The walk to town took less time than Dylan expected.

  Partly because his new legs covered ground with ridiculous efficiency, each stride eating up distance in a way that would've left his old body wheezing after half a mile. But mostly because he kept getting distracted and accidentally running.

  It wasn't intentional. He'd just start thinking about something, the absurdity of his situation, the weird warmth still lingering in his chest from that "alignment" notification, whether rabbit people had taxes,and his body would interpret his anxious energy as "time to go fast."

  Suddenly he'd be fifty yards further down the road, grass and wildflowers blurring past, his cloak snapping behind him like a dramatic cape.

  "Stop doing that," Dylan muttered to his legs after the third time. "We're trying to be inconspicuous."

  His legs, predictably, did not respond. They just kept carrying him forward with that same easy, ground-eating stride that made walking feel less like exercise and more like a suggestion his body was entertaining out of politeness.

  The town grew larger as he approached, wooden buildings with thatched roofs, cobblestone streets, market stalls visible even from a distance. Smoke curled from chimneys. The murmur of voices and activity drifted on the breeze, along with smells that made Dylan's enhanced senses catalog everything at once: baking bread, livestock, woodsmoke, something floral, garbage that needed collecting, and,

  His stomach growled so loudly that a bird in a nearby tree took flight in alarm.

  "Okay, okay," Dylan said, pressing a hand to his abdomen. "Message received. Food first, existential crisis second."

  As he crossed into the outskirts of town, Dylan immediately noticed two things.

  First: the people here were definitely not all human.

  A pair of dwarves argued loudly outside what looked like a smithy, their beards somehow managing to convey aggressive body language. An elf, actual pointed ears, the whole deal, examined produce at a market stall with an expression of profound disdain. Two catfolk stood near a fountain, their tails swishing in synchronized irritation while they bickered about something. A goblin pushed a cart loaded with what appeared to be glowing mushrooms. Something that might've been a very short tree person waddled past, muttering to itself.

  Second: nobody was staring at him.

  A few glances, sure. Mild curiosity. One dwarf did a slight double-take at his height. But mostly, people just... went about their business. Like a tall rabbitfolk in a traveler's cloak was completely unremarkable.

  Dylan felt tension he hadn't realized he was carrying start to ease.

  "Okay," he breathed. "Okay, this is fine. I can work with this. Just another traveler. Totally normal. Definitely not a walking apocalypse in a hoodie."

  His ears swiveled independently, tracking sounds from every direction, conversations, footsteps, a dog barking, someone hammering metal, a street musician playing something with entirely too many strings. The sensory input was overwhelming, but his brain was starting to sort it into manageable categories. Background noise. Immediate threats (none, currently). Points of interest (several, mostly food-related).

  He followed his nose, literally, his rabbit senses homing in on something that smelled amazing, and found himself in what appeared to be the main market square.

  Stalls lined the cobblestones, merchants calling out their wares. Vegetables piled in colorful pyramids. Bread stacked in golden-crusted rows. Fabric, tools, mysterious glowing objects that were probably magical and definitely unsafe.

  And there, near the center of the square: a food stall, smoke rising from a grill, a lizardfolk vendor flipping skewers over crackling flames.

  Dylan's stomach reminded him loudly that he hadn't eaten since... yesterday? Two days ago? Time was weird when you woke up in a different body in a different reality.

  He approached the stall, trying to look casual and not like someone who was having a minor breakdown about whether he still knew how to conduct basic commerce.

  The vendor, scales gleaming green and bronze in the sunlight, wearing a stained apron that suggested long hours and good business, looked up as Dylan approached.

  "What'll it be?" the lizardfolk asked in a voice like gravel in a tumbler. His eyes flicked over Dylan with professional assessment. "Got meat skewers, vegetable skewers, fruit skewers. Everything's fresh. Mostly."

  Dylan opened his mouth to order the meat, habit from ten years of gaming where his character ate whatever was convenient, then stopped.

  He looked down at himself. At his distinctly rabbit-like body.

  "Uh," he said eloquently. "What... what do rabbitfolk usually order?"

  The vendor's expression shifted to something between amusement and confusion. "You don't know what your own people eat?"

  "I'm from... very far away," Dylan said, which was technically true. "Different customs."

  The lizardfolk squinted at him, then shrugged with a ripple of scales. "Vegetable skewers. Salads. Fruit. Anything that didn't have a face. You people faint at the smell of bacon."

  "Right," Dylan said. "Right, obviously. I'll take... two vegetable skewers. Please."

  The vendor gave him one more suspicious look, then turned to the grill. He grabbed two skewers loaded with colorful grilled vegetables, peppers, mushrooms, onions, something purple Dylan didn't recognize, and handed them over.

  "Four copper," the vendor said.

  Dylan froze.

  Four copper. He had 847 million gold. What was the conversion rate? Was copper the lowest denomination? Did this world even use the same currency as the game?

  His mind raced through calculations while the vendor waited with increasing impatience.

  "You got coin or not?" the lizardfolk asked.

  "Yes! Yes, definitely." Dylan reached for his inventory, carefully, gently, and focused on the currency section.

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  His interface appeared as a small, translucent window visible only to him. Thank god for that, at least. He navigated to the money pouch and concentrated on withdrawing exactly four copper coins.

  They materialized in his palm with a faint clink.

  The vendor's eyes widened. His jaw dropped, literally unhinged slightly, in that way reptilian mouths could.

  "Where did you, did you just," He gestured vaguely at Dylan's hand, at the space the coins had appeared from. "Did you just spawn money?!"

  Dylan looked at the coins. At the vendor. At the growing crowd of people who were starting to notice the commotion.

  "Trade secret?" he offered weakly.

  "Trade secret," the lizardfolk repeated flatly. His tail lashed behind him. "You just pulled coins out of thin air and you're calling it a trade secret?"

  "I'm a... magician," Dylan tried. "Street performer. Sleight of hand. Very subtle."

  "There was nothing subtle about that! Your hand was empty and then it wasn't!"

  Several nearby shoppers had stopped to stare. Dylan felt his ears flatten against his head in embarrassment.

  "Look," Dylan said, pushing the coins forward. "Can we just, here's your money. For the food. Which smells amazing and I would very much like to eat now."

  The vendor snatched the coins, examining them like they might vanish. When they remained solid and real, he pocketed them quickly and thrust the skewers at Dylan.

  "Take your food and your weird magic and go be mysterious somewhere else," he muttered.

  Dylan grabbed the skewers and retreated from the stall, acutely aware of multiple sets of eyes tracking him.

  "Smooth," he muttered to himself. "Very subtle. Definitely didn't just reveal that you have video game inventory powers to a crowd of strangers."

  His ears twitched in agitation as he found a relatively quiet corner near a building and examined his prize.

  The vegetable skewers looked perfect. Charred in all the right places, still steaming, seasoned with herbs that made his enhanced sense of smell go slightly haywire with anticipation.

  Dylan raised one to his mouth and took a cautious bite.

  Flavor exploded across his tongue.

  Not like the dull, background sensation of eating he was used to. This was vivid. Intense. The sweet char of the peppers, the earthy richness of the mushrooms, the sharp bite of the onions, all of it somehow amplified to a degree that made his eyes widen and his ears stand straight up in shock.

  "Oh," Dylan said around the mouthful. Then, after swallowing: "Oh."

  He took another bite. Then another. The vegetables tasted like they'd been grown in heaven's personal garden and grilled by someone who understood food on a spiritual level.

  Or maybe his rabbitfolk taste buds just processed vegetables the way a normal human palate processed chocolate cake.

  Either way, Dylan found himself making small, involuntary sounds of appreciation that he would deny to his dying day.

  The first skewer vanished in under a minute.

  He started on the second, slightly more slowly, trying to savor it. Around him, the market bustled with activity. People shopped, argued, laughed. The normalcy of it all felt surreal, like he'd stepped into a painting and found it fully inhabited.

  A flash of white in his peripheral vision made him glance up.

  A small figure stood a few feet away, staring at him with wide, unblinking eyes.

  Dylan blinked back.

  It was a child. Maybe seven or eight years old, though age was hard to gauge with the whole "multiple species" situation. She, he was pretty sure it was a she, had cat ears and a twitching tail, both striped in orange and white. She wore a simple dress that had seen better days, and she was staring at Dylan like he'd just descended from the sky on a beam of light.

  "Um," Dylan said. "Hello?"

  The girl didn't respond. Just kept staring, her tail swishing slowly behind her.

  Dylan lowered his skewer, suddenly self-conscious. Had he been eating weird? Was there vegetable stuck in his teeth? Could rabbitfolk even get food stuck in their teeth?

  "Can I... help you?" he tried.

  The girl took a step closer, her eyes, huge and golden, fixed on his face with unnerving intensity.

  Then she spoke, her voice high and clear and absolutely certain:

  "Are you the Moonshadow?"

  Dylan choked on air.

  His second skewer clattered to the cobblestones.

  His ears pinned flat against his skull in pure panic.

  "I'm, what, no?" The words came out as a strangled question. "I'm just, I'm a traveler. A nobody. Definitely not,how do you even know that name?"

  The girl tilted her head, her cat ears swiveling forward curiously. "My mama says the Moonshadow is the greatest hero in all the realms. She says you saved the Celestial Gardens and defeated the Void Dragon and brought peace to the Warring Kingdoms."

  Each word hit Dylan like a physical blow.

  Because those were his achievements. Lyriana's achievements. Quests he'd completed, raids he'd run, storylines he'd followed through to their conclusion.

  Except those had been in a game. In a fictional world that existed on servers and in code.

  This world was supposed to be different. Separate. New.

  Wasn't it?

  "I think your mama might be thinking of someone else," Dylan said carefully, his voice shaking slightly. "That's... those are pretty impressive accomplishments for one person."

  "You have silver hair," the girl said, as if this was irrefutable proof. "And you're tall. And you have the soft-looking ears." She pointed at his hood, which had slipped back slightly during his choking fit. "Mama says the Moonshadow has the prettiest ears."

  "That's, those are very common features," Dylan said, pulling his hood forward desperately. "Lots of rabbitfolk probably look like that."

  "Not like you," the girl said with absolute conviction. "You shine."

  "I don't shine. I'm wearing a cloak specifically designed to make me not shine."

  "You shine anyway," she insisted. Then, before Dylan could stop her, she turned and shouted across the market square: "MAMA! MAMA, I FOUND THE MOONSHADOW!"

  "No," Dylan yelped. "No no no, please don't,"

  Several heads turned in their direction.

  The girl's mother, a taller catfolk woman carrying a basket of produce, looked over, saw her daughter pointing at Dylan, and her eyes went wide.

  Dylan felt the attention shift. Felt multiple gazes lock onto him with sudden intensity. Felt the crowd's curiosity sharpen into something more focused.

  Someone whispered, "Is that,?"

  "Can't be."

  "But the hair,"

  "The Moonshadow wouldn't be here. She's a legend."

  "Legends can travel."

  Dylan's fight-or-flight instincts kicked in, and since he was pretty sure he could accidentally demolish half the market square if he actually fought, he chose flight.

  "Sorry," he said to the girl, already backing away. "Wrong person. Common mistake. Have a nice day!"

  He turned and speed-walked into the nearest alley, his hood pulled low, his heart hammering.

  Behind him, he heard the girl's disappointed voice: "But she was shiny..."

  Dylan didn't stop walking until he was three streets away, tucked into a shadowy gap between buildings, breathing hard and trying to process what had just happened.

  The Moonshadow was known here. Was famous here. Had apparently done all the things he, she, Lyriana had done in the game.

  Which meant this wasn't just some random fantasy world that happened to look like Eternal Realms Online.

  This was the world of Eternal Realms Online.

  And everyone here knew exactly who Lyriana Moonshadow was.

  "Oh no," Dylan whispered, his ears drooping in dismay. "Oh no no no."

  He'd thought he could just blend in. Thought the cloak would hide him. Thought he could figure things out quietly, without drawing attention.

  But if people recognized him, if they knew who Lyriana was, what she'd done, the power she represented, then hiding was going to be a lot harder than he'd thought.

  Dylan slid down the wall and sat in the alley, his head in his hands, his ridiculous ears refusing to stay properly hidden under his hood.

  "I wanted to matter," he said to the empty air, his voice cracking slightly. "I wanted to be important. I just... I didn't think it would be like this."

  A rat scurried past, gave him a judgmental look, and disappeared into a crack in the foundation.

  "Even the rats think I'm dramatic," Dylan muttered.

  He sat there for another minute, letting his heartbeat slow, letting the panic settle into something more manageable.

  Then he stood up, brushed off his cloak, and took a deep breath.

  "Okay," he said. "New plan. Find somewhere to stay. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere I can figure out what the hell is going on without accidentally becoming a tourist attraction."

  His stomach growled again, reminding him that he'd dropped his second skewer during the panic.

  "And maybe get more vegetables," he added. "Because apparently that's my life now."

  He pulled his hood low, checked that his ears were mostly hidden, and stepped back out into the street.

  Time to find an inn.

  Preferably one that didn't ask too many questions.

  And definitely one that had a door he could hide behind while he figured out how to be a legendary hero without having the slightest idea what he was doing.

  "This is fine," Dylan whispered to himself as he navigated the crowded streets. "Everything is completely fine."

  His ears twitched nervously beneath the hood.

  He was absolutely, completely, thoroughly doomed.

  But at least he wasn't hungry anymore.