The Sheriff of Rockshade
As the West Street system message scattered into the void, the back-alley scenery that had filled my vision twisted and distorted. The first thing I felt was the dryness. A scorching dry wind that stung the lungs blew through, and the perfectly intact alleyway cracked apart in an instant, oxidizing into red sandy dust. In place of concrete walls, what appeared before us were the rough, weathered planks of old wooden buildings.
“This is…”
“The southwest end of West Street. Rockshade.”
Rockshade. True to its name, the town we now stood in was blanketed by deep, gloomy shadow. I glanced upward to find the source and saw a massive boulder that looked as though someone had deliberately planted it there.
“Straightforward. I like it.”
“Right. So we just need to locate the anchor now?”
The moment we arrived in the village, Hwa-ryeong asked with bright, eager eyes what we should do next, but I shook my head.
“No. The instant we destroy the anchor, the other side will notice us. We have to wait until the last possible moment. Until then, we prepare.”
“Prepare?”
“Scout the terrain, get a rough idea of the anchor’s location, and think of ways to interfere with the summoning circle. We still have time.”
“Ah. True, that would be wise.”
The current time was 6 p.m. According to the information Crome had sent, the train would reach Sandhill at 6 a.m. tomorrow. We had roughly twelve hours of breathing room.
“Then first…”
I was studying the map to locate the nearest anchor when Orca cut me off.
“All that’s fine, but there’s one thing you absolutely must do when you first arrive in West Street.”
“What?”
“Greet the sheriff. Otherwise you won’t be able to do anything properly.”
“The sheriff?”
Ah, right. The West always had its sheriffs.
“If the sheriff doesn’t acknowledge you as an outlaw here, you can’t do a thing. Sheriffs will chase you all over the district trying to arrest you.”
“Can’t be helped, then.”
If that was the rule of the street, we had no choice but to follow it. We headed for the sheriff’s office marked on the village map, but the building was completely deserted, as if it had been abandoned for years.
“If you’re looking for the sheriff, just go to the saloon.”
I grabbed the nearest outlaw and asked. The gruff answer I received was exactly what I should have expected. A sheriff who abandoned his office to loiter in a bar—how perfectly West Street. Thinking that, we stepped inside the saloon. The boisterous atmosphere of the drinking hall greeted us.
But only for a moment. The instant the patrons noticed us entering, the lively clamor died as if someone had flipped a switch.
Creak. The old swing door closing sounded unusually loud. Thick cigarette smoke, the reek of cheap liquor, and the sticky gazes that wormed their way through both. Every man who had been lifting a glass now stared straight at our group.
“……”
“……”
Were they all outlaws? The guns gleaming at their waists stood out. Firearms were strictly controlled outside, yet nearly everyone here seemed to carry one. Most were pistols rather than long rifles, but they were threatening enough. While the men inside the saloon and my party sized each other up, a tired voice drifted from deeper within the bar.
“Ah. Yeah. Fresh batch of outlaws, huh? Come over here. I’ll hand over that damned token.”
When I looked toward the voice, I saw a man at the rearmost table surrounded by stacks of paperwork, sighing heavily.
“Are you the sheriff of Rockshade?”
“Yeah. Call me James. Ah, no need to introduce yourself. Couldn’t care less who you are or why you’re here.”
Feeling the stares pricking my back like needles, I walked forward slowly. I shot a look at Hwa-ryeong, who was humming and reaching for her sword hilt, telling her to stop, then approached the man buried beneath his documents.
Up close he looked even worse. The dark circles under his sunken eyes reached all the way to his jaw, and his battered sheriff’s badge was carelessly crammed into his shirt pocket.
“Name.”
The man didn’t even raise his head as he dipped the quill deep into the inkwell.
“Helper.”
“The women following you?”
“Colleagues.”
“Hmm… Harem party? Well, nothing unusual in this line of work.”
The sheriff answered indifferently and scribbled my name across the parchment. Scratch, scratch. The only sound in the silent saloon was the pen nib scraping paper.
“Before I give you the token, I’ll briefly explain the rules of this district. I know you won’t actually listen, but at least pretend to.”
James listed the rules of West Street one by one between yawns.
“First, don’t blame anyone else when you die. Whether you get stabbed or shot in the back of the head, it just means you were weak. You didn’t come here expecting law and order, did you?”
“Of course not.”
“Second, don’t cause trouble inside the village. Fight all you want outside. But if you make enough noise to ruin my drink or start smashing buildings, I’ll come out myself.”
“Understood.”
They were all reasonable rules. As I nodded, a rather unique one left James’s mouth.
“Third. Do not enter the canyon. Of course, if courting death is your hobby, I won’t stop you.”
“Canyon?”
“Travel the wasteland and you’ll see places that obviously scream ‘you’ll die if you go in.’ Handle it yourselves. Lastly, never refuse a duel, and ambushes are forbidden. Break that one and you might end up on a wanted poster, so keep it in mind.”
Having explained the essential rules, the sheriff shoved the roughly scribbled document toward me.
“Take it. Don’t lose it. It’d be a pain for me if you did.”
“No fee?”
“Fee? I don’t collect taxes. Pay the tax collector when he comes later—if you’re still alive by then, of course.”
James chuckled and waved his hand as if there were no point taking money from a dead man walking. I silently accepted the document.
“If you’re done, get lost. Too many outlaws like you around here already. No more questions.” James buried his face back in his paperwork. With that, my companions and I had officially become recognized outlaws in West Street. Legitimate outlaw—the phrase sounded strange, but that was what it was.
The moment we left the saloon and stepped back onto the street, Hwa-ryeong’s sparkling voice came from behind me.
“Helper, did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“The rule about not refusing duels. That means if someone challenges me, I can accept and cut them down as much as I like, yes? And ambushes are forbidden? This is truly a street of honorable warriors!”
The corners of Hwa-ryeong’s mouth kept rising uncontrollably. The brutal lawless zone seemed to be nothing more than an unrestrained playground to her.
“Ah. Now that you mention it, the Murim world really was survival of the fittest. Must be nice. You get to fight to your heart’s content.”
Since the homeland of martial artists operated on strength-based hierarchy, this must have felt familiar to Hwa-ryeong. That was what I thought when I spoke, but her reaction was strange.
“Haha, it’s not that I like it. I simply didn’t expect to see another place so similar to my hometown. It’s merely a little amusing.”
“What? You dislike this kind of thing?”
“Dislike it? I practically hate it.”
“…Hate it?”
Hate it. Despite the word, Hwa-ryeong’s eyes were sparkling like an excited child’s. I looked at her hoping for more explanation, but as always she seemed unwilling to elaborate further.
“Anyway. We’ve finished our business in this village, so let’s move. We still have twelve hours, but time will pass quickly while traveling. First… shall we set up base at Sandhill?”
“Won’t the Reverse Factory notice us if we go to Sandhill?”
Yuna voiced her worry at my suggestion. In normal circumstances she would have been right. But right now—
“Do they even have the manpower to monitor every single person in Sandhill?”
“Huh?”
I showed Yuna one of the posts from Hunter Web.
[Current Sandhill Situation]
Yeah, is this for real? lololol There’s still half a day left before the train arrives but they’re already losing their minds with the meet-up. A whole truckload of hyenas smelled blood and came running.
(Photo of crowds who couldn’t enter Sandhill village pitching tents across the nearby hills)
The factory guys built some kind of fortress along the train route. They chase people away if you get too close, but with this many hyenas, it feels like they’d get overrun if the crowd charges for real.
Yuna finally nodded in understanding.
“Rather than watching us, the Reverse Factory bastards will be too busy trying to control those mad dogs. The odds are high they won’t even notice the real threat right under their noses.”
“I see… It really is the perfect place to slip in unnoticed.”
“Exactly. Let’s move!”
At my order Orca gave an excited growl.
“Hold on tight! I’m flooring it nonstop to Sandhill!”
“Orca, don’t go too fast. We have a stop to make on the way.”
“A stop? Weren’t we going straight there?”
“A waypoint. There’s an important item I need to pick up.”
“Ah. Now that you mention it, there was one place along the route, right?”
“Yeah.”
After racing for about an hour, we crested a sand dune and a bizarre landscape unfolded before us like a giant’s graveyard. I had worried someone might be blocking the path like in the alley, but apparently no one in this wasteland had the power to set up such obstacles.
“We’re here. This is the Machine Graveyard.”
The Machine Graveyard. There was no need to explain why it was called that. Crane wreckage towered toward the sky, old-era tanks lay half-buried in sand, and tangled broken wires formed a forest of steel across the desolate land.
“The anchor is somewhere around here?”
“That’s right. Elly, can you detect the summoning circle?”
“…Faintly. They put serious effort into hiding it. If I’m not concentrating I’d miss it completely. It seems the anchor itself is also acting as a concealment barrier.”
“So to search for the summoning circle we need to find the anchor first?”
“Even if we don’t destroy it, we at least need to be near it.”
Unfortunately we had no way to track the anchor directly. That meant we would have to search the old-fashioned way.
“Then… we’ll have to split up and search.”
“Yeah. I was thinking the same.”
Orca had brought over a dozen riders, giving us roughly twenty hunters to conduct the search. That number should be enough not to miss any traces. The only problem was that the Machine Graveyard was far larger than it looked.
“We’ll search underground. We should turn up something.”
“I’ll search with my mist.”
Orca and the riders began swimming through the earth to search, while Elly spread her mist across the area.
“Um, as for us…”
Yuna, Hwa-ryeong, and I stared at one another blankly until Hwa-ryeong moved first.
“This one shall also search on foot!”
With Hwa-ryeong gone, I held my hand out to the still-awkward Yuna.
“Then shall we go as well?”
“Ah, I…”
“I’ll help you use your ability. If we don’t go too fast you should be able to control it, right?”
“Ah. Yes!”
Both to let Yuna practice using her power and to continue the search, I began sliding across the ice with her.
“…Is this posture correct?”
“It is, but this really is the most comfortable for me… I’m sorry.”
It was a rather embarrassing princess-carry position for searching, but it couldn’t be helped. Her ability activated with herself as the origin point, so other postures were difficult.
“Still… I really can’t see anything. It’s just scrap metal everywhere.”
Tsk. Were we just going to have to wait for the others to find something? As I was thinking that—