"The City Lord..." Ric repeated, sounding almost irreverent.
As for this City Lord, whoever he was, Ric couldn’t care less. To him, the man already sounded like a terrible person.
"Who is this City Lord, and why would he prevent us from leaving?"
The fat Beastkin boy bit his lip, his round bear ears twitching nervously.
"He is the ruler of Anarchy City. Once it was a city without a ruler, a place of pure chaos. However, during the last pacification of the city by the outsiders... he came."
"And he never left."
The boy lowered his gaze, recalling the stories he had heard.
"He defeated and subdued many factions and took the mysterious Throne of Anarchy."
"However, while everyone expected the chaos to end... he called for more chaos, more madness, and glory to war."
Ranar crossed her arms beneath her chest, looking down at the children as the sky slowly began to darken, the golden sun descending toward its nightly rest.
"He sounds like a real piece of work."
"He wasn’t always like that," said a small girl hiding behind the fat Beastkin boy. She timidly peeked around his shoulder, clutching the back of his ragged clothes.
"The City Lord used to be the savior of the weak."
"He helped us."
"He stopped bad people."
"Once he even saved my mama..."
Her voice became quieter with every sentence until she lowered her head.
"You just said he was evil." Ranar rested one hand on her small waist, clearly unconvinced.
Ric crossed his arms, his expression being thoughtful as he remembered something Damon had once told him.
"The world isn’t so black and white."
"There is no such thing as a pletely good or pletely evil person. Our circumstances make us who we are."
"Most of us are one bad day from a genocide."
He repeated every word exactly as Damon had once said it. Even though he did not truly understand all of it, he continued anyway.
"We wish to be good, but we fail to forgive."
He looked toward the distant mountains, his voice quieter than before.
"Perhaps there was something that drove this City Lord person to bee... mad."
At least, that was what his master seemed to believe.
Sometimes Damon carried a sadness that Ric could never explain.
There were moments when his master looked at him with a melancholy so deep that Ric couldn’t help but feel Damon didn’t actually want him around. As though raising him had been some great mistake he could never undo.
Ric wanted more than anything to prove him wrong.
He wanted Damon to be proud of him.
He never wanted his master to regret raising him.
Ranar had no idea what Ric was thinking, but the carefree boy from earlier suddenly seemed unusually somber.
She decided not to ask.
"Is there another way out of this mountain range?"
The blue-haired merman boy nodded.
"You can enter the Anarchy Mountains from any direction... but you can’t leave so easily."
"There are monsters that lurk beyond the borders."
"They hunt everyone who tries to leave."
"But if you leave through Anarchy City... or one of the Ancient Channels... you’ll be just fine."
"Then take us to the nearest Ancient Channel," Ranar said without hesitation.
The oldest boy immediately shook his head.
"Impossible."
"You can’t use those."
"They’re usually surrounded by nests of terrible and intelligent monsters."
"You’ll be dead..."
"...or worse."
"You’ll e back inhuman."
"There’s also this weird stuff that turns you into monsters if you listen to it."
"You mean rot?" Ric asked, his expression tightening. He had encountered small traces of it before, and even those memories made him unfortable.
The boy quickly nodded.
"Yes."
"And that’s not all."
"You still need a lot of magic to activate the Channel."
"No one has ever left that way."
"Wait." Ranar frowned.
"What about when the Imperial Army es for a pacification?"
"Why doesn’t that work?"
"They usually leave the same way they came," the merman boy explained.
"The monsters usually can’t stop their army."
"They also use projectiles fired from outside the mountains for cover and suppressive fire."
He paused before sighing.
"They usually leave the city and the surrounding area worse off than when they found it."
"Then why don’t they just stay and rule the city if they’re so strong?" Ric asked.
The fat Beastkin boy slowly looked down at the ground.
"They don’t because..."
"...they go mad with the Anarchy Disease."
"The Anarchy Disease?" Ric repeated.
"Outsiders usually go mad from it."
"Especially soldiers... or people with a warlike nature to begin with."
"It affects everyone."
"Some more than others."
"Others develop a unique version of it."
He swallowed before continuing.
"My uncle swore off violence by cutting off his own hands."
"He still got it."
"He became someone with conflicting desires."
"And soon enough..."
"...he wanted to cut off everyone else’s hands."
Silence settled over the camp.
One by one, the children began sharing their own stories.
Some spoke of family members who had gone mad.
Others whispered about neighbors who disappeared into the mountains only to return as monsters.
Every story made the Anarchy Disease sound less like an illness...
...and more like a curse.
Ranar quietly glanced at Ric before grabbing his sleeve and pulling him a few steps away from the others.
"So..."
"What do you think of this?"
"Hmm... I admit it sounds bad. This mountain range is like a maze. If I was a betting boy, I’d bet this would be a perfect place for someone to hide something. Or for someone who doesn’t want to be found to hide."
Ranar nodded slowly. She understood what he was saying. It would be difficult for them to be found by her father or his master, especially since neither of them could enter here.
"So what do we do... do we try to find this city? I mean, I only know a tiny bit about the city... and that was from a story. I can’t even tell which is true or fiction." She whispered, glancing toward the children who were being more and more anxious as the sun drifted behind the mountains, its golden light steadily fading.
"If there is no alternative, then we take what we have..." He balled his fist tightly. "In the absence of the desirable, let the available be the desirable."
Ranar was about to nod when she suddenly narrowed her eyes.
"Hmm... that saying... it’s a motto, right?"
Ric nodded slowly.
Ranar’s brows furrowed.
That was a saying her father had e up with for his party.
She had heard the story from Eva. He had coined those words when they were trapped in a dreadful place called the Whispering Forest and had led everyone out safely.
Eva used to tell her those stories before she went to bed, so hearing Ric repeat their motto was surprising, to say the least.
Then she shook her head.
No... of course not. It must be a well known saying.
She was thinking too much.
Ric walked over to the children, who suddenly began stuffing their few belongings together in a hurry.
He slowly drew his sword, the blade gleaming in the fading light.
"Well, well, well... you have guts to try and steal from us and then flee."
The older boy quickly raised both hands.
"Wait... no... no, please listen. It’s getting dark. We have to leave this place."
Ric glared at him coldly.
"It’s getting dark?"
"They’ll wake up soon. We have to leave!"
The moment Ranar heard those words, she realized the sun had already slipped behind the mountain peaks.
Crack.
A faint sound echoed through the valley.
Then another.
Crack... crack...
The hairs on the back of Ric’s neck stood up.
His scalp tingled.
"Damn it... you should’ve said so earlier." He tightened his grip around his sword. "Which way is out?"
He had no intention of staying behind to find out what was making those sounds.
The older boy didn’t wait another second.
He turned and bolted, the other children following after him in panic.
Ric and Ranar exchanged one look before sprinting after them without hesitation.
The cracking sounds only grew louder.
Closer.
Sharper.
As if enormous slabs of stone were grinding against one another.
The older boy shouted over his shoulder.
"Don’t look back!"
"And don’t look at them!"
Ric’s eyes widened.
The angel statues...
The ones they had seen when they first arrived.
His scalp tingled violently.
Ahead of them stood the narrow cave entrance they had used earlier.
On either side of it towered two enormous angel statues.
Crack...
Crack...
Their stone bodies shuddered.
The smiling faces they had worn before were gone.
In their place twisted expressions of sorrow and madness slowly formed, transforming their once divine appearance into something grotesque.
Then...
Thin streams of tears began to run down their stone cheeks.
"Hurry!" the older boy screamed, his voice almost breaking.
"Before they wake up!"
One of them opened their eyes.
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