Tsukumo walked past me without hurry, adjusting his sleeves with that same calm composure.
"You have a rare talent for making excellent first impressions."
"Go fuck yourself, Tsukumo."
I took a deep breath, swallowed my irritation, and followed.
Two rows of enormous containers had been stacked and welded on top of one another, forming a dense, jagged wall around the perimeter.
Plates ripped from cargo ship hulls filled the gaps between the structures, while watchtowers built from crossed beams carried heavy floodlights, stationary machine guns, and a tangled mess of antennas stolen from technologies that were clearly never meant to work together.
Just above us, one of the patrol ships I had nearly melted minutes earlier crawled past, being towed at a snail's pace by another vehicle.
Its left engine coughed out black smoke in regular bursts, and the nose of the chassis bore a grotesque deformation caused by the thermal shock.
A stocky mechanic, his face smeared with grease and soot, watched the vehicle pass with a devastated expression.
He looked at the ship.
Then at me.
Then at Candice.
"Was it the pyromaniac?"
"Him," she replied without slowing down.
The man stared at me for three long seconds, wiping his hands on a filthy rag.
"I'm sending you the repair bill."
"Why me?" I protested.
"Because that bitch never pays for anything."
Candice simply raised her middle finger over her shoulder without breaking stride.
The mechanic let out a loud, ragged laugh, joined by several workers from the nearby workshops.
For the first time since we'd set foot in that hellish galaxy, I heard something that wasn't the crack of gunfire, the whine of fighter engines, or rain striking stone.
Laughter.
It caught me off guard, briefly loosening the tension in my chest.
Once we crossed the inner wall, I saw the village in its entirety.
It wasn't the improvised camp I'd imagined from Sahger's old memories.
It was a genuine underground city carved into the rock.
Narrow, dusty streets wound between rows of containers converted into homes, tents reinforced with metal plating, and living quarters excavated directly into the valley walls.
Heavy pipes ran overhead, connecting water tanks and noisy generators, while webs of electrical cables hung from crooked poles.
The air was thick with the combined smell of burned fuel, heavily seasoned food, hot grease, and far too many people packed into the same space.
There were hundreds of people there.
Humans, elves, dwarves, and races I couldn't even name.
I saw men and women with crude prosthetics, mechanical legs grinding against the gravel, and even a massive man covered in dark scales carrying boxes of supplies while a little girl slept clinging to his neck.
Farther ahead, two children were racing between the tents, kicking around a ball made from tied strips of cloth.
They nearly crashed into Candice's legs, but she reacted with absurd speed, catching one by the collar with her mechanical arm before the kid hit the ground.
"Watch where you're running, brat."
"Sorry, Candice!"
"And stop playing with that crap near Merak's workshop. Last time you broke two pressure sensors!"
"Davi kicked it too high!" the girl shouted, already sprinting back through the alleys.
"I heard that, you little shit!" a voice roared from deep inside a workshop.
Candice didn't even blink. She adjusted the holster at her waist and kept walking.
I glanced back and noticed Sahger had fallen a few steps behind.
He watched everything around us in absolute silence. Even with his helmet hiding his expression, the rigidity in his posture betrayed just how deeply the scene affected him.
Candice stopped and looked over her shoulder.
"Grew a little since your time."
Sahger let out a grunt muffled by his air filter.
"A little?"
"We ran out of room in the main ravine about four years ago," she said with a shrug.
"Had to dig out the eastern sector."
"That hangar wasn't there," the hunter said, pointing with his chin.
"Half this shit wasn't here," Candice corrected him.
"That radio tower in the back has already collapsed twice during storms."
"Judging by the supports, it should've stayed down."
"I told maintenance the same thing, but nobody listens to me in this damn place."
The farther we went, the more the looks around us changed.
The focus shifted away from the stranger who had nearly set their fleet on fire and toward the dark blue armor beside me.
An old man sitting at the entrance of a machine shop lifted his tired eyes, freezing with his tool still raised.
He slowly stood, leaning on an improvised cane.
Half of his left ear was missing, and a simple iron bar had replaced his right hand.
"Red Crest...?" the old man murmured, his voice hoarse.
Sahger stopped.
The man approached in slow steps, touching his own face as though trying to make sure he wasn't staring at a ghost.
"By the Seven Hells... You're alive."
"For now, Orven," Sahger replied.
The old man let out a short laugh and, without warning, drove a heavy punch into Sahger's shoulder plate.
The impact rang against the metal.
"You son of a bitch."
"Good to see you too, Orven."
The old man turned toward Candice.
"You knew this bastard was alive?"
"Found out ten minutes ago," she replied flatly.
More familiar faces emerged from the shadows of the workshops.
Some simply watched in respectful silence. Others waved from a distance. An elderly woman made a sacred gesture over her chest, while a gray-skinned man immediately turned around and shut his front door the moment he recognized the armor.
Sahger said nothing.
No one asked.
It served as an uncomfortable reminder.
Seven years ago, Sahger hadn't come here as some rescuing hero.
He had come to hunt Candice.
We reached the central square, where the tents and containers gave way to more solid structures built from masonry and fused stone.
There was a communal kitchen venting thick steam, a large weapons depot, and a long building with a faded white cross painted across its front.
Havelyn faltered and stopped.
A four-armed woman—two normal arms and two smaller ones beneath her armpits—stepped out of the infirmary wearing an apron stained with antiseptic and dried blood.
The doctor's yellowish eyes immediately locked onto Havelyn's wings and the improvised bandages holding her feathers in place.
"What animal did these bandages?" the doctor asked, her voice rough and impatient.
"He did," I answered, pointing at Sahger.
The woman looked the hunter up and down.
"You?"
"I know how to stitch combat wounds," Sahger replied neutrally.
"That explains the crude workmanship."
She pointed three of her four arms toward the open door.
"Inside. By tomorrow, you'll be able to move those wings again."
Havelyn looked to Sahger for support, but the hunter only gave her a small nod.
"Go."
"I don't need—"
"Havelyn," I finally said. "Please."
She huffed in irritation and stepped through the infirmary door. When she glanced back at me and caught the hint of a smile on my face, her eyes narrowed.
The door shut with a heavy thud, and the doctor immediately began sorting bottles across a workbench.
Candice watched for a moment before turning back to Sahger.
The lightness in her expression vanished completely.
"Those marks on her back... where'd they come from?"
"The Towers of Vahr-Nei."
"She was locked up there for months," Sahger confirmed.
Candice's jaw tightened.
"So what you've been saying about Gron-Tarh isn't just speculation."
"It never was."
"You sold me plenty of pretty stories in the past, Sahger."
"And some of them were true."
"Come on." She spat on the ground.
We followed her toward a fortified building pressed against the valley wall. The structure had two armored doors and a pair of long-range radio antennas mounted on the roof.
Candice pressed her mechanical arm against a scanner beside the entrance.
The hydraulic lock released with a loud hiss.
The interior was a toxic mixture of tactical operations center, machine shop, and personal quarters.
An entire wall was covered in topographic maps, structural diagrams of the prison, orbital patrol routes, long-range photographs, and dozens of handwritten lists of names.
On a long workbench, disassembled plasma rifle components shared space with mugs of cold coffee and blinking data terminals.
Candice went straight to the central table and began unloading the heavy weapon from her holster, dropping the cartridges onto the wood with sharp clicks.
Sahger approached the maps on the wall.
"Is all of this current?"
"Years of accumulated intelligence, Sahger. What do you think?"
I saw an opening and stepped forward, pointing at a schematic of Gron-Tarh.
"All right."
"Can we start figuring out how we're getting inside?"
Candice didn't even bother looking up.
"No."
A knot formed in my throat.
"What do you mean, no?"
"What do I mean, 'no'? Half my security perimeter is still on red alert because of your panic attack," she replied, dropping the magazine onto the table with a hard impact.
"I have two damaged tactical ships, a pilot with a dislocated shoulder, and I need to send out a sweep team to make sure your little fire explosion wasn't detected by the prison's thermal radar."
I looked at Tsukumo for support, but the bastard only gestured for me to calm down.
Candice finally looked at me, planting both hands on the table.
"You want to sit down and plan an invasion of the most heavily protected complex in this sector?"
"That's exactly why we came here."
"Great," she said, pointing toward a wooden bench in the corner.
"Then sit over there and learn how to wait."
Sahger crossed his heavy arms.
"How long, Candice?"
"Tomorrow morning."
"Candice, we don't have—" I started.
"Tomorrow morning!" she cut in, turning toward the radio terminal.
I clenched my teeth and swallowed my anger.
"Sorry, okay? Happy now?!"
Candice froze with one hand over the keyboard and looked at me.
"Rejected."
"What do you mean, rejected?"
"I didn't like your tone."
Candice pointed impatiently toward the exit.
"The guest quarters are near the southern workshop."
"You can settle in there."
"Guest quarters? Fancy," I said sarcastically.
"That's where we dump smugglers, lost merchants, and idiots who show up without warning," she said, fixing her eyes on me.
"You fit perfectly into the third category."
Candice gave me one last look.
For a second, I thought she might throw an iron connector at my head.
"Get out of my sight before I change my mind and have you locked up."
Night fell a few hours later—or at least, the natural night on that side of the planet covered the plain.
The climate barrier remained visible miles away: a colossal wall of black storm clouds keeping Gron-Tarh submerged in perpetual darkness.
Blue and purple lightning split the artificial sky at regular intervals, while enormous searchlights swept across the clouds like the eyes of some waking beast.
Inside the village, however, the atmosphere was different.
Yellow lamps and strings of low-voltage lights came alive along the container-lined streets.
Generators rumbled in a steady rhythm, and the smell of hot stew and strong spices drifted through the air.
The people who had spent the day working in the workshops and on security detail gathered around improvised benches near the communal kitchen.
There was no luxury whatsoever.
But there was routine.
I sat on a metal crate outside the guest quarters, balancing a warm clay bowl in my hands.
Steam rose into the cold air.
The stew looked questionable, but after my experience with the Sand Bird, I decided it was better not to ask where the meat had come from.
Tsukumo approached in silence and sat beside me with a bowl of his own.
"You came within a single step of killing the only strategic contact we have in this sector."
"Hmm."
"I don't think you've fully grasped the gravity of what you did," he continued, taking a sip of the broth without changing expression.
I glanced sideways at him.
"I'm nervous, Tsukumo."
Silence fell between us for several seconds, filled by the distant clang of tools from a nearby workshop.
"I'm not sleeping. I'm anxious, and I'm getting angrier every second I have to wait."
"And the fact that I can't just use all of my power in this place..."
"Only makes me more frustrated."
"Understand that those seconds are necessary."
"I don't think they're necessary for Laura," I replied.
"Calm yourself, Nakamura," Tsukumo said.
Hearing him use my surname carried a different weight.
I let out a heavy sigh.
"I'm trying, my friend."
He punched me lightly on the shoulder and stood to help the mechanics with the ships that I had damaged.
Along the village alleys, boys ran around laughing, workers shared mugs of cheap liquor, and a woman screamed at her neighbor because someone had apparently taken her work boots by mistake.
The whole scene felt almost surreal.
Gron-Tarh was right there, a military monstrosity capable of crushing every person in this village, and yet these people continued living out their petty, noisy routines.
Havelyn appeared a short while later, walking much better than before.
The bandages around her chest and shoulders had been replaced with clean, secure wraps. Her right wing was still immobilized against her body, but the supporting structure looked far more anatomical, relieving some of the weight from her posture.
She looked exhausted, but the constant pain had disappeared from her expression.
"Survive the appointment?" I asked.
"The woman has four arms, and somehow I don't feel any pain."
"She took a whole world off my shoulders."
"That's really good. Soon I'll get to see you flying again," I said, handing her a warm bowl.
"Here. Eat before it gets cold."
Havelyn accepted it and looked around.
Her eyes lingered on the gathered families, the former prisoners talking beside the fire, and the children playing without caring about the endless storm on the horizon.
"I didn't know a place like this existed beyond the storms," she murmured, her voice carrying something heavy.
The village's very existence was proof that resistance was possible.
"You're here now, Havelyn," I said quietly.
She lifted her eyes, looked at me for a moment, and simply nodded.
"Yeah. I'm here."
Later, I found Sahger alone near one of the observation platforms.
He wasn't wearing his helmet. The cold night wind tousled his gray hair as he stared out over the illuminated village.
"Is it really that different from years ago?" I asked, approaching the railing.
"Quite."
"Quite better or quite worse?"
Sahger took his time answering, his eyes fixed on the line of hangars carved into the rock.
"Somewhere in between."
He let out a deep sigh.
"When I left, there weren't even a hundred people here."
"Half were sick, and the other half couldn't hold a rifle without shaking."
"Looks like there are more than five hundred now," I commented.
"Six hundred and forty-two," a voice corrected from the stairs.
We turned.
Candice climbed the metal steps carrying a toolbox beneath her organic arm.
Her mechanical arm was partially open, loose plates exposing glowing wires and internal pistons that hissed softly.
She passed us without stopping.
"Six hundred and forty-two mouths to feed every day."
"I know who eats my food, Sahger," she said, stopping beside the door to a small side workshop.
She looked at me and raised her partially dismantled mechanical arm, pointing toward a darkened section near the elbow joint.
"Look at this, kid."
I stepped closer.
There was a grotesque patch of soot and melted metal.
"Was that from my fire?" I asked.
"No, it was the Holy Spirit. Of course it was your fire."
"I could try helping you fix it."
"You can help by staying ten meters away from anything with electrical wiring," she shot back immediately.
She stepped into the workshop and kicked the door shut.
I stared at the closed door, then looked at Sahger.
"Was she always this pleasant?"
"She's gotten considerably worse," Sahger replied without changing his tone.
"I HEARD THAT, YOU OLD BASTARD!" Candice shouted from inside.
Sahger picked up his helmet from the railing and locked it into place with the familiar sealing sound.
"I'm going to sleep. You should do the same, kid."
I waited until Sahger disappeared around the bend in the corridor before deciding to open the workshop door.
Candice sat on a tall stool before a workbench illuminated by a focused lamp.
Her mechanical arm rested on a rubber support while she maneuvered precision tweezers between the exposed gears.
"Didn't I tell you to go to the guest quarters?" she asked without looking up.
"Just came to take a look."
"Look from a distance."
I leaned against the doorframe and studied the room.
The workshop was organized chaos: tools hanging from the walls, storage boxes filled with screws, and hydraulic components scattered everywhere.
The woman worked with impressive dexterity, her organic hand moving with extreme delicacy while the lamp highlighted the deep exhaustion etched across her face.
"You're really good at this."
"Life aged me early," she replied, adjusting a microscopic screw.
"Sahger told me a little about you and your cause."
"Well, now we're a bigger hole in the ground with six hundred desperate people and better guns," she added, setting the tweezers down.
"Looks like more than that. Looks like a city."
Candice remained silent for a few moments, her gaze fixed on the wiring inside her arm.
"Sorry about that. Seriously."
Candice looked directly at me.
The defensive edge in her expression softened slightly when she realized I meant it.
She went back to working on the wires.
"You were desperate."
"I was angry. Actually, I still am," I corrected.
"Same shit in different packaging, kid," she said coldly.
The answer twisted something in my stomach, mostly because I knew she was completely right.
Candice fitted one of the outer plates back over the mechanical elbow and tightened it lightly with a screwdriver.
"Who's Laura?" she asked out of nowhere.
I went rigid immediately, my entire body snapping to attention.
"Who told you that name?"
"The black-winged girl talks quite a bit with my best nurse, you know? I found out plenty," she said.
"Dammit, Havelyn," I muttered.
"She's someone I need to get out of that place."
"Sister?"
"No."
"Girlfriend?"
I flushed slightly as Laura's face came to mind.
"No..."
Candice noticed.
"So it's complicated."
"Very. She's important to me. That's all."
Candice tightened the final latch on the arm casing with a clean click.
"Gron-Tarh specializes in making everyone's lives complicated."
"Do you think... there's any chance she's still in there?" I asked, my voice coming out lower than I wanted.
Candice didn't answer immediately.
The silence seemed to last forever, pressing against my chest like a stone.
"If she's as strong as you, you can count on it," she said carefully.
"She's... a lot stronger."
"Tomorrow, Suki," she cut in, smacking the screwdriver against the workbench.
"Tomorrow we'll talk about it."
Her voice dropped, taking on a darker weight.
"My brother is in there too, by the way. You're not the only one who's angry."
The sentence rooted me to the spot.
Before I could form another question, Candice was already gathering the tools into her box.
I let the door close behind me.
Obviously, I couldn't sleep.
I spent nearly seven hours lying on a narrow camp bed in the guest quarters, listening to Tsukumo's slow breathing from the other side of the room.
Havelyn slept behind an improvised fabric divider, while Sahger had simply vanished, probably having found some isolated corner of the settlement where he wouldn't have to deal with questions from old acquaintances.
With my head overflowing with thoughts, I rose without making a sound and stepped into the cold night air.
The village had slowed down.
Most of the main lights had been shut off, leaving only yellow emergency lamps marking the walkways.
I climbed a metal ladder along the side of the wall until I reached the top of the container barrier surrounding the southern perimeter.
From there, the view toward Gron-Tarh's territory was terrifying.
The prison towers rose like black needles piercing the storm clouds, illuminated every time lightning split the atmosphere.
The searchlights continued cutting through the darkness in an endless cycle.
"Silver always said this was good."
I sat down, staring at Gron-Tarh.
I focused.
Activated the Earth Transformation.
Dark green stripes spread across my body, and I began studying the planet.
Feeling the sun's heat striking the earth millions of kilometers away meant sunlight had reached the opposite side of the planet recently.
The night is going to be long, I thought.
And if that woman really knew how to breach the defenses of the largest prison in the sector...
Tomorrow, we would take the first step toward bringing Laura back.