on its own. To access the second story of the shop, you have to ask for the staircase manually.”

James tilted his head, processing Archaniel’s words. An infinite corridor…

“Go on,” Archaniel prodded after a second. “Ask it manually.”

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“Wait, I should ask it manually?” James asked, finally realizing what Archaniel wanted him to do. He’d expected Archaniel would ask for the staircase and show him how it was done.

“You’ve become the new owner, James.” Archaniel giggled. “Of course it’s you who has to ask manually.”

“I-I see.” James nodded and muttered, “Um… Shop, could you give me a staircase that leads to the second story?”

As Archaniel had said, as soon as James said those magical words, the corridor warped. A door appeared in front of Archaniel, which the man promptly opened. Behind it was a staircase with the same red carpet engulfing the steps and the blue paint present on the walls.

Archaniel chuckled at James’ expression of surprise before walking up the staircase. This time, James followed behind him immediately.

Only now, once James had entered the staircase, did he wonder how the shop was so bright. There were no sources of light he could spot, but it was bright. Almost like it was day time and sunlight was leaking through all corners of the staircase.

At this, Archaniel launched into an explanation, “Oh, that is one of the shop’s nifty little features.” Archaniel seemed almost like a proud father, showing off his kid or his kid’s creations with delight. This comparison James instinctively made seemed to amused Archaniel as he burst into laughter for a few seconds, after which he continued his explanation, “Of course, like everything in the shop, this is customizable too. You could turn the lighting down when you want and also change the atmosphere of the shop by changing the color of the light and things such as that. This, however, unlike making new rooms and other major changes such as that, will not require soul energy, even a teensy tiny bit.”

The stairs were a much shorter journey than the corridor. Within a matter of seconds, they’d reached the door. Of course, just like the previous ones they’d encountered, black with a golden door knob. Archaniel opened the door and beckoned at James.

Just like the main hall, this door led to a single room instead of a corridor. This room was fully empty except for a single bed tucked away in a corner to his left. Its walls were a pale black, just like the hall and the shop’s exterior walls. There was, of course, a door present in this room too, present on the wall to his right, and a window present on the center of the center wall.

“This, James,” Archaniel began, “is your bedroom. That door leads to the bathroom.” Saying so, he turned to him, his expression turning solemn. “I see that you do not like the pale black coloring of the bedroom, or even the hall, really.”

Archaniel approached him and put an arm on his shoulder, his eyes twinkling. “See, change the colors of your bedroom if you wish. However, my advice is—” He grinned. “—keep the pale black coloring for the hall and the exteriors of the place. Hell, wear an all black suit with red linings, and change your eye color to red. You’ve gotta give off a vibe of someone who’s going to trade with souls, you know? Make it convincing.”

James blinked. Wait, he could change his eye color?

Archaniel slapped his forehead with his free hand. “Right, I didn’t tell you that, did I? Now that you’ve become a part of the shop, you too can change your appearance and clothes freely using a negligible amount of soul energy.”

“Wow.” James gasped. That was quite amazing. So he could make himself look however he wanted? As handsome or as menacing?

“Yes!” Archaniel nodded passionately. “And the changes will stay permanent, even after you leave the shop. Of course, unless you want a different appearance entirely from the malicious entity you’ve got to appear as, in which case you can just change them one last time before leaving the shop!”

He gestured at himself passionately. “I’ve always wanted to have blue hair and green eyes, so that’s exactly what I went for!”

James nodded appreciatively. That was a rather cool feature. “Can I change things like my height or body structure too?”

“Yes!” Archaniel exclaimed. “Hell, you can even alter your features to appear as a totally different species! There was this one time where I disguised myself as an elf because I ended up in an elven planet, and I made myself super attractive by their standards—”

Archaniel suddenly stopped talking, blinking as he seemed to sink into memories. A faint blush spread across his face as he shook his head. “Either way, you get the idea. You can mould yourself and the shop however you want. For example!”

He approached the window and opened it. However, what greeted him was not the stormy clouds nor the grass that he was expecting. Instead, it was a giant mountain far away in the background and a clear blue sky.

“I saw this place once, during my journeys,” Archaniel explained. “And I loved it. So I made it as sort of a wallpaper, you could say? I can look out towards it whenever I want, enjoy it, and hell, even explore it if I want to. Though generating the space would take a bit of soul energy that I usually only waste when I feel sad and want to roll around in the grass.”

That boggled James’ mind. “Wait, so… you can create worlds within the shop itself?”

“Sure!” Archaniel nodded. “If you really wanted to, you could create an entire world using the shop as the tether and relocate an entire planets’ worth of people.” Archaniel blinked at that. “Huh, I never tried to do that. Missed opportunity.”

James put a hand to his mouth, not quite sure how to feel besides amazed. This… This was amazing.

“Agreed!” Archaniel nodded. “There’s still the shop’s core and its interface. Would you like to see it?”

“Yeah.” James nodded. “Do I have to manually order for it to appear too?”

“Yep,” Archaniel said, emphasizing the p.

“Shop, could you take us to the core?” James asked, much more confidently this time.

A door popped up next to the window. Archaniel didn’t open this one on his own, however. He smiled mischievously at James and said, “You do the honors this time.”