Bido tried not to make himself conscious of the fact that he was moving.
More than the sensation of walking,
there came first the judgment that he was going forward.
The name Schia was not unfamiliar.
He had never been there,
but he had heard of it.
It was called a city,
but the way people spoke of it was always different.
A city of mercenaries.
A city of opportunity.
A place where strength came before law, they said.
A place beyond the Empire’s reach.
Bido did not believe those words exactly as they were.
But he had no reason to deny them either.
He had already heard many times that such a place existed.
Schia was not a city that had appeared after the war ended.
He had heard that before the Empire expanded its power, amid countless battles,
people who needed a place to stay had remained there and made it what it was.
Perhaps because of that,
the impression it gave was closer to “a place where people gathered” than to the word city.
Bido’s gaze turned to Aslo.
His master had once told him that he had been active there.
But Bido had never heard the details.
He only remembered that Aslo knew that city,
and that he had left it.
Melanie was deliberately slowing her pace.
She was not leaning on anyone completely,
but it was clear she was placing each foot with careful attention to her balance.
Erdin came up beside her
and cautiously examined her condition.
“How is the pain?”
Melanie steadied her breath and answered.
“I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t any.”
“Are you enduring it?”
“I’m holding out.”
Her tone was still light,
but there was no strength behind her words.
Miryeong clicked her tongue at the sight.
“If you’re going to walk like that, you might as well say it.”
“Say what?”
“That you look like you’re about to collapse any second.”
Melanie tried to laugh, then gave up.
“Then will you carry me on your back?”
“I’d rather die.”
Miryeong cut her off at once.
“If you keep pushing yourself and make us take more trouble for nothing, it’ll get annoying. So stop.”
“That’s what you’re worried about?”
“No.”
Miryeong turned her gaze forward.
“It’d piss me off if you died for no reason.”
Erdin gave a short, awkward cough.
“If it is Schia, proper treatment should be possible.”
Miryeong turned her head.
“There are decent healers in a place like that?”
“There are many healers who work with mercenaries.”
“They may be rough people, but many of them have proven skill.”
Hearing that, Melanie lifted the corner of her mouth.
“That’s reassuring.”
Erdin nodded.
“And if it is that place,”
he paused briefly to choose his words, then added,
“even if pursuit catches up to us again, the situation will be different.”
“In Schia, transactions move before the law.”
“The direction in which money flows becomes the road,”
“and the side that moves against it stands out instead.”
Miryeong muttered lowly.
“So… as long as you have money, most things can be solved.”
“Precisely.”
Erdin nodded.
“Even the Empire cannot move as it pleases there.”
“It is a place where authority does not work.”
“If they try to force their way through, from that moment on, they will be turning the entire city into their enemy.”
Muryeong had only been listening to the conversation.
His gaze was still directed ahead.
He had yet to sense any particular presence.
The road continued on,
but the things that should have remained upon it were nowhere to be seen.
Then Miryeong stopped first.
Only for a very brief moment.
Before speaking,
she examined their surroundings once more.
“But… isn’t it strange?”
Bido did not immediately understand what she meant.
“What do you mean?”
Instead of answering, Miryeong turned her head toward the forest.
“By now.”
She paused, as if choosing her words.
“I think we should be feeling at least something.”
Only then did Muryeong stop walking as well.
His gaze sank low.
It was the way he scanned the ground, the air, and the unseen flow.
“…There’s nothing.”
It was a short statement.
Erdin looked back and forth between the two.
“Do you mean there are no traces of pursuit?”
“Yeah.”
Miryeong answered.
“There’s too much nothing.”
When those words ended,
a brief silence flowed between them.
The absence of something could be good news.
Especially for those fleeing.
But Muryeong’s expression did not change.
“At this point.”
Muryeong spoke lowly.
“They’ve either given up.”
He cut himself off.
“Or they’re waiting.”
Bido’s breath stopped ever so slightly.
Miryeong kept her mouth shut,
and Erdin wore the expression of someone turning over the meaning of those words.
At that moment,
Rangnan let out a very short breath.
“…That may be so.”
It was not a statement directed at anyone.
Rather than certainty,
it was closer to the sound of something falling into place inside his head.
Muryeong turned his head.
“What is?”
Rangnan did not answer right away.
Instead, he glanced once at the sword Bido was carrying on his back.
It was a very brief look.
It was closer to confirmation.
“For now.”
Rangnan said,
“there may be… no reason for it to be strange.”
Miryeong furrowed her brows.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Rangnan said no more.
He did not seem to have any intention of explaining.
He turned his gaze forward.
At the end of it,
Schia stood.
From afar, Schia did not look like a city.
What appeared first was not a wall, but traces of people.
Temporary structures set carelessly along the roadside,
piles of luggage covered with cloth,
shadows resting without setting down their weapons.
The closer they drew, the sooner the sounds reached them.
The clash of metal,
rough laughter,
languages they could not understand mingling together and flowing out.
Even when a boundary that could be called an entrance appeared,
there was no gate worthy of the name.
Only a structure that looked like a checkpoint,
and armed people scattered around it.
There were no uniforms.
No flags, no insignia.
Instead, there was one thing they all had in common.
Every one of them was watching the other.
Who entered first,
who stopped,
who might cause trouble.
Eyes that measured such things.
Feeling those gazes, Bido slowed his steps.
It was an ambiguous air, neither welcoming nor wary.
This was not a place that protected you.
But neither was it a place that drove you away.
The faces there seemed to say that entering was free,
but holding your ground was each person’s own responsibility.
What blocked the entrance was not a gate, but people.
They stood across the road armed,
but their eyes looked closer to interest than to intimidation.
“Where are you from?”
The man standing in front asked.
The question was light, but his gaze swept over each member of the group.
The weapons they carried, their gait, the sound of their breathing.
“You look like mercenaries.”
Another one beside him continued.
“But for travelers…”
When his gaze reached Rangnan,
it stopped for a moment.
“…Dulam tribe?”
Rangnan gave no answer.
He merely turned his gaze
and met the other man’s eyes.
That silence only stirred their curiosity further.
“Which mercenary band are you with?”
Before Erdin could open his mouth,
Bido stepped forward.
“We’re just passing through.”
His tone was polite,
but it did not feel as though he was backing down.
The man looked at Bido’s face and snorted a laugh.
“With a kid in tow?”
“Guess that’s how people do things these days.”
It was then.
The man’s gaze
landed on Aslo, who was quietly stepping forward.
At first he almost passed over him,
but on the second look, he stopped.
“…Huh?”
The man’s eyes narrowed.
“Don’t tell me.”
The man took a step closer.
Then he looked straight at Aslo’s face.
“Aren’t you Aslo the Demon Hunter?”
The surrounding gazes converged all at once.
“I heard you left for Arku.”
“What, was it no fun over there?”
A laugh mixed with mockery slipped out.
Bido clenched his teeth for an instant.
Miryeong did not stay still either.
“Watch your—”
Aslo raised a hand.
He did not even look at the man.
His gaze was already directed toward the inside of the city.
“Don’t block the road.”
His voice was calm.
“I know a place.”
When those words ended,
someone among those blocking the entrance quietly stepped aside.
The jeering did not continue.
Aslo did not look back again either.
“Let’s go in.”
At those words, there were no further questions.
Even after they had yielded the way,
one gaze did not leave them.
Bido did not bother looking back,
but he could feel the sensation lingering somewhere behind him.
A kind of gaze he could not tell was curiosity, wariness,
or simply boredom.
Miryeong spoke lowly.
“Hey.”
She did not look at Aslo.
“Don’t tell me you caused some kind of uproar here before.”
Aslo answered at once.
“I did no such thing.”
His words were short and calm.
After hearing that one sentence, Miryeong asked no more.
Instead, she clicked her tongue once.
“…Then fine.”
When those words ended, the pressure of the gazes naturally scattered.
Some had already lost interest,
and some turned their heads as if they had not cared from the beginning.
The deeper they went into Schia, the noisier it became.
Laughter burst out here and there,
and the smell of alcohol mingled with the scent of iron, filling the air.
A group rolling dice in the middle of the street,
an argument that looked as though the two sides might grab each other by the collar at any moment.
In the end, that argument did not turn into a fight.
Someone tossed in one more remark,
someone laughed it off, and they dispersed.
That seemed to be the way things worked here.
Many eyes brushed past Bido’s group,
but almost none lingered.
Not because they were armed,
not because someone was injured,
not because there was a strange race mixed among them—
this city did not particularly take issue with any of it.
Here, that much was an ordinary sight.
Bido found that fact a little strange.
In Arku, where he had lived,
there had always needed to be a reason.
Why had you come?
Where were you going?
What were you hiding?
But in Schia,
those questions did not come first.
Instead, the mood was this:
As long as you do not cause trouble, that is enough.
Everything else is each person’s own business.
Aslo did not slow his steps.
As if this was not his first time here,
he moved at the pace of someone who already knew where he had to go.
Looking at his back, Bido thought.
This city is not safe.
It is dangerous in a way different from everything until now.
And perhaps,
for them as they were now, that side might suit them better.
In that way,
without any explanation,
Schia was swallowing Bido whole.