By the time a month passes, the city feels less like a blurry backdrop and more like a thing with bones.
Ryu knows the slope now: the way the streets bend, how the air changes as you climb, which corners hide wind and which hide people. He can walk to Toma's with his eyes half shut and still avoid the loose stone on the third step.
He's not comfortable. But he's not lost.
One morning, the nun hands him a folded note and a heavier-than-usual bag.
"Grocer. Station market," she says. "You go alone. The others are busy."
Alone.
It's a small thing, but his brain flags it as "trust upgrade" and "risk upgrade" at the same time.
"Got it," he says.
She squeezes his shoulder briefly. "You don't dawdle," she adds. "And you don't talk to men offering you candy or jobs."
"Not even if it's both?" he asks.
She gives him a flat look.
"Right," he says. "No."
He steps out into the street. It's mid-morning, sky overcast, the city already fully awake.
Lower down the slope, the buildings are short, patched, close together. Laundry lines stretch between windows. People shout across balconies. A couple of kids chase a dog. It's noisy in that "no one here has privacy" kind of way.
He turns uphill.
The road thickens with traffic: handcarts, bikes, a few beaten-up trucks that rattle like they're held together by collective denial. Shopkeepers sweep doorsteps. Someone curses a delivery that hasn't arrived. The city hums.
He takes his usual path at first, then deliberately cuts across a side street he hasn't used yet.
It's narrower, wedged between taller buildings. The light thins. There's graffiti on the walls; nothing artistic, just territorial marks, initials, crude symbols. A couple of boys about his age lean against a doorway, sharing a cigarette like it's a treasure. One of them gives Ryu a once-over.
"You from the home?" the boy asks.
Ryu doesn't slow down. "Yeah."
"Got money?"
"Do I look like I have money?" Ryu asks without stopping.
The boy's friend snorts. "He's got jokes."
The first boy pushes off the wall and takes a step closer, but an older teen in the doorway says something low and sharp. The boy stops. Lets Ryu go.
Ryu doesn't look back. But he notes that alley, the faces, the way the older one's eyes narrowed like he was weighing risk versus reward.
Underfed orphans are low yield, he thinks. Good to know some criminals can do math.
The narrow street spits him out near a busier crossroad. From here, he can see the top of the slope: the station roof, lines of wires and poles, the vague outline of larger buildings behind it.
The "station market" is a cluster of stalls in the open space just short of the station entrance. Tarps stretched over uneven frames, vendors shouting prices, the smell of too many foods at once.
Here, the city blends: people in cheap clothes and people in neat office wear, all squeezing past each other. Suitcase wheels rattle over cobblestone. Someone is arguing about the cost of oranges.
Ryu finds the grocer's stall by the hand-painted sign that matches the nun's note. The man behind it is tall, with forearms like he wrestles his own crates for fun.
"You're from the orphanage?" the man asks when Ryu hands over the note.
"Unfortunately," Ryu says.
The man actually huffs a quiet laugh. "At least you're honest." He glances at the paper again, then starts filling the bag. Vegetables, grain, something in a sack that clinks. He ties it all with practiced speed.
"You carry this on your own?" he asks.
"I'll hate it," Ryu says. "But yes."
"Good," the man says. "Everyone should hate something before lunch." He pushes the bag over. "Tell Sister I kept last month's price. Anything more and she'll come yell at me in person."
"I'll pass on the threat," Ryu says, and lifts.
The weight drags at his arms, but he can handle it. He adjusts it against his chest and pivots away from the crush of the market.
He could take the straight route back.
He doesn't.
Instead, he edges toward the station itself.
Not too close. Just close enough to see.
The front plaza is tiled, cleaner than the streets below. People funnel in and out through wide doors under a flat overhang. There's a pair of guards near the entrance; not soldiers, but some kind of security, watching the crowd with professional boredom.
Above them, a big board lists destinations and times. The letters are too small from here, but he catches words as the announcements roll over the plaza.
"…capital…"
"…eastern border…"
"…transfer services for licensed Hunters available at counters three and four…"
Hunters again. Of course.
A man in a long coat strides past the guards without breaking pace, flipping something metallic and rectangular in his hand. It flashes once. The guards don't even blink.
Hunter license.
Barely visible from where Ryu stands, but recognizable.
The man disappears inside. The doors swallow him.
Ryu feels something unpleasant in his chest, halfway between envy and amusement.
All-access pass, he thinks. For a price.
The bag cuts into his arms; his fingers are starting to tingle. He forces himself to turn away. Staring at trains he can't ride yet and licenses he doesn't have is a good way to get nothing done.
He cuts back into side streets.
This time, he pays more attention to the in-between spaces.
A narrow alley with a metal door halfway down, marked with a small symbol in red paint. The sound of clinking glass behind it. A short flight of steps leading below street level to a bar that's definitely not open for kids. A flyer half-glued to a wall, curling at the edges.
He pauses just long enough to read it.
"Fighters wanted. Good pay. Experience preferred. Contact evenings at—"
He doesn't memorize the address. Not yet. But he memorizes the style of the flyer, the wording, the fact that it exists at all.
Underground matches, he thinks. Same world, different camera angle.
He doesn't take the flyer. He doesn't stand there like an idiot in the open. He walks on.
By the time he reaches the orphanage again, his arms are screaming quiet insults and his shoulders ache. He pushes through it, sets the bag down on the kitchen table, and only then lets himself roll his shoulders slowly.
The nun looks in the bag, then at him. "You took longer than usual."
"Market was crowded," he says. Which is technically true.
She studies him for a second longer, then nods. "Go wash up. Then help with peeling."
He does.
He spends the afternoon with a knife and a mountain of vegetables, watching his hands move faster than they did weeks ago. Less clumsy, more precise. Progress isn't dramatic, but it's there if he looks for it.
That night, he lies awake with the image of the station board in his mind.
Destinations. Times. The word "capital." The mention of "licensed Hunters" over the loudspeaker.
The world is bigger than this city. Bigger than Mitene. Bigger than he has any hope of seeing if he stays like this.
Fine, he thinks. Then don't stay like this.
He closes his eyes and breathes slowly, counting in his head. No Nen. No aura. Just control.
One step at a time. One street at a time.