I marched out of the Bureau's grand administrative courtyard, my heavy leather boots carrying me swiftly back toward the massive fortified secondary perimeter. The mid-afternoon sun beat down on the pristine white porcelain walkways of the 8th District, but I remained safely insulated beneath the deep shadow of my canvas hood and the protective, light-swallowing void of my mask.
As I approached the primary guard station of the 8th District gates, the tall, impeccably armored figure of Damien Morkov stepped forward to block the exit. His heavy halberd rested casually against his shoulder plate, and his ridiculous, overly styled bangs framed his face just beneath his visor line…
Damien didn't recognize the silent, towering crimson silhouette of the Crimson Phantom as the sister of his former elite classmate, but his gaze sharpened as he tracked the heavy, rattling wooden alchemical crate cradled securely in my single right hand.
"Toll and status card," Damien stated, his voice echoing professionally through his helm.
Without a word, I reached into the breast pocket of Olive's crimson trench coat with my right hand. I pulled out my silver S-rank status card alongside a single crisp silver coin from my purse, leaving me with exactly 1 gold and 48 silver pieces remaining. I handed them over.
Damien slid the card into his portable grid-reader. The device instantly flashed with the bright, undeniable classification of a 7th-Rank Luminous Knight under the high-clearance pseudonym "Bounty Hunter." Damien's posture instantly straightened, his eyes widening slightly behind his visor as he quickly handed the silver card back to me and pocketed the toll coin.
"Apologies, Hunter, your clearance is absolute. Safe travels in the lower sectors." Damien said, stepping aside with a respectful salute of his halberd.
I offered a sharp, silent nod of my shadowed hood and walked past the threshold, officially leaving the Bureau's immediate jurisdiction behind.
Instead of taking the standard, direct transit routes cutting straight across the dangerous inner sectors from the 8th District to my safehouse in the 3rd District, I decided to take a much more calculated, methodical route. Caria City was a massive, perfectly engineered geometric marvel spanning a total of 135 square kilometers arranged in a massive circle, with each of the nine distinct districts occupying an equal 15 square kilometers.
By rotating clockwise along the outer ring of the metropolis, I would navigate from the 8th District, bypass the royal and political hubs, and march straight through the 1st District, into the 2nd, and finally arrive at the 3rd. It was a mathematically easy, highly predictable trek that allowed me to survey the city's structural layout without drawing the attention of the Immoral Knights or Elias's active scouting parties.
I set my pace, my high-stat agility allowing me to cover kilometers of cobblestone with effortless, fluid strides while keeping the heavy crate of tear gas precursors perfectly balanced.
After a period of steady, rapid marching, the clean white porcelain and gothic spires of the military district gradually gave way to a dense, oppressive landscape of soot-stained iron and towering brick chimneys. I had officially crossed the border into the 1st District… The Industrial District.
The air here grew thick, tasting faintly of sulfur, coal dust, and heavy grease. Massive mechanical foundries roared in the distance, their steam vents hissing rhythmically like the breath of giant iron beasts. Overhead, sprawling networks of copper pipes and brass conduits crisscrossed between factories, blocking out the sky. It was a bleak, hardworking sector populated by grimy laborers and clockwork engineers, entirely separate from the holy light of the cathedral I had stood in earlier. Keeping my head low, I plunged deeper into the smog, my single jade-green eye scanning the shadows of the foundries as I made my way toward the 2nd District.
The thick, sulfurous smog of the 1st District clung to the fabric of my crimson trench coat like a greasy shroud. As my heavy leather boots crunched against the coal-dusted cobblestones, I kept my hand anchored to the alchemical crate, my analytical eye scanning the towering brick chimneys of the Ford Mint Industry.
The narrative of this city was so deeply intertwined with its corruption it was almost poetic. The previous branch of this very same mint had once been located in the town of Carcaka… the exact abandoned, hollowed-out facility that Don Anthony had converted into the primary fortress for his illegal arms trafficking guild. I knew the disgusting owner of this industrial empire all too well:
Harold Ford.
He was the greedy, parasitic tax collector who had once cornered me in my youth, threatening to brutally pluck out one of my unique eyeballs just because my natural heterochromia offended his vision. Back then, my contrasting red and green eyes had made me a target. Now, beneath the absolute psychic barrier of my Leech's Hollow Mask, those days of vulnerability were completely dead.
Leaving the roar of the foundries behind, I continued my clockwise rotation along the outer ring of the metropolis until the air finally began to clear. The dark iron structures gradually gave way to monolithic, heavy gray granite walls as I officially arrived at the threshold of the 2nd District Gates.
I skidded to a halt, a sudden jolt of recognition flaring deep behind my visor. Standing at the vanguard of the security checkpoint, clad in the standard-issue armor of the capital, was a face I never expected to see here.
It was Carlos… the former Eastern District gatekeeper from our old hometown of Town Allure. I had no idea the man had packed up his life, moved out to the capital, and secured a new position within Caria City's perimeter watch. The poetic irony was thick enough to choke on. As far as Carlos and the rest of Town Allure were concerned, the frail, eccentric appraiser named Eirene Rynd was completely dead, buried beneath the ash of last month's tragedy. Wearing the imposing silhouette of the Crimson Phantom, he didn't have a single clue that the towering, weapon-laden bounty hunter standing before him was the very same girl he used to watch pass through the village gates.
"Toll and status card," Carlos stated, his voice ringing with the mechanical professionalism of a seasoned guardsman.
Without a sound, I reached into the breast pocket of my trench coat. I slipped my metallic 7th-Rank Luminous Knight status card out along with another single silver piece from my purse, leaving me with exactly 1 gold and 47 silver pieces. I handed them over.
Carlos slid the card into his reader. The machine chimed, displaying the high-clearance placeholder designation:
Bounty Hunter… Rank 7.
Carlos's eyes widened behind his visor, his posture instantly snapping into a rigid, respectful stance as he handed the items back.
"My apologies, Hunter. Welcome to the Second District," he said, waving me through.
I gave a silent, minimal nod of my canvas hood and stepped past the iron gates, heading directly toward the massive, fortress-like expanse of the Caria Mastery Academy.
The structural weight of the academy loomed over the district like a sleeping titan of gray granite and reinforced iron. As I bypassed the main administrative wing where Nautilus Cotton had once cornered me, I quietly glided toward the expansive, dirt-packed outdoor training fields. The air vibrated with the heavy, rhythmic thud-thud-thud of wooden practice sabers and the distant, echoing cracks of flintlocks discharging from the firing ranges.
I leaned my frame against a shaded stone pillar near the perimeter fence, cradling my heavy crate of tear gas precursors in my right arm while the dual Tommy guns and Death Chant Shotgun rested silently against my compressed demon wings beneath my coat. My single jade-green eye locked onto the center of the first-year training grounds.
There he was.
Zenni Roy.
The scrawny, broken civilian boy from the Sisiphon slums whom I had effectively "adopted" and bought a future for with my last four royal gold pieces was currently out on the field. He was drenched in sweat, his ivory-and-charcoal cadet uniform stained with dust as he swung a heavy wooden practice sword with absolute, desperate intensity. His movements were still rough, his form reflecting the baseline D-rank statistics printed on his mastery student card, but the raw, burning determination in his eyes was unmistakable. He wasn't weeping anymore. He was forging himself into a soldier, pushing his physical limits to honor the silent promise he had made into the fabric of my traveler's cloak.
A rare, fleeting trace of grounding warmth settled behind my Leech's Hollow Mask. The four gold coins I had ripped away from Oksana's corpse had been completely spent, but looking at him now, the investment was paying off perfectly. He was entirely safe from the cartels, building a legitimate life within the system under the watchful eyes of the CKBA.
I didn't step out into the light to disturb his focus. As a 7th-rank bounty hunter walking a path of blood, alchemical warfare, and demonic evolution, my presence would only draw dangerous variables to his sanctuary. Keeping myself completely hidden in the architectural shadows, I took one last analytical look at his progress before turning back toward the street. The clockwise rotation was almost complete; it was time to cross into the 3rd District, return to my house, and finally begin cooking the chemical wrath the underworld was waiting for.