The training ground was quieter than it had been in the morning.
The sound of metal striking metal,
the sound of people steadying their breath,
now only rang out once or twice from far away, scattered and faint.
At the edge of the training ground, footprints that had yet to be cleared away remained.
The sand scattered that morning had been kicked apart,
as if the slightest brush of a sword tip would raise dust at once.
Bido adjusted her grip on the sword strap and swallowed once.
It was quiet not because it was peaceful,
but because everyone was conserving their breath.
Miryeong rubbed her stomach once and said,
“Let’s make this quick. I’m hungry.”
Aslo did not answer.
He merely stepped into the center of the open ground and turned his head.
“Bido. Face Kallen.”
Bido instinctively gripped the strap of her sword.
Kallen looked at Bido for a moment,
then drew the sword at his waist with great care.
The metallic sound of it leaving the scabbard struck the stone wall once,
then returned even harder.
Bido hesitated as well before drawing the sword from her back.
Kallen shifted his gaze to Aslo.
“Lord Aslo. Will this be all right?”
Aslo said in a low voice,
“Take this seriously, Kallen.”
“Bido is not weak.”
Kallen’s fingers tightened once more around the hilt.
Aslo continued,
“Kallen. Use Mirkin.”
As soon as those words fell,
it felt as though the air in the training ground sank ever so slightly.
Kallen’s eyes
turned red.
The moment Bido saw it,
her back stiffened.
The hand holding her sword lowered by an inch,
and her toes spread a little wider apart.
And then—
a strange sight unfolded.
Kallen was clearly walking.
His feet touched the ground,
his waist leaned forward,
his sword slowly rose—
ordinary movements like that.
And yet the speed at which Kallen approached was not “walking speed.”
The opponent before her drew closer one step at a time,
but only the distance vanished in an instant.
As if
Kallen alone were moving through a different flow of time.
By the time Bido thought, Fast! it was already too late.
Kallen’s sword had already traced a flash of light before her.
Bido raised her sword on instinct.
The sound of metal colliding.
A short, solid ring.
Before the echo had even faded,
the vibration ran up through the bones of her palm.
When the grip threatened to slip ever so slightly, Bido hooked her fingers deeper around it.
Sand shifted beneath her feet.
The moment she bent her knees, her thighs pulled as if they were burning,
and when she drew breath, the taste of iron brushed the tip of her tongue.
From somewhere far away came the sound of someone swallowing a breath.
Just then,
Kallen said lowly—
with a short breath.
“Hm?”
The red light spreading through Kallen’s eyes
seemed to fade for a brief moment.
Bido did not miss that opening and retreated.
The ground thudded two or three times.
One step
sounded like two.
But there was no time to catch her breath.
Kallen’s eyes turned red again.
This time, it was clearer.
The instant the red energy brushed past his eyes and spread,
Kallen came forward once more.
Bido tried to evade before her body could even keep up.
She turned her sword,
pulled back her foot, shifted her center of gravity—
but Kallen’s blade tip had already overtaken every part of that process.
Bido’s breathing grew short.
That was when
Aslo’s voice dropped, blunt and clear.
“Bido.”
It was only her name,
but within it Bido read the signal: now.
Bido’s fingers wrapped more deeply around the hilt.
Her breath stopped,
then entered very slowly.
It felt as though she were “forcibly pulling” at something somewhere inside her body.
From deep within,
an uncomfortable heat rose.
Kallen felt that strange sensation again.
Until just now,
everything else had seemed slow.
Bido’s movements, her breathing, even her blinking.
But now—
it felt as though something had “caught.”
The force that had been about to move on to the next moment
was severed midway.
His speed could no longer surge forward,
as if something somewhere had seized him by the ankle.
Kallen gritted his teeth and tried to drive in deeper toward Bido.
But at that moment,
Bido’s sword
had already stopped in front of Kallen’s throat.
The tip of the blade did not touch him.
But it was a distance where even without touching, he had no choice but to stop.
Kallen stood frozen, unable to let out his breath.
His eyes trembled, his expression searching for where his speed had been cut off.
At the edge of the training ground, metal rang once.
It was the sound of someone unconsciously tugging at a scabbard.
Only then did Bido realize
that she had done what she “had needed to show.”
Kallen’s body stiffened.
Why?
Until just now, he had been the faster one.
The world had been slow,
and Bido had been slow.
But the instant his acceleration disappeared—
relatively speaking, Bido seemed far too fast.
As a result, his reaction had come late.
Kallen’s eyes widened.
“...What the hell.”
His bewilderment was laid bare in his voice.
Kallen lowered the tip of his sword and let out a sigh.
As if acknowledging that the pause just now had not been coincidence,
he gave Bido a short bow.
The air in the training ground eased somewhat, but the tension still remained.
Kallen took one step back, then stopped.
Cold sweat had formed on the nape of his neck.
His gaze quickly swept over Bido’s face, over the red afterimage.
Only then did his heart begin to beat.
Aslo said,
“What do you think, Kallen?”
Bido slowly lowered her sword.
Her fingertips were still tingling.
When she exhaled,
the red energy remaining around her eyes also gradually faded.
Like ink spreading over water slowly sinking away.
Kallen stared for a while at the place where the blade tip had been before his throat, then raised his head.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever experienced that.”
Then he held out the hand that was not gripping his sword.
“I’m Kallen.”
Bido was slightly flustered.
But there was no mockery or testing in Kallen’s expression.
“Ah... I’m Bido.”
As if feeling awkward,
Kallen quickly withdrew the hand he had extended.
Then he loosened his neck once, lightly.
As though shaking off something that had been caught there until a moment ago.
“As you can see, I’m a Mirkin too.”
“Enhancement type. I can accelerate the time of my own body.”
Before he had even finished speaking,
another voice cut in from the side.
“I am Yeonhwa.”
It was a low, calm voice.
At that moment, Kallen staggered.
As if his sword had suddenly grown heavy, his wrist dropped,
and his knee touched the ground.
There was a short sound of metal scraping across the floor.
Kallen frowned.
“Lady Yeonhwa...?”
Yeonhwa did not move in the slightest.
Only her eyes had turned red.
The same red as Kallen’s—
but of a different texture.
A cold, solid red.
Yeonhwa said calmly,
“I’m also Enhancement type. I can change the properties of objects.”
Kallen gritted his teeth and put strength into his wrist.
But the sword remained as heavy as a lump of lead.
That was when
a thin mist brushed across Bido’s vision.
At first, she thought it was smoke from the torches in the training ground.
But it was not.
The mist had not “risen up”;
rather, her vision blurred as though a thin film had been draped over space itself.
“I’m Taejin.”
A somewhat relaxed voice,
yet one that concealed power.
Taejin’s eyes were also dyed red.
“I’m Transformation type. I can change the boundary point at which matter transforms.”
Yeonhwa said,
“He can’t change temperature itself. He can only change the conditions.”
The mist rippled shallowly.
The moisture in the air grew denser for a moment,
then settled as if nothing had happened.
Miryeong said abruptly from the side,
“These are all the Mirkin currently in the Silver Moon Order.”
Those words fell lightly over the training ground.
The word “all” was heavier than expected.
Miryeong looked at Bido for a moment.
Then her gaze slowly swept over Bido from head to toe.
It was a gaze that seemed to still hold somewhere within it the moment Bido’s eyes had turned red.
“Does that mean we’re about to have one more?”
Bido could not answer.
Instead, the hand gripping her sword hilt trembled ever so slightly.
Yeonhwa looked at Bido.
The red in her eyes had already subsided.
Her expression was calm,
but her gaze had not yet fully eased.
“I look forward to working with you, Bido.”
And after a beat, she added,
“I hope that power... can reach the Moon Demon as well.”
There was both a request
and a confirmation mixed into those words.
A way of not hiding the fact that this was not complete trust.
Kallen also gripped his sword again and nodded.
“...Yeah. I look forward to it.”
Taejin shrugged once.
The energy that had lingered like mist had completely cleared.
“Me too. For now, let’s try going together.”
Aslo stepped forward.
It was as though the remaining sounds in the training ground were being put in order.
“Good.”
He looked at the three of them in turn,
then finally at Bido.
“There isn’t much time until Muwol.”
“Until then, match your breathing with one another.”
“If you each insist only on the method you’re good at, then when your powers overlap, they’ll end up holding you back instead.”
“From next time on, it will be practice. Teach your bodies how to move together.”
Miryeong raised a hand and lightly cut him off.
“We get it.”
“Can we go eat now? I’m seriously hungry.”
Kallen let out a short laugh, as if dumbfounded,
and Yeonhwa only nodded without a word.
Bido slowly slung her sword onto her back.
And the moment the sword moved behind her,
the thought came to her.
The Moon Demon.
That one name
settled on her shoulders like a weight.
Now that name
was no longer a distant rumor.
It had become someone’s expectation—
and her own share to bear.
Bido swallowed a breath.
With her fingers, she tugged once more at the sword strap.
Her shoulder ached, but her toes were pointed forward.
Feeling the weight of someone’s expectation laid upon her,
she quietly nodded.
That was her answer for now.
It was heavy.
But she could not put it down.