Gala City Was Too Small
Ash had always been an oddity among artificers.
The vast majority of artificers were emotionally detached people—or rather, artificers rarely cared about interpersonal relationships in reality. Artificers were not born cold and solitary, of course, but long years of study and training, along with solitary adventures in the Void Realm, were enough to polish every artificer into an independent, mature individual.
The essence of a person was the sum of their social relationships, yet artificers simply could not build new social relationships in the Void Realm. At home, you had family; at school, classmates; at work, colleagues. But in the Void Realm, all you had was a Fish-Slaying Dragon. Your depression and worries were hard to confide to others, and you could not find common topics to discuss with anyone. Over time, you got used to the fact that you were alone.
When you stubbed your little toe as a child, you would yelp, topple to the ground, and howl for ages, because you knew someone would care about you. But when an artificer was gravely wounded or died in the Void Realm, they would only sigh, like the first drop of rain landing on a scorching steel manhole cover. After that, the familiar loneliness came down like a torrential storm, drowning the pain in an instant.
Artificers could have families, careers, and friends, but in the end, artificers would only rely on themselves.
Ash, however, was very strange. Even though he was already a Legendary Arcanist, whenever something happened, he could never keep it to himself and had to share it, and he could not help caring about other people's lives. Not only could he not stand loneliness himself, he also could not stand seeing others lonely. Back when they were in the Distant