The adjutant who received the records scanned the contents quickly but precisely.
Envoy personnel, escort personnel, number of wounded, number of dead.
His gaze, which had not skimmed past a single line carelessly, stopped at one point.
“Wait.”
The adjutant asked without taking his eyes from the paper.
“Why is there a child on the escort roster?”
At those words, the air around them subtly stiffened.
Raymond answered without the slightest change in expression.
“This is not a matter to be judged by age alone.”
“Everyone listed on the roster is an escort collaborator who has been vetted by Arku.”
Only then did the adjutant raise his head.
“Vetted.”
There was no outright sneer in his voice,
but the doubt in it was unmistakable.
“And yet this is the result.”
He lightly lifted the records.
“There are dead and wounded, and the envoy has arrived at the border in violation of its schedule.”
“If those escorts truly were vetted combat personnel,”
“shouldn’t it have at least avoided ending up like this?”
Raymond took a short breath.
“What happened beyond the border was not a simple attack.”
“And?”
“It was organized and prepared.”
“They knew the envoy’s route, and there were even prior obstructions meant to delay our progress.”
“The fact that we reached this place with this level of damage under those circumstances is itself proof that the escort force was not powerless.”
The adjutant’s eyes narrowed.
“Including this child?”
This time, Raymond did not answer immediately.
After a brief silence, he spoke in as dry a tone as possible.
“That individual is a special combat asset essential to this escort.”
“A special combat asset.”
The adjutant repeated the words slowly.
“That sounds plausible enough.”
He lowered his gaze back to the records.
“The name is… Bido.”
After saying the name aloud,
he checked the condition written below it.
“And currently critically injured.”
The adjutant lowered the records completely.
“I will confirm it.”
Miryeong’s shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly.
But the one who spoke first was, as expected, Raymond.
“He is critically injured. I understand the need for confirmation, but he cannot be handled carelessly.”
“Confirmation must be made before you cross the border.”
“I will allow you to look. However, only in the presence of the physician, and only the minimum necessary.”
The adjutant looked at Raymond for a moment.
“For an envoy, you seem to be hiding quite a bit.”
Raymond did not avert his gaze.
“Being an envoy does not oblige us to disclose everything at the border gate.”
“Especially if it concerns Arku’s official military assets.”
A short silence passed.
Beside them, a soldier holding a torch pointlessly adjusted his grip on the handle.
At last, the adjutant nodded.
“Very well. Then I will see for myself.”
Raymond immediately looked back.
“Physician.”
Hearing the call, the physician soon came forward from near the wagon.
His face was heavily marked by fatigue, but he understood the situation at once.
“They need to confirm Bido’s condition.”
When Raymond spoke in a low voice,
the physician frowned briefly, then reluctantly nodded.
“Not for long. His upper body must not be jostled.”
Miryeong remained silent.
Instead, she moved closer to the wagon Bido was in.
It was not so blatant that anyone could say she was openly on guard,
but her stance made it clear that she would not allow anyone’s hand to touch him first without cause.
The adjutant took in even that sight once,
then moved toward the wagon with the physician.
The closed door of the wagon opened,
and torchlight cautiously seeped inside.
Only then did Bido’s face, as he lay propped up, emerge from the darkness.
A pale complexion, dried traces of cold sweat, his upper body tightly secured with bandages.
At first, the adjutant said nothing.
Because he looked even younger than the name in the records had led him to imagine,
and at the same time, far more gravely injured.
“This child,”
he asked in a low voice.
“is that escort asset?”
Raymond answered from outside the wagon.
“That is correct.”
“In this condition?”
“At present, he is critically injured.”
Raymond’s voice had sunk coldly.
“And that is precisely why we cannot keep him standing before the border for long.”
Just then, another set of footsteps sounded from the checkpoint behind them.
Two armed soldiers stepped aside first,
and between them, a man with a dark coat draped over his armor slowly walked out.
He looked older than the adjutant, and there was no needless hesitation in his stride.
As the torchlight drew closer, the ornaments on his shoulders and the insignia at his waist were revealed.
He was the commander of the border garrison.
He first looked once into the opened wagon,
then swept his gaze over the wagon carrying the bodies and the entire halted procession in turn.
With that brief glance alone, he seemed to have grasped the situation roughly.
“What is going on?”
The adjutant immediately bowed his head.
“They claim to be an envoy from the Republic of Arku.”
“They say they were attacked on the way, and there are wounded and dead.”
“There were somewhat questionable points in the escort roster and composition, so I was confirming them.”
The garrison commander looked toward Raymond.
“Documents.”
When Raymond held out the sealed documents,
he checked the seal first.
Then he unfolded the contents, but did not read them for long.
His face already suggested that he had judged half the matter from the scene alone.
“An envoy from Arku.”
He murmured the words, then looked back toward the wagon.
“This is not a situation in which they should be kept long before the border.”
The adjutant cautiously opened his mouth.
“But among the escort personnel—”
The garrison commander did not listen to the end of his words.
“Confirmation can be done inside.”
His words were brief and firm.
“Keeping an official envoy with wounded and dead standing at the gate is not an inspection. It is discourtesy.”
The air before the border changed subtly.
The soldiers’ postures grew a little straighter.
The garrison commander spoke directly to Raymond.
“I am the commander of the Carmen Border Garrison. It seems you have suffered hardship contrary to the schedule written in the documents.”
Raymond also bowed his head in return.
“I am Raymond, representative of the envoy from the Republic of Arku.”
“We were delayed due to circumstances, and were attacked several times on the way here.”
“I will hear the detailed report inside.”
The garrison commander folded the documents and handed them to the adjutant.
“Open the gate.”
One soldier immediately ran off,
and a moment later, the sound of a thick bar being moved rang long over the dim boundary.
The garrison commander raised his hand and pointed toward the procession.
“Bring the wounded inside first. Work with their physician and immediately prepare a place for them to rest.”
“Provide a separate place to lay the dead,”
“and prepare temporary quarters for the members of the envoy.”
He paused for a beat,
then added in an even lower voice,
“However, the formal report and personnel confirmation must all be completed.”
“Whether tonight or tomorrow morning.”
“I trust you understand that.”
Raymond replied,
“Of course. We will comply with procedures befitting the situation.”
The garrison commander’s gaze briefly brushed past Miryeong.
Then it lingered once more on the wagon where Bido lay.
But he asked nothing further.
At least here and now, pressing for more did not seem to be his priority.
“Very well. Then inside.”
Beyond the slowly opening border gate, torchlight stretched in a long line.
For the first time in days,
the envoy was able to enter within a proper perimeter.
But even as the gate opened, Miryeong did not relax the tension in her shoulders.
Courtesy had begun,
but the need for vigilance had not ended.
What followed moved quickly.
The border gate that had been firmly shut opened completely,
and the envoy’s procession slowly entered under the guidance of the garrison.
Torches lined the way ahead,
and the blue oxen, exhausted from the long journey, breathed low as they pulled the heavy wheels again.
As soon as they entered, people’s movements split into two, then three groups.
The wagon carrying the dead was quietly led in another direction,
and the members of the envoy were guided to temporary quarters and places where they could rest.
Raymond and the scribe immediately remained with the garrison’s personnel and began organizing the records and report.
The wounded were moved first.
As at the inn, stretchers were carefully carried once more,
and the physician did not take his eyes off them for even an instant.
Bido, too, was moved with the other wounded to a separately prepared building.
Every time they crossed a threshold or turned down a corridor, the inside of his chest throbbed,
but Bido bit his lip so that not even a groan could escape.
Unfamiliar ceilings and unfamiliar lights passed above his head.
The air, mixed with the smell of medicinal herbs and boiling water, drew closer.
He heard someone approaching the stretcher and briefly asking about his condition,
and unfamiliar hands were busily making a place for him.
They seemed to be people from Carmen,
but Bido could not fully open his eyes and only faintly sensed their presence.
Miryeong followed until the moment the stretcher disappeared inside,
and only stopped when the physician gave her a brief warning.
“From here on, the more hands there are, the more they will get in the way.”
Miryeong stood there for a moment without saying anything.
Beyond the closing door, Bido’s stretcher was carried farther inside,
and someone’s low voice could be heard calling for supplies.
Only then did she slowly withdraw her hand.
Meanwhile, outside, the work was still not finished.
While the garrison decided where to lay the dead,
divided the envoy’s personnel so they could rest,
and Raymond continued his late report face-to-face with the border garrison commander, the night deepened little by little.
At the end of the long journey, they had finally crossed the border,
but that did not mean everything was over.
Still, at least for tonight,
they were no longer on the road.
Bido very slowly opened his eyes one last time.
Beyond his blurred vision, he saw an unfamiliar ceiling and the tilted light of a lamp.
And as though blocking that light,
someone quietly approached and looked down at Bido’s wound.
It was a face he did not recognize.
“This child first, then.”
A low, calm voice sounded nearby.
Bido closed his eyes again before he could hear the rest.
And so,
the night on the road came to an end, and their first night in Carmen was beginning.