Even after they had left the conference room,
Bido’s hand could not let go of the necklace.
The crescent moon kept turning at her fingertips.
Cold, thin,
and strangely familiar to the touch.
Bido rolled the crescent once more.
The chill of the metal climbed up the joints of her fingers
and pressed into the inside of her palm.
The word “familiar” was strange.
It was something she had never owned before.
And yet,
it felt as though her hand remembered it first.
Bido lightly touched beneath her neck.
On the bare skin where nothing rested,
it felt as if the place where the necklace should hang remained behind.
Miryeong glanced at her and lifted the corner of her mouth.
“You must like it.”
“Ah… it’s just…”
As Bido mumbled, Raen immediately cut in.
“It suits you, Bido!”
“It’s totally… perfect.”
A beat later,
Raen suddenly asked a practical question.
“But Lady Miryeong, what do we do now?”
“Hm?”
Miryeong shrugged,
then looked Bido up and down once before speaking.
“Well.”
“…Ah. Bido, will you follow me for a moment?”
“Yes?”
Bido looked at Miryeong.
Miryeong was already walking ahead,
and Bido followed after her.
Raen, her eyes sparkling, tagged along.
The place the three of them arrived at was the archive.
Before an entrance sealed like a stone wall,
a man who had been sitting in an old chair stood and bowed respectfully.
“Ah, Lady Miryeong. Good day.”
“Mm. Open the door for me.”
The man was about to answer at once, then stopped.
It was because he had seen the two people standing beside Miryeong.
Between strands of black hair,
there showed a girl with ears shaped unlike those of a human.
And beside her—
a Duram girl, like Rangnan.
The man’s gaze hesitated for a moment.
“…You intend to go in?”
Instead of answering, Miryeong only nodded.
The man asked nothing more.
Rules or whatever else—
there were always things that were pushed aside before Miryeong.
The moment he placed his hand on the rock,
Bido felt it.
The sensation of the air being scraped away in an exceedingly thin layer.
Not his fingertips,
but space itself seemed to move.
As the man’s hand moved in a steady rhythm,
the rock split apart like interlocking teeth.
A gap just wide enough for one person to pass through.
The man held out a small glass lamp with a lid.
There was a faint smell of oil.
“It is dark inside.”
“When you come out… please knock. I will open it again.”
“All right. Thank you.”
Miryeong took the glass lamp and entered first,
and Bido and Raen followed behind her.
Once the three of them stepped inside,
the rock silently meshed together again and closed.
When the sound of it closing ended,
their ears went muffled for an instant.
The flame in the glass lamp swayed once,
and the smell of oil grew stronger.
Raen tightly grabbed Bido’s arm with her hand.
Bido unconsciously grasped the necklace.
The coldness lodged in her palm.
‘We’re inside.’
Only belatedly did that fact feel real.
Raen suddenly pressed herself close to Bido.
“Ah… this might be a little scary….”
Miryeong gave a soft snort of laughter at the sight and walked forward.
Beneath the faint lamplight,
the space was larger than expected.
Neatly arranged bundles of documents,
files stood upright like books,
thin stacks tied with leather cords.
Miryeong stopped before one bookshelf.
“As far as I know… the things here in front are the early records of the Silver Moon Order.”
At those words, Bido’s ears twitched ever so slightly.
Seeing that reaction, Miryeong thought to herself.
‘Now she’s finally a bit like Haraya.’
Bido slowly approached the bookshelf.
She reached out and took down one of the oldest-looking files.
Dust scattered in a flurry.
When Miryeong flicked her fingertips,
a gust of wind passed through once, pushing the dust behind the lamp.
The file was less a book
than a form of yellowed parchment roughly bound together with string.
Miryeong pointed with her chin.
“What does that one say?”
Bido read the cover.
“Founding Records of the Silver Moon Order.”
Bido carefully turned the first page.
Rough handwriting was embedded there, like an old breath.
Bido read one line,
then paused for a moment.
“The Empire does not cease its ambitions.”
Raen and Miryeong both listened quietly.
Bido turned a few more pages.
The sentences continued as if broken off.
Only the passages that caught the eye remained.
“Arku.”
“In the old tongue… the Fortress of the Moon.”
“…Rangnan established a republic here.”
“And the Empire has its eyes on Arku.”
“Those who call themselves priests of the Sun God Church began their preaching.”
“And… their influence grew.”
A few more pages.
The handwriting,
from here on, became especially sharp.
“The Empire framed the Moon Clan.”
“And massacred them.”
Bido’s fingertips stopped for a moment.
“Rangnan, in the midst of that… saved two children.”
“Yurna.”
“Yureuon.”
Bido swallowed once.
Miryeong’s expression only hardened without a word.
Bido skimmed through several more pages.
“After that, one person exposed the Empire’s atrocities.”
“Gathered the victims.”
“And cared for them.”
Bido moved her gaze to the last line.
“Yun, Rangnan, Yurna, Leon, Cha.”
“Those five… founded the Silver Moon Order.”
Yurna.
Bido traced that name once more with her eyes.
Without realizing it,
strength entered the hand gripping the necklace.
Miryeong, who had been listening, spoke.
“Yurna… I can understand.”
“But who is Yureuon?”
Bido looked back down at the file.
After turning a few pages,
a passage about Yurna caught her eye.
‘Yurna decided to stand with Rangnan.’
Bido lowered her gaze beneath it.
And—
Yureuon.
Bido read that line over and over, feeling her way through it.
Yureuon.
Yureuon.
The name was clearly written there,
but there was nothing after it.
From the line where that name appeared, the lower part was blank.
The paper
was ragged, as though it had been torn out by force.
The torn place looked old,
and yet strangely “recent.”
The grain of the parchment fibers had risen.
If touched by the fingertips, it would catch not like powder,
but like finely torn threads.
Bido said quietly,
“…It’s been torn out.”
“What? Why?”
Miryeong frowned.
Raen brought her face close to the file,
then tilted her head.
“Hmm…”
“Maybe someone thought it was something that couldn’t be left behind?”
Miryeong asked,
“What do you think, Bido.”
“Want to read more?”
Bido nodded.
Her answer was short,
but her eyes moved first.
She looked as if she wanted to open again the file she had just closed.
Seeing that, Miryeong lifted the corner of her mouth ever so slightly.
“All right.”
“Then more.”
And so the three of them
spent time listening to the contents Bido read aloud.
Raen cut in from time to time with sparkling eyes,
and Miryeong occasionally laughed softly.
Time passed that way,
until Raen spoke first.
“Lady Miryeong, aren’t you hungry?”
Miryeong nodded.
“I was thinking exactly that.”
Bido carefully closed the file she had been reading.
“Let’s… go eat.”
The fact that those words came out so naturally
felt a little unfamiliar even to Bido herself.
But strangely, she liked it.
Bido’s expression was the brightest it had been in recent days.
Miryeong smiled lightly and took the first steps.
—
The three of them had arrived at the dining space and were eating.
Bido thought back to the stories she had read earlier.
The Empire and the Moon Clan.
There had been many heavy things.
But between them,
she had vaguely seen what her mother had done,
and what kind of person she had been.
Bido set down her spoon
and looked alternately at Raen across from her
and Miryeong beside her.
Had she ever applied the word “happiness” to herself before?
Right now—
she felt she understood it a little.
Bido stirred the soup once with the tip of her spoon.
Warm steam rose,
mingling with the metallic scent of the necklace.
The hand that had read her mother’s name was now holding a rice bowl.
It was a little strange—
and a little, a relief.
Bido almost smiled.
For that moment,
it felt as if the world had stopped for just a little while.
And the longer that stillness lasted,
the clearer the sounds around her became instead.
The sound of bowls touching,
the sound of chairs scraping.
And—
the gazes gathering toward them.
Bido folded her ears ever so slightly.
At some point, the noise in the dining hall had lowered.
In the place where laughter had vanished, only the crisp sound of bowls touching remained.
Someone approached Miryeong
and carefully bowed their head.
“Lady Miryeong… Rangnan is looking for you.”
Miryeong’s expression stiffened.
She put the remaining meat into her mouth
and said briefly,
“I’ll be back.”
“You two… stay and play.”
The member added,
“You are to go to the conference room.”
At the words “to the conference room,”
Miryeong’s shoulders stiffened ever so faintly.
With her mouth full, Miryeong nodded
and walked out just like that.
It felt as if the warmth that had remained in the dining hall cooled by one layer in an instant.
Raen swallowed the end of her words too,
and the laughter that had been spreading over the bowls quietly closed.
Bido set down her spoon and only watched Miryeong’s back.
The names she had just read—
Yurna, Yureuon.
The fiber grain of the torn place
seemed to overlap with Miryeong’s stiffened shoulders.
‘She’s being called away again.’
Bido grasped the necklace tightly once more.
The crescent moon pressed into her palm.
It did not hurt,
but strangely, her mind grew clear.
Before she knew it, Bido was listening only to the sound of people’s footsteps.
The sign of someone at another table standing followed belatedly.
Bido did not raise her head.
Because if she did, she felt she would want to follow.
Instead, she opened her fingers, let go of the crescent, then wrapped around it again.
Once more, the coldness remained in her hand.
Bido’s ears
were standing sharply toward the direction where Miryeong had disappeared.