As noon approached, Johnny reached the heart of Sector 6.
Wall Market.
Guts had seen many cities in his lifetime. He had witnessed the grandeur of Windham and the squalor of refugee camps. But Wall Market was something else entirely.
Johnny stood at the entrance gate, staring at the spectacle before him.
If Windham was a city that hid its sins behind white stone walls and court etiquette, Wall Market was a city that vomited its sins onto the streets, illuminated them with neon lights, and sold them at a discount. Even in the daylight, the blinking lights were an assault on the eyes. Thumping music bled out from bars that never closed.
The streets were narrow and suffocating, as if the buildings were choking one another. Noisy techno music boomed from broken speakers, competing with the shouting of merchants and the laughter of drunks. The smell here was a physical assault: a cloying mix of cheap perfume, greasy grilled meat smoke, spilled alcohol, and the faint stench of sewage that all the other odors failed to mask.
People walked in strange, gaudy attire. Tattooed thugs, scantily clad women, suspicious men in sharp suits, and hawkers screaming at the top of their lungs, peddling stamina boosters or contraband.
Johnny pulled his hood deeper over his head, concealing his red hair and piercing eyes. He had no desire to attract the attention of Corneo's thugs. He began to walk slowly, his sharp gaze sweeping the perimeter. He didn't look with the awe of a thirteen-year-old boy, but with the alertness of a predator entering another predator's territory.
Johnny walked at a measured pace, his hand gripping the strap of his backpack tightly.
On his left, he passed an Item Shop. Its display didn't showcase herbal remedies or clean bandages like the supply tents of a mercenary camp. Here, bottles of Potions and Ethers were stacked haphazardly alongside adult magazines and cheap cigarettes. The air smelled of rubbing alcohol mixed with budget perfume.
A drunk man stumbled out of The Drunkard's Pub, nearly colliding with Johnny.
"Oi! Watch where you're go—"
The man stopped mid-sentence when he saw Johnny's eyes. They weren't the eyes of a child. They were the eyes of an old dog that had bitten through too many throats. The drunk swallowed hard and stepped aside.
Johnny grunted and continued walking.
His ears caught a strange hum from a small shop on the right corner. Materia Shop.
Behind the glass, colored crystal orbs glowed softly. Green for magic, yellow for techniques, red for summoning.
"Magic..." Johnny thought cynically. "In my world, magic was something learned over years by witches like Schierke, or the cursed power of Apostles. Here? They sell 'godly power' on the roadside for the price of a plate of rice. These people have no idea what power really means."
He walked deeper into the throng. The pungent scent of grilled meat assaulted his nose.
At a Diner, a cook was flipping meat of questionable origin on a greasy griddle, smoke billowing into the street. Customers ate voraciously, laughing loud, forgetting they lived beneath a steel plate that blocked out the sky. They seemed happy in their ignorance.
"They are soft," Johnny thought. "The people of Windham lived in fear of war. These people live in an illusion of pleasure."
He paused at a major intersection.
To the north stood Corneo's Mansion. The building was gaudy, designed in an ancient Wutai style, draped in red lanterns and topped with tacky golden dragon statues. It was the symbol of absolute power in this garbage heap.
To the south stood the Honeybee Inn. A building shaped like a giant bee, adorned with twinkling lights. From the entrance, Johnny could see women dressed like bees flirting with male customers.
Johnny looked away. He remembered the brothels on the front lines of the Hundred Year War. Places where soldiers threw away their money and their sanity before dying the next day. Wall Market was just a glitterier version of that same desperation.
"This place..." Johnny thought, his eyes sweeping over the structures. "This place is sickening. Here, humans sell their dignity willingly. But because gil is a necessity."
He turned into a narrower, darker alley, away from the main chaos, heading toward a shop that didn't advertise with neon, but with motorcycle exhausts and steel plates mounted on its exterior walls.
The Metal Shop.
Johnny pushed the heavy iron door open. A small bell chimed sharply, breaking the silence of the shop, which smelled of oil and gunpowder.
Behind the counter, a large man with gear tattoos on his arms was cleaning the barrels of a double-barreled shotgun. He looked up, eyes narrowing at the small boy entering his domain.
Johnny wasted no time on pleasantries. He dropped his bag onto the cracked glass counter.
"I want to sell some scrap," Johnny said flatly.
He laid out his loot one by one. The Blugu poison sac, still damp. Six Cripshay antennae, long and serrated. And a handful of Wererat fangs with dried blood still clinging to the roots.
The shopkeeper set down his oil rag. He picked up one of the Cripshay antennae, testing its sharpness against his calloused fingertip.
"Goods from the Sector 6 Ruins?" The man looked at Johnny with new eyes. Assessing eyes. "It's rare for a kid to pass through there. Usually, they end up as rat lunch."
"How much?" Johnny asked, ignoring the backhanded compliment.
The man snorted, amused. "Straight to business, huh? Good. The quality is clean. Not smashed." He punched a key on an antique cash register. "1,000 Gil. Take it or leave it."
Johnny nodded. He took the money.
"And one Potion," Johnny added.
The man tossed a small green bottle. "50 Gil."
Transaction complete. Johnny turned and left, stepping back into the noise of Wall Market.
As he walked toward the exit gate leading to Sector 5, his eyes caught a poster pasted crookedly on a utility pole, half-covered by a sticker advertising stamina pills. Amidst the visual clutter, something grabbed his attention: A martial arts tournament poster.
CORNEO COLOSSEUM: FIGHT FOR GLORY AND GIL!
The image on the poster was crude: an illustration of a muscular fighter grappling a Behemoth, surrounded by the roar of a crowd.
Johnny's pace slowed.
There was a strange thrum in his veins. Not a throb of pain, but a throb of memory. He remembered the hot sand of the arena. He remembered the weight of his sword cleaving through an opponent's helm. He remembered the scream of a bloodthirsty crowd—the same sound, whether in Midland or Midgar.
"Maybe one day," Johnny thought, the corner of his lip twitching into a thin, dangerous smile. "If I get bored hunting rats... maybe I'll try hunting 'gladiators' here."
He shook his head, pulling his focus back.
"Sector 5," he muttered. "She's waiting."
Johnny quickened his pace, leaving the blinding neon lights behind his back, heading toward the darkness of the quieter Sector 5.