The delegation set out again.
After that, time passed without any major trouble.
Jincheong scouted the path ahead,
and when he cleared away troublesome branches and brush, the procession followed behind, slow but steady.
Ed and Wolryeon took turns watching their surroundings,
and Miryeong, too, looked toward the forest’s edge and behind them more often than usual, her face quieter than normal.
It wasn’t as if anything had appeared.
No one blocked their path, and no shadows leapt out from the woods.
Even so, Miryeong slowed her steps or turned her head again and again.
Whenever anyone asked, her answer was much the same.
“No. It just bothers me a little.”
That was all she said.
And so the day passed relatively quietly.
The sun began to sink,
and the delegation chose a place to camp once more.
With practiced movements, luggage was unloaded, fires were lit, and the blue oxen were tied up.
Each person found their place and shook off their fatigue.
Then,
Miryeong, who had been silent by the fire for a while, suddenly called Bido.
“Bido. Come here for a moment.”
Bido immediately lifted her head.
“Yes, Lady Miryeong.”
Miryeong spoke without preamble.
“I’ll get straight to the point. Your Idrin is ready to move on to the next stage.”
Bido blinked.
“The next… stage?”
“Yeah.”
Miryeong crossed her arms and looked Bido up and down.
“You could already let Idrin flow into your weapon from the start.”
“But these days, that’s not all. The way you handle your power is changing little by little.”
Bido asked cautiously.
“…How?”
Miryeong pointed at the area around her own eyes.
“It means your power isn’t just clinging to your muscles anymore.”
“It’s reaching your senses, too—your eyes, ears, skin, reactions.”
Bido’s expression stiffened slightly.
“My senses…?”
“Yeah. It starts with the eyes. You’ll see movement more clearly,”
“and make your body follow faster.”
Ed, who had been listening from the side, widened his eyes.
“Bido can do that…? Then, Lady Miryeong, what about me?”
Miryeong waved a hand as if annoyed.
“You’re still a long way off. Learn to handle your wind properly first.”
When Ed shut his mouth,
Miryeong looked back at Bido.
“Listen carefully. We don’t have time for you to learn everything one by one right now.”
“We’re going to hammer the urgent part into your body first. Focus only on your eyes for now.”
“Take what you’ve been drawing up through your whole body and narrow it. Catch your field of vision, and layer life force onto it.”
Bido swallowed dryly.
“…I’ll try it first.”
She slowly steadied her breathing.
As always, she drew up her Idrin.
But this time, she did not spread it through her whole body.
She forcibly narrowed the flow and slowly pushed it only toward her eyes.
It was at that moment.
Whoosh.
Without any warning, Miryeong’s fist flew toward Bido’s eyes.
Bido twisted her body on reflex.
The tip of the fist grazed past her cheek.
Bido froze in place and stared at Miryeong.
The corner of Miryeong’s mouth lifted slightly.
“Good. If it had been the old you, you wouldn’t have dodged that.”
Bido still looked dazed.
“Just now…”
“It was fast. But you saw it.”
Miryeong took another step closer.
“Seize that. Don’t let go of the power that reached your eyes, and then make your body follow.”
“That’s what you need from now on.”
Bido slowly nodded.
“Yes… yes.”
Miryeong looked straight into Bido’s eyes and said,
“You should know from fighting them. Bastards like knights already use at least this much.”
Having said that, Miryeong paused briefly.
Then she added with a click of her tongue,
“Well… bastards like Muryeong or Roan are different again.”
“Wielding Dragon Fighting Aura is practically a level beyond pretending to be human.”
Bido drew in a small breath.
When she recalled the fight between Muryeong and Roan,
she realized all over again just how crude the sense she had barely grasped truly was.
Even after seeing Bido’s expression, Miryeong did not soften her tone.
“So for now, just learn this somehow.”
“If you draw it up and endure, your body will eventually follow.”
Bido slowly clenched her fist.
The trajectory of Miryeong’s fist that had just brushed past her still seemed to linger before her eyes.
“…Yes.”
Lastly, Miryeong flicked Bido’s forehead with a finger.
“That way, you can protect yourself too.”
A moment later,
Miryeong’s voice lowered a little.
“And you can protect the things you said you wanted to protect.”
Bido could not answer.
Instead, she slowly nodded.
The movement was clearer than any short reply.
Miryeong said no more.
She waved a hand once and said,
“That’s enough. That’s it for today. Hurry up and sleep.”
Bido returned to her place.
Even after lying down, her eyes did not close for a long while.
Miryeong’s fist from a moment ago.
The movement that had flashed past in that instant.
And the things she had said she wanted to protect.
Bido quietly gripped the edge of her blanket.
She was still far away.
But she could not stop.
With that as her last thought,
Bido slowly closed her eyes.
And so,
that night passed as well.
When dawn broke, the delegation set out again.
The line of wagons and beasts, and the steps of the people guarding them, were no different from the day before,
but the air alone had somehow grown heavier.
Jincheong scouted the path ahead again,
and the procession slowly pushed its way along the forest road behind him.
They had gone a little farther like that when it happened.
Miryeong’s brow suddenly narrowed.
“…The smell of blood.”
Hearing that, Bido looked at her in surprise.
“What…?”
Miryeong glared ahead and muttered softly,
“It’s already over….”
The procession advanced a little farther, then came to a stop.
Someone was blocking the road in front of them.
But they were not alive.
They were the mercenaries who had been guarding the road the day before.
Some had collapsed in the middle of the road,
and others were sprawled beside rocks in twisted positions, as if they had fallen while trying to run away.
Several bodies looked as though they had been dragged from the places where they had originally died,
placed precisely across the space where the wagons needed to pass.
Bido’s eyes widened.
“This is….”
Jincheong, who had stopped first and was examining the corpses, spoke to Miryeong as she approached.
“They’re the mercenaries from then.”
Miryeong swept her gaze over the bodies.
“What is this… the work of magic beasts?”
Jincheong immediately shook his head.
“No. People did this.”
He pointed at the nearest corpse with the tip of his foot.
“They were all struck in vital spots and died instantly. Throat, eyes, heart.”
“I haven’t checked them all, but the traces show each one was finished with a single blade.”
Miryeong’s eyes sank a little deeper.
“…No joke, huh.”
Just then, Raymond also got down from the wagon and approached.
“What in the world is this…”
Ayla got down from the wagon after him.
She swept a glance over the corpses and cursed under her breath.
“Fucking idiots… dying here like th—”
Her words suddenly cut off.
Ayla’s gaze fixed on one corpse.
A single line slanting below the neck.
The depth of the cut, driven in without waste.
An all too familiar angle that would have ended it without even giving them time to react.
Ayla’s face stiffened in an instant.
“…No.”
A very small sound,
like a mutter to herself, slipped out.
“No… it can’t be…”
Unable to move any closer, she took a step back.
Her eyes remained fixed on the corpse, but her body was already fleeing from it.
Miryeong furrowed her brows.
“What? What’s wrong with you now?”
But Ayla did not answer.
She turned away with a confused expression,
then went back toward the wagon almost as if she were running away.
Miryeong watched her back for a moment before turning her gaze back to the corpses.
“At any rate, we can’t pass like this.”
She spoke in a low voice.
“We have to clear them away.”
Raymond said quietly,
“We cannot simply move them to the roadside and leave.”
Miryeong also gave a short nod.
“Well, I guess that wouldn’t be right.”
She soon looked back at Jincheong.
“Jincheong. Make a pit on one side.”
Then she shifted her gaze to Bido.
“Bido, assist him. Don’t overdo it.”
“Yes.”
Jincheong and Bido immediately walked to the side of the road.
Once Jincheong examined the ground and chose a spot,
Bido carefully drew up her Mirkin and assisted Jincheong’s Arkin.
In the meantime, the guards and gendarmes,
along with several members of the Silver Moon Corps, began moving the corpses off the road one by one.
The smell of blood hung thick in the air, but no one complained.
Words were few, and only their hands moved quickly.
Miryeong crouched in front of the Haraya mercenary who had been called the captain.
After searching his body for a moment, she found a folded piece of paper inside his clothes.
“What’s this?”
Before even unfolding it, Miryeong immediately handed it to Raymond.
Meanwhile, the corpses were laid one by one into the pit Jincheong had made.
It was not very deep, but it was better than leaving them abandoned on the road.
Once the last corpse had been buried, Jincheong pushed the soil in and roughly tamped it down on top.
For the moment, the situation had been dealt with.
Raymond said,
“This was clearly intentional. Someone was trying to tie our feet here.”
After looking over the corpses once more, Miryeong said quietly,
“It’s too professional. Completely different from everything so far.”
She stopped there and looked back toward the forest again.
Somewhere, that presence-less gaze still seemed to linger.
Clicking her tongue, Miryeong turned back to Raymond.
“Right. What was written on the thing I gave you earlier?”
Raymond unfolded the paper and said quietly,
“It’s brief. ‘Turn back the escort procession coming from Arku at this pass.’”
“‘If necessary, use the appearance of magic beasts as a pretext.’”
“‘The balance will be paid after the job is done.’ That is all.”
Miryeong frowned.
“The client?”
Raymond lifted the edge of the paper.
“There is no name. There is a seal instead. It appears to be the crest of a noble house of Carmen.”
Jincheong looked down at the corpses again.
“Strange.”
“What is?”
“The purpose of this request was to turn us back. But this isn’t that.”
Jincheong pointed at the nearest corpse.
“They all died instantly. Too precisely, at that. It’s excessive for silencing men who failed,”
“and it didn’t simply end with killing them. They even blocked the road on purpose.”
Miryeong’s eyes darkened.
“…You’re right.”
Raymond also folded the paper and said,
“At the very least, it seems difficult to believe the one who sent this document carried this out personally.”
Miryeong scanned the surrounding forest again.
“So someone else got involved.”
“Someone more dangerous.”