Bido walked silently behind Miryeong.
The passage was only wide enough for one person to barely pass through.
The damp stone walls brushed his shoulders, leaving behind a cold wetness.
Just as he began to lose all sense of how long they had been walking, Miryeong stopped.
Ahead looked like a blocked wall,
but Miryeong slipped her hand close to the floor and hooked something with a click.
Without a sound, a massive door opened a quiet crack, as if a panel had slid out.
Miryeong squeezed out first, and Bido followed.
Outside was a forest.
Even up close, it looked like nothing more than rock and dirt,
a shadowed gap tangled with vines.
Once Miryeong pulled herself free, the panel behind them returned to its place, hiding all trace of it.
“If you want to go back in, you’ll have to use the main gate.”
Instead of answering, Bido only nodded.
Without looking back, Miryeong began walking, and Bido followed behind her.
The night was deep, and the forest was dark.
Moonlight was shredded finely by the leaves and merely scattered across the ground.
Miryeong walked not like someone searching for a path, but like someone who already knew it.
It was as if the feel of the dirt and stones beneath her feet alone determined her direction.
There were almost no words.
Only footsteps and breath,
and the cries of birds calling in the distance continued.
Bido could no longer tell where time broke off and where it resumed.
At some point, his fingertips froze, and the sensation of gripping his sword strap grew dull,
and at some point, the nape of his neck was wet.
Then, at a place where Miryeong paused for a moment, Bido became certain.
The stiffness in Miryeong’s shoulders was not from fatigue, but from what she was holding back.
Bido steadied his breath and spoke.
“…Are you going to fight?”
Miryeong did not answer and began walking again.
Bido followed one step closer.
“Because of that letter?”
Only then did he see it.
The silver ornament clasped in Miryeong’s hand.
A fibula that flashed briefly when it caught the moonlight.
“That… why are you holding it?”
Miryeong stopped walking.
The forest fell silent.
After standing for a while with her back to him, Miryeong spoke in a very low voice.
“You’re better off not knowing.”
“I followed you because I don’t know.”
Miryeong’s shoulder flinched ever so slightly.
Miryeong tried to release the fibula, then gripped it again.
She could not let it go.
Bido changed his words.
“I trust you, Miryeong. But… are you really going to fight?”
In the end, Miryeong did not turn her head.
She merely drew in a breath,
and that breath was broken somewhere inside.
Then she walked again.
Bido walked after her.
After that, neither of them spoke.
Instead, the night flowed on, and the darkness thinned.
The sky changed from black to deep blue,
and the wind grew a little warmer.
Birds began to cry,
and where the trees thinned out, a road appeared.
In the distance, a single thread of smoke rose,
and a low wall and several rooftops came into view.
It was a village.
Miryeong stopped briefly at the edge of the road and said,
“From here… I’ll handle it.”
Bido only nodded.
The village in the morning was in the bustle just before it fully woke.
The sound of doors opening,
footsteps heading toward the well,
the dull thud of firewood being split.
As Miryeong and Bido passed, gazes followed them.
Both looked young,
but the greatsword on Bido’s back, as tall as he was, made people’s eyes stop.
Bido did not avoid their gazes.
He simply walked.
Miryeong did not raise her head either.
As if deliberately unconcerned.
Miryeong’s steps slowed a little.
The tip of her nose moved ever so slightly.
As if drawing a thread out of the air, she turned direction,
and Bido followed wordlessly.
The place Miryeong headed toward was an inn.
The largest building,
an old signboard,
overlapping wheel tracks.
From inside came the sounds of floors being swept, tables being wiped, and barrels being moved.
It was the air of everyday life in motion.
At the center of it all, Miryeong stopped.
Rina was standing before her.
Rina swept her eyes over Miryeong once,
and the instant she saw Bido, her gaze stopped for the briefest moment.
After that, she treated Bido as if he were not there at all.
Then Rina spoke quietly.
“Thank you for coming.”
Conscious of their surroundings, Rina lowered her voice even further.
“There’s a place I’ve found.”
“Lead the way.”
At Miryeong’s words, Rina set off without looking back,
and Miryeong followed right behind her.
Bido followed one step later.
“Miryeong… are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
She said that, but Miryeong’s hand seemed unable to let go of the fibula.
Rina left the village and walked toward the hill.
The crowing of chickens and the morning sounds of people grew distant,
and the wind became far clearer.
Atop the hill was a clearing wider than expected.
Rina walked into the middle of the clearing and gripped the hilt of the thin sword at her waist.
Miryeong also stepped forward, loosened the strength in her wrists, and lightly raised the tips of her feet.
Rina opened her mouth.
“The Melop family…”
Her words caught at the end.
Rina swallowed that beat with a breath and spoke again.
“Rina. White Weasel.”
Then she put strength into the hand gripping her sword hilt.
“I challenge you to a duel.”
Miryeong only nodded.
“Fine. My name is Miryeong. Remember it.”
Rina’s gaze drifted briefly to the sword on Bido’s back.
That hesitation was brief, but unmistakable.
Seeing it, Miryeong said calmly,
“Ah, he’s… in your terms, a witness. Don’t mind him.”
Miryeong tossed the fibula in her hand to Bido.
Bido caught it reflexively.
A cold, hard sensation.
“Hold on to it.”
Rina’s expression crumpled for the briefest instant.
Seeing that expression, Miryeong added,
“The winner takes it. Right?”
Rina answered curtly.
“That’s right.”
Miryeong took her eyes off the fibula,
and lowered herself toward Rina again.
Rina also drew her sword and shifted her feet.
A stance like a bee folding its wings, still in the instant before it stung.
Between them, Bido took a step back, the fibula clasped in his hand.
A witness.
An observer.
He drew in a breath.
The air was heavy.
Miryeong’s toes pressed lightly into the grass.
At that moment,
the air began to gather toward Miryeong’s body.
An invisible current touched the hem of her clothes,
and stirred the ends of her hair.
The wind was not sharp as a blade.
For now, it was merely a wind that was gathering.
Rina watched it and drew in a short breath.
The night of the full moon.
Miryeong then had been a storm.
A natural disaster in the truest sense.
But now.
Rina felt that the wind circling around Miryeong was not as violent as it had been then.
There was a current.
But it was not a storm.
Rina did not hesitate.
The tip of her foot kicked off the ground once.
Her body slid forward, and her thin sword thrust out without even a glint of light.
A thrust.
The first was quick and shallow.
Miryeong did not twist her body.
She only turned her head exactly an inch to the side.
The sword tip grazed past her cheek.
The second.
Rina’s wrist bent immediately.
This time, she aimed beneath the neck.
Miryeong’s hand shot up like lightning and struck the back of the blade with the edge of her hand.
A short, dry
tak.
The sound rang out.
Rina connected a third strike.
Not a thrust, but as if cleaving.
An angle like a line drawn toward Miryeong’s side.
Miryeong shifted her feet and “pushed” the wind.
The wind did not explode.
It merely pushed Rina’s sword tip away a little.
Exactly one handspan.
That one handspan erased a fatal distance.
Miryeong did not miss that opening.
Her hand reached out to seize Rina’s wrist.
Rina immediately pulled her hand away and folded her body back.
Miryeong’s fingertips swept through empty air.
Instead, the motion did not break, and Miryeong’s foot rose.
A short kick.
The wind clung thinly along the tip of her foot.
Rina raised her thin sword and received it.
The sound of metal cutting wind rang out briefly.
Shak.
Rina read the flow.
And she cut that flow.
Once more.
The wind gathering around Miryeong’s body
was struck by the sword’s path and split apart for a moment.
Miryeong instantly filled the side where she had lost the wind with her foot,
and the current connected again.
Rina saw that and pressed her lips together slightly.
Fast.
Her reflexes,
and her judgment.
Even without the full moon’s storm,
Miryeong was strong.
Rina held her breath once.
After that single beat of stillness,
the sword tip thrust out again.
This time, Miryeong did not dodge.
She struck the side of the sword tip down with her palm,
and immediately drove in with her body.
Rina promptly withdrew to create distance.
Their feet brushed across the clearing, pressing down the grass.
The first exchange ended there.
At a place where neither one’s breath reached the other.
The wind circled low beside Miryeong’s body,
and Rina lowered the tip of her thin sword ever so slightly as she measured Miryeong again.
Rina came in again.
This time, it was not a thrust,
but a cut as if drawing a line.
The wind was severed,
and through that gap, the sword tip dug in.
Miryeong bent her body to avoid it while pushing it away with her elbow,
and the compressed air buckled with a thok—
Half a handspan.
Rina found her center and came in again,
and Miryeong finally burst the wind to erase the distance.
The grass lay down to one side, and dust rose.
The two closed in until their breaths nearly touched,
then both stepped back at the same time.
Rina’s eyes locked straight onto Miryeong’s.
And at that distance, Rina did not press any further.
She withdrew for a moment.
One step.
Only one step.
The distance opened.
The two returned to measuring each other again.
There was certainty on Rina’s face.
But that certainty was not a pleasant one.
Dissatisfaction.
Strong.
Fast.
And yet somehow restrained.
As if she were binding herself.
Rina opened her mouth.
“That man.”
The air of the clearing grew quiet once more.
Miryeong’s wind wavered for a moment,
and her eyes sharpened ever so slightly.
Watching Miryeong’s reaction, Rina continued.
“Hongryeon.”
Rina did not speak that name carefully.
She simply tossed it out.
“He fought honorably.”
Those words were not praise.
Nor were they words meant to hold on to a memory.
They were a clear demand.
You fight like that, too.
Properly. Show me.
Miryeong’s lips trembled once.
Bido felt strength enter the hand clasping the fibula.
Miryeong drew in a breath.
Short and rough.
Then she spat out exactly what she had been holding back.
“Shut up.”
The moment those words fell, the wind gathering around Miryeong’s body changed.
It was no longer wind that merely gathered,
but wind that began to rush in violently.
The air coiled toward Miryeong,
then prepared to pour all at once toward Rina.
Miryeong’s stance lowered.
This time, it was not a stance for evasion.
Nor was it one for pushing away.
It was a stance that said, “I’ll smash you to pieces.”