Aslo spoke first.
“I know a healer.”
His words were brief,
and he added no explanation.
He glanced once toward the inner part of the city,
then shifted his gaze to Melanie.
“Can you walk farther?”
Melanie caught her breath for a moment, then nodded.
“Well... enough.”
Mendel stepped up beside him.
“I will accompany you.”
Aslo nodded.
That was the end of it.
He told no one to stay behind.
There was no order to wait,
no warning to be careful.
He turned.
“Past the market up ahead,”
he added as he began walking.
“There is an inn called the ‘Three-Fork Road.’”
There was no hesitation in the way he said the name.
As if it were a place he had used many times before.
“Once the treatment is done, we’ll meet there.”
With those words, Aslo, Melanie, and Mendel blended into the crowd.
The city swallowed the three of them as if it were nothing.
Bido did not watch their backs until they disappeared,
and instead turned her gaze away.
The city reached her first as sound.
The clash of metal,
the smell of liquor, laughter.
And amid it all, gazes weighing one another.
Rangnan looked at Bido once,
then shifted his gaze toward Miryeong and Erdin.
“I will go to the inn first with Muryeong.”
Hearing that,
Bido naturally felt the weight of the sword slung over her shoulder once more.
Muryeong merely nodded without a word.
He was already scanning their surroundings,
ready to move like someone who had memorized the streets.
Miryeong answered immediately.
“Then we’ll take the market.”
Her tone was tossed out lightly,
but her gaze was not light.
She had already read the movements of the people several times over.
Erdin also gave a short nod.
“We’ll check what we need and join you before sunset.”
Rangnan asked nothing more.
There was no permission, no caution, no condition.
Rangnan and Muryeong immediately changed direction,
and though they did not move quickly as they slipped among the people, there was no hesitation.
Bido watched the two of them for a moment,
then realized without meaning to that strength had entered her fingertips.
Just then, Miryeong spoke without even looking back.
“Let’s go.”
At those words, Bido nodded.
And so those who remained—
Bido, Miryeong, and Erdin headed toward the market.
The city did not stop them.
Which made it feel all the more
as though they were walking in by their own choice.
The closer they came to the market,
the more naturally Bido surveyed their surroundings.
There was much that caught the eye,
but what seemed as though it ought to be there was nowhere to be seen.
Even where people gathered,
even at the street corners,
there were no familiar uniforms or standardized arms.
If this were Arku,
there would have been at least one guard stationed on a street like this.
Someone to settle things before a commotion grew too large,
to make sure no gaze lingered too long for no reason.
But here, it was different.
Even when voices rose, no one intervened,
and instead the people nearby scattered first.
If an argument seemed likely to grow, the space emptied before it could.
No one stepped forward to stop it,
but no one tried to get needlessly entangled either.
Bido found that flow strange.
The stalls were irregular,
and people stopped on the road, then moved again.
There was no orderly structure to be seen,
but it did not feel completely chaotic either.
Miryeong walked ahead as if familiar with it.
Erdin followed, naturally adjusting the distance between himself and the crowd.
Between them, Bido readjusted the sword on her back.
A little while later.
Miryeong was already standing before a stall.
Her hand moved roughly as she pulled out a handful of dried meat and set it down.
There was no packaging, nor did she seem to have any intention of arranging it neatly.
“You’d better give me a proper price for this.”
The merchant turned the meat over once, sniffed it,
and his expression stiffened subtly.
“Hard to say it’s in very good condition.”
“What?”
Miryeong’s eyes narrowed.
“I dried it myself.”
“This much won’t lose out anywhere.”
“Even so, these days—”
“These days what?”
Cutting him off, Miryeong picked the meat back up.
“Then should I not sell it?”
The merchant’s gaze wavered for an instant.
Miryeong did not miss it.
“See? You know it too.”
Beside her, Erdin let out a small breath.
“Lady Miryeong.”
“Stay quiet, Erdin.”
Miryeong did not lower her hand.
Erdin said no more.
Instead, he took one step back and looked around.
He seemed to have noticed that people’s gazes were gathering little by little.
Bido was watching the scene from a short distance away.
Miryeong’s voice was clear even amid the noise of the market.
Rough, yet strangely blending in well.
Bido could feel that here, that kind of speech did not stand out.
Bido stood there, conscious of the weight of the sword.
People brushed past,
and someone glanced toward Miryeong before losing interest and turning away.
It was then.
An unfamiliar voice came from behind her.
“Hey.”
Bido did not turn around immediately.
For a moment, she could not tell whether he was calling her
or someone else.
“You there.”
This time it was clear.
When Bido slowly turned her head,
an unfamiliar man was standing several steps away.
His gaze was not on her face,
but fixed on Bido’s back.
More precisely—
he was looking at the sword.
The corners of the man’s mouth lifted slightly.
“Black-haired kid.”
At those words, Bido’s fingertips stiffened faintly.
“That.”
The man’s gaze did not leave the sword.
“That’s a dragon weapon, isn’t it?”
The noise of the market was still there,
but those words alone rang out clearly.
Bido did not answer for a moment.
The man was smiling.
He was clearly smiling, but his eyes were not.
“Even if you say it isn’t,”
the man said,
“you can’t fool my eyes.”
His gaze returned to the sword.
“That’s a weapon from Haraya.”
His tone was close to certainty.
It was not a probing remark, but the voice of someone who already knew.
“Why something like that,”
the man looked Bido up and down,
“is in the hands of a kid like you, I have no idea.”
Bido’s heart thudded loudly once.
Instinctively, her hand rose.
It moved as though she were brushing down her hair,
but in truth, it was a motion to cover the area around her ears.
The man did not miss it.
“Ah.”
It was a short sound.
A voice mixed with interest, as though he had realized something.
“So you were hiding it.”
Bido took one step back.
She looked around,
but the noise of the market was unchanged.
Miryeong’s voice was still audible not far away.
“...So, how much are you saying you’ll give?”
Erdin’s low voice overlapped with it.
The man followed Bido’s gaze and looked to the side once,
then tilted his head back toward her.
“Don’t worry.”
Those words were strangely gentle.
“There’s no need to be so wary.”
He held up his palms.
A gesture as if to show he had no weapon.
“I’m just,”
“someone who knows what that sword is.”
Bido’s eyes trembled ever so slightly.
“That sword,”
the man continued.
“is a far more troublesome object than it looks.”
He stepped one pace closer.
“If you don’t know how to handle it properly, it’s extremely dangerous.”
Bido swallowed her breath.
“...How,”
she asked carefully,
“do you know something like that?”
That question was exactly what he had been waiting for.
The corners of the man’s mouth rose.
At that moment—
the weight on Bido’s back became strangely light.
It was only for a very brief instant, and her body realized it first.
Her hand went reflexively behind her.
...It was gone.
The sword.
Bido turned her head and drew in a breath.
Among the people in the market,
someone was swiftly moving away.
The sword—
was already in another hand.
Bido looked forward again,
but the man who had been before her a moment ago was nowhere to be seen.
The smiling face,
the retreating body, were already no longer there.
There were only the people of the market.
As if nothing had happened,
they continued their own bargaining and quarrels.
Bido burst into a run.
Miryeong’s haggling voice receded behind her,
and she heard Erdin’s name from somewhere,
but Bido did not look back.
Right now—
she had to chase the stolen sword.
Bido cut through the people and drove forward.
There was no time to shout.
What mattered now was direction.
At the edge of her vision,
one person was moving abnormally fast.
Not because of their running speed,
but because people were subtly making way for them.
Bido clenched her teeth.
Her breaths grew short.
Even so, her steps did not falter.
She focused her mind on one place.
The space ahead, people’s shoulders, the end of a swaying cloak.
And the movement that ran counter to the flow of the crowd.
Unnecessary thoughts were pushed from her mind one by one.
Why this had happened,
whose fault it was,
whether someone might be calling her from behind right now—
she pushed all of those thoughts away.
Right now, there was only one thing.
She would not lose them.
The alley split.
The left was blocked by people,
and the right was narrow but empty.
Bido did not hesitate.
She lowered her body and turned right.
Her shoulder brushed the wall, but she did not slow down.
The sound of footsteps drew closer.
The shadow ahead looked back once.
It was an extremely brief moment.
Bido did not miss that opening.
The distance shrank by just a little.
And only now did the fact that she had no sword feel vividly real.
Bido’s back was empty.
The weight she should have felt as usual.
That absence pushed Bido farther forward.
Bido clenched her teeth and raised her speed even more.
It was not over yet.
Even as she ran, Bido paid no attention to her surroundings.
The fact that the density of people was gradually thinning,
that the noise was disappearing layer by layer,
were all outside her judgment for now.
Not losing sight of the back in front of her.
That alone filled her vision.
The alley split several more times,
and the ground grew more and more uneven.
More than human footprints,
there were marks left behind by dragged cargo.
Her breathing turned rough,
but her running speed did not fall.
Then,
the shadow running ahead suddenly slowed.
Bido reflexively tried to put in more strength,
then slowed along with them.
And—
the other person came to a stop.
Bido stopped where she was as well.
When she lifted her head, panting,
only then did she sense something strange.
There were no people.
The noise that had continued until just moments ago was gone,
and the market’s distinctive smell could barely be felt.
Instead,
damp air and the smell of old wood remained.
Bido looked around.
She could not tell where this place was.
It seemed like an alley,
or perhaps an empty lot between abandoned warehouses.
The walls were high, and there were few windows.
It was then.
She felt gazes around her.
Not one,
but from ahead, from the sides,
and from behind.
People were hiding.
She could not see them,
but the certainty that they were watching her, watching from that direction, became clear.
Bido’s hand slowly rose.
Toward the place where the sword should have been—
and closed on nothing.
Her breath sank once more.
Only then did the man standing ahead turn his head.
He no longer seemed to have any intention of running away.
Only then did Bido realize.
She had not chased that man here.
That man had led her here.