The air at the Silver Moon Corps’ reconnaissance outpost was different from that of the main base.
As much light as there was, the shadows were sharper as well.
People were already moving.
The scouts stationed here were checking the routes in and out,
Miryeong’s squad was tying their equipment back on,
and Muryeong’s squad was quietly distributing supplies and tools to be used for ambushes.
Rangnan did not take his eyes off the map spread across the table.
Here, he was the commander on the ground.
Soon the door opened, and Sienna entered.
“Lord Rangnan. The Empire’s advance party has arrived.”
The air in the meeting room tightened once more.
There was no surprise.
Instead, it felt as though a line prepared in advance had been quietly pulled taut.
Rangnan raised his head.
“That matches the information Taejin gave us yesterday.”
Sienna nodded briefly.
“Yes. Taejin is likely still watching the movements of the main force.”
Rangnan traced a line on the map once with his fingertip.
The end of that line was “today.”
“Good. If things go as expected, the main force will arrive before sunset today…”
He paused for a moment, then corrected himself.
“…or perhaps after the sun goes down.”
Muryeong asked in a low voice.
“Then are we striking first?”
Rangnan immediately shook his head.
“Not now.”
Those words were not hesitation, but certainty.
“If we touch them in plain sight while they’re stationed in front of Arku, the citizens’ fear will turn toward us.”
“Right now, we have to prevent the perception that ‘we are the dangerous ones’ from growing any stronger.”
Miryeong asked,
“You mean we wait for the search party?”
Rangnan nodded.
“Yes. When they finish their preparations and begin the search.”
“That is when our fight begins as well.”
At those words, the people in the room did not look at one another.
Their faces already showed that each of them had begun making calculations from their own positions.
Sienna said,
“I will first take a closer look at Arku.”
Rangnan answered at once.
“Do that. Now that the Empire has arrived, things there will be even more chaotic.”
“Be careful. There are many closed doors right now.”
Sienna lowered her eyes, then raised them again.
“Yes. Gaps will appear.”
Rangnan replied shortly.
“They will. The question is who seizes those gaps first.”
For a moment, Rangnan picked up a sheet of paper.
It was Yun’s handwriting.
The voice of someone who was not here remained on the page.
“Yun also… says he succeeded in making contact with the councilor’s side.”
Without realizing it, Bido clenched his necklace.
The metal touched his palm coldly.
Rangnan looked at Bido.
“Everyone waits for the right time.”
The breathing in the room grew quieter.
“Time is on our side.”
“But time does not simply pass by on its own.”
Even after those words fell,
not a single person felt relieved.
Everyone here knew
that waiting was not “rest,” but “tightening one’s grip.”
Bido could not let go of the necklace.
The cold metal cooled his palm,
but his heart remained hot.
That difference in temperature only fed his unease.
When Rangnan’s fingertip tapped the edge of the map,
tap, tap.
Before the sound itself,
the backs of everyone’s necks in the room stiffened together.
“What we have to do is prepare, hide, and be seen first.”
Those words settled not as an order, but like a way of breathing.
Rangnan tapped the edge of the map with his fingertip.
“When the search party moves, that is when it begins.”
“Without making noise. Without leaving traces.”
“That is how we make them grow heavy under their own weight.”
When he finished speaking, the air of the outpost began to move again.
Quietly.
But faster than before.
—
The sun was gradually setting.
Sienna was in front of the gate,
hiding herself in the shadows among the trees as she watched the Empire’s advance party.
The soldiers’ movements were systematic.
The site for the tents, the perimeter, even the order of the baggage—their hands moved first.
Sienna thought.
Around noon today, there had been a brief moment when the inspections had loosened.
Sienna had not missed that opening and had swiftly swept through the streets before returning.
According to the information gathered up until yesterday, the citizens’ anger and fear had been directed at the Silver Moon Corps.
But today was subtly different.
The very fact that the Imperial Army was stationing itself before the city walls was already spreading as unease.
Some still regarded the Silver Moon Corps with hostility,
but some had begun to suspect the Empire.
The reason was right before her eyes.
Their speed and movements were too smooth.
No matter that they were an advance party,
those were not steps gathered on the spot.
They were steps coordinated in advance.
It was then.
The ground gave a very low tremor.
Sienna instinctively lowered her body and placed her palm against the soil.
The vibration did not cease.
The rumbling of the earth was not a single occurrence.
A shallow, long wave
continued through the soil.
Feet, carts, baggage.
The weight created by people approached in a continuous line.
Sienna could not lift her palm.
‘The main force.’
That word rolled only inside her head.
The hairs at the nape of her neck stood on end.
This was not fear,
but premonition.
They are coming.
The main force is coming.
At that moment,
an inexplicable sense of ill omen brushed the back of her neck.
Sienna turned her gaze in the direction from which that feeling came.
From that direction, from the side of the gate, a knight was walking out.
A neat appearance,
well-maintained silver armor.
He was so immaculate that the word “noble” came to mind first.
And—
the moment he swept his gaze over the surroundings.
Sienna’s breath stopped, as if his gaze had touched her.
At that distance, their eyes could not possibly meet.
And yet she had the sensation that he was looking this way.
Sienna immediately left her position.
The knight paused for a moment,
staring in the direction where Sienna had been.
—
A little later.
The main force arrived before the walls of Arku, and the Imperial camp began to take shape.
As if they meant to finish before the sun went down completely, their movements were busy.
The blue oxen lowed softly, and the sound of cartwheels scraping against stone did not cease.
Stakes were driven in, tent ropes were pulled taut, and boundary lines were drawn.
Inside the command tent,
Adel was sitting for a moment.
He had not even undone the buckles of his armor.
Rather than the map before his eyes, the calculations inside his head were turning more violently.
Soon the tent flap lifted slightly.
The one who entered was Cedric Belhart.
Cedric bowed his head respectfully.
“Sir Adel. Was the journey bearable?”
Adel answered in a low voice.
“Mm… Cedric, you did well with the advance party.”
Cedric bowed his head once more.
“Thank you. All preparations have been completed.”
“I have also received approval and the delegation of authority from the chairman.”
At those words, Adel nodded without speaking.
For some reason, the word “approval” sounded filthy.
“…You’ve done well.”
“Go and rest for today.”
Cedric offered a respectful salute, turned his back, and left the tent.
Outside the tent, darkness had already settled.
Cedric paused his gaze for a moment toward the forest.
Earlier—
the woman he had seen in the shade of the trees.
Cedric closed his eyes once, then opened them.
It was not a way of searching his memory,
but of confirming it.
The shade of the trees.
The posture of one holding their breath.
And—
the “end” of a movement.
The more a person tries to hide their breathing, the clearer some part of them becomes.
He toyed with the tip of his glove with his fingers.
It was not a habit born of fatigue,
but one that appeared when he was calming excitement.
‘Reconnaissance.’
Cedric said it only inwardly.
The corners of Cedric’s mouth lifted ever so slightly.
—
When the main force arrived,
the air before the gate changed.
The advance party had been “arrival,”
but the main force was “being covered over.”
The road outside the gate seemed to have widened once more.
Blue-ox carts stopped in long rows,
the number of tents increased,
and the sound of stakes being driven in continued without pause.
The soldiers did not shout.
If anything, they were quiet.
The faces of the guards looking down from atop the walls stiffened.
“That’s… support, right?”
Someone muttered.
“If it’s support, do they bring that much?”
The wind blew into the gate, carrying dust with it.
Beyond the dust, a flag could be seen.
The emblem of the sun.
Beneath it, a moving sheen of metal.
There were too many of them, so they did not feel like individuals, but a mass.
Inside the gate, at the entrance to the market, people stopped walking.
Someone spoke as if expectant.
“Now the Silver Moon Corps will be caught. Finally.”
Those words were less expectation than a spell meant to reassure himself.
People could not smile, and only raised the corners of their mouths.
As though if someone rejoiced first, that joy would become a responsibility.
The cloths over stalls were hurriedly lowered,
and a merchant stopped counting change and hid his coin pouch in his bosom.
Doors along the alleys closed one by one.
The sound of latches being set spread faster than the dust.
From that moment on, the word “support” grew loose.
Because too much metallic light did not resemble help.
Someone else whispered even lower.
“All that… just to catch the Silver Moon Corps?”
That question soon called forth others.
“Are they planning to wage war?”
“What if they come into the city?”
“They say the council called them… but was it really something we should have called in?”
In front of the Sun God Church branch, a priest was calming the people.
His words were tranquil, but the people’s eyes were not.
Those untranquil eyes kept stealing glances beyond the gate.
The military police increased their patrols.
But their expressions had changed.
A little stiffer,
a little sharper.
As if even the military police wore faces that knew, “From now on, we are no longer the ones leading this.”
At the foot of the wall, a child burst into tears.
An adult hurriedly covered the child’s mouth.
“Be quiet.”
When the crying did not stop,
the adult held the child and disappeared into the alley as if hiding.
People moved deeper into the city.
Instead of going outward, they burrowed inward.
That night, Arku became strangely quiet.
Not because there was no sound, but because it felt as though something would begin if anyone made a sound.
Everyone had the same thought.
From now on,
our city may no longer turn in the way we know.