The procession advanced slowly along the road.
Looking back, Arku’s walls were still visible,
but they were growing farther away little by little.
Miryeong looked ahead and said,
“Ah, I thought we’d finally get to rest, and now we’re heading out again like this.”
She gave a short snort.
“Muryeong must be nice and comfortable. I guess I’m just fated to die on the road.”
Bido laughed softly.
Miryeong glanced at her.
“You must be pretty disappointed too. From what I saw earlier, it looked like there were people you knew.”
Bido looked back for a moment,
then faced forward again.
“Yes. To be honest, I am.”
She steadied her breath for a moment,
then continued quietly.
“But it’s all right. I’ll come back.”
“If I keep moving, the people here will be a little safer too.”
Miryeong smiled faintly at that.
“You’ve changed a lot too.”
She added, a little playfully,
“In a good way. I thought you’d just be stiff and blunt like Aslo.”
Then, as if an old memory had suddenly come to her, she said,
“Right. Talking with you like this reminds me of the days I traveled with Yurna.”
Bido’s eyes wavered slightly.
“With my mother…”
Miryeong took up her words.
“We were close.”
“Muryeong and I had only just joined back then. Yurna helped us with all sorts of things.”
Bido hesitated for a moment, then asked carefully,
“Could you… tell me more about my mother?”
Miryeong swept her gaze over the road ahead and to either side.
“Sure. Well, there doesn’t seem to be any danger for now.”
—
Sitting inside the second cart, Aila shifted her posture again and again.
The cart drawn by the blue ox was heavy and stable, but that made it all the more stifling.
It was a completely different kind of swaying from walking.
It did not feel as if her body was moving forward, but as if she was being carried along whole.
Aila frowned.
“Ugh… I really can’t get used to this.”
The medical officer sitting across from her asked cautiously,
“Are you uncomfortable?”
Aila hooked an arm over a gap that resembled a window frame and spoke bluntly.
“Well, when would a mercenary ever ride in a cart like this? Usually, we’re the ones walking outside like that.”
She pointed outside with her chin.
In front, to the sides, and behind, the guards moved at regular intervals.
“So. How far are we going?”
The medical officer answered,
“We are headed to Belosa, a checkpoint city on the border of the Duchy of Carmen.”
Aila rolled her eyes in thought for a moment.
“Ah… I haven’t been that way yet.”
Then she immediately added,
“How long will it take?”
“If we’re fast, seven days. If we’re slow, about eight.”
Aila let out a long sigh.
“Ugh. I already feel like I’m going to throw up.”
For no real reason, she crossed and uncrossed her legs, then swept her gaze outside once more.
“I don’t like this at all.”
The medical officer did not answer.
He simply listened.
Aila snorted.
“And all we’ve got for escorts are a bunch of dog-muzzles.”
Her gaze swept outside.
Miryeong, Wolryeon, Jincheong.
Then it stopped on Bido.
“And what’s with that little brat?”
The medical officer’s eyes wavered for a moment.
Aila narrowed her eyes as she looked at Bido.
“What’s with those ears, too? Wearing those cursed ear-flaps.”
The medical officer laughed awkwardly.
“Haha… In our republic, discrimination based on race is—”
Aila immediately scoffed.
“Hah!”
The corner of her mouth twisted.
“Those squat things that are only strong?”
A moment later,
a lower, more blatant voice followed.
“They were disgusting even in Schia. The sight of things like that wandering around as if the land belonged to them.”
In the end, the medical officer could not continue.
His face said he had decided it was better to simply sit there with his mouth shut.
As if she found that reaction dull, Aila turned her gaze back out the window.
The procession was slow, but it continued forward without stopping.
Aila rested her chin on her hand inside the cart and watched outside for a long while,
then narrowed her eyes toward Bido once again.
“You should rest inside the cart if possible.”
The medical officer spoke cautiously,
but Aila did not answer.
Instead, she looked outside through the gaps in the cart.
Up ahead, Miryeong and Bido were walking side by side, talking about something.
She could not hear their voices, but the brief laughter that drifted past was enough.
Aila twisted the corner of her mouth.
“Hmph. Annoying.”
She shifted her seat again.
The sensation of her body swaying along each time the cart rocked was still unpleasant.
“Tsk. I should just sleep.”
The medical officer smiled awkwardly, looking troubled.
“Haha… That would be best.”
Aila did not respond any further.
She merely leaned her back against the wall and closed her eyes.
The procession continued forward without pause.
The heavy steps of the blue ox and the sound of the cartwheels rolled slowly over the road,
and before they knew it, Arku’s walls behind them had vanished completely from sight.
In their place, the trees ahead grew denser and denser.
The road stretched deep beneath the shade of the forest,
and the procession slipped quietly into it.
—
The deepest part of the Papal Office in Cain, the imperial capital.
Its door opened in haste.
The one who entered with steps too swift for the apostles’ chamber was Lucian.
The captain of the holy knights in red armor crossed the threshold and immediately knelt on one knee, bowing his head.
“Forgive my discourtesy.”
His voice was low,
but he could not hide the tension carried at its end.
“I have come like this because there is urgent news from Arku.”
A brief silence passed among the apostles.
An apostle seated higher up spoke.
“What has happened, Sir Lucian?”
Lucian lifted his head and immediately looked back.
“Come in.”
Behind him, someone staggered inside.
It was Cedric.
His condition was dreadful.
His armor was stained all over with dirt and dried blood,
and his face was completely drained of color.
Several days’ worth of exhaustion lay dark beneath his eyes,
and his entire body carried a precariousness, as though the strength he had forced up until now was about to gutter out.
It was the face of a man who had run all the way here as if driven by something,
without even being able to sleep.
Even so, Cedric tried to observe proper courtesy with his unsteady legs.
“Cedric of House Belhardt… greets the apostles of God.”
His voice was cracked,
and the last words were almost no more than breath.
Another apostle spoke quietly.
“What on earth happened?”
Lucian answered in his place.
“It is urgent news from Arku.”
“The details… Sir Cedric will—”
“That is enough.”
An apostle said in a low voice.
The voice was not loud,
but it pressed down on the entire chamber.
“Sir Cedric. Come forward.”
Cedric moved his feet with difficulty.
He seemed about to stumble, but in the end, he did not fall.
The apostle slowly extended a hand.
“Withdraw Idrin, and open your memories.”
Cedric’s face stiffened for the briefest instant.
But he did not refuse.
As if forcibly pushing down what little strength remained to him, he steadied his breath,
then slowly bowed his head.
The apostle’s hand came to rest atop Cedric’s head.
At that moment,
the lamps in the room trembled ever so faintly.
The apostle’s veiled face still could not be seen,
but beyond that thin cloth, something like a flash of red energy passed for an instant.
Cedric’s body trembled slightly.
His eyes were unfocused, staring somewhere far away,
and his clenched fingertips did not loosen.
A time passed that was short if called short,
and long if called long.
And at last, the apostle’s hand fell away.
The room became quiet again.
The apostle spoke without revealing any emotion.
“…Sir Lucian. Withdraw with Sir Cedric.”
Lucian immediately bowed his head.
“Yes.”
After a beat, the apostle added,
“And see to it that Sir Cedric is given food and sleep.”
A brief silence passed.
“You ran here without resting for four days.”
Those words were not comfort.
They were closer to confirmation.
Lucian asked nothing more.
Cedric, too, barely managed to bow his head.
The two paid their final respects, then quietly withdrew outside.
The door closed.
And only then
did the air among the apostles change ever so slightly.
The red energy that had been sifting through Cedric’s memories just moments ago had vanished,
but the air left in its place was even heavier.
The scent of incense, the lamps, the low-lying darkness—everything remained the same,
yet the breathing of those gathered in the room had grown rougher than before.
The voice of the apostle who spoke first was low,
but from the beginning, it was not as it usually was.
“The blood of the moon… still continues.”
Another apostle immediately asked back,
“Are you certain?”
“I saw it.”
This time, there was no hesitation.
“She was already using it. It is still weak, but there is no doubt. It has awakened.”
A short silence passed.
Then another apostle spoke sharply.
“The sword.”
“That was there too.”
The voice lowered further, yet somehow became even sharper.
“The sword we were searching for. It was already in the hands of that moon clan.”
This silence did not last long.
“Adele is dead.”
“Our army has withdrawn from Arku.”
As soon as those words fell, the formality in the room visibly loosened.
Those who normally would not have interrupted one another
now spoke on without even catching their breath.
“Impossible.”
“Adele is dead?”
“You mean we lost the sword, lost the moon’s blood, and even withdrew the army?”
“We failed to crush a single organization?”
Low voices collided one after another.
It was anger, it was displeasure, and it was a reaction that refused to believe.
An apostle seated to one side muttered as if sneering,
“Cockroach-like bastards.”
Beneath his veil, he twisted the corner of his mouth and spat out even more blatantly,
“No matter how many times we kill them, they crawl back out.”
“In the forest, in the cities. Tear them apart and they stitch themselves back together; press them down and they rise again.”
Someone answered through clenched teeth.
“That is why they are all the more disgusting.”
“The same goes for that blood of the moon.”
“The blood we thought had ended was still left.”
“No, it is not merely left. She was already using it.”
Their words began to overlap.
Some were enraged,
some grew impatient, and some could no longer hide the revulsion that was already close to fear.
“What if that child grows further?”
“What if she grows while holding the sword as well?”
“No.”
The word was brief,
but it cut off every other voice.
The apostle seated in the highest place slowly raised their head.
Beyond the veil, red energy spread very thinly.
“That cannot be allowed.”
This time, no one dared cut in.
The apostle spoke lower, colder.
“We change our priorities.”
Someone swallowed their breath.
“The sword comes later.”
The words fell almost as if severed.
“What must be eliminated first is that blood.”
The air in the room hardened.
“If the blood of the moon still continues, then it must be cut off now.”
Even the apostles who had been pouring out harsh words until a moment ago could not immediately refute it this time.
Instead, they merely breathed evenly, as if confirming the weight of those words.
And one apostle,
this time in a voice that retained almost no formality, said,
“Call the shadows.”
“Call them.”
The answer came at once.
“There is no need to move the army again. Such things are slow. They stand out, they are cumbersome, and they will be blocked again.”
Red energy flickered once more inside the veil.
“More quietly. More quickly.”
Now the voice clearly carried anger.
“Eliminate that blood before anything else.”
Someone muttered very softly, but distinctly,
“We cannot miss this time.”
“Do not miss.”
“Do not let her breathe.”
“We cannot allow another moon demon to be created.”
“End it before that child grows any further.”
The apostles’ chamber became quiet again.
But that silence was not the same kind as before.
It was the silence of a conclusion that had settled coldly into place.
The lamps still burned without wavering.
Yet what had just been handed down in that place was not an order of pursuit.
It was a death sentence.