The Nightless City (3)
The streets were packed with a massive crowd. People filled with anticipation, laborers carrying goods and heading somewhere specific, and mixed among them, martial artists moving with clear purpose.
Were those martial artists heading toward the location of the treasure? I turned to Hye-ryeong, who was walking while tightly gripping my hand, and gave her a warning.
“Be careful. There might be pickpockets in a crowd like this.”
“Shouldn’t you be the one watching out, mister? You’re the one carrying all the money.”
“Scoundrels aren’t limited to just pickpockets.”
In truth, it wasn’t so much pickpockets as… the possibility of someone taking advantage of the chaos to put their hands where they didn’t belong. Even in the 21st century, where such crimes were cracked down on mercilessly, those kinds of bastards still existed. In this medieval-era world, it was probably even more common. With this many people around, catching them would be difficult too.
The biggest issue was that Hye-ryeong was just so…
…Anyway, protecting a lady was a knight’s duty. I needed to keep Hye-ryeong safe from any filthy hands. Specifically, something along the lines of chopping those hands off and shoving them down the offender’s throat would suffice.
“So stick close to me.”
“Okaaay.”
…I didn’t mean that close.
I did my best to ignore the sensation pressing against my arm and continued through the noisy streets. Countless merchants were calling out to attract customers, but none of them tried to solicit us.
…It was probably because I was a foreigner.
Honestly, I didn’t look like someone who could speak Chinese fluently. Soliciting only worked if you could communicate. There was no point in trying to hawk goods to someone who couldn’t understand a word. And they certainly weren’t going to resort to body language in a night market this crowded. There was no reason to humiliate themselves like that.
Thanks to that, we were able to enjoy the night market without any interruptions.
“Mister! Look at this!”
“A hairpin, huh.”
A hairpin that appeared to be made of pure silver sparkled under the light of the lanterns. At a glance, it looked like an ornament crafted from high-purity silver.
Hye-ryeong squatted down in front of the stall and began examining the numerous hairpins. I stood beside her, watching as she picked them up and fiddled with them.
Not that there was much to see beyond the various decorative designs on the pins. There wasn’t exactly a lot here to hold my interest.
“Can I try this one on?”
“Haha, of course you may, miss.”
“Mister, could you…”
Hye-ryeong suddenly undid her hair and handed me the string she’d been using to tie it. I took it and watched as she gathered her hair up.
She must have done this many times before—her hands moved with impressive skill. I couldn’t help but admire the sight of her waist-length hair being twisted and coiled neatly atop her head in an instant.
“You’re quite good at that.”
“My mother taught me when I was young! I practice sometimes!”
Finally, the hairpin was inserted into her coiled hair. Hye-ryeong removed her hands and turned to look at me.
“How does it look?”
“It’s pretty.”
“Hehe.”
A bright smile bloomed on Hye-ryeong’s face, as radiant as the full moon in the night sky. I could only stare at her in a daze. The sight of a beautiful woman smiling at me was simply impossible to look away from.
I only snapped out of it when she removed the hairpin and held her hand out to me. I gave her back the string and asked,
“You want to buy it?”
“Are you going to get it for me?”
“It’s just a hairpin.”
“Thank you!”
I took some coins from my pouch, paid for the hairpin, and handed it to her. Hye-ryeong looked at it for a moment, then tucked it into her cleavage before grabbing my hand again.
“Then let’s go look at other places!”
“You’re not going to wear it now?”
“You didn’t know, mister? Hairpins like this are only worn by married women.”
Was that the case?
When I glanced at the stall owner after hearing this new information, he gave a small chuckle and nodded. So that was it. In that case, it was basically just for decoration.
It gave off a completely different vibe from her usual slightly modern-looking twin tails, and it was quite charming. How should I put it… it made her look like she’d gone from a child to a young woman?
Once again reminded that a person’s hairstyle could completely change their impression, I absently ran my fingers through the hair covering the back of my neck.
I should get mine trimmed too.
Back when I was constantly on the battlefield, I kept it short because of my helmet.
“Shall we keep walking, then?”
“Yes!”
We held hands and moved on to the next area.
We still hadn’t achieved our goal, after all.
“Looks like they don’t sell manuals here.”
We had thoroughly scoured the night market for quite a while, but there wasn’t a single merchant selling lightness skill manuals. It seemed this market simply didn’t deal in them.
“I thought a market this big would at least have one lightness skill manual…”
“How is it that they have everything else but no lightness skill manuals?”
“Right?”
There were plenty of fist, sword, and spear technique manuals openly displayed, so why was there nothing for lightness skills? We couldn’t help but find it strange.
Of course, lightness skills were often created to match specific internal energy cultivation methods, so it wasn’t entirely odd… but there wasn’t even a single third-class lightness skill available. It was as if someone had swept up every single lightness skill manual in the area.
“Hey, are there really no lightness skill manuals? Not even one?”
“That’s right. They’re probably hard to come by. Not many lightness skill manuals are released to the market in the first place, and whatever few there were have likely all been bought up by now.”
“By whom?”
“Lord Zhang. I heard it has something to do with the treasure that was just made public… I don’t know the details, so why don’t you go take a look? It should be about time for the treasure to be revealed in the central plaza of the city.”
The treasure, huh.
So I had to see it at least once after all.
“Hye-ryeong. Let’s go see the treasure.”
“Okay!”
“Thank you for the information.”
“It’s nothing… I just felt bad watching you two wander around for nothing.”
To think he’d be kind enough to tell us even though we were just going to end up as spectators. Was this what they called being a good person? I left with a strange sense of admiration and turned with Hye-ryeong.
Since we were still quite far from the central plaza, we needed to move quickly from here. There was no way to know whether the treasure would remain on display or only be shown for a short time.
“I wonder what the treasure is?”
“It might… be a lightness skill.”
“A lightness skill worthy of being called a treasure… Could it be the Cloud Soaring Step? Or the Lingbo Weibu?”
I had no idea.
Though it would be strange if I did.
“We’ll find out when we get there.”
“Why do you think Lord Zhang bought up all the lightness skill manuals?”
“Who knows…”
There was probably some reason, but at the moment, there wasn’t a single clue to speculate from.
We walked toward the central plaza, chatting about the treasure. A huge crowd had already gathered there, all staring at the stage set up in the middle of the square.
“Ugh, I can’t see anything…”
“Maybe we should climb onto a roof to watch.”
“You can’t get up there, can you, mister?”
“…I really need to learn a lightness skill soon.”
Once I learned lightness skills, I’d be able to leap onto rooftops as nimbly as those people in black clothes I saw earlier.
I really wanted to learn it quickly…
Hm?
People in black?
I immediately shifted my gaze to follow the figure in black that had caught the edge of my vision. The person in black was leaping from roof to roof, circling the stage, before settling into a spot with a good vantage point to look down at it.
At first glance, it was blatantly obvious they were up to no good.
If I just left them be, they’d probably cause an incident. Should I say something?
“Mister, what are you looking at?”
“Can you see that person in black up there?”
“Oh, you’re right! I’ve never seen someone like that before!”
“The guys from the Demonic Cult were also wearing black martial uniforms.”
“But those were… well, they just looked like warriors in black uniforms rather than actual ‘people in black’…”
That was true. Since they hadn’t completely covered their faces, calling them “people in black” felt a bit off.
“Anyway, shouldn’t we tell someone?”
“I suppose we should.”
I took a deep breath and stared at the figure in black. They still hadn’t noticed my gaze and were reaching into their robes, clearly preparing to do something to the stage.
Before they could cause any trouble, I pointed and shouted,
“There’s a suspicious person on the roof!”
“Mister, it’s too noisy around here—your voice isn’t carrying!”
Damn, this is annoying.
I couldn’t exactly infuse my voice with aura here. If I did, some weak-hearted person might have a heart attack.
Still, quite a few people had heard me, so they’d probably notice soon…
Ah, he’s running.
Wait, he’s jumping toward the stage?
“Suspicious person!” “Protect the treasure!”
The square, which had been filled with laughter and chatter, instantly fell into chaos. And then I spotted the person in black, who had kicked off a wall like a nimble cat and landed on a roof.
In his arms was a single book.
That’s…
“So that’s the treasure.”
I instinctively realized that the item the man in black had stolen was the treasure.
“Catch him, quickly!”
“Get him! Catch that bastard! Do you have any idea how much effort I put into obtaining that?!”
“Looks like we won’t be seeing the treasure after all.”
“Well, at least we got a decent story to tell over drinks. That’s something, right?”
“That’s true.”
We turned away without any lingering attachment.
Something told me that if we stayed, we’d get dragged into something troublesome.
“No one is allowed to leave this place!”
What the hell?
I opened my eyes at the loud shout that woke me from my sleep.