“Noon” within the Silver Moon Corps did not arrive as light.
It arrived as rules.
The time when dishes were carried once more along the corridors,
and the clamor quieted.
The time when the footsteps from the training ground dwindled,
and the smell of the kitchen slowly faded.
The Silver Moon Corps counted the day by that flow.
Sienna stood before Rangnan’s room.
Her knock was brief,
and so was the wait.
As soon as the door opened, Sienna said only one thing.
“New information.”
Rangnan rose at once.
There was no hesitation in the movement.
—
Several people had already gathered in the meeting room.
The moment Bido crossed the threshold, his breathing grew heavy.
Because he saw the papers spread across the table.
There were several sheets.
Their edges were slightly curled, as if the paste had not yet dried,
and the ink was still a deep black.
Rangnan spoke first.
“New information came in from the fence today.”
Bido looked at the papers and recognized them immediately.
They were different from what he had seen yesterday in Rendal’s shop.
Newly printed wanted notices.
The first was a woman with black hair.
Sienna.
The ink on the wanted notice was still tacky.
The distinct smell of paste from freshly printed paper
floated thinly through the air of the meeting room.
Bido could not even turn to the next sheet.
The fact that Sienna’s face was on that paper
tightened around his throat before the word “caught” could.
And the second.
A small girl with a hood pulled low over her head.
Black hair.
And a long, outstretched sword.
The drawing was crude.
The face had been left blank,
and only the lines of the hood were pressed in thickly.
That made it all the more horrifying.
An image made so that “anyone could fit.”
Bido felt as though he were not looking at paper,
but meeting the eyes of the city itself.
Bido could not tear his gaze away.
A feeling of freezing from the tips of his fingers.
Sienna looked at Bido and said,
“Looks like one of them was still alive.”
Bido’s eyes trembled.
The air inside the warehouse, the severed breaths, the shape of a mouth just before the end rose in his mind.
Yun said quietly,
“Even so, the information is limited.”
Yun scanned the words on the wanted notice line by line,
deliberately slowing the pace of his speech.
“The face hasn’t been confirmed.”
“Only the build, hair color, and weapon… That much.”
Sienna lifted her chin slightly.
“That’s enough.”
Before the words had even finished, Sienna added,
“The city is in an uproar right now.”
“The inspections aren’t about confirming identities anymore… They’ve turned into a hunt.”
A hunt.
Sienna uttered the word as if it were nothing,
but the breaths in the meeting room grew shallow all at once.
The eyes that had only been watching
now felt ready to reach out with their hands.
The city was turning in a single direction.
Her voice had sunk coldly.
Not because there was no emotion in it.
It was the voice of someone who had no need to place emotion on top of it.
“The contacts are also starting to pull away.”
“The doors that used to open are closing, one by one.”
Rangnan slowly nodded.
“I see.”
That single phrase was acknowledgment.
“The city’s anger is directed at us now.”
To Bido, those words felt heavier than the papers.
The sensation of having become prey was now spreading not like paper, but like air.
Rangnan continued.
“But.”
Yun took that opening and said,
“We have no need to waver.”
Yun looked at Bido once, then back at the table.
It was not a gaze meant to comfort Bido,
but one choosing precisely what had to be done now.
“This anger will eventually turn toward the Empire.”
Miryeong let out a breath.
Rangnan took up Yun’s words.
“We will make it so.”
The meeting room fell silent for a moment.
Those words were not a vow, but a direction.
Rangnan placed a finger on the wanted notices.
“Some of you may have already heard.”
“Our objective is to consume the Empire’s supplies and time.”
Yun nodded.
“The citizens of Arku are already feeling a heavy burden from internal problems alone.”
“The blockade, inspections, livelihoods. Those are what dry people out first.”
Yun’s voice remained calm.
“And the moment the Empire’s hand reaches into that,”
“their anger will no longer go toward an ‘invisible enemy.’”
“It will turn toward the Empire right before their eyes.”
Even after hearing that, Bido’s hands did not loosen.
The hood on the wanted notice kept tightening around his breath.
Sienna did not look at Bido again.
She was already looking at the world beyond that paper.
Rangnan added one final thing.
“So from this moment on, it is a shadow war.”
That single phrase fell into the meeting room.
To Bido, it felt like a blade.
After seeing the edge of the knife,
it meant they now had to fight within the shadows.
Rangnan tapped the table once with his finger.
With that sound alone, the air in the meeting room settled again.
“Sienna.”
Sienna raised her eyes.
“Your role is the most important.”
At those words, the eyes in the meeting room briefly gathered on her.
Rangnan continued firmly.
“Organize an intelligence team. Establish new information lines.”
“And… overhaul all the existing ones. Right now, they’re too easy to uncover.”
Sienna gave a short nod.
“Yes. But there will be many limitations.”
Rangnan answered at once.
“There will.”
He did not spare his words.
“Move covertly. Don’t overdo it.”
“If you are cut off, we lose our eyes.”
Sienna’s expression did not change,
but her answer was short and solid.
“Understood.”
Rangnan turned his gaze to the side.
“Miryeong.”
Miryeong lifted her chin slightly.
“In the coming ambush operation, you will command the unit.”
Miryeong nodded.
It was brief, but it was a nod that said she would get it done.
Rangnan immediately called the next name.
“Muryeong.”
Muryeong, who had been sitting on one side of the meeting room, raised his eyes.
With just that gaze, the room grew quiet once more.
“You take charge of the supply route raid.”
Instead of answering, Muryeong lowered his head once.
Yun used that opening to speak.
“I will hurry contact with the councilors who oppose the Empire.”
“Rather than moving directly, I will first find someone who can ‘open the door.’”
Rangnan said shortly,
“Good.”
Only then did Bido realize his hand had hardened into a fist.
The Empire and the city both.
Now they meant to “hunt” him.
The fact that he had to simply hide settled not in his head, but in his body.
Even taking a deep breath felt as though someone might hear it.
Even amid that, Bido thought.
The people I want to protect could be hurt.
No, not just hurt—they could die.
That thought stabbed at his throat.
Rangnan looked at Bido.
His gaze lingered for a long time.
It was a gaze that gave Bido no room to flee.
“Bido.”
Bido raised his head.
Rangnan said,
“I understand how you feel.”
A brief silence passed.
“But not now.”
Bido’s fingertips hardened even whiter.
Rangnan drove in the final nail.
“Wait for the right moment.”
Rangnan gathered the papers on the table one by one.
When only the sound of paper brushing remained,
the breaths in the meeting room lowered with it.
“That concludes the meeting.”
People rose from their seats.
Their movements already carried the habit of scattering to their respective roles.
Rangnan called Miryeong.
“Miryeong.”
Miryeong raised her head.
“Gather personnel with Muryeong.”
Rangnan continued without hesitation.
“You’re going to the reconnaissance outpost.”
The atmosphere in the meeting room changed.
That name did not refer to some unfamiliar facility,
but to an operational base the Silver Moon Corps had always used along the border line.
Closer to Arku than the main base,
and a place where information arrived first.
Rangnan pointed to a section on the map with his finger.
“This is a forward base. Movements from Arku reach it first,”
“and it’s a position where we can move first.”
As soon as he spoke, the air in the room shifted.
It was not the air of a meeting ending,
but the air of people packing their gear.
The sound of chairs being pushed back,
the sound of leather straps on weapons being tightened.
Someone pulled pins from the map and put them into a pocket.
Listening to those sounds,
Bido realized that they were truly moving now.
Miryeong nodded briefly.
A beat later,
Rangnan drove the point home in a lower voice.
“The location of the main base must not be exposed as much as possible.”
“There are noncombatants here… and refugees mixed in as well.”
The moment Bido heard those words,
he was reminded that the main base was closer to a place of living than an “operation.”
People who had fled here.
Children.
The smell of a fire being stoked, and hands hiding belongings.
If this place was discovered,
the fight would begin not outside, but inside.
Bido bit the tip of his tongue.
He already knew that protecting something was far harder
than simply cutting down an enemy.
Rangnan did not finish with an explanation.
Instead, he gave only the conclusion.
“If they catch our tail, we tie them down at the outpost.”
“We seize the information there and buy time for the people at the main base to escape.”
The meeting room was briefly silent.
It sounded less like a plan and more like an emergency procedure.
That made it all the more real.
Rangnan looked at Bido and said,
“Bido, you go with Miryeong too.”
Bido’s hand hardened into a fist.
Miryeong glanced at Bido.
She said nothing.
Instead, her eyes held the confirmation: we’re going together.
Muryeong had already risen from his seat.
That movement itself meant he was ready.
Rangnan added one last thing.
“I will head to the outpost as soon as matters at the main base are settled.”
“From now on, it is time to act.”
When those words ended,
no one hesitated any longer.