Chương 2: The Bustle of the Port

The gangway rattled underfoot as the passengers funneled toward the dock in a loose, impatient mass. Galan paused at the edge of the weathered planks, drawing a slow breath. Salt reached him first, sharp and clean. Then came the heat. Then the dense, clinging weight of the market ahead—the smell of fried dough and savory meat settling like a physical layer in his throat. He lifted his eyes, and the sky revealed the truth. Two layers of colors drifted across the blue in faint, deliberate threads.

One was the true form of a goddess, while the other was a correction laid over the country. Both refused to yield to the wind, visible only to those who knew how to look.

"So that's how it is," he murmured. Around him, the tourists looked up with varying degrees of comprehension. A group of dwarves—clad in travel-stained leathers and adjusting thick, enchanted goggles—cursed in a low, guttural dialect as they squinted at the heavens.

"Bit on the nose, ain't it?" one muttered.

"Either a warning or someone showing off." Galan didn't offer an answer. Showing off implied an audience that mattered. This felt closer to indifference—the casual architecture of a goddess who assumed no one present was capable of challenging the view. He moved past them, his mindcast slipping outward. He didn't want to hear them, but the threads of nearby thoughts brushed against him anyway. Prices. Small irritations. The quiet arithmetic of people trying to make the day balanced.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. He adjusted his path, drifting toward the scent of steamed dough. He found himself in line at a small stall, more out of a need for a distraction than actual hunger. When his turn came, the vendor—a woman with the tired, sharp eyes of someone who had seen a thousand tourists—greeted him in Godlang. The structure was stiff, a language learned for business rather than lived.

His mindcast delved into her mind, weaving through the parts that shape language and memory. Threads of fluent speech spun within, carrying his thoughts to let her mind form the words, then returning the result in an instant. It also carried over the rhythm of her hometown dialect, allowing him to replicate her accent effortlessly as he replied in Japanese.

"Two fish. One chicken." The woman's smile faltered for a fraction of a second—the small, genuine shock of a local hearing their own soul reflected in a stranger's voice.

"Ah," she whispered, her posture relaxing.

"Of course, sir." Galan held out his hand. With a thought, the space above his palm rippled—a silent, golden fracture in reality that didn't even catch the light. He handed them over. The weight of the transaction was simple, grounding.

"By the way, have there been killings in the forest?" Galan asked. The silence that followed was heavy. The woman's gaze darted toward the street, checking the shadows of the nearby trade buildings before she looked back at him.

"No, sir," she said, her voice shaken.

"We just sell buns. Maybe the woodcutters inland would know more… but it's better not to ask. People who go looking for the spectral warriors usually find them." These things must've done a lot of work on the island for the locals to be this terrified, he thought before taking the parchment-wrapped buns.

"I see. Thanks." He stepped away and, with a casual flick of his wrist, tossed the remaining buns into his divine vault. He took a bite of the fish bun as he walked toward the edge of the port. The taste was sharp, cutting through the mental fog of his journey. Ahead, the structures of the port thinned, giving way to a treeline that stood in quiet, dark contrast to the bright sky. If anything in this place still resisted the goddess, it was hiding in there. Galan finished the bun and brushed his hands clean.

He watched the trees, measuring the distance in a way that had nothing to do with steps. The world was remarkably stubborn, but then again, so was he.